Thread: Re-Volt?

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Jim, I always enjoy when you share Wallace with us, and he's done a fairly good job of debunking a wive's tale, in part, but I noticed he did samewhat the same falacy mongering thing himself toward the end. Granted, he was running out of column room and maybe he's addressed it elsewhere, but he tosses what he would refer to as a "throw away line" about how if GM had gone into normal bankruptcy it would be gone. That's a frequently used political device (in this case bipartisan) that's just flat out false. Had GM gone through "normal" bankruptcy they would have filed a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy wherein a court administrator would have protected it from it's creditors, and allowed it to renegotiate contracts, make structured pay backs of at least some of it's debt, and a long list of other procedures that have been repeated innumerable times by other companies that got themselves in financial trouble in a big way but are still around to tell about it. The rub is, GM went through a quasi-chapter 11 wherein instead of a legal court, the political class inserted itself and didn't follow the normal laws (like that's a surprise......). It's my opinion their primary objective was to save the UAW (which really means the political contributions of the union), along with a variety of less important manipulations to serve the interests of the political class (such as protecting questionable technologies such as the Volt, again for political not practical reasons). A real Chapter 11 wouldn't have turned out too much differently as far as, for instance, the viablility of sub contractors, but it would have made the company less dependant on government and union influence.

It's my opinion their primary objective was to save the UAW (which really means the political contributions of the union), would have made the company less dependant on government and union influence.[/QUOTE]
A little on unions! company owned pensions are money makers or brakers for companys, A company will have to put money in the pension to cover the workers so that amount is invested to get a return on that money but is not put back in the pension but becomes bonus for top brass,if there is no return due bad investments they still have to cover the pension amount thus costing the company more for that year. The people making the investment decisions are not in the pension system(does not hurt there pension). when the union has controll of its own penision the receive the amount needed for that year or contract but are solely responsible for their investments,if they lose money its on them. Yes i,m in a union (carpenter)we hold our own pension,my union officials get the same pension i get no more no less,they make bad investments it hurts them and me.A company that controlls the pension reminds me of social security ,the people making the decisions on the money are not in the system(why should they care) but thats a whole another major argument that would to fists a flying!! Pete