Let them die.

As much as I hate to admit it, I have been somewhat on the fence about the Big Three Bailout, for purely selfish reasons. Due to my pure fiscal conservative roots, I am generally against any government intervention in the markets, but the direct impact that bankrupcy of GM, Ford, and Chrysler would have on an already beaten-down Michigan economy gave me pause.

But then I came to my senses. This industry is the posterchild against a bailout like this. These companies have a long history of mismanagement, squandering of almost religious customer good will over their asian competitors, historic levels of inefficiency, and complete and enduring lack of vision (not to mention a string of mind-bogglingly unsustainable union contracts). To reward them with another $50B dollars on top fo the $25B we gave them a year ago is madness. We already dump billions of good dollars after bad into an organization that continues to fail miserably, year after year, by nearly every possible measurement. It's called our education system.

The truth is, GM bankrupcy will be painful in the short term, but actually much better in the long term. Reorganization under Chapter 11 would allow them to invalidate the smothering union contracts that they were bullied into, dissolve unneeded brands and eliminate dealerships, broker deals with their suppliers, and still retain the vast majority of their manufacturing capacity and market share.

George Will (in the top two thinkers of our generation, by the way) summed it up perfectly here.