Good morning CruiseCrazies&#33; Our spiel on the bailout and the auto companies: The bank bailout is a fraud on the American people and was caused by the ineptness of our congress. Remember what their approval rating was before the bailout, only 9%. I wonder what it is now&#33; Also remember the first bailout plan that barely failed they were allocating 20% of the 700 billion to ACORN&#33; The whole thing was caused by making and selling bad home mortgage loans. Simple as that. Government ran Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack. This was to satisfy all the special interest lobbyist that control Washington. Just look at your 401 retirement statements, if anyone needs or deserves a bailout it&#39;s the tax paying public. The 700 billion would be better served by giving it to the taxpayers. Approximately &#036;2,600 each would definitely stimulate the economy&#33;<br />Now as far as the auto companies just go back to the early 80s and the Chrysler loan guarantee to prevent them from going bankrupt. Once again this recession was caused by the government from the aftermath of the Carter administration. Unemployment was high and interest rates were over 20%&#33; Remember the Arab oil embargo and gas shortages? Our little manufacturing company was owed about &#036;15,000 from Chrysler and they could not pay us. We bartered for a Ram Dually pickup truck to settle their debt. Once they got the loan guarantee they bought out their new products--the K-car and the Mini-van and sales skyrocketed. No money was ever given to them, only loan guarantees. Those loans were paid off.<br />The same thing should be done for the big three now. They are up against unbalanced trade deals that allow foreign companies to build plants over here and bring in their engines, transmissions, etc. duty free.<br />Our company has been fighting for survival ever since NAFTA, all 16,000 pages, and the so called free trade deal with China and other countries passed by congress. We have to abide by the OSHA and EPA laws, as well as wage laws. We provide health, life, and retirement benefits. Those all nonexistent in some of these countries.<br />To many good paying jobs have been lost over the years because of these trade deals. They have been replaced by not so good paying. Now we are losing even more jobs with no replacement jobs available. All branches of government, local, state, and federal will have less tax revenue coming in and will have to learn how to operate with less--just like the tax paying public&#33;