Free Republic

Chrysler is going into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, despite the Obama administration’s efforts to keep it out. The problem was that a group of small bondholders rejected the deal that car czar Steven Rattner and his deputy (and it seems the real dealmaker) Ron Bloom. The bondholders made a good point. They are secured creditors, and in our bankruptcy law secured creditors get paid off in full before unsecured creditors get anything. That’s a sound legal principle: why would secured creditors lend anyone anything unless they can get their security back if the loan isn’t paid off? In this case, the...