This is all due to government regs and union power, combined with, yes, stupid management. I could see this happening: they "nationalize" it---the industry collapses further until no one buys any of their cars---and sometime in a Republican administration, a "Thatcher" moment occurs where British Leland is sold off (if it's still around at all). I hope GM/Ford/Chrysler stockholders immediately bailout.
Bankruptcy would be better for them if they want a chance to survive at all. If they are smart, that is what they will announce tomorrow. Barney can’t force them into this deal unless they sign up for it!
You have stumbled upon the open secret. In America we privatize profits, but nationalize losses. We privatize success, but nationalize failure.
You can trace this back to the Penn Central bankruptcy in 1970. That railroad failure took down every railroad in the northeastern US, and from the ashes Amtrak took over the Penn Central's Northeast Corridor, and Conrail was created to absorb all the failed freight railroads in that region. The logic was that there was a business and social need for those railroads and that the government needed to find a way to keep those enterprises live. (In 1980, the Staggers Act deregulated the nation's railroads, and every one showed a profit by the end of the year.)
We have nationalized retail banks (Continental, 1984), investment banks and GSE's. We nave nationalized the nation's largest securities insurance firm. The automobile manufacturers are next, followed by the airlines, which will be replaced by a government entity called Am-sky.
It's the paradigm of authoritarian capitalism, the paradigm that powers both Russia and China today. Another term for it is Corporate Fascism.