Unfortunately, if the big 3 claim bankruptcy, nobody will want to buy their cars now, or in the future. What congress needs to do, is to first, renegotiate out the parts of the union contracts that don’t survive the laugh test (some of the paid time off events, etc), keep the pensions, as those were part of the reason these people took the jobs, and force the unions to have to renegotiate on some other terms such as healthcare — not because I’d like to see it, but because the other option for the unions is the big 3 will declare bankruptcy, and the unions will get screwed.

I believe the number is something like 1 in 15 Americans works in the auto industry or its suppliers. To allow the big three to completely fold, or even downsize by 20% could be a blow we may not recover from for decades.

“Wagoner, who demurred from answering directly, said that even at plants that are closing, “85 percent” of union employment benefits still “have to be paid.””
(http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=39803)

Got that? At a **closed** plant they still have to pay out 85% of benefits (and that for a limited time). From that you and CNSN concluded that 85% of all wages are to non-workers. That would mean two things. First, that the automakers have laid off all of their non-union workers. Second, that they have closed all of their plants.

When you find some outrageous “fact”, check to see if it is a fact before you are outraged.