Car firms seek at least $6b. The maximum in the story is 3.6 + 2.0 + 1.6 = 7.2b, and we can all be sure that they'll be back for more.
According to the September SEPH data, there were 122k people employed in the motor vehicle parts and manufacturing sectors. The disaster we're trying to avoid is the possibility that they will all be thrown out of work right now, at the worst possible moment. There will be a lot of talk about helping GM, Ford and Chrysler come up with long-term strategies for survival, but this particular show has been going on for too long to hope for happy endings.
$7.2b divided by 122k employees amounts to $59k per worker in the sector. Of course, not all of them are dependent on the Detroit Three for employment (Toyota just opened a new plant), so that's very much a lower bound.
Here's a question I hope policy-makers ask themselves: Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to bypass the middle men that are the Detroit Three and send very large cheques directly to the workers?
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Who not offer them EI and a training course of their choice to switch careers? Since according to the stats I saw from Stats Canada only manufacturing and agriculture were really falling apart. Most of the other sectors had growth.
I expect it depends on what you believe the chances are of getting those loans repaid. Would it tide them over a rough patch, when credit markets are frozen? Or would it just delay the inevitable? Would CAW just consume the loans, by demanding and getting higher wages than without the loans? (Think back to your earlier post on faculty unions as the true owners of universities, and ask whether it applies equally well to CAW/UAW.)
I keep getting these flashbacks to my youth in the UK, and British Leyland.
I guess I’m assuming that if it’s a loan, it’ll never be paid back. I wonder what the discount is on Detroit Three bonds is these days – and to what extent their value is based on the assumption that governments will provide backing.
When you bailout, you hurt everyone not getting a bailout. Bailouts seemingly impossibly are inflationary yet increase future borrowing costs. A nice part of bailouts is a government has the chance to address market failures in this redistribution.
The big 3 have the most efficient plants on Earth here, that unfortunately make big vehicles. Maybe older people will drive boats? IDK. If you bailout, you need to do market research independantly, can’t trust big 3’s demand forecasts.
GM couldn’t make Saturn work. In the end, they didn’t even do something simple like hedge currency exposures and watched their EU supplier’s currency appreciate, killing profits. So will Canada’s against our current car customer. Ouch. Transport Canada kept Zenn illegal. A bailout would only make cents if you could aid the growing product lines and if these were detached from debt and shrinking market share of other product lines.
Ontario can supply offshore wind to half the continent. Costs 9-10 cents/kwh now and maybe 8-9 cents/kwh in 15 years. At current copper and concrete prices this inevitable investment will be cheaper now then in the future when Western China and India are commodity competitors. If there were some way to capture some of this extraordinarily employee intensive manufacturing supply chain (NAFTA had provisions for car market share, why not use EU free trade negotiations to get a chunk of Vesta?)…Why should cars be bailed out before Ontario becomes world’s offshore wind leader?
If only we had a PM that didn’t freeze transfers to provinces and wasn’t pro WMD oilsands.