Two of the Big Three are full of crap

and we shouldn't fund them. At all.

I heard an interview the other day on NPR with the current Ford scion, who told Melissa Block that the Ford company will be bringing its European models to the United States. FINALLY! Y'see, in Europe, to be a) legal and b) competitive, cars and trucks have to have decent gas mileage. This doesn't mean a measley 26 mpg, like our Honda Element gets, this means 50, 60, 70, 80 mpg. Miles per gallon, not just liters. But those models haven't been available for sale in the US, even though Ford makes them. How stupid is that? So it's about freaking time that they start making and selling them here.

Chrysler and General Motors, on the other hand, are still suing states to attempt to prevent them from requiring cleaner car emissions and more efficient models, and Chrysler is shutting down one of the two plants it makes hybrid vehicles in. Of course, those hybrids aren't doing so well, partly due to the credit crunch, but I imagine that all that effort Chrysler has been putting into resisting improving their automobiles has something to do with it.

At least Ford has been thinking a bit more sensibly, gearing down to produce smaller vehicles.

I'm with Peregrine Wood: we shouldn't be bailing out the companies that have been digging in their heels for decades on environmental and efficiency standards, making bad business decisions, and spending lots of money on lawyers and lawsuits so they can continue to artificially restrict states to going along with those bad decisions. And we've given them a bailout already this year (and there was that bailout of Chrysler back in the 80s, don't forget). It certainly doesn't seem to have helped them see the error of their ways. Are we sure we want to do this again?