GM and Chrysler get the 1st installment on their bailout

In a move which should finally erase the Mainstream Media myth that
Pres. Bush is any kind of conservative, he and his fourth branch of
government (that would be Treasury Secty. Henry Paulson and his
$350,000,000,000 slush fund) have done what Congress had voted not to
do: throw $13,400,000,000 of our tax dollars down the twin rat holes
known as GM and Cerberus/Chrysler.

According to the New York Times story http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/bu...o.html?_r=1&hp
the deal postures itself as having imposed on the beneficiaries the
requirement that, by March 30, 2009, they prove to the satisfaction of
Secty. Paulson's successor that they have put in place a program of
"wage cuts, plant closings and creditor agreements [which promise to]
so change the landscape of the industry that the carmakers can turn
profitable in short order." If they fail to do so, then the entire
$13,400,000,000 will immediately become due and payable, to the
preference of all other creditors.

As if.

Here's what's actually going to happen: GM, the money boys at
Cerberus/Chrysler, their various creditors (mainly suppliers to whom
GM and Chrysler already owe more than $10,000,000,000), and of course
the UAW, will correctly perceive that they have successfully set the
hook in the mouth of that biggest of all dumb fish, our own Uncle Sam,
and they will make no meaningful concessions at all. As of March 30,
the said Uncle Sam -- in the persons of President O! and his
Democratic minions -- will be well aware of that certain knowledge and
will be equally well aware of the equally certain knowledge, that to
call in the $13,400,000,000 (to the preference of all creditors,
including all those silver-haired widows who depend on UAW pensions
for their daily bread) will immediately send GM and Chrysler to the
bottom, will not in a million years pull the trigger on that result.
Instead, there will be some fuming, some fussing, some nonsense about
the need for all the Greenist cars that Americans really want to buy
(if they only knew it). All that blather will inevitably end with
another installment in what will eventually add up to a
$100,000,000,000 gift from all of us to the UAW and their victims at
GM and Chrysler.

Santa lives! Merry Christmas!

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