After the bailout - Who will buy the cars?

I am surprised that members in Congress and very few in the mainstream media are addressing the real question on the US auto bailout. Who is going to purchase their cars? Currently the legacy US automakers are losing the sales battle. We can dump billions of dollars in tax payer money into the companies but the problems will continue until they have a competitive product offering. Refinancing their massive debt and reducing labor costs are short term solutions, but the companies need to fundamentally restructure, change business models and revamp their entire product line before they can be successful. In my experience, this is a very difficult tasks, especially for a large enterprise.

Government and industry leaders need to step back and look at the full spectrum of the problem and stop politicking this issue as a “job saving” program. The issue is more complex than a short term job saving measure, if the plan is structured around this concern it will not address the core failure of Detroit and it will fail in the long run.