UAW finally bringing down American Automakers

It amazes me that the American auto industry can have the nerve to ask taxpayers to bail them out of the crisis that they have created for themselves. For years people have been saying that the UAW would bring Detroit to it's demise, and here it is...but rather then push back on the union, the auto makers think that the taxpayers should enable this insanity to continue. Not only has the UAW made it impossible to compete with the Japanese or Koreans, but leadership has been so short-sited (even with all the campaigning people like Gore have done to educate), that they didn't see this gas crisis coming, continuing to spend billions of R&D money developing the next bigger badder SUV. Now competitors that have spent their R&D money figuring out how to make more fuel efficient motors, and hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles are going to continue pummeling the American automakers. If this were a bank the automakers were presenting their case to, they bank would laugh at them, there's no way a bank would risk their money in companies run so poorly, with such an obvious competitive disadvantage. If we do give these companies any money, there had better be some terms regarding management reform and a new UAW agreement.