Are there no other automobile manufacturers that would be interested in acquiring facilities and capacity at a great price?

Are the United Auto Workers union members so inept that a well-run car manufacturer would shun them if thousands of them suddenly became available?

If we’re going to bail out any of the “Big 3″, we should at least not be complete ignoramuses about it.

We can give a sack full of cash to them, and watch them squander it just as they have done for the past couple of decades. That would probably be the dumbest of available choices. Incidentally, it’s what is most likely to happen.

We could alternatively expedite their bankruptcy sales and give money to a solvent auto manufacturer (Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, BMW, etc.) to help them basically overpay for the assets. That’s probably the least stupid way, even though it’s just as unethical.

The best way to spend the bailout dollars the “Big 3″ want is to just set it on fire. That way, you don’t screw with supply and demand, you don’t interfere with a poorly run company cratering due to decades of irresponsibility on the part of management and UAW. Plus, you’ve helped reduce the inflationary impact of all of the Fed’s crazy lending windows.

The pain has long been trickling down.

Both the cities of Detroit and Toledo are near or above 50% abandoned. When I lived in Toledo, I had to drive from my home near downtown all the way out to the suburbs just to go grocery shopping. The city does so little road repair that you may as well not even call some of the streets “paved”. Many 4 and 5 bedroom homes in Detroit fail to sell at foreclosure auctions for prices lower than the new cars that are also no longer selling.

Most other Rust Belt cities fare little better.

As I see it, the scary prospect isn’t that large scale failures in US industries will hurt people, it’s that there aren’t many places left to absorb the pain.