Posted on 05/24/2009 5:40:12 AM PDT by libstripper
Bill Zastrow fears he’s about to lose $240,000 he put into General Motors bonds to finance his kids’ educations, and he puts lots of blame on one man: Barack Obama.
“GM bondholders are not speculators as President Obama calls us,” said Zastrow, the 58-year-old president of Millbury’s FileMark Corp. “We’re talking about people’s retirement funds and education funds. These aren’t derivatives or anything like that.”
As GM approaches a government-mandated June 1 deadline to either reorganize or file for bankruptcy, Zastrow and other small investors have formed “GM Main Street Bondholders” to call attention to their plight.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bostonherald.com ...
Or, "Heil den Dieb!"
Obama corrupts everything he touches, as he is corrupt himself, and this case is no different.
Hear! Hear!
This political charade has become the example of 0bama’s transparency...we can see right through it.
It’s time for 0bama to retire to Chicago. He’s not qualified to hold the office of POTUS. Hell, he’s not even qualified to be a US Citizen, IMO.
It’s time to take back the country.
We ignore the personal impact on this man at our peril as a society. It is dangerous to callously disregard what is being done to this man as necessary "for the greater good."
Historically, people have been slaughtered by the millions to achieve some despot's delusion of "a greater good."
The path being pursued by Obama is pure politics undermining the entire capitalist system where individuals make decisions as to where to place their money based upon their confidence in the process.
Confidence in the entire financial system is being destroyed in a short-term power play to help the unions. Nobody will ever again trust the government, the laws or the financial system to do the right thing. People like this GM bondholder are learning the hard way they are fools and suckers to support the current financial system.
We see the destruction of economic opportunity by the Obama socialists before our very eyes and you can be sure the lesson is not lost on the majority of Americans. Americans are discovering ours is no longer a financial system of rules protecting investment strategy but is, in fact, a political spoils system where your future depends on who is in power and whether or not you support that regime.
This is the kind of thing that could guarantee our return to an ancient barter system and the ancient subsistence life that went with it.
Our system was supposed to operate by rules and not rely on the whim of the emperor who happens to be sitting on the throne or the socialist leanings of the bankruptcy judge who happens to preside over the financial wreckage.
Amen, Brother.
I;m not sure this even happened during the depression.
I don't know that it ever was. Is investment supposed to be a sure thing? Certainly not in the case of corporate bonds. There's always a risk, including the complete loss of the investment.
My point is that an individual doesn't have any more rights to have his investment protected then a bank that lent GM billions. Bankruptcy means protection from ones debtors, no matter their size. I was also careful to point out that Obama has corrupted the process to help his friends. Did I not say so in my post?
Why didn't this fool invest in T-Bonds? Because he wanted the greater yield of GM junk bonds. Well, he got those yields for a while, but now the chickens have come home to roost. He made a bad investment and is paying the price. Any form of bankruptcy would have wiped this guy out. That's what owning junk bonds means. You get a greater yield but take a greater risk.
Maybe he should have bought a credit default swap.
This is possibly the most perfect posting (or article, for that matter) I've read on Free Republic since my first log in over 10 years ago. If you are not a professional columnist, you should be.
Mark
This guy was just as stupid as those Enron employees who piled all of their retirement savings into Enron stock.
Very good post, but I think it is very important to point something out here. There is very little about companies like GM and Chrysler that I would consider “capitalist” in any sense of the term. For decades they effectively functioned as government utilities or a government-protected cartel, so anything (such as a government takeover for the UAW) that forcibly changes their ownership structure or operating environment should hardly be seen as some kind of disruption of a “capitalist” business.
CHANGE you can live with, bunky.
I don’t know Mr. Zastrow’s politics or political philosophy but if he is like many in MA he is pro union and a Democrat. It is the unions and the Democrat environmental policies, such as CAFE and emission standards, and their taxes and other regulations which put GM in jeopardy.
To paraphrase the Reverend Wright, “Mr. Zastrow’s chickensssss have come home to roooosta!”
“Our system was supposed to operate by rules and not rely on the whim of the emperor who happens to be sitting on the throne or the socialist leanings of the bankruptcy judge who happens to preside over the financial wreckage.”
Clearly you don’t have a “nuanced” view of the American political system. Obama has already summed up his view of matters: “I won.”
The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the only issue at this point is how far down that road we get before American wakes up and tosses this despot out on his ear.
Full bankruptcy typically leaves a business entity with NOTHING. Creditors end up with all the assets. The bankruptcy laws are to protect the creditors from the entity by eliminating favorable treatment to some creditors at the expense of others.
Only a court has the power to deprive these bondholders of their rights. What is happening to GM is a bankruptcy reorganization being compelled by the executive branch of he government in an attempt to deprive the rightful creditors of their day in court.
Fortunately, I think that the courts will have the last say in this.
Depends on the type of BK, there is the restructuring BK, and the flat out We’re Out of Business Done BK.
The first type is a restructuring plan, the second is we’re done.. Your comments are correct for the second plan, not for the first. Under the first, the court and creditors work out arrangements to keep the company going.
Think, USAIR, Delta etc a few years back.
very true........
But guess what, as a taxpayer, you get to fund $3200/month retirements and platinum VEBA benefits for all those UAW folks.
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