if the US automanufacturers fail, CNN tells us that 3.5 million people will be thrown out of work immediately...i think that's alarmist...if ford goes bankrupt, other auto industries will buy up it's assets for cheap and take over it's market share...it will be a painful correction, but it would also be painful to keep a bad company alive just because it's brand name is part of american history

about 10 years ago, a canadian icon went bankrupt...timothy eaton grew his retail store into a national giant that stretched from coast to coast...his grandchildren mismanaged it and they went from boom to bust in a short period of time...there was a big retail hole in every city in the country, but sears corporation took over their leases, ripped the historic name off the stores and malls, and people went on buying the same crap from the same stores as if nothing had happened