The bailout isn't enough and won't work.

Every day, it seems, financial markets whiplash themselves over nationalization. Obviously, the jury is still out on whether nationalization is the inevitable fate of too-big-to-fail institutions such as Citigroup and Bank of America, already underway via the vast ongoing federal prop-up of AIG, or such a horrific notion that even the French wouldn't try it again.

Will we or won't we? Regardless, it seems that a key sticking point revolves around management: The current roster of financial executives hasn't exactly distinguished itself, but whom would the government choose to replace them? Chances are, the Beltway designates would find themselves quickly racked on an angry sea of crisis.

Fortunately, we don't have to grapple with this question when it comes to the U.S. car business. The executives of General Motors and Chrysler, the two Big Three automakers that have thus far taken bailout money, are abysmal and will almost certainly not survive the year (although I underestimate GM's Teflon-coated Rick Wagoner at my own risk). At Ford, Alan Mulally has managed to dodge the acetylene ire that has been focused on his brethren, but given FoMoCo's precarious situation of looming debt crisis, he's really just the leper with the most fingers.

In fact, it's a sad day—or month or year or decade—for American manufacturing when the international studs of the car business are an Italian who also holds a Canadian passport and a Brazilian-Lebanese crossover working for the people who brought us Le Car. Now, several months into the Detroit bailout follies and with no end in sight, it's time to seriously consider what we're going to do next. GM, to its credit, has finally committed, after decades of being told to do so by countless industry observers, to rightsizing its business. That decision cost the taxpayer only $34 billion, and as a plus we finally got a modicum of transparency into the Dark Lords of Cerberus Capital Management, the shadowy private equity firm that controls the occult forces that keep Chrysler in its zombie state.

It's far from clear that any of the Big Three really has a viable plan to return to prosperity. True, both Ford and GM may be able to make a go of it internationally (Ford is strong in Europe, and GM makes money in Asia). But the home market is, well, kind of important, and here the competition isn't going to get any less fierce. Ford has some compelling products it plans to introduce in a few years, and GM has committed to its game-changer, the (mostly) electric-powered Chevy Volt.

However, both Toyota and Honda have the volume hybrid market locked up: The new, higher-mpg Prius will arrive in 2010, and Honda will debut its completely redesigned Insight, which will cost less than $20,000, in April (on Earth Day!). The Insight in particular is a crushing blow to Detroit's restructuring ambitions, because Honda has now categorically demonstrated that it can build both a perfect small car (the widely admired and hot-selling Fit) and a gas-electric hybrid that costs thousands less than a Prius—and is also a Honda and therefore a masterpiece of engineering. The best GM hybrid you can buy is the Cadillac Escalade hybrid, a $70,000 leviathan of comfort that manages 20 mpg, and that should tell you all you need to know (its ideal customer is Turtle from Entourage).