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http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/../photos/data/2/AmericanFlag.jpg If Chrysler liquidates, it will take down suppliers and hurt US plants making Toyota, Honda, Nissian, BMW, Mercedes cars....it would hurt the survivability of GM, and Ford's doing business without federal aid. (http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/02/news/companies/chrysler_outlook/index.htm?cnn=yes)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Floor_of_the_NYSE.jpgChris Isidore - CNNMoney – Apr 02, 2009

U2's song "With or Without You" comes to mind. Still, what does Chrysler have to offer? -- Ed.

It's easy to think that Chrysler LLC is no longer too big to fail.

The embattled automaker has already cut its U.S. workforce by more than 60% since the start of the decade, leaving it with just under 39,000 employees in America.

To put that into context, that's only five thousand more people than electronics retailer Circuit City had when it went out of business this year -- and few thought the demise of Circuit City would cripple the economy.

Once a pillar of the Big Three, along with General Motors (GM (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=GM&source=story_quote_link), Fortune 500 (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/snapshots/175.html?source=story_f500_link)) and Ford Motor (F (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=F&source=story_quote_link), Fortune 500 (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/snapshots/160.html?source=story_f500_link)), Chrysler now trails Toyota Motor (TM (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=TM&source=story_quote_link)) in U.S. sales and is struggling to stay ahead of Honda Motor (HMC (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=HMC&source=story_quote_link)).… http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/02/news/companies/chrysler_outlook/index.htm?cnn=yes

Although Chrysler has only 5000 more employees than Circuit City did when it went under, Chrysler is a manufacturer and CircCity is a retail reseller. Failed manufacturers affect the companies that make the parts for their vehicles, the dealers and repair shops (which are more on the level of Circuit City stores), and the local economies near the plant sites where hundreds or thousands of people work.

It would cause harm to the economy in general, and also hurt the pocketbooks of people who own Chrysler vehicles who would have to pay more for replacement parts made by third parties, as well as suffering the loss of having the resale value of their vehicles tank even further than it does now.

The slowing sales and subsequent recession in the late 50s was enough to wipe out several of the weaker automakers - Packard, Hudson, Willys, and Kaiser/Frazer to name a few. And it mortally wounded Studebaker, which staggered on for another seven years before failing. The recession of the early 80s stuck the proverbial fork into AMC (Rambler,Willys,Hudson), and Chrysler bought what was left for a song. This recession, if it continues for a protracted time, will end up doing another round of "cleaning house" among the current crop of automakers.

One way to look at it however, is that for every Chrysler not sold, that's a car from another company bought. There is too much car production right now worldwide, and letting a major player fall will help bring that down and help allow other car makers to be profitable. I say let them go bankrupt and restructure. It's not like every Chrysler factory is going to be boarded up, they'll be bought up by other companies and put into use. Capitalism is a good system because the strong survive and the weak fail. Those that make parts for Chrysler can make parts for other companies, and make parts for what what's leftover of Chrysler becomes. The demand for cars is low right now and the capacity to make them is high. You can throw money at car manufacturers all you want, but until you change that equation, there will be an oversupply of cars and producing them will not be a economically sustainable practice.