Defending the Automakers?

I can't believe I am defending the automakers and, in fact, maybe I'm not but there are some things that people are saying that bug me.

1. They lied about how much they are paying their workers. In reality, I think they were trying to explain that they are at a disadvantage because they have an older work force and a ton of retirees. Trying to take very complex situations and coming up with apples to apples comparison numbers sometimes might look like they were trying to mislead people.
2. CEO's make too much money. Yes, they do. It's our whole system of executive compensation that is out of whack. But thinking that someone who is asking for 8 Billion dollars to keep his company afloat that if only they wouldn't pay their CEO 15 Million dollars everything would be okay is nuts.
3. The CEO flew in a private jet. Give me a break. Do you want someone making that kind of money to be sitting around in the Delta Frequent Flyer Lounge having cocktails. No, you want him working every minute he can. That is why corporate jets exist to maximize the efficiency of highly paid executives. I have worked in jobs where I have flown on such planes. It was to save money not waste it.
   
4. Detroit deserves what they are getting for building gas guzzlers. Truth is that Detroit builds the cars that people want that have a lot of profit margin. It sort of makes sense. The problems they are having are the same problems that the Japanese automakers are having. Gas went to $4.00/gallon. The housing market collapsed. The economy went to hell. Just what kind of car should they have been making that would be setting sales records?
5. We should just let them fold to punish those highly paid CEO's. Are you kidding? Even if they never work another day in their lives they have riches beyond the wildest dreams of most of us. Allowing the auto companies to collapse would result in the cost of their pensions being paid for by the government (which is a code word for you and me). Their workers would be unemployed and it would just create a bigger mess than we have now.
6. Maybe I'm crazy but it seems like many of the bail outs (which were loans or the like) seemed to have worked?
7. My impression is that the auto companies feel that going bankrupt to reorganize would be a disaster since many buyers would be reluctant to buy a car from a bankrupt company. This seems like a reasonable fear to me.

If the big three can't compete they will eventually go away. But I don't think forcing that to happen due to an economic crisis that was largely not their doing is the wrong thing to do.

And I love my Honda.