Europe looks to bolster banks

By Burton Frierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. automakers sharpened their pleas for a government lifeline on Tuesday and car companies around the world cut costs and production as the global economic crisis continued to ravage the industry.

Europe and Japan sought new ways to make credit available in an effort to roll back the tight lending conditions that have pushed the world's largest economies into recession and sent manufacturers into a deep slump.

U.S. automakers began submitting plans to Congress as they tried to show they have a viable future. Ford led off with a request for a $9 billion (6 billion pound) credit line and promised big changes ahead of the government review.

General Motors asked the U.S. government to save it from failure by extending $12 billion in loans and another $6 billion in a credit line.

While critics have charged that many of the problems plaguing Detroit's Big Three are of their own doing, politicians worry that without government aid, the companies could collapse and millions of jobs would be lost.

"The greater the delay in help, the more damaged the industry becomes," Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said in an interview with Reuters.

"Because Congress has not acted, even if nobody has declared bankruptcy, nobody is in the showrooms of this industry because they don't know whether Congress is going to act," she added.

GM, Ford and Chrysler failed two weeks ago to obtain a $25 billion bailout from lawmakers unconvinced that taxpayer money would be well spent considering the industry's horrible financial prospects.