Comical.

These Senators are serious with this line of questioning of the auto makers? Could they at least cut out the attacking? CNN is doing brilliant coverage of this today (12/4). Here are some facts that shouldn't be ignored:

The Big Three have shredded over 150,000+ jobs.
Only 10% of there cost of operation is spent on labor. 10%! So let us stop blaming the unions. This is unconscionable that everyone is blaming the unions. Is there one alive that could even give a scenario of how this country grows a middle class, the highest standard of living middle class in the world without the unions? To be sure, a lot of unions became as bad as the organizations they cried foul about but today’s middle class, with its benefit packages of health care and 401k plans even in non-union jobs have unions to thank for that. It was the fear of a union coming into a business that made them have as close to union type employee practices as possible.
With Chrysler, they've been struggling for 10 years or more now. They've failed to turn tons of highly critically acclaimed cars this decade into actual car sales.
GM, we the people need to start admitting that our government screwed them badly. Our government told them that ethanol/bio-fuel would be in the market and rampant by now. So what did GM do? They put billions into research and development of flex-fuel cars. Now this served them very, very well when selling cars in Brazil but without bio-fuels being all over the country, it's a feature that doesn't help sell a car.
Ford has cash and they don't need the money. Ford was the clever company that overhauled its product line early in this decade and their Focus is very popular -for a US built car. They were also the first of the Big Three to build a Hybrid SUV –even if they had to buy the battery from Japan. Ford sold Jaguar, Land Rover, and Hertz. They’ve sold off part of their share in Mazda.

The Big Three haven’t been making cars that people actually want? Really? Then why are there so many SUV’s and trucks on the road? Why are Mustangs all over the place? 300M’s & Sebring’s? Does GM not finally make more Hybrids’ than anyone? Why have the Big Three also been winning awards again lately?

The last time we gave an auto company a loan we made our money back plus interest. It isn’t like this is free money. Also, to those demanding that our government should not give the Big Three the loans they’re asking for, can you honestly look 2.5+ Million people in the eyes and say “sorry, but because of bad executives and managers you no longer have a job.”? “I know your entire town or city depends on the manufacturing plant for its entire economy but too bad, your company kept choosing bad executives and even though you finally have good executives that have gotten the message, we’re still denying you your way of life, your way of supporting your family, your income.” Consider whether you could do that or not for a while.