Government Above The Law

Simple English "secured creditor" now means "stupid fool" by government decree.

And wonder why low cost credit isn't there to be had. We certainly underestimate the GM damage.

The irony is that so many in the NG said President Bush was, taking away OUR Constitutional right yet none were being "taken" and now that BO is ACTUALLY taking away our rights, nobody seems to be concerned. BO and the Dims are doing things that they do not have the Constitutional authority to do LOL

Not quite, Common stock can legally be wiped out in bankrupt court but PREFERRED stock holders and BOND holders have ALWAYS been inline BEFORE other creditor in bankruptcy court.

SOMETHING is radically wrong with the Union coming before PREFERRED stock holders and BOND holders and lawyers that I spoke with are astounded that it is being allowed to happing. US contract laws are being wiped out, that is unbelievable!!

In plain language, I think the argument goes something like this:

The retiree health fund (now to be administered by the union) needs to get a substantial chunk of what's left as a matter of public policy, because if it doesn't, the taxpayers will ultimately foot the bill for their care. Whatever assets GM still has to distribute are a result of its operations during a period of time when these health obligations were allegedly being funded - if in fact they weren't, then the assets on hand basically include ill-gotten-gains which must be restituted before determining what assets are left to distribute through bankruptcy.

Those who argue that this is illegal are asking us to look at the trees and ignore the forest. They are in effect asking that the taxpayers shoulder the cost of GM's financial mismanagement by picking up the unavoidable retiree health care costs, so that the creditors can grab a greater chunk of the carcass.

Granted, some of the creditors who stand to loose are themselves health care / pension funds, but they are probably not loosing their entire portfolios, and we may need to start taking a more careful look at where that money is allowed to be invested.

Given that government is ultimately the insurer of last resort, government needs to take a stronger role in keeping an eye on where health care funds are investing. It may ultimately prove a lot simpler to just drop the shell-game pretense of private health care financing, and run it as a public system funded by a combination of employer and employee contributions.

Like Pearl Harbor, they will care when it is too late.

I would have said plain bullshit.

So non-auto, non-union pension money loaned to GM is less important than UAW?

That is the truth. Honest people subsidising the f*ck-ups witha good slide of corruption inbetween.

UAW/CAW unionists aught to ask how come the union management were not watching this unfold 2, 5 10 years ago?

It was the plan all along to dump the GM turkey onto the taxpayers lap. Just that there wasn't enough honesty and integrity in DC and Ottawa to tell them to screw off.

Think about it this way: which is better from a public policy standpoint?

GM retiree health benefits being unfunded, or UAW pension getting a little and other pension funds that were invested in GM loosing the

17% of what they might have been able to get that the UAW fund is going to get?

Wiping out the GM retiree health benefits doesn't just mean those retirees get screwed, it means that ultimately you and I as the taxpayers will have to pick up the eventual cost of their care.

Odd that you claim this, but then attack the one provision of the re- organization plan that is actually trying to do something to mitigate the degree to which the unavoidable cost of GM's retired workers lands on your lap and mine!

Did they or did they not just not take a quick look at the Chrysler deal and decide to let it happen?

Seems to me that the executive branch may write the reorganization plans, but it's actually a bankruptcy judge who has to approve them.

You can argue the legality or illegality, morality or immorality, practicality or impracticality forever - but one thing that is clear is that its not going to happen unless all three branches of government go along with it.

Easy, liquify GM and pay the bond holders and preffered share holders first.

As many of these creditors getting shafted are other peoples pensions in

401K, IRA and private pension plans.

What you are really saying is to hell with other people, GM employees come above everyone else. Might even be your own pension that is getting screwed!

GMers are self centered pawns of government corruption. Pure an simple.

"Mike" wrote in news:4a31085e$0$31438$ snipped-for-privacy@news-radius.ptd.net:

Gee, I remember it was humorous when the Democrats were crying foul. Funny how people have a different outlook when they get the same kind of treatment they cheered on when it was their Pit bull doing the same kind of things. LOL

I don't like some of these things either but hypocrisy is not a virtue Mikey.

They were going to hear the case, even stated it. And in a odd way later declined with a one sentance release. Usually you get pages on a judgement. Sounds like Obama asked the judges if they liked their jobs. Maybe someday someone will setup Obama and post his antics to the web unedited by the leftist-liberal media.

With a political gun to his head, yep.

No argument at all.

It is immoral to change the law on the fly. It is illegal to change the law on the fly.

One might ask with all the corruption spending going on if in fact Obama is a Muslim declaring financial bankruptcy spending to screw up the USA even further.

In which case, you and I as the taxpayers end up picking up the health care expenses for GM's now uninsured retirees.

I think it makes sense to screw other pensions out of 17% of what they might have been able to get, in order that there be anything at all available to cover the GM retirees, so that taxpayers and insured patients don't end up picking up the cost their inevitable emergency- room primary care.

If anything, more true of those who invested in the company than those who worked there...

You don't buy this argument because you don't actually understand what is happening. The UAW fund is not getting all of the assets available, it's getting 17% of them. Which does not mean that secured creditors get nothing, it means that they get 17% less than they might have gotten.

No, one judge, the judge it lands on first by geography, decided to hold it up for a day to take a more careful look.

And then decided to let it go.

Because there was no judgement. She simply released the temporary hold.

Have you ever read the portion of the constitution pertaining to tenure of supreme court justices? Didn't think so.

Actually, not it's not. It's illegal to pass certain types of retroactive laws though.

Now I'm not even sure why I bothered replying to your drivel. Oh well, already written.

And the cost of that, compared to continuing to bail out GM and their unions is what? Have you even begun to think this through, or are you just knee-jerking the response above?

The cost to bailout GM could have been zero. Just let them go bankrupt.

this is tax payer money

You can not really be that slow a thinker can you? If you are, God help us if you have produced any children.

One of the things learned by the various governments from the twenty some bankruptcies, of major and minor steel companies, during the eighties was the tremendous loss of tax revenue, from the busboys and waitresses up to the suppliers, union and non union workers and CEOs. Some towns and cities took ten years of more to recover while others still have not recovered.

The government realized that with GM going bankrupt billions in tax dollars would be lost to the federal, state and local governments from the nearly one million people that depend directly and indirectly on GM for there business and personal income.

..

GM lost it already.

Just that the costs have shifted from those who caused it to those who did not cause it and had nothing to do with it.

GMC - Government Motors Communism style.