What If they gave a Bailout Bash and nobody came?

I still have no idea how the auto industry is using hard-earned taxpayer funds to bail itself out of the hole they dug itself into. Restructuring, refinancing, Renegotiating, consolidating are all great accounting buzzwords, but is there walk behind the talk?

I know however how I would like to see the funds used: give them to the taxpayers who want to buy select, forward-looking technologies from the industry, subsidizing the rapid growth of these technologies.

For example, take the Chevy Volt. Hybrids and Electrics are an up and coming transportation technology, and we want it. But there is not enough infrastructure out there yet, and it's going to take time to ramp it up, etc.

Let's say the Volt will be priced at $40K. Give any individual taxpayer who wishes to purchase a Volt $20K to make it affordable. Give another $5K to GM to build infrastructure for it in cities. That's $25K per car. If 100,000 Volts are purchased, that is $2.5 billion dollars - nearly a tenth of the bailout bill the US is footing for the auto industry right now. Plus, 100,000 taxpayers will benefit from a low-cost upgrade to their cars, and forward looking technologies in their service.

What if not enough Volts sell? If a company's products are not in demand, there's no point to having the company exist. Let it fade away.

What if the company is not ready with the Volt in time? String it along with just enough bailout funds to keep it out of bankrupcy, and prioritize the desirable technologies. The point is that the company is on emergency life support only to produce the desired technologies.

Today, the US is bailing out the auto industry to the tune of $30-50 billion dollars. At $25K, that is nearly 2 million subsidized Volts. My numbers are arbitrary and can be tweaked, but the point remains that the bailout would best serve in the hands of the buying public towards technologies that this country needs, and needs them out there fast. Don't hand it out to the companies for nebulous restructuring, renegotiating, refinancing and other wallstreetspeak.

Asbed