Posted on 05/04/2009 4:34:50 AM PDT by Scanian
'I'm saying that when the president does it that means it's not illegal," shouts Frank Langella's Richard Nixon at Michael Sheen's David Frost in "Frost/ Nixon."
He was wrong, and so was President Obama when he said last week that he'd override the contractual and legal rights of Chrysler's senior lenders and carve up the company between the government and the United Auto Workers.
Typically, lenders who make money available to a company in return for a first claim on the company's as-
O's deal will make investors sit on their assets.
sets get about 80 cents back for every dollar they lend should it hit the rocks. Others to whom the company owes money, but who have no claim on the assets -- workers, suppliers, junior lenders -- get much less.
Yet Obama forced the senior lenders to take something like 30 cents for every dollar they'd lent Chrysler. Many lenders -- the big banks who'd taken federal bailout money -- rolled over. But some hedge-fund managers pointed out that they have a legal, fiduciary responsibility to do the best they can for their investors (which include pension funds) and decided to take their chances with a bankruptcy judge.
Never mind that this is their long-established legal right. Obama is furious with these "speculators," and hinted that he knows where they live and will get even when the new financial-industry regulations are drafted.
Unfortunately for the president, the ball is now in Judge Arthur Gonzalez's court, literally. This former New York City school teacher, shaved-head, in-the-office at 6 A.M. jurist sits on Manhattan's federal bankruptcy court, and already has the nasty and complicated Enron and WorldCom bankruptcies under his belt.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I beg your pardon?
Pay back from, or to, Obama?
I hope this judge hands the Obama administration its head.
HTRN...
The question is, will they make overatures to him in "Chicago Fashion" like they did to all the Hedge Fund Managers as it has been noted on the Frank Beckmann show and here:
http://www.finemrespice.com/node/56
The stupid American people, did they not know how it is "done" in Chicago?
Bring it on. I’d love to see him imprison Holder for contempt of court.
Obama when he said last week that he’d override the contractual and legal rights,the obama pattern.
Let’s pray for Judge Gonzalez, that he upholds the Rule of Law.
Maybe the judge will ask for 0be’s proof of requirements to hold office.
And they can be sued for damages if they do otherwise. If a hedge-fund manager forgoes a million dollars of investor money, he'd better have a good business reason to do so, or he can be personally sued by the investors for every penney of it. And there will be a flood of trial lawyers knocking on the investors' doors. The poor bastard hedge-fund managers must know what it's like to be a banker manager in Venezuela.
Presidente Barack Mugabe's characterization of investors as "speculators" is dispicable and a threat to the rule of law and property rights of all.
If he does as well on Chrysler as he did on WorldCom, the share holders will get about 50 cents per share.
Meanwhile, the lawyers get...
.....he knows where they live.....
He should think Eliot Spitzer. Eliot rubbed out Hank Greenburg and was destroyed.
Will Obama be so lucky? Will he actually survive?
Corrupt and incompetent is a bad combination for the economy.
Pray for America
When are the bond-holders (those evil pension funds and Joe-average investors) launch a class-action suit, or at least file for an injunction, to slow this process down to expose it for what it is?
More broadly, if lenders know that any deals they strike can be overturned by a president who, like Langella/Nixon, can do things that are otherwise illegal because he decides "they are in the interest of the nation," they'll raise the price they charge for their money -- and not only when lending to the government.
Anyone who thinks the way the administration is acting will not have an impact on the financial/capital markets is insane. The rule of law is one thing that mitigates some risk for investments. Eliminate that and people will sit on their money and the economy will suffer.
Obamarx is a friggin idiot.
Put me in the category that believes this whole thing is nothing more than a transfer from taxpayers to the UAW.
That said, I have another question.
It rises from last year when the Defense Dept awarded a large refueling plane contract to Northrupp in partnership with a French firm. THEN there was a union eruption over “Foreign ownership”, demanding that Boeing get the contract.
Where are all those objections to Fiat? Do the unions no longer consider foreign ownership objectionable?
This is the flaming bag of dog poo that GWB left on the doorstep of the White House on the way out the door, and Zero's been only too happy to step into it. His outbursts against the senior creditors of Chrysler last week were a sign that he didn't want to have to deal with seeing a major American corporation go bankrupt during his administration, but cleverly, GWB "set him up the bomb".
Right now, he's going to preside over the slow-motion destruction of two of three major American automobile companies, and his challenge is to make sure none of the hot stinky stuff sticks to his shoes in the eyes of the UAW.
Good grief. Obama would be doing exactly what he’s doing regardless of what GWB did.
Not to mention your answer had NOTHING to do with my question.
In light of the above, go back and read my answer and see if it makes sense. Sorry if the conclusion I've spelled out here was not obvious.
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