The Bitter Pill

While I have little sympathy for auto execs that fly in to DC on private jets to beg for money, this story is about much, much more than them. The number of jobs that would be lost if GM failed is staggering in and of itself. Such a failure wouldn't create ripples throughout the broader economy: it would be a tsunami.

While I agree that US automakers have been unresponsive to customer demand and that the execs at all the big US companies enjoy bonuses that cannot be justified by their companies' performance, allowing those companies to fail would be a disaster.

That sentence leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I don't like it more than most people, but I also think that we have to be pragmatic at this juncture.

The idea of the Fed owning large shares of US corporations frightens me as much as the government loaning money it doesn't have to shore up companies that might or might not make it out alive once the fat lady sings.

There is no good answer to this crisis. There are only ones that are better or worse.

Even the better ones aren't pretty.

If GM goes under, so will Goodyear. They haven't been having a good time of it lately, and losing one of their largest customers could easily send them over the cliff, too. As it will any number of other suppliers.

I have a vested stake in all this, I'll admit. And perhaps it colors my opinions.

The pension my father earned that now is a primary source of income for my mother would go away if Goodyear fails. And Goodyear doesn't have enough breathing room for GM to fail.

Daddy worked a good part of his life for them with the promise of a pension. With bankruptcy or outright failure, that will have been a lifetime's work for nothing but a broken promise.

There are millions of other people who will have to deal with same harsh realities given the same scenario.

It's a bitter pill, as I said, that goes against everything I would normally prefer. But these are not normal times. With the economy teetering on the edge of what could become the 2nd Great Depression, rules and ideology go out the door.

What matters is what happens and how quickly it gets done. And It's got to be done now, not later. We can't wait until January 20 of next year. The clock is ticking, and the bomb's about to go off.

There's no time to lose.