SPXplus10

Is One Automaker Default Almost a Sure Thing?

I don't think User 22758 has fully considered what the author is saying.

Bad money after good leads to MORE, not LESS pain than allowing a bankruptcy court to consider the actual equities in a reorg. The company that can emerge from bankruptcy is the one that deserves to emerge; if it is much much smaller, or tightly focused on where it can actually compete successfully, how is that not a better outcome than where taxpayer dollars are used to continue to prop up a business plan and model that has simply outlived its used by date?

I would prefer that at least there be some honesty as to the use of the taxpayer funds: let the failing carmaker fail, and provide the discontinued workers (and pensioners) some direct relief. But giving the keys back to the same guys who got you there is the equivalent of handing the keys to the drunk driver who has just run a school bus off the road and and saying "please drive carefully ... this time".

Are we entering a new paradigm where workers actually have to think about whether they are being overpaid for the value they are adding (instead of worrying about how to justify more overtime, and more days off? Man, we entered it a while back - check out Bangalore, Shanghai, Korea etc. The fat and slow will lose. Our country has moved into stretch pants and recliner rockers. I'm all for being socially responsible (and giving direct benefits to those who need them) simply as a cost of civilized society (no moral judgments required). But enabling the corruption and waste in financial leadership under the guise of "protecting the workers' pensions" helps nothing, and doubles the bill when it comes.