"... The big difference that establishment politicians turn a blind eye to, and media pundits refuse to mention in print or on the air has always been government-paid universal health care as a human right in Europe and Japan compared to a health care system in the hands of private for-profit insurers in the US. Universal free health care is the secret competitive weapon of the Japanese, Canadian and European auto industries. Unless and until this competitive advantage is equalized, manufacturing automobiles and practically everything else will be far more expensive inside the US than outside it. No amount of money thrown at the auto industry can solve that, and without medical and retirement expenses, foreign automakers are guaranteed to have the extra cash to match and beat anything US automakers invest in innovative green technologies.

Most US politicians omit this vital contextual information because they or their parties take big money from the private insurers. ..."

Also, the stuff about the foreign carmakers locating plants in non-union states and operating non-union plants--that needs to be emphasized far more loudly--many of the Senators/Reps who are against the bailout are from those states.

I hope people get that someone like Senator Shelby of Alabama, who's been trashing the industry for days, now, has an interest in seeing the domestic autos fail.

I said it in another thread, but if the autos were failing within the context of us having a universal health care system, I'd be much less sympathetic. It's not fair that unions are forced to negotiate for health care concessions, because that's an incredibly thankless job, and as we can see, they get demonized as if they were Satan himself by not just a lot of the right, but increasingly the so-called left.