Bailout Watch 448: Fiat Denies ChryCo Debt Assumption

I think it’s important to realize that the Detroit bailout is no longer an ideological battle. At the beginning of this $40 b-b-b-billion boondoggle (and counting), Motown-fed politicians defended the bailout by screaming “jobs! jobs! jobs!” even though the automakers themselves were screaming no such thing (aware as they no doubt were that those jobs! jobs! jobs! were doomed! doomed! doomed!). Now, you hear very little regarding “saving the middle class.” In fact, the rhetoric claiming we need to shell out for the domestics because “we must protect America’s industrial base” has also gone away. Now, Detroit’s new New Deal rests on a green platform (i.e., EVs), and depends entirely on “viability.” In other words, getting our freaking money back. Only not.

Ladies and gentlemen, the auto bailout bullet train has left the station. Suppliers get $5B. ChryCo and GM get umpteen more billions. To not provide the money would be to turn our back on our “investment.” So now the bailout is about what it was always really about: the transfer of power. The Presidential Task Force on Autos (PTFOA) is like the TVA; the feds have wrested the reins of power over a huge chunk of the US auto industry from their mismanagers, and they ain’t letting go until someone somewhere forces them to.

So the news that ChryCo’s CEO claimed that Fiat had agreed to assume 35 percent of Chrysler’s debt— countered by Fiat’s no NSFW way— means nothing. It simply shows that either A) Bob Nardelli misspoke (Fiat gets 35 percent of Chrysler’s shares) or B) the CEO will do anything to keep sucking on the federal teat.

Silly man. Someone should tell Mr. Nardelli that the Detroit bailout is no longer about him or Chrysler per se. He’s nothing more than a political pawn. OK, a federal employee. So chillax, Bob. Chyrsler’s future is in someone else’s hands.