There's a valid argument that allowing any of the Big Three automakers to go under would have catastrophic repercussions throughout the economy, since so many hundreds of thousands of jobs depend upon their survival.

As they sink beneath the waves, the titans of free enterprise are turning to us taxpayers for a lifeline. Yes, the same folks who, I'm sure, have done everything they can to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

If we are really going to do this, at the very least we should demand that the execs who drove the companies into the ground take a hike, without the usual obscene compensation that CEOs snag regardless of profit or loss.

It would make the bitter medicine of rewarding incompetence a little easier for us to swallow, if nothing else.