Debt Be Not Proud

One moment the government is solicitous of bondholders. The next it tells creditors to go jump in a lake.

By Daniel Gross | NEWSWEEK
Published Apr 11, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Apr 20, 2009

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  • Posted By: The Messiah @ 04/13/2009 3:20:52 PM

    Without loans for GM and Chrysler, the 6,000 vendor suppliers who are owed billions, will go under as will the entire U.S. auto industry including the transplant companies like Honda, Toyota, Nissan, BMW, VW, etc. who use the same vendor suppliers to deliver up to 80% of all component required to build a car in America.

    • Posted By: olderwiser @ 04/13/2009 10:53:48 PM

      Well then, Messiah, if all the cars are gone, then you can buy you a horsey to ride. Maybe even a biblical donkey. Slow down and enjoy life.

    • Posted By: Scuromondo @ 04/13/2009 3:44:12 PM

      GM and Chrysler will do busniess the way they've always done business, whether we give them billions more dollars or not. And, based on the way they've always done business, the probability is they will spend those billions of dollars doing bad business and then come back asking for more.

      As with the financial crisis, for every "expert" who paints doomsday scenarios resulting from a failure to bail-out, there is another "expert" who will refute every scenario just as convincingly. Since we've already spent more than $700billion testing one unfounded, inconclusive theory, why not make the other choice on this one and see what happens.

  • Posted By: kenfromillinois @ 04/13/2009 1:36:31 PM

    This administration lacks any trace of leadership and organization. The WH is now occupied by the big, the bad, and the ugly. This crew makes Bush and his crew look like rocket scientists.

    • Posted By: thinkTwice @ 04/13/2009 6:26:25 PM

      wakey, wakey little boy.

    • Posted By: ConservaDem @ 04/13/2009 1:40:54 PM

      WTF reality are you living in?

  • Posted By: vstillwell @ 04/13/2009 2:48:14 PM

    "Laissez-faire capitalism may be cruel, but that's what it is. It's "survival of the fittes." If GM is not fit enough to compete, so much the better for the remaining competitors" That's the whole point of this mess genious: What competitors are left? They're all foreign except for Ford, which is limping along too. I guess we can all work at McDonald's or for the government. That's what "laissez-faire" capitalism mixed with retarded Republicans equals.

    • Posted By: Scuromondo @ 04/13/2009 2:54:49 PM

      There are plenty of competitors left. Admittedly, Fords are mostly built in Mexico these days. But still, Honda and Toyota are very strong American manufacturers with a highly skilled and well-compensated employment base.

  • Posted By: vstillwell @ 04/13/2009 2:42:12 PM

    The question we all have to ask is this: Who is going to save us from the GOP?

  • Posted By: The Messiah @ 04/13/2009 12:59:02 PM

    GM and the U.S. auto industry can save themselves with a little cooperation from the FOOLS on Capitol Hill who are trying their damndest to destroy America. Wall Street gets $700 BILLION in free money, but the auto industry can't get asset based loans to get them thru the economic meltdown caused by OPEC and the oil companies financial greed. Only in America would the people cut off their nose to spite their face and eliminate 20 million U.S. jobs in the process.

    • Posted By: Scuromondo @ 04/13/2009 2:40:42 PM

      Laissez-faire capitalism may be cruel, but that's what it is. It's "survival of the fittes." If GM is not fit enough to compete, so much the better for the remaining competitors.

  • Posted By: 1stserve @ 04/13/2009 2:39:21 PM

    There is enough blame to go around, so it is not just the Union???s fault here. At the end of the day it is management that is making the deciding on how to operate the business. There needs to be a leader at GM who can make the tough decisions, not just asking the hourly employees to give up more! They have to change the way they operate as a company. Union Leadership needs to recognize that they have to make some tough choices too, or there will not be a GM.
    I am not thrilled about bailing GM out, but if we do not do this, it will cost us more in the long run. More jobs lost, it will take longer for us to get out of this recession.
    GM needs a leader who has a vision and who can change the culture.

  • Posted By: vstillwell @ 04/13/2009 2:39:12 PM

    rramjet: Moron. You are a moron. You listened to Limbaugh and Beck today so you have all the answers. God are you really that stupid.

  • Posted By: rramjet @ 04/13/2009 2:16:01 PM

    Get the Union out of GM and you'll save the company; that's why Toyota, Nissan and Hyundai are so successful in their plants built in the South. They also make a better product!!

  • Posted By: lovo del norte @ 04/13/2009 1:49:57 PM

    Let GM go down, let real entrepreneurs take over in little pieces and make new companies, better companies. I am pretty sure they will learn from this. We do not need companies based up on borrowed money. A company should borrow only what is sure it can repay and not on speculation only.

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 04/13/2009 10:42:53 AM

    We are an optimistic country in preparing our rules and laws for government and business. Thus, when the laws and plans are drawn up they seem to provide mostly for success and hardly any for failure. Therein lies this problem where the provisions for bondholders are up in the air without legal support either to let bondholders drown or to rescue them. Try to plan in better in advance when the laws and corporate charters are drawn next time so that we, the general public and shareholders will not feel that you are conspiring against our interests behind a curtain as you propose to bail us out or let our investments disappear. Just knowing that people like Abrahamoff exist causes us to see one around every corner in these tense times, even in our government and among our "rescuers" who might just throw us an iron lifesaver as we struggle in the waters.

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