All of this talk of a bail-out for Detroit automakers misses the most fundamental point and that is the corporate culture that brought these huge companies to this sorry state of affairs. There is no public purpose served in saving them unless we can simultaneously restructure the manner in which top executives are awarded bonuses. At present they are only rewarded for short term, immediate gains and this is often at the expense of long-term strategy. Surely there’s a way to structure a bonus so that it is only good if the company is substantially better off in 5 or 10 years. If American corporations are going to have a future they must shift their focus to that future instead of the immediate past.