I think the big investors have decided the US has too much capacity and they want to get North America down to one indigenous manunfacturer, and they’ve decided they can make alot of money off the deal. It’s a continuation of the mentality that has prevailed since the 90’s–that companies should be stripped out to boost stock prices, leaned out to boost profits, and sold out when they no longer are able to survive on their own. Short term profit over long term viability. There’s probably no turning back because the government and financial elites all think the same groupthink, and so far Congress is rubber stamping everything Paulson does.

If these CEO’s were running Chrysler in the 50’s and 60’s and 80’s they would have wanted to sell the company then too. Remember how Chrysler lost the #2 sales position in the early 50’s? how the car lines got long in the tooth and they required a huge investment for new models (turned out to be $100 million in 1955 dollars)? or same thing in the early 60’s, with leadership scandals, the 62 models bombed. Or think about Iaccoca taking over in 78–reputation for quality was lousy, the K-cars were still two years away, the foreign competition was fierce. It was just unthinkable in any of those periods to give away the company–it would have been seen as robbery.

I’m not sure Paulson and Bush are heroes on the bailout. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it had to be done to prevent the whole system locking up. To me it represents welfare for the robber barons, nationalization on the scale that would make the 1950’s Labour party in Britain envious.
I hope you’re right about the power industry and such. There are certainly opportunities for the US to become a leader in nuclear power, electric cars and other high tech fields.