Keeping The Auto Industry On Track

Ford's sales are off 19 percent GM's are down 20 percent Chrysler's sales have slid a staggering 26 percent

And in 2008 alone the three U.S. automakers have cut more than 48,000 jobs.

Desperate to stay afloat, GM and Chrysler are talking about merging - and are asking for a big government bailout to help do it.

"Without government help, GM - and possibly Chrysler - it's likely they would need to file for bankruptcy protection," said David Whitson, a Morningstar Auto Analyst.

The estimated cost is $10 billion federal dollars and a loss of 40,000 jobs -- that's one-fourth the workforce.

Neither company is talking publicly, but the White House confirms they are talking.

"The automakers have been in contact with us; we've been talking about it on various levels," said White House press secretary Dana Perino.

That stakes for the economy are massive: 4.5 million people, one in 30 American workers, have jobs in the auto industry. Fourteen million jobs are in some way connected to the car business. So the fear is that the big three are just too big to let fail.

The government has stepped in before.

You may recall in 1979 it bailed out Chrysler and gave the company time to develop what became its cash cow, the minivan. But today's global marketplace is much more competitive, and understandably, autoworkers are on edge.

The auto industry has helped power the economy for 100 years now, but experts say it's been headed the wrong way for so long, even with a bailout, it could take decades to get back on the right track.