America has two auto industries. The one represented by GM, Ford and Chrysler is Midwestern, unionized, burdened with massive obligations to retirees, and shackled to marketing and product strategies that have roots reaching back to the early 1900s.

The other American auto industry is largely Southern and non-union, owes relatively little to the few retirees it has, and enjoys a variety of advantages because its Japanese, European and Korean owners launched operations in this country relatively recently.

The question isn't whether Washington is willing to offer more public money to help auto companies survive.

There even appears to be a consensus on how much: Up to $50 billion.

The tougher question is: what's Washington's goal?

From the archive:

In July 1968, the Republicans knew they were in trouble, but they didn't know why. Ideas apparently mattered, and words were maybe more important than they had guessed; unfortunately, they didn't have any.

Having exchanged intellectual curiosity for ideological certainty, they had forfeited their powers of observation as well as their senses of humor.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

If today we are shocked by shenanigans like the Enron debacle, insider trading, mutual fund abuses and the prevalence of special interests in politics, we need to get some perspective on our history.