deepgeek wrote:

Screw the autoworkers.
They may be crying about General Motors bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won t spoil Jamie Dimon s day.

Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders – led by Morgan and Citibank – expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion.
Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama s Car Czar - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.Here s the scheme: Rattner is demanding the bankruptcy court simply wipe away the money GM owes workers for their retirement health insurance. Cash in the insurance fund would be replaced by GM stock. The percentage may be 17% of GM s stock - or 25%. Whatever, 17% or 25% is worth, well ... just try paying for your dialysis with 50 shares of bankrupt auto stock.

So what s wrong with seizing workers pension fund money in a bankruptcy? The answer, Mr. Obama, Mr. Law Professor, is that it s illegal.

Pensions are wiped away and two connected banks don t even get a haircut? How come Citi and Morgan aren t asked, like workers and other creditors, to take stock in GM?

As Butch said to Sundance, who ARE these guys? You remember Morgan and Citi. These are the corporate Welfare Queens who ve already sucked up over a third of a trillion dollars in aid from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. Not coincidentally, Citi, the big winner, has paid over $100 million to Robert Rubin, the former US Treasury Secretary. Rubin was Obama s point-man in winning banks endorsement and campaign donations by far, his largest source of his corporate funding .

If you ran a business and played fast and loose with your workers funds, you could land in prison. Stevie the Rat s plan is nothing less than Grand Theft Auto Pension.

It doesn t make it any less of a crime if the President drives the getaway car.

This is precisely what I've been afraid of happening. I've not been anti-BK for GM or Chrysler. But I have been wary of that happening for two reasons: 1) it will exacerbate the economic drudgery by relieving 1M+ of their incomes and 2) it will give someone a chance to free up that pension money to put in their pockets. 2 is much more doomful in my mind than 1. Although 1 is pretty bad and its effects are already being felt.

If you do this, not only will you accelerate the demise of Medicare, but you will probably be the tipping point to see the entire health care industry collapse. We're talking millions of retirees who have the worst health status and behaviors in the country. Not a good thing at all.

The BK is fine, even though a lot of people will get screwed on it. But I think the government should step in and protect the VEBA deal and fund it. Distinctly. Those people worked their whole lives for a promise and you've got to keep it at this point.

RE: Greg Palast » Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM