by G.N. Jacobs

Created on: December 31, 2008

The more I think about the Big Three automakers, the more I hear the word bankruptcy floating in the gray matter between my ears. And I don't mean Chapter 11 where a company gets sent to its room without dessert or allowance until released as an almost new enterprise ready to fight for customers. I want to see a total liquidation.

I can hear the hate mail landing in my inbox as I write. Don't I know that upwards of 3 million people will lose jobs?

What do I have against fixtures of our economy that style themselves the "Heartbeat of America?" Yeah, yeah, I'm not stupid, but I still want to put a bullet in the head and put a stake through the heart of Ford, GM and Chrysler.

Let's start with the autoworkers. They refused to make any wage concessions during this last round of begging from the government. Apparently, greed and shortsightedness don't confine themselves to the management classes of these corporations. Failing to realize that both management and the government were telling the truth this time when they pled poverty in an attempt to break outrageously expensive compensation packages means that the workers deserve some time dealing with the indignities of unemployment.

But to be fair, the union has dealt with management for decades and guessed that the bosses would throw the workers under the bus and maintain the benefit reductions long after the economic crisis ends. But, while I can't support anyone cutting their throats to save themselves, I do understand wanting to stick it to what must collectively be the most useless leadership on the planet.

From my vantage point, Big Auto hit the wall in 1968, or possibly even earlier, by making decisions that continuously put Detroit two decades behind the rest of America. The Big Three were among the last automakers in the world to make two-point seatbelts standard issue. It was the same for the safer three-point seatbelts. And even though American engineers invented the airbag in the 70s Japanese and German firms employed them first in the early 90s.

They covered up the Pinto with a smile and advertising. They sold us muscle cars and SUVs that inhaled gasoline like an alcoholic going after beer. They loudly proclaimed that "Quality is Job One" when everyone knew that the lady doth protest overmuch.

These bad decisions led me to two conclusions. I will drive the average American car only with a gun to my head and I have no loyalty to these morons despite the song that equates Chevrolet with baseball, hot dogs,

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