GM looks like it will be ok. FCA is either going to merge with another car company or fail. There is over supply in the industry and FCA is the sickest car company.
The judge ignored decades (centuries) of bankruptcy law, and the bondholders only got pennies on the dollar.
I've told people about this, and they try to brush it off as "those Wall Street guys deserved it". Then, I point out that GM's biggest bondholders were public pension plans -- one of them filed the court challenge, but I don't remember which one. It might have been Indiana.
That means that depending on the pension plan, either teachers, firefighters and police officers get a lower pension for the rest of their life, or taxpayers get to make up the difference to maintain the contracted benefits.
Most people get really quiet after that.
A FReeper told me she had about $50,000 in GM bonds in her IRA, and it was effectively wiped out. She wrote that she was sufficiently diversified that she could weather it, but that's still a big hit to your bank balance.
I'm still so pissed off about it, I'll never buy a GM or Chrysler vehicle.