[JasonC]

Because the US treasury is promising, *if and only if they do*, to lend the company the $8 billion it would take to pay them back anything at all. If the US treasury does not do so, then said bondholders get jack squat, nothing, nada. They need the US treasury's side of the deal, and won't give them own side of the deal for the agreed by everyone else 29 cents on the dollar. If the US treasury says "fine, get blood from a stone", then won't get 5 cents on the dollar.

It is not like the bondholders own anything at all here. All they have is a claim against a bankrupt deadbeat who can't pay. They want the US treasury to pay them instead, and they want to dictate how much, too. To hell with them.

[RinaseaofDs]

They won’t get nothing. They’ll get first dibs on what’s liquidated in Chapter 7. This is Chapter 11. Gov’t wants to hand the company to the union for free. The union is ‘owed’ $20B in payments to a trust. The bondholders actually hold secured debt.

Why should the bondholders back off again?

Everybody thinks bankruptcy means the company ceases to exist. That’s not what bankruptcy is. Bankruptcy is when the company goes to the creditors.

The bondholders are the creditors. If the bondholders end up with the company, they’ll break the union, who by the way should be broken, since they put them in the mess they’re in right now. The union is a supplier, just like any other supplier. They aren’t owners, and they don’t hold secured debt.