General Motors Corp and Chrysler aim to drop as many as 3,000 U.S. dealers and are expected to begin sending notifications as early as Thursday, three people briefed on the still developing plans said.

GM, facing a U.S. government-imposed deadline of June 1 to restructure or file for bankruptcy, is expected to send termination notices to up to 2,000 dealers -- a third of its roughly 6,000 U.S. dealers, the sources told Reuters.

Chrysler, which filed for bankruptcy on April 30, will also tell up to 1,000 of its 3,189 U.S. dealers that it is terminating their franchise agreements, according to the sources who asked not to be identified because the controversial closure plans have not been yet announced.

The moves to shut down auto dealerships underscores how the economic pain caused by the downward spiral of both automakers -- now operating under U.S. government oversight -- is spreading beyond their home base in Detroit.

I have said time and again that the CEOs of the Big Three are morons that have not a drop of ingenuity in them.  However, these companies are too big to fail and too important for our national security to just disappear.  The ranks of the unemployed have grown about 600,000 each month for the last seven months.  Those are terrible numbers.  But they will look like the good ol' days if GM and Chrysler go under. 

Besides the hundreds of thousands of jobs directly created by GM and Chrysler there is hundreds of thousands of other jobs which depend on these companies.  Dealerships, suppliers, engineers and accessory companies to name a few.  Get rid of all of these people's jobs in a few months time and unemployment numbers would spike to Great Depression levels.  Again, they are too big to just let die.

This is a perfect opportunity to take these companies in a new direction, instead of watching them wither away.  Convert them over to manufacturers of alternate energy cars, of mass public transportation vehicles (whether trains or cleaner buses), anything.  We are still America.  We have the brains and technology to take these companies in a whole new direction.  But this will not happen without the political will from Washington.  If these companies and jobs do go our country will still be transformed, but into one none of us want to belong.