I'm all about watching Ford & GM go under if they continue to offer an inferior product. They're not even more expensive anymore and they're still losing market share. They made a bet that didn't pay off for them. They gambled that Americans would eventually get used to $2.50/gallon to $3.00/gallon pricetag on gas and didn't put money into R&D for higher fuel efficiency and alternate energy sources. They're years behind Toyota, Honda and Nissan, and it would take a small miracle for them to catch up at this point, government bailout or not. And I haven't even touched on expected mean value of operating life... mainly because GM at least has FINALLY started to address that issue (but as they've cried wolf on that for so long, it's not hard to understand why nobody has recognized it yet).

The nice thing about new enabling technologies is that its typically how monopolies end up getting dismantled. Government breakup didn't end end Ma Bell's stranglehold on the American telephone market, cell phones did. The Japanese need to continue to innovate or I believe they too will find themselves displaced by 'the next new thing'.