Not The Pay Gap

By Patrick Appel
David Leonhardt, sharp as ever, debunks the claim that the average Big Three autoworker makes $73 an hour. He writes that the "real problem is that many people don’t want to buy the cars that Detroit makes" and has the numbers to prove it. His conclusion is sensible, if harrowing:

There is good reason to keep G.M. and Chrysler from collapsing in 2009. (Ford is in slightly better shape.) The economy is in the worst recession in a generation. You can think of the Detroit bailout as a relatively cost-effective form of stimulus. It’s often cheaper to keep workers in their jobs than to create new jobs.

But Congress and the Obama administration shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking that they can preserve the Big Three in anything like their current form. Very soon, they need to shrink to a size that reflects the American public’s collective judgment about the quality of their products.

Joe Weisenthal adds his two cents.