There are a few of reasons that come to mind regarding these split decisions.

The first is that the auto industry CEOs, CFOs, and management teams have had literally years to see the Japanese writing on the wall. They insult our intelligence by promising that THIS time they will get it right.

Secondly, the folks who labor in these industries, while having made a number of big concessions in wage and benefit packages the past few years, are still being portrayed in a big chunk of the media as the 75 dollar an hour dinosaurs who are bankrupting the industry. But then you expect this in the capitalist media. After all, these guys are still part of the 7% of workers in the private sector still in a UNION, right?

Thirdly, as I have noted previously, when you have the revolving door on automatic pilot

between Wall Street, K Street and Congressional election campaigns, money doesn't talk, it screams.

In fact, I was reading an article about the Obama transition team and Rahm Emanuel's name came up. It was noted that he got campaign contributions from the finance industry so I looked it up at OpenSecrets.org. Take a look:

UBS AG $63,700  

AT&T Inc $49,950  

Blackstone Group $47,000  

JPMorgan Chase & Co $45,700  

Grosvenor Capital Management $38,900

You do the math and then connect the dots. And these are just the top five contributors for the years 2007-2008.

Finally, I suspect one of the most important reasons that Congress caved to Hank Paulson is that most of them probably had absolutely no idea what the hell he was talking about. These Rube Goldberg financial contraptions are so convoluted and complex, even Paulson himself is rumored to be in way over his head.

george walton

I keep posting this because it needs to be known - the other odd thing not being noted - and even Eve has it wrong here - the Big 3 are asking for a bridge loan not a bailout. The bridge loan is what Chrysler received back in the early 80's - it gave them the ability to restructure themselves and make themselves a better company. They repaid the loan back to the Federal Government WITH INTEREST. Taxpayers did ok for themselves on that one. I'm betting they will on this one too.

The I'm all right Jack republicans have succeeded in getting many Americans to have emotional knives for each other instead of a sense of community.  

The "nobody is going to get anything that I don't get too" attitude is really the deep underlying threat to the survival of a mutually beneficial economy.  

I hope it does not get in the way of the recovery that must be to a large degree engineered - the "Free Market rampant" won't do it.