December sure hasnt been a slow news month.

This week President Bush lost his economic religion. Free markets are fine when times are good but Detroit's auto companies are too big to fail so his leadership is going to throw tax payer dollars (something Republicans are fond of calling "your dollars") at the problem.

Congress couldnt agree on what to do so Bush is going to give $15B to GM and Chrysler so they can limp along another few months until the next guy gets stuck with the problem. Now that's what I call leadership.

Auto sales were 16M vehicles in 2007. The industry has lowered that expected number to 12M.

GM, Ford and Chrysler are now expected to become profitable in a few months in a market that is 25% smaller than 1/4 it used to be.

The skeptical might think it improbable that Detroit can turn itself around and pay these tax payer loans back but dont worry. The CEO's promised to become profitable. They promised!! Its like a Tom Cruise movie. They werent trying before but now they promised so good things will happen. Oh brother.

I've said before that one or two of the Big Three should be killed so the remaining one has a chance to survive. The industry as a whole has been at 80% capacity and that was before the market shrank 25%. We just dont need as many cars as we can make. There will be fewer jobs.

It is curious that GM and Chrysler imploded so quickly. I was expecting a bailout but not until Democrats took over in January. It is surprising to see Bush, patron saint of defense and oil not manufacturing, lead the bailout.

Ive been reading a lot of different opinions about this issue in the past few months. It is interesting to ask why banks get bailouts but car companies are forced to beg and cut and concede. Why executives get a pass and blue collar workers get blamed.

While I think Detroit needs drastic changes, far bigger changes than they are being forced to do by the government, I do agree that the Administration has had a double standard and they they treat Wall Street with kid gloves.

So sit back and enjoy the show. The problems on Wall Street and Detroit arent going to end anytime soon.