Yesterday The Wall Street Journal reported on the apparent fire sale going on in Detroit as U.S. carmakers seek to raise financing for the coming Friday negotiations with the United Auto Workers where retiree health-care liabilities will be a major topic on the table.

Although still unconfirmed, Ford Motor Company is rumored to be shopping for a buyer for their Volvo unit, a deal that could generate as much as $8 billion for the company.

GM has sold its Allison Transmission division, which the company has owned for almost 80 years, for a price of $5.6 billion while working to raise another $10 billion in various credit markets.

According to inside sources, the plan at GM is to raise money to then divest themselves of literally billions in retired blue-collar health-care liabilities. The expenses would be funded from the outside via a union-run fun nicknamed VEBA (for Voluntary Employees Beneficiary Association.)

If such a plan could be made to work, Ford, for instance, would be freed of obligations in the neighborhood of $26 billion. In 2006 the company spent approximately $3.1 billion on health care for its blue collar workers.

The Detroit automakers have consistently maintained that their efforts to stay competitive with Asian rivals are hampered by high labor costs and expensive benefits packages including retirement funds.

While the health care deal would be preparatory to a series of major restructuring of American auto companies, the Detroit giants are still in deep trouble with Ford facing a drop in its available liquidity to a number under $30 billion by the end of 2007. The current restructuring plan for Ford will cost the company more than $17 billion through 2009 in a bid to return to profitable operations.