If I were running Ford or Chrysler or General Motors, I'd be sending out a letter right about now to employees and dealers:

As you are fully aware, the global financial markets are frozen. We can't get credit, you can't get credit, and our potential customers can't get credit. What's more, even if they could get credit, potential customers would be highly reluctant to buy cars and trucks right now, because they don't know if they will have jobs six months from now.

We could try to cast blame for this. The depression of the 1930s was apparently caused the government passed laws raising taxes. The current situation had exactly the opposite cause, with this administration's fiscal recklessness resulting in the highest deficits in history. That's neither here, nor there, though. The fact is, business requires the credit markets to be operational in good times in order to function. When customers are reluctant to buy, business needs credit even more to weather that storm.

Our products, according to JD Powers, are of excellent quality. We're highly competitive in countries like China and Russia, which are poised to become major new markets for autos and trucks. We have some really exciting products in the pipeline, and changes in the law would be bringing our legacy costs down substantially in about two years.

And that's why it saddens me to write this letter. Despite our best efforts, despite having the world's finest skilled-labor workforce, we simply cannot survive the next two years without credit. And since Congress appears to have no interest in solving a problem they created, we will be going out of business.

We're losing money. Since without credit, we cannot reach a position where we will be profitable, we need to cut our losses. We will be ceasing operations 14 days from today. Most employees will be discharged on that date. A few will remain to disassemble our factories, so that the equipment may be sold at auction.

If you own a car we made 75 years ago, you can still purchase most repair parts from third-party vendors. Undoubtedly, most of our tooling will be purchased by companies that will continue to provide parts for years to come, but we will not be here to turn to.

We will try to liquidate the assets of this corporation as expeditiously as possible. We will not be paying dividends, obviously, but stockholders will receive a return of capital if and when we are able to do so.

The steel industry is almost entirely gone now. Nobody makes televisions in the US anymore. For the last 50 years, the automobile industry was the heart and soul of American manufacturing. It saddens me to think that Congress wants to see America become a third-rate nation. I wouldn't be doing this if I had any better options.

I thank our workers, our suppliers, our dealers, and our customers, for their many years of loyalty.

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auto industry - credit freeze - liquidation - loyalty - quality