we have been digging a huge hole for decades.  it will be painful to get out of it-- for everyone.  it will be far more painful 5 or 10 years from now if we do this bailout.  you are right if GM or Caterpillar fail, jobs are lost, etc.  the people that run those companies are all multi-millionaires gettting multi-million dollar bonuses every year-- yet they need to borrow money to make payroll?  if they get this bailout, what is their incentive to do anything differently?  they need to either fail or get their act together on their own.  basically what theses execs are saying is this "we have been paying ourselves multi-millions and living the high life at the same time we have been laying off many of your co-workers and making you do more work.  now we want you to bail us out!  if you dont, you may lose your job".  i say let them fail.  if wal-mart fails, there will be two or three stores pop up to take their place in no time-- probably creating better paying jobs.  the next few years are probably going to be very bleak-- but at some time we need to bite the bullet.  there is absolutely no guarantee that this bailout will even work!!!  most economists i have heard have said it will take trillions.  should we DOUBLE the national debt to bail out these guys?  i say we try to climb out of this hole while we still can-- and yes, it will be very difficult.  this bailout just keeps digging the hole deeper.  you can keep digging and keep digging-- eventually you end up in china!!!