We can do without another bailout.

This week, Detroit’s big three automakers clamored the Washington body politik on their knees for another financial bailout, asking for an additional $25 billion to bring the grand total up to $50 billion to prevent even just one of the three outmoded and outperformed corporations from tanking before the end of the quarter. This time around they have the full support of congressional Democrats, perhaps even that of President-Elect Obama, who strategically resigned his Senate seat in time to avoid voting on any further bailout initiatives and presumably encouraged still-President Bush in their private meeting last week that such a bailout was necessary.

At this point, I can understand the importance of corporate government bailouts in some aspects of our ailing economy: e.g., a secure insurance industry. Financial solvency necessitates government intervention on behalf of the service-oriented economy we have attempted to galvanize in this country over the last two decades. But the political capital obtained by Obama and the Democrats’ massive gains on Election Day, especially in the rust belt, indicate that people – not executives – suffer the most when a previous industrial superpower all but eliminates its manufacturing sectors in the face of streamlined global competition. These people voted on the off chance that they would still have jobs come next November. A service-oriented economy begins to collapse when we can’t compete on a global level and newly industrialized nations begin to take the reigns even over white-collar professions. And our pursuit of white-collar supremacy has neglected the 2/3 of Americans without college degrees who have relied upon American manufacturing to sustain their families for generations.

One can equate our current financial crisis to crime plaguing inner cities such as Philadelphia: no one tends to notice until it bleeds from relatively bad neighborhoods into white, gentrified neighborhoods and takes a previously unforeseen victim – people with money. So has our economy been bleeding blue-collar blood for decades to the chagrin of Reaganites and the neoconservative movement, who chant in unison that “deficits don’t matter,” even when they are overwhelming trade deficits that prove we can no longer successfully manufacture all the devices we have invented in the last century.

The American auto industry requires a sea change that another $25 billion cannot provide. The $25 billion provided by Congress last September was specifically designated to help automakers retool their factories to provide for more fuel-efficient output in the wake of a beyond-impending energy crisis. Now, it’s clear that $25 billion is probably not enough to accomplish even this goal. But the point is, throwing money at an industry that is unwilling to change its wayward path will not bring about the change required. Let’s face it – American cars suck. And despite warnings that fuel costs would begin to soar, GM kept pushing hummers off the conveyor belts into loving homes across the American heartland (where, mind you, gas is still relatively cheap to us blue-state city dwellers. And so are houses).

This is a case of clear-cut poor management. Yes, I agree that the American auto industry, like all manufacturing which has subsided in this country, is absolutely essential to keeping unemployment to a minimum and giving us an edge worldwide. But nothing the automakers have done in the last 20 years has really brought about a change of conscience. The influx of hybrid technology was fueled by developments from Japanese automakers Toyota and Honda, which rapidly outperform even our own firms domestically. In fact, one could argue that these Japanese companies have done more for job creation right here at home than any of the big three.

What does this mean for the US auto industry? It means the Japanese are better at it than we are.

In the world of free-market capitalism, of which we are most likely trying to preserve at minimum an iota of while we are still one of the strongest economies on earth, the best player takes home the trophy. If Japanese auto firms contribute to our slumping job growth, why not begin to sell majority interests in the big three to the other big three across the Pacific – Nissan, Honda, and Toyota? Why not give stake to companies that have contributed jobs to the American economy? The risk of loss to GDP is most likely far greater if we continue to throw money to an industry that will not, as past performance demonstrates, use it wisely. The message this will convey to poorly-managed US companies across industry borders, ranging from banks to carmakers, is that lifelines are running low, and performance is still the cornerstone of a “free market.” It will also eliminate woes about increasing regulation of industry and will instead allow regulators to focus on securities and market economics, rather than in meddling in management. The Japanese auto industry is the clear buyer, since they already possess a flowering infrastructure across America’s heartland.

Of course, who’s to say that Japan will even bite if GM is placed on the market tomorrow – this week they announced even they are in recession, and as the world’s second largest economy, that means we are all in trouble. But a joint partnership and solution could help two significantly ailing economies, boosting Japan’s GDP outlook and protecting unemployment domestically from getting any worse. One could even foresee such a move with one automaker at a time as provoking the other two to get on board and revamp their practices, enabling perhaps a potentially more limited bailout in the future and increasing competition.

So as Congress continues to debate bailing out the auto industry, they should look to maintaining at least one solvent free-market principle before resorting to further protectionism – competition is key; when a company fails by virtue of its own poor management, strong economies let others step in before the government does.