Administration dallies while auto industry sweats it out [View All]

While Detroit's automobile companies burn through cash at a frightening rate of close to $200 million a day, the people in Washington, D.C., with the power to contain this wildfire are still sitting on their hoses.

Fiddling away, it would seem, as Detroit burns.

"We are not going to be rushed into it," White House press secretary Dana Perino said Tuesday morning about providing bridge loans to prevent the impending bankruptcies of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.

That's reassuring, eh?

Meanwhile, each day brings further warnings about the deteriorating condition of auto parts makers like Lear Corp., TRW and American Axle & Manufacturing.

Moody's Inc., the ratings agency, downgraded the credit rating of Lear on Friday, TRW on Monday and American Axle on Tuesday, citing severe production cutbacks and the possible bankruptcy of their major customers.

Key Plastics, a Northville-based auto supplier, filed Tuesday for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The Washington-based Brookings Institution weighed in Tuesday with the latest study on fallout from the possible collapse of one or more of the Detroit Three automakers.

http://www.freep.com/article/20081217/COL06/812170401/?imw=Y