The political calculus behind the surge of Congressional support for emergency aid to US carmakers is easy to understand. But that does not make it a good idea. A special “lame duck” session of Congress may filch money from the troubled asset relief programme for loans to the teetering industry. President Bush may acquiesce, not wanting to go down in history as the president who let Detroit go bust.

There is a rich irony in that, less than two months ago, six of eight representatives in the Detroit area voted against the first iteration of Tarp. Only too happy to play a game of chicken with the global financial system by scoffing at the concept of “too big to fail”, they make precisely that justification for rescuing car manufacturers and the dozens of suppliers and millions of jobs linked to the big three, whose “collapse” would be unacceptable.