What fantasy world does Nancy Pelosi inhabit?

It seems we are getting closer and closer to some sort of bailout of the auto companies. The agreement on the table now is for $15 billion for short-term loans with oversight by some sort of Car Czar to make sure that the auto companies go ahead with restructuring. The companies originally told us that they needed $38 billion. There don't seem to be any plans for how the companies are going to rejigger their contracts with the UAW whose pension and other pay demands are adding to the costs of every car put out in Detroit. There are no plans for how GM and the others are going to close the excess dealerships that they have, some of which are protected by state laws from closing. All these sorts of things could have been accomplished if GM had gone into Chapter 11 which would have given the company a safe harbor for making the necessary reforms it has to make if it has any hope of surviving.

The Democrats had to cave to Bush's requirement that the money come from money already allocated to give the auto companies to produce environmentally friendly cars instead of from the money for the financial services bailout. But what is the point of giving money for "green" technologies to companies that are failing and headed for the ash heap?

Nancy Pelosi is pretending to be firm about not giving the car companies any more money after March 31 unless they have demonstrated that they are truly restructuring? And then she made this laughable statement yesterday.

"Come March 31, it is our hope that there will be a viable automotive industry in our country with transparency and accountability to the taxpayer. We think that is possible," Pelosi said, adding that auto company executives, their employees, their shareholders and their network of local dealers all will be expected to make concessions.

Oh, yeah. These companies have been losing market share for decades and haven't been able to restructure to meet new circumstances. But in three months they're supposed to change all that and make sure that we have a "viable automotive industry?" And all for a relatively cheap $15 billion? Do you really believe that Pelosi has that sort of magic wand?

The Democrats don't seem to really be demanding the tough love that GM and Chrysler need.

In exchange for the money, the car companies would be barred from paying dividends to their shareholders or bonuses to their executives as long as the loans are outstanding. They would have to give taxpayers warrants to buy their stock, and submit to an audit by the Government Accountability Office and the special inspector general for the Treasury's financial bailout program.

The measure also would require them to get rid of corporate jets, which ferried top executives to Washington to make an initial request for cash.

That's all well and good and necessary changes. But that is a drop in the bucket for the real expenses that will have to be cut. And waving $15 billion at the car companies today isn't going to turn around all their problems in a scant three months. They'll be back for more and more after that. And does anyone doubt that, in the new administration, they'll receive the tough requirements that would involve making the UAW, dealers and stockholders unhappy?

I guess that the plan is to give periodic infusions of taxpayer money to the Detroit automakers in smaller increments and hope that the majority of people who now oppose a automaker bailout won't notice a $15 billion bailout here and another $15 billion bailout there.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation is putting out some interesting data to demonstrate that UAW workers get a total of over $70 an hour in wages and benefits. There is no way that the Big Three can compete with other automakers with that type of labor overhead. And Heritage also casts a lot of doubt on the numbers that are getting thrown around of an immediate loss of over 3 million jobs if the companies were to go bankrupt. (H/t Instapundit)

UPDATE II: Michelle Malkin has used the Wayback Machine to find an ad that GM ran in 2003 apologizing for its decisions, and business model. They're running just about the same apologetic ad today. So they acknowledged that they had made major mistakes in their business judgment five years ago. And we're supposed to believe that they'll turn this all around in three months?

I guess it all depends on your definition of " a viable automotive industry."