Big 3

[jeninflorida]

they are seperate but equal, they will have a different plan.

the only good thing is that Obama big heather care plan was an investment in technology and that was pretty much about it. from what i read the "savings" in technology would make health care more affordable

JEN

Take it to the bank, if we go to universal healthcare the politicians and fat cats will get better care than everyone else, regardless of the rules. I cant imagine Hillary or Nancy Pelosi getting in line and waiting patiently to see the MD.

 

[R. Richard]

JEN

Take it to the bank, if we go to universal healthcare the politicians and fat cats will get better care than everyone else, regardless of the rules. I cant imagine Hillary or Nancy Pelosi getting in line and waiting patiently to see the MD.

It's my understanding that Massachusetts now has state required universal health care. Every resident is required to buy Massachusetts health care insurance. Apparently the service is declining and it now supposedly takes about a year to schedule a routine physical.

Any Literotica people from Massachusetts?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

JEN

The system Obama wants is something similar to what Florida uses. If you have ANY dealings with the state, a file is created for you, and anyone with the right access status can examine your file, or parts of it. But shit happens.

I discovered it by accident when I deleted 1000s of people from the system. The MIS people gave me a 'new' used computer, and I cleaned out all the files that were on the hard-drive.

The economic services people went nuts because all their clients disappeared after I cleaned my hard-drive.

The bottom-line is, Obama wants a system that the CIA and FBI can examine, so they'll have access to all your medical information.

 

[cloudy]

The bottom-line is, Obama wants a system that the CIA and FBI can examine, so they'll have access to all your medical information.

Lame.

Go have some coffee, then try again. I'm really disappointed in you lately. Not up to your usual self at all.

 

[jeninflorida]

in the end GM will still fail...maybe not this year..maybe not next if they get another 30 billion. if the feds bail out gm...we become "america the strong, america the socialist" interesting times that we live in

JEN

The system Obama wants is something similar to what Florida uses. If you have ANY dealings with the state, a file is created for you, and anyone with the right access status can examine your file, or parts of it. But shit happens.

I discovered it by accident when I deleted 1000s of people from the system. The MIS people gave me a 'new' used computer, and I cleaned out all the files that were on the hard-drive.

The economic services people went nuts because all their clients disappeared after I cleaned my hard-drive.

The bottom-line is, Obama wants a system that the CIA and FBI can examine, so they'll have access to all your medical information.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

CLOUDY

I think I'm right. When the Feds have all your medical information in one computer, its a snap for the Justice Department to snoop and discover things, to complicate your life.

Are you aware that the Feds already sell tons of information about you? Any place you use your social security number gets added to the Fed database, then the information is sold.

 

[jeninflorida]

well at least Canada put in some money...still in the end GM is gonna fail so why not let it go now?

JEN

The system Obama wants is something similar to what Florida uses. If you have ANY dealings with the state, a file is created for you, and anyone with the right access status can examine your file, or parts of it. But shit happens.

I discovered it by accident when I deleted 1000s of people from the system. The MIS people gave me a 'new' used computer, and I cleaned out all the files that were on the hard-drive.

The economic services people went nuts because all their clients disappeared after I cleaned my hard-drive.

The bottom-line is, Obama wants a system that the CIA and FBI can examine, so they'll have access to all your medical information.

 

[trysail]

It's official. Chrysler has filed for protection under the Bankruptcy Code. The company tried to avoid a formal reorganization.

Most attempts at restructuring outside of Bankruptcy Court are doomed— there are simply too many competing interests and the complexity is mind-boggling.

Chrysler tried to get some of its creditors to exchange their existing claims against the company for lower amounts. Exchange offers such as these are always a gigantic game of "chicken." A creditor juggles the risk of the hassle of an actual bankruptcy filing against the possibility that, by not participating in the exchange offer, it might retain the right to and receive payment in full. That's exactly what PIMCO ( the world's largest bond manager ) managed to pull off by not participating in GMAC's December exchange offer. PIMCO made a killing by correctly assessing the willingness of others to participate in GMAC's offer and "free riding" on their backs. It's not a game for the faint of heart— it is seriously high stakes and big-time pressure. People who play in that arena are notorious for dropping dead of heart attacks at age 45.

The odds of GM escaping bankruptcy are not high.

Here's a question for Lit's ersatz economists: why is it so difficult to be a successful manufacturer in the U.S.?

 

[The_Fool]

Here's a question for Lit's ersatz economists: why is it so difficult to be a successful manufacturer in the U.S.?

Indirect costs are too high.

 

[rgraham666]

[Here's a question for Lit's ersatz economists: why is it so difficult to be a successful manufacturer in the U.S.?

Because the people that run most U.S. companies, most of the West's for that matter, are not manufacturers. They are courtiers.

They dress right, they talk right, they go to the right meetings. They are, as all courtiers are, concerned chiefly with their status and their power. Producing quality items is a secondary, often a tertiary, consideration.

 

[ishtat]

h.

Here's a question for Lit's ersatz economists: why is it so difficult to be a successful manufacturer in the U.S.?

"In the US":-

1 Costs are too high.

2 The motor manufacturing industry worldwide has about 25% excess capacity.

3 The Indians and Chinese haven't even tried to export yet.

The current 'solutions' only address 1 . I'm not convinced that Fiat is necessarily a good long term partner. 2 & 3 aren't going to go away.


ersatz = substitute, imitation, especially of inferior quality.(OED)

 

[trysail]

President Barack Obama thanked everyone from unions to executives for working to keep Chrysler LLC alive while blaming “a small group of speculators” for forcing the automaker into bankruptcy.

“A group of investment firms and hedge funds decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout,” Obama said yesterday in Washington before Chrysler filed for bankruptcy protection.

Now, the government and Chrysler plan to use bankruptcy to compel the dissidents, all secured creditors, to go along with a plan to create a more viable carmaker in partnership with Italy’s Fiat SpA. In lashing out at the holdouts, Obama is attempting to rally the public behind his efforts to rescue the automaker, said Stuart Rothenberg, a Washington-based political analyst.

“In the real world, you have good guys and bad guys, and at the moment, auto executives, hedge-fund managers and bankers are all in the bad-guy category,” said Rothenberg. “He wants to be the guy who’s solving the problems and wants to make it clear who’s causing the problems.”

An anonymous group of 20 Chrysler lenders calling itself the “Committee of Chrysler Non-Tarp Lenders” said in a statement yesterday that they’d been treated worse than junior creditors during negotiations in violation of “long-recognized legal and business principles.” They said they were owed $1 billion.

The dissidents included OppenheimerFunds Inc., Perella Weinberg Capital Management LP and Stairway Capital Advisors, a person representing the group said, asking not to be identified. Also in their camp is Group G Capital Partners LLC, said another person who declined to be named.

After the president’s comments yesterday, Perella said it had agreed to the buyout offer.

Obama’s team had first offered secured lenders $2 billion for their $6.9 billion in loans, and then raised the offer to $2.25 billion. In a game of chicken, the holdouts asked for $2.5 billion, and Obama’s patience ran out.

“They were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices and they would have to make none,” Obama said. “Some demanded twice the return that other lenders were getting.”

Banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lent Chrysler $6.9 billion, reselling some of their secured loans at discounts to investors. Chrysler took a $4 billion bailout loan from the U.S. Treasury and was racing to reduce debt to meet a government deadline for more aid, after workers agreed to give up $10 billion in future pension benefits.

While lenders representing 70 percent of the Chrysler loans agreed to Obama’s offer of $2.25 billion in cash, the dissidents ignored a deadline of 6 p.m. on April 29, according to one of the investors who declined to be named.

Many dissidents paid from 50 cents to 70 cents on the dollar for their Chrysler loans, so they’re sitting on losses, according to people familiar with the matter.

Ronald E. Kolka, Chrysler’s chief financial officer, said in a court filing that the first-lien debt is trading at about 15 cents on the dollar in the secondary market.

Chrysler, with about 54,000 employees, listed assets and debt of more than $1 billion in documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. As of Dec. 31, Chrysler companies had assets of about $39.3 billion and liabilities of $55.2 billion, according to court filings.

Dan Arbess, a partner at New York-based Perella, didn’t return calls seeking comment. John Rijo, principal of Uniondale, New York-based Stairway, and Group G Capital Chairman Geoffrey Gwin declined to comment.

OppenheimerFunds, based in New York, said it rejected the offers because the government “unfairly” demanded that the fund’s shareholders make greater sacrifices than were being asked of unsecured creditors.

“Our holdings in secured Chrysler debt are entitled to priority in long-established U.S. bankruptcy law, and we are obligated to our fund shareholders to support agreements that respect these laws,” the company said in an e-mail.

In the deal Chrysler tried to conclude out of court, Fiat would have become a 20 percent owner of Chrysler, and a union retiree health-care trust fund would hold 55 percent, with the rest of the company staying in the government’s hands initially, according to people familiar with the matter. The government intends to replicate this model, using bankruptcy to set up a new company, people familiar with the plan said.

Chrysler’s dissident lenders have on their side the “absolute priority” bankruptcy rule, which holds that value must be distributed according to the legal priorities of the stakeholders. What riled the group that put out the statement yesterday was that junior creditors -- a workers health-care trust -- would get equity in a new Chrysler entity while the group’s members wouldn’t.

“Junior creditors are ordinarily not entitled to anything until senior secured creditors like our investors are repaid in full,” the dissidents said in the statement.

The absolute priority rule is regularly modified in bankruptcy court, said Richard Hahn, co-chairman of the bankruptcy practice at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, a New York law firm that isn’t involved in the Chrysler negotiations. Two- thirds of the lenders can force the holdouts to go along with them in a procedure called a cram-down.

“The U.S. bankruptcy code foresees the possibility that it may be necessary to vary from absolute priority, in particular when a two-thirds majority is convinced it makes legal or business sense,” Hahn said. “If the government has consents from 70 percent, that’s more than enough” to give equity to junior creditors.

The dissidents “may be calculating that they can get more money by waiting a bit longer,” Hahn said. “Presumably they will file objections in court. The issue is less whether they’ll win than whether they can cause a meaningful delay that may cause Chrysler or the government to come to an accommodation.”

As they engage in that next game of chicken, the dissidents may receive more of the public condemnation they got yesterday from Obama and from lawmakers including Representative John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat.

“The rogue hedge funds that refused to agree to a fair offer to exchange debt for cash from the U.S. Treasury -- firms I label as the ‘vultures’ -- will now be dealt with accordingly in court,” Dingell said.

The case is In re: Chrysler LLC, 09-50002, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan)
____________________________________

As one observer puts it:
"The Obama administration tried to blame hedge funds and distressed debt investors for lacking patriotism but while the President’s job is to defend the taxpayer, institution investors have to answer to their own stakeholders. Washington offered them a package worth less than 10 cents on the dollar; they decided to take their chances in a courtroom.

However, Chrysler’s destiny wasn’t determined yesterday and its ultimate fate lies ahead. It is hard to comprehend a lean mean successful auto company run by Fiat and 90% owned by the UAW and the Federal Government. While the profit motive may promote a bit of avarice and greed, it also creates innovation and efficiency, something not all that evident with the government and the UAW. In all likelihood, it is hard to see a quick surgical bankruptcy proceeding yielding a more efficient car company. Instead, much of what is now Chrysler will be stripped away. Fiat will make a go of it for a few years but it is more likely that Chrysler as we know it disappears than becomes a smaller, more vibrant maker of automobiles.

The Chrysler saga, of course, is going to serve as a prelude to the General Motors story. The President is playing the same game of hardball with GM’s debt holders as he did unsuccessfully with Chrysler’s. Now that Chrysler has ended in bankruptcy, everyone associated with the efforts to save GM will watch closely to see how smoothly the early stages of bankruptcy proceed. The hope is that little changes from an operating point of view. However, Chrysler is going to shut production for up to 2 months and it will clearly begin to have some impact on suppliers. In the end GM debt holders can be satisfied out of court if they are treated as senior creditors. But Obama’s pledges to auto unions appear to make that difficult. We will all see the story roll out over the next month."

 

[trysail]

There is a very good reason that investors shy away from unionized companies. The list of companies destroyed by labor stupidity and intransigence is a very long one.

( Fair Use Excerpts )

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601209&sid=aWLkrF4pkaCw&refer=industries
GM Bankruptcy Probable as Obama Shields UAW Benefits
By Jeff Green and Caroline Salas

May 4 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp. may be more likely to end up in bankruptcy based on the Obama administration’s willingness to place Chrysler LLC into court protection to safeguard union health-care benefits.

With GM and its biggest bondholders at odds over resolving $27 billion in unsecured claims by a June 1 deadline, the Chrysler model indicates that President Barack Obama may resort to bankruptcy to end any impasse over that debt, said Martin Fridson, chief executive officer of New York-based credit investment firm Fridson Investment Advisors.

Chrysler filed for protection April 30 after the U.S. was unable to persuade secured lenders to swap $6.9 billion in claims for $2.25 billion in cash. A union retiree health-care trust was offered a 55 percent stake in Chrysler.

“This confirms the fear, which right along has been that the Obama administration is more sensitive or beholden to the unions than the bondholders,” Fridson said. “It makes it clear that GM bondholders aren’t likely to be able to work out anything outside of bankruptcy.”

...GM bondholders proposed April 30 they get a 58 percent ownership stake in the Detroit-based automaker in exchange for their $27 billion in unsecured claims. Bondholders are objecting to GM’s proposal they get a 10 percent share of GM equity while a union health fund would get $10 billion in cash and as much as a 39 percent stake for $20 billion in unsecured claims...

...“Obama has said the government doesn’t want to run a car company, so why not take the bondholders’ deal, which gets them out of ownership?” said Pete Hastings, a fixed-income analyst at Morgan Keegan & Co. in Memphis, Tennessee. “The 10 percent ownership offer is ridiculous, so their best shot is to try and win in court.”

The bondholders shouldn’t be surprised that the unions are getting preference over investors in an Obama administration, Egan said.

“If the government is providing money to these entities, they’re going to be looking out for labor’s interest first and foremost,” he said.

“ You may claim it’s unfair, but that’s the political reality and the time and cost of suing the federal government is prohibitive in most cases.”

*****​

 

[trysail]

( Fair Use Excerpts )

Chrysler Non-TARP Lenders Object to Auction Plan
By Christopher Scinta and Tiffany Kary

May 4 (Bloomberg) -- A group of Chrysler LLC’s secured lenders is seeking to block the bankrupt company’s plan to sell its business at auction this month, arguing that the U.S. government is violating federal law in order to preserve the automaker.

The group, calling itself Chrysler’s non-TARP lenders, in reference to the Troubled Assets Relief Program, seeks to block the proposed sale to an alliance led by Fiat SpA, as well as a request by the U.S. automaker for approval of a $4.5 billion Treasury loan to finance the reorganization. The group said secured lenders who agreed to the Fiat deal, such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., were conflicted because they had also accepted TARP funds.

The process is “tainted” because it was dominated by the government, the lenders argued in papers filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The group also said the short period of time given to evaluate the sale was improper and the hearing on bid procedures that began today should be delayed. The judge delayed the hearing until 2:30 p.m. tomorrow, ordering the members of the lender group reveal their identities.

The sale “improperly attempts to extinguish their property rights without their comment,” attorneys for the objecting lenders wrote in court papers. “The sale motion should be denied because it seeks approval of a sale that cannot be approved under the bankruptcy code,” they argued, adding “The court should not permit a patently illegal sales process to go forward.”

Chrysler’s planned alliance with Turin, Italy-based Fiat, would create the world’s sixth-largest carmaker. Chrysler, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, wasn’t able to pursue the merger outside bankruptcy because of opposition by the objecting lenders.

Under bankruptcy law, offers for bankrupt companies or their assets are generally subject to the possibility of higher bids at a court-supervised auction.

The Fiat offer, to be made from an as-yet unnamed entity formed by the Italian automaker, Chrysler employees and other parties, will be the lead bid in an auction, which is typically required for assets sold in bankruptcy. Chrysler is asking U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez to approve bidding rules for an auction which would require creditor objections to the sale be submitted by May 11, followed by a May 15 deadline for competing bids. The bankrupt company seeks a May 21 hearing to approve the winning bid, according to the court filing.

Chrysler, in its April 30 filings, listed assets of $39.3 billion and liabilities of $55.2 billion, making it the fifth-largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News.

Chrysler’s proposed sale favors junior creditors over senior creditors and would improperly channel the proceeds to specific creditor groups, the objecting lender group said in the court filing.

In court today, Thomas Lauria, a lawyer for the secured lender group, said some of its members have received death threats. In response to the judge’s demand that the members of his group be revealed, Lauria said the identities of more lenders would be revealed “promptly.”

******​

The group also objected to the request for debtor-in- possession financing, saying the terms of the loan, along with other requests by Chrysler, channeled $25 billion into the hands of other claimholders, including other secured lenders. Some of those lenders have been the recipient of government funds through TARP, the group said in the filing.

The objectors argued that the payments subvert the usual Chapter 11 bankruptcy process. Under Chrysler’s first-day motions in the bankruptcy case, it sought to pay $5.3 billion to business partners, $4.5 billion in other pre-bankruptcy debt, including employee wages, $9.8 billion in health care and other worker benefits, $5 billion in unfunded pension payments and $2 billion to secured lenders.

The proposed transactions improperly override “the contractual rights of the Chrysler non-TARP lenders and reverses the priority scheme” of the bankruptcy code, they argued. “Only if the Treasury Department is prepared to acknowledge and respect the priority of claims contemplated by the Bankruptcy Code” should the DIP loan or any of the other transactions be allowed, the group added.

Chrysler has agreement from 62 percent of its secured lenders who hold 90 percent of a $6.9 billion loan, a lawyer for the lenders said. JPMorgan, the largest holder of the Chrysler loan, is the administrative agent for the other lenders and collected votes last week of lenders agreeing to a $2 billion cash payment in exchange for canceling their loan, said Peter Pantaleo, an attorney for the New York-based bank, in bankruptcy court today.

The lenders in opposition objected to the plan to pay unsecured creditors $8 billion for pre-petition claims, including $4.2 billion to unsecured creditors, $980 million for extended service programs, $375 million for incentive and rebate programs and $3.65 billion for essential suppliers.

Chrysler witness Robert Manzo, executive director of Capstone Advisory Group, testified in court today that some of the payments Chrysler seeks to authorize will go to union employees at idle plants, and to other unsecured creditors.

The objections of the group of secured lenders revolve around the argument that the bankruptcy code doesn’t allow unsecured creditors to be paid ahead of them. They alleged that, by paying union employees and business partners early in the case, Chrysler is stripping itself of assets promised as collateral to the secured lenders.

“The Treasury Department relies on TARP as the purported authority to justify this taking even though TARP was enacted after the senior lenders’ liens on the debtors’ property were already in place,” the group said...

...Chrysler lost about $17 billion in 2008, according to court filings. The company said it’s averaging a cash burn rate of $1.7 billion per month, according to court papers.

The automaker has said the new company will have assets of $28.5 billion and debt of $26.5 billion. Assets are projected to grow to $49 billion by 2016, it said.

The new company’s net income is expected to turn positive by 2012, according to court papers, reaching $3 billion by 2016.

The case is In re. Chrysler LLC, 09-50002, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan)

 

[WRJames]

Has anyone else ever seen a Cadillac pickup truck? I've see one twice now -- I think it was a Cadillac Escalade EXT or something like that.

Anyway -- the very existence of such a vehicle is, in my mind, sufficient reason to terminate GM -- immediately!

 

[The_Fool]

Has anyone else ever seen a Cadillac pickup truck? I've see one twice now -- I think it was a Cadillac Escalade EXT or something like that.

Anyway -- the very existence of such a vehicle is, in my mind, sufficient reason to terminate GM -- immediately!

Escalade EXT is a rebadged Chevy Avalanche with more refined creature comforts.