American cars aren't all that shitty anymore and there are some very good ones coming down the line. Chrysler is pretty much worthless these days however, and is owned by some shady defense contractors anyway. They have some good brands but not much coming down the pipe that's any good. They don't belong on the same tier any more.
GM and Ford sell many better cars in Europe and Australia than they do here. The Euro Focus is way cooler than ours, and the Fiesta's taking too long of a time to come out here. The Mondeo is well liked while we get the meh Fusion and "Taurus". The new Opel Insignia just won European car of the year but it's not out here yet either.
GM can do good things. The CTS-V and ZR-1, while tasteless, prove that American engineering can be segment leading. The Volt has great potential but it's not out yet. The new Camaro will be great but it's coming out at a terrible time... Management needs a serious shakeup as too many cars come out in the US too little or too late. There are too many models, there's too much redundancy, and too much lame badge engineering.
Paulson's desire to use the bailout only for his Wall Street pals and not for these companies sucks. They're too important to the economy and for the country, whether they've sucked in the past or not.
I hope that at least GM survives, as they seem to have had the least terrible management (and they're the biggest too). Ford of Europe makes good cars, but Ford in the US is kind of a joke. Carving out some of the enormous bailout (that won't be used up before Obama takes office) to keep them afloat seems reasonable to me.
