Quote Of The Day: This Industry Has Gone Changin' Edition

by Edward Niedermeyer

Published: May 12th, 2009

quote of the day this industry has gone changin edition

“You don’t need banks and bondholders to make cars.”

—Anonymous White House official to the Wall Street Journal‘s Neil King Jr. and Jeffrey McCracken. Check out their detailed breakdown of the White House/Chrysler Bondholder negotiations at the WSJ.

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VLAD on May 13, 2009

It's just cover for wealth transfer to a sector where minorities are over represented. If the quality sucked under private ownership, it will be dismal under .gov ownership and productivity will plunge. No one but some UAW people and official institutions will be stupid enough to buy these vehicles.

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Old Guy Ben on May 13, 2009

By a funny coincidence, you definitely need banks to SELL cars.

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Wsn on May 13, 2009
Pch101 : May 13th, 2009 at 11:54 am Turning over 55% of the company to the UAW is not socialist in nature? Complete the following math problem: $0 X 55% = $____. There’s your answer. -------------------------------------------- Then why not shut all those pesky bond holders up by giving them 100%?

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Pch101 on May 13, 2009
Then why not shut all those pesky bond holders up by giving them 100%? For one, it wasn't necessary. For another, they were offered the business and rejected the offer. Clearly, they wanted the cash, not the operations, equity or liabilities. The whole point of a bankruptcy is to discharge debt. If you complete bankruptcy without alleviating the debt load, then there wasn't much point in doing it in the first place. The new entity needs workers. It doesn't need the existing bondholders. Reality bites, I guess.

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