I disagree both with Dean Lataif and the first commentator. The former Ford employee says externalities like the gas spike and credit crisis could not be foreseen by the industry and that they, along with the many "innocents" on main street, ought not be punished. For their role in promoting the profligate consumer culture that got us into this mess, I disagree on both counts. The vast majority of people bought cars on credit, not necessarily because they needed them, and in part to due repeated, aggressive, expensive ad campaigns by the big three. Rather than churning out gas-guzzling behemoths that foster the bigger=better mentality (anyone who has ever watched a football game knows what I'm talking about) and creating demand for inefficient cars and trucks, they ought to have focussed on making better ones--preferably that run on forms of alternative energy. This IS something that greedy auto industry board members OUGHT to have foreseen. Perhaps they should pay! If either the $25 billion earmarked for the purpose of evolving alternative energy sources OR a portion of the bailout money is used to merely resuscitate a dying industry instead of adapting it, even with promises of future conversion (just like an addict, isn't it?), this artificial selection will merely be deferring the inevitable at the expense of all involved. Our transportation infrastructure and corporate culture are broken; THIS is and has been the "fundamental problem."