Give the Big Three a bailout!

Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler need a bailout. But they're asking the wrong guys for money. Instead of driving their hybrids to Washington DC, they ought to fly into Riyadh and Dubai.

First off, no one makes fun of you for flying on your private jet. Saudi Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal just placed a personal order for a private Airbus A380! If you don't show up on a private jet, you're nobody. Secondly, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have money to spare: at least one trillion dollars in their sovereign wealth funds. The Big Three need about $34 billion to stay afloat, (which they have promised to pay back!), and it is important that they don't shut down. There is a dangerous domino effect if just one of the Big Three falls: they use many of the same suppliers, so if one goes down it might drag the others with it and lose some 2.5 million jobs in the process. This is probably an overestimate, and with so much of their production outsourced abroad, the pain would be spread around quite a bit. Still, it wouldn't be good.

The oil exporting countries have a vested interest in keeping SUV producing companies running. All car companies are hurting these days, but the Big Three are not sitting on enough cash to get through these tough times. Part of this is due to their brand-killing habit of making lots of bad cars, but they are working hard to fix that. The UAW has made some serious concessions, the Big Three are investing tons in R&D, and many of their cars are on par with Japanese and German imports these days (Disclaimer: I drive a Honda Civic, which was made in Ohio, interestingly enough).

Hell, all of OPEC should chip in and give a bailout to the Big Three. And if OPEC fails to bailout the Big Three, maybe Beijing would be interested? If they did I would take back all the mean things I said here. For selfish reasons, I am rooting for a bailout because someday I want to buy that new Camaro.