Mo’ Money
…or else!
General Motors Corp. will offer the government the choice of giving it billions more in bailout money or seeing it file for bankruptcy when it presents a restructuring plan next week, according to a report published Saturday.
The online edition of The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, said the competing choices present a dilemma for the Obama administration, which may fear seeing the industrial icon carmaker fall into bankruptcy and cut more jobs if it’s refused more aid.
They want their cut of the “stimulus”, Mr. President.
After all, it’s kinda hard to understand your spending $5 billion for weatherizing buildings, $5.5 billion for “green” federal buildings and $1.3 billion for Amtrak when GM is threatening to put workers out on the street, isn’t it? Saying ‘no’ to these workers probably won’t make you too many friends now, will it? And who knows how many of them voted for you?
Welcome to the game of ‘bailout nation’. But this game moves fast. You thought you served up a whopper with that ’stimulus’ bill, didn’t you? Surprise!!! The ball is already back in your court.
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Plain and simple extortion. So let them file. It’s pretty obvious we can’t support 3 car makers in this country anymore. From the articles I’ve read it seems to me that when they couldn’t get the union to deal, they decided the money had to come from the government. They certainly didn’t try very hard and the unions have no intention of making more concessions. And why should they when our government is talking about handing out house payments for those that can’t make them?? Why not pick up the tab for salaries, health insurance, death insurance, etc for the car people?
This is a mess. Bush should never have considered those loans in the first place. I’m guessing the car makers figure it will be even easier this time around.
Nationalized car makers.
Comment by Maria — 2/15/2009 @ 8:35 am
Denninger makes a good case that Gettlefinger is making a big mistake that is going to cost his people dearly:
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/798-GM-Go-Boom.html
Comment by EDN — 2/15/2009 @ 10:28 am
He makes a good logical case–but he’s forgetting one important thing. The democrats are union people. The union works hard to get dems in office. I’m betting the unions are thinking it’s payback time. I’m guessing they fully expect Obama and Congress to hand money over and let the game continue. You don’t walk out on talks without even pretending to try unless you think the money is in the bag.
Logically congress, etc should force chapter 11–should have done it months ago. But this is politics. The unions fully believe they have the upper hand and sadly, they probably do.
Comment by Maria — 2/15/2009 @ 11:00 am
Maybe I’m wrong, but it looks to me like the unions have the most to lose at this point, so they should probably be a little careful. If they stick their necks out too far, they just might get their heads chopped off. But that’s not the union way, and like Maria says, they probably feel they’ve got some leverage with a Democrat White House and Congress.
We’ll see how it works out.
Comment by BMB — 2/15/2009 @ 11:02 am
I’m betting we’ll see entire unions thrown under the bus. That is the way Obama works.
Comment by Fred — 2/15/2009 @ 11:04 am
Fred, how do we know that? Obama is pretty much an unknown quantity — and I doubt that he’s going to play Reagan vs. PATCO.
Comment by BMB — 2/15/2009 @ 11:21 am
Late breaking news: Las Vegas service worker union members are worried that their jobs are at risk because of Obama’s grandstanding town meeting “Don’t go to Vegas” remarks directed at greedy bankers et. al. Some Vegas convention meetings have already been cancelled and I expect more will simply never be scheduled. And the wheels of the bus go bump bump bump.
Comment by Fred — 2/15/2009 @ 12:59 pm