5/1/09

The War

There is a war going on and I'm not talking about the "War on Terror," which we all know the Obama administration has magically squelched by the simple change in verbiage to the "Overseas Contingency Operation," but the class war between big government and the individual.

Yesterday we witnessed yet another example of the strong arm tactics employed by the Obama administration in the name of the common good. I must say, Obama's slick style most surely will insulate him from many an uninformed citizen knowing what is really going on but conversely, it is becoming ever more evident that the loss of the individuals liberty is slowing eroding with every word out of his mouth. I'm specifically referring to the failed pre-packaged attempt to save Chrysler Corp.

There was a reported deal between the Unions, Management, Fiat and the Bond holders on the table, but the deal was dashed because some 30% of the bond holders, who by the way are the Senior creditors and first in line to be paid whether Chrysler is revamped through bankruptcy or not, said no to the Obama deal.

Now you might say to yourself this doesn't seem fair. and the Obama administration certainly hopes you believe that those greedy 30% were the reason Chrysler is going into bankruptcy, but if you understand that those 30% were the only participants in this pre-packaged deal that wasn't in bed with the government, you might have a different take on the deal.

Unions and many white collar employees have a quite transparent reason for taking the deal as they want to have some clarity in whether they have jobs or not. Fiat of course is looking and rightfully so for the best deal they can get, and the 70% of bond holders that did agree with the deal actually had to take whatever the Obama administration offered because that 70% has received TARP money and in essence are being dictated to by the government.

This was Obama's deal saving Chrysler, and you can clearly see the heavy hand of government when the Unions get their quid pro quo for delivering votes in the general election and the Tarp banks have to buckle under to the Obama proposal because they too would have gone bankrupt without the TARP funds.

Now to hear the Obama administration tell it, those greedy 30% of creditors that probably have some of your 401k investments tied up in these Chrysler bonds, have to take whatever offer the government makes or they are the bad guys, when in essence the government tries to subvert the normal bankruptcy process by only protecting the union's legacy costs from being negotiated.

It's bad enough that government is involved at all but when the President, who has never had a private sector job and hasn't even held any one elected office long enough for dust to accumulate on his desk is spearheading these difficult decisions on the future of the economy, it's worse than bad, it's lunacy.