The article presents observations on bond market history and how it relates to the automobile industry. As recently as 1980 Standard & Poor's gave AAA ratings to both General Motors and Ford Motor. Right now the two are BBB-, one notch above junk. The two car companies have suffered from just about everything: loss of market share, large retiree costs, union difficulties, restructuring, rising raw materials prices, excessive inventory, lackluster new products. Ford and GM are two of the largest corporate bond issuers, with $168 billion and $284 billion, respectively, in consolidated debt. That means almost every sizable public pension fund and bond mutual fund holds their paper. A downgrade to junk would disqualify some of these investors, and they would have to sell their bonds eventually. But they will not be forced to do so suddenly. Prices, after a brief downdraft, will rebound. Someone buying now and holding for years can afford to shrug off the downgrade. If you have a lot of money to put into a single bond position, you should consider buying in stages, a third now, another piece after the fourth-quarter earnings numbers are released in early 2005 and a third after the rating agencies pull the junk trigger. By "a lot of money" I mean $100,000; small bond positions are costly to trade. Your entire bond portfolio should be at least $1.5 million. At a time when decent bond income without scary risk is scarce, the automakers' yields look enticing. If you hold the bonds, don't panic and sell them, since the prices likely will recover after a few months when people see the auto firms aren't doomed.