Act II--enter three clowns

God bless Richard C. Shelby, R-Alabama. He refused to swallow any of the faux-contrite ersatz-sincere Kool-Aid offered by the Gang of Three at yesterday’s repeat engagement of loser automakers vs. the US Senate.

He pointed out the blindingly obvious (to everyone except Ford, GM and Chrysler): “The firms continue to trail their major competitors in almost every category necessary to compete.” And the automobile tycoons would be the first to trumpet that if you can’t compete you shouldn’t be in the business.

As for their vaunted “see—no corporate jets, we drove here in the cheapest-ass pieces of crap we can produce, which we ordinarily wouldn’t touch outside of a Vegas car show but which we’ve foisted off on the car-buying public, whom we consider the biggest suckers in the universe, except for their legally-elected representatives” stunt…Shelby inquired, “Did you drive or did you have a driver? Did you drive a little and ride a little? And secondly, I guess are you going to drive back?”

After being utterly shocked two weeks ago when just showing up at the Capitol and saying they need $25B or they’ll start putting millions out of work didn’t result in Congress immediately depositing the money in their offshore accounts, they’ve coughed up (under duress) “business plans” on how they’d spend this money differently than they’ve spent the billions they’ve gone through in the past couple of years.

I’ve not had a chance to really look at them—not that I expect these alleged plans to contain any more actual, you know, substance than they think they absolutely need to show to get their mitts on the dough.

Ford’s now saying they don’t need a loan—just a line of credit. (Which they’ll tap into faster than boiled asparagus when they think the media scrutiny is lifted.)

GM is seriously pathetic: now their story is that if they don’t get $4B before month’s end, it’s curtains. But the $4B won’t be enough, actually; they’ll want another $4B in January, a total of $12 in “loans” and a $6B line of credit.

Now, I’m not an MBA, but saying $4B isn’t enough to get them through the next three weeks doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence in their ability to manage their way out of a Gucci bag.

What also disturbs me is their assumption that they can spread any amount of manure around and have everyone believing they’re in the Garden of Eden.

(Well, I suppose the precedent has been established—it worked for AIG, Citicorp and Bear Sterns. They coughed and the Treasury handed them a $700B box of Kleenex.)

For the moment, it looks as though the Senators are displaying more backbone than they’ve done in the past. I really hope this lasts. I don’t like being the victim of extortion, whether it’s the thug in the hood or the CEO in a hybrid.