Once on shore

The US is struggling to make out a way to deal with the 3 major automakers. For them, to be or not to be, that is the question. 4 million people are directly or indirectly working for GM, Ford and Chrysler. Certainly many people will be thrown out onto the street (lose their jobs), if they go broke. The automakers are too big to fail, it is said.
The US has been a champion of free trade. It means free and fair competition of domestic and international trade. If the government saves particular companies it is against the rule of the free trade. There's more to it. If a company sells cars at a low price without much serious effort to improve the performance of the cars while paying huge amount of salary to executives, it will be bound to fail. Saving such companies using money collected as tax from people is not just against free trade. It is a moral hazard.
The big three have the similar history when their business got stuck in 1980s. I vividly remember when they sent a big delegation headed by the president senior Bush and pressed their way to force Japan to buy American cars. What was surprising was they blamed Japan for restricted market while having no intention to change their left-hand drive cars to right-hand drive which is very close to a must in Japan where the cars run on the left side of the streets. They didn't even make an effort to know the custom of their customers.
They began to make left-hand drive cars after that, but they haven't changed in essence. They fell behind in the development of eco-cars. They overlooked again the customers long-term taste trend based on what is required of cars from global point of view. They haven't made much effort to improve their cars, lost in money-making.
Saving those companies may save many workers from losing their means of livelihood but it is highly likely that the history will repeat itself.
Even if the government bails out the Big three this time again, some of them will disappear from the market sooner or later. People's mindset is thus hard to change. Once on shore we forget to pray(喉もと過ぎれば熱さ忘れる).