Political Humor - The Chrysler Fire Sale
Political Humor – The Chrysler Fire Sale
The Obama administration brokered a deal in the early days of its tenure, to reorganize Chrysler by taking its better assets and placing them in a new organization. The plan was to add strength to the deal by bringing in a foreign investor to share in custodianship over the ‘good’ assets. The bad debt and poorly performing assets were dumped on US taxpayers. Fiat of Italy, the UAW and the federal government would then be the owners of the new Chrysler. It is still unclear what the new Chrysler could be expected to produce that consumers would be willing to pay for.
The federal government has little if any experience in running a profitable business, but has teamed with the UAW – which also has zero experience running an enterprise. Together these two organizations should succeed in sucking up billions of taxpayer dollars but will probably accomplish little else. If it is interested in earning any kind of profit, Fiat should be backing out of this deal in a hurry.
Still, Team Obama presses on. They have a number of reasons to get the Chrysler / Fiat deal done quickly. The following top ten reasons outline why Obama and company want to run Chrysler and avoid bankruptcy court.
10. Get something done quickly – Obama prides himself on quick action if not sound judgment. This is reason enough to stall the deal. Team Obama operates by the ‘ready, fire, aim’ mentality as was displayed in the early decision to close Guantanamo Prison Camp for Terrorists. Doing something quickly is always more important that doing something successfully. If a deal fails, Obama can always find a scapegoat upon which to place the blame. CNN will help.
9. Steamroll secured investor rights - Obama intervened to save the UAW at the expense of share and bond holders. Unfortunately, some of the bond holders turned out to be Indiana pensioners who are demanding their rights as secured creditors be upheld in court. Obama was indeed surprised to learn that all Chrysler secured bond holders were not members of a Country Club who didn’t really need their investments. These are exactly the people Obama is supposed to protect from evil, capitalist business executives.
8. Provide taxpayer support to attorneys and plaintiffs - The Obama administration is considering creation of a ‘victims fund’ to compensate personal injury attorneys (and sort of compensate their clients) for cases pending against Chrysler. Obama will again set himself up as a hero using taxpayer funds to reward attorneys for bringing product liability actions against Chrysler. The public doesn’t have much trouble in seeing victims of faulty products compensated, but seeing their attorneys rewarded with a Malibu Condo is another matter. A normal bankruptcy proceeding would provide a court supervised distribution of remaining assets to cover injured parties’ claims. This new Chrysler organization wouldn’t owe plaintiffs or their attorneys anything. Obama would be the hero and taxpayers would get the bill.
7. Screw over Ford –Ford arrogantly chose to not sacrifice itself upon the altar of Obama worship in the early days of the economic crisis. The company is therefore stuck with its existing UAW contracts and dealer relationships that it would rather be rid of. However, instead of begging for Obamahelp, the company chose to work the problems out on its own. For this they deserve to be punished. Unfortunately for the administration, everything the administration does to improve GM and Chrysler will only help Ford.
6. Save money on service training - Both Chrysler and GM need to save money on providing service training to those that work on their products. By cutting dealerships, GM and Chrysler shave millions in overhead costs. Dealers who were cut are rightfully upset, but they should realize that there will be few new GM and Chrysler product sales to service.
5. Show voters that government can make good investments – Creating a successful public investment by giving voters the bill for the bad assets and a small percentage of ownership is a long shot at best. Still, Team Obama is out to prove its superhuman ability to make good things happen out of public trust and taxpayer dollars.
4. Stop losing $100 million per day – This is a feat only Democrats could accomplish. Running an enterprise that experiences catastrophic losses on a daily basis leaves quite a bit of room for improvement. In the Democrats’ world of reasoning, it would reflect well upon them if they can figure out how to cut the losses to half this figure. Republicans are thinking that these losses should be cut altogether.
3. Totally screw current share holders – Similar to the Indiana pension funds suing to prevent the sale, holders of common Chrysler stock need to be punished for investing money in an enterprise not operated by the government or by an arm of the Democrat party. Accordingly, Team Obama couldn’t care less about current ownership unless those rights are transferred to the rightful owners – the UAW.
2. Sell off American assets to a foreign investor – In keeping with His status as first Citizen of the World (COW), President Obama wants to spread America’s wealth abroad. By sending US taxpayers the bill for poorly performing Chrysler debts and sharing the remaining assets with a foreign company, Obama can show His generosity for sharing access to American markets with others.
1. Hand over the company to the UAW – The UAW has long contended that they are the most valuable piece of the auto manufacturing industry. Working men and women who build the Chrysler product line would seem to Obama to be the ones qualified to run the company The President has thus resurrected the old Soviet idea that workers should control the means of production. Obama will probably meet the same level of success as did the Soviet Union.