This is two days late, hence the title.

In an October column I argued for the provision of government funds to aid GM and Chrysler in maintaining solvency. My argument was three-fold: GM and Chrysler (and Ford) have made significant improvements in their business processes; are building cars that, for the first time in decades, are truly competitive; and are an integral part of the American economy. Even if it’s politically unpopular – only 22% of people, at present, support a bailout of the auto industry– I still feel that GM/Chrysler’s government-funded survival is necessary.

The situation has changed somewhat since I first discussed it. The government did agree to provide GM with $13 billion and Chrysler with $4 billion, and now the companies are asking for more aid – $39 billion in total. It’s for this reason, I think, that the public has soured on the notion of a bailout. We (taxpayers) already threw billions at automakers – the thinking goes – and they want more? But the current economic downturn has hit auto companies especially hard, as consumers keep the cars they have or buy used.

Even Toyota – the one-time “scion” of the auto industry – is hurting. The company reported losses in its last two fiscal quarters and recently asked for $2 billion from the Japanese government to provide loans in America. Toyota isn’t living month-to-month the way Chrysler and GM are; those companies desperately need cash just to fund their continued operations. But it says a lot about the state of the industry when a juggernaut like Toyota is accepting money from its government.

Paradoxically, the sorry state of the new-car market can only help GM and Chrysler in the short term. As long as sales stay soft, it will be easier for the two companies to argue that they need more government aid. And while I, as a taxpayer, don’t like the idea of automakers suckling at the federal teat, I like to see that they are finally making serious inroads in the improvement of their business model – even if it’s an eleventh-hour effort.

American automakers once saw car-building as a business venture: they made cars that would sell to the greatest number of buyers. Japanese and German firms, by contrast, were engineering companies that happened to sell cars. It’s little surprise that, for the past few decades, the best cars have come from abroad, and consumers in the know have overwhelmingly preferred buying foreign. So the Big Three are shackled not only by restrictive labor agreements but their own reputation for mediocrity – and that, more than any temporary downturn, is the greatest hurdle they face moving forward.

But American cars are finally competitive, for maybe the first time since the Sixties. Our car companies, in panic mode, are realizing that they need to step up their game just to stay alive. They can, and will, make some of the world’s best vehicles again – they just need help to do so.