In trying to decide if the US auto companies need a bailout its hard not to notice the economics involved. Asian manufacturers seem to have the comparative advantage. The US pioneered the productive way to make cars in the early 1900s with Ford and the assembly line. The problem for the US car companies like Ford, GM and Chrysler though has been that Asia took the US model and took it to another level. Instead of having a pyramid hierarchy with management like in the US they had management listening and working closely with workers about how to efficiently improve the manufacturing.

Asian auto companies like Toyota and Honda have also made better cars. When you have a Toyota Camry that can run 200,000 miles versus a car made by General Motors that is built only to get past warranty what car do you think consumers will buy? I wonder how much the fact that GM spent as much on employee health care per car as it did raw materials contributed to the poor performance of the company. It seems that the billions they blew on this was a burden. I wonder if a national health care system like every other industrialized nation has would help significantly.

Throwing money at GM, Ford and Chrysler to continue to loose market share to Toyota doesn't make economic or business sense. A merger of atleast two of them seems to make more sense. Maybe that company would be able to withstand chronic bankruptcy which is also bad for workers.

Stock Watchlist Results
CHRS from my last watchlist was a rocket, up as much as 37% intraday. Border BGP didn't do as much as I though it would but it did finally bounce from $.62 to to $.70 steadily for 7%. Well, that's actually not bad.

Ford did well and I got out at $2.68 like I intended to do protecting the gain of 13% like I said I would. I missed the big run later in the day but that's ok.

I longed AXL at $2.51, sold $2.76 for a nice 10% intraday. I messed up and somehow placed two sell orders because one of them that I thought I cancelled was only pending so I bought them back lower and it worked out well for $.12 a share. TradeKing.com's customer service was great.
Those ETFs are down today but they should be back soon. I'm not sure of the best way to play SRS,SCC,SZK. They seem like sensible longs for a buy and hold but they also have a lot of volatility that can easily be thrown around. I don't think the market and these stocks are close to a long-term bottom so the buy and hold seems like it will work out.


full disclosure: no positions