No, it’s not welfare. It’s a little bit insurance mixed with an old-fashioned helping hand that ought to be extended with a little discipline to Detroit’s rump. Bailouts, subsidies, tax breaks and other sundry government instruments to influence the economy are recurrent and mainstream in American history. Less here than most countries, but nevertheless persistent. So let’s not pretend the program to assist Detroit, or the banks, or brokerages, etc., are new. We have an economy with gross annual activity valued over $14 trillion dollars. The absolute numbers bandied about today are big; the proportional representation is more modest. $25B, $50B, $75B are barely a bump.

I’d just slipped the nozzle into my Cadillac XLR-V. A dark Merc SL550 rolled up, its driver eyeing my Bowling Green Batmobile. As he busied himself with the credit card ritual, every few seconds his eyes darted sideways to the Caddy. “Mind if I look inside?” He sat behind the wheel, running his fingers across the interior surfaces. “Nice,” he pronounced. “Comfortable. And it’s easy to see out. There isn’t as much storage as my SL, but I’d be OK with that.” As he exited the XLR-V, he issued his verdict: “I wish I had the courage.”