Life Support

If you were planning on buying one of those Chevrolet Volts slated for 2010, you may be in luck.

With over 530,000 people - enough to populate the city of Boston - having lost their jobs in November, late word tonight is that congressional Democrats and the White House reached for agreement Friday on about $15 billion in loans for what's left of the American auto industry. Failure to help Detroit, we have been warned, could lead to a depression.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi apparently relented to the White House's demand that the aid come from a fund set aside for the production of environmentally friendlier cars. While this takes money away from helping Detroit compete in one market segment, it;s become apparent that they need help in competing in the entire market.

The compromise - if it can be called that, as Pelosi, Democrat as she is, caved into Bush - should tide the automakers over by the time Barack Obama takes over. But it's still a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, any help the three remaining domestic automakers get is the beginning, not the end, of the solution. GM, Ford and Chrysler have made several mistakes over the last thirty years, and the problems they've created for themselves will not be solved overnight.

This all must be painful to those who remember when the Big Three - now the Only Three - had domestic competition. None of these folks would want to see Chevrolet or Ford go the way of Studebaker, or see Cadillac follow Packard into oblivion.