as an outsider looking on it is interesting to see this debate, here in the UK we have no homegrown auto industry to speak of, other than a few very specialist sports car producers.

I feel that the UK motor automotive industry is perhaps the blueprint for your own, all be it far bigger sector.

In the late 70s and 80s UK car manufacturers were a very sick collection of mismanaged and underperforming companies.

complete lack of direction, no innovation or development and way too unionised, the only people the industry seemed to benefit was those actually working in it, with very little though if any given to the end users, the car purchasers.

They drove the industry to the wall, the vehicles produced were substandard, unreliable and outdated in comparison to those produced by the better managed Japanese and German automotive companies.

They were not at the time supported by the UK government, and they subsequently went the way of all dinosaurs, namely extinction.

in place we now have german, french and japanese manufacturing plants here in the uk, producing good quality vehicles that people actually want to buy.

these companies are of course feeling the effects of the credit crunch, but they are talking in terms of reduced profits, rather than an inability to continue.

this is how market forces work, had the UK auto companies been bailed out, i am sure that we would be debating whether they also should now be given yet more public funding to keep them afloat.

there comes a time when one has to address the course of the illness rather than merely study the symptoms.

throwing money at this problem will not cure it, but simply prolong the cycle of mismanagement and underperformance.

it is folly to support such outdated and poorly performing relics with public funding, our economies and systems are based upon supply and demand and the survival of the fittest, removing the need for this results in companies not having to worry about being the best at what they do.

If anyone wants to know what happens when the fear of extinction is removed from companies, then look east, the old soviet block as was kept afloat all of its ailing industries, in the short term this resulted in antiquated working practices and outmoded poorly performing products, the longer term well, there comes a time when there is simply not enough pennies left in the public purse to keep everything afloat, communism failed.

just my view of course, but i can not see any economic rational for bailing out the car makers other than to secure votes i am afraid, and this bailout will not fix the industry, the phrase applying a band aid to heal a broken limb springs to mind