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By Dennis Byrne
Real Clear Politics
As the future of the domestic auto industry became clearer Tuesday, it appears that an unprecedented government and organized labor partnership would end up running the companies, and if that doesn't give you pause, nothing will.
Under proposed and tentative agreements, the government (meaning us taxpayers) would own half of General Motors and an undetermined slice of a 10 percent stake in Chrysler. In addition, the United Auto Workers Union would own 55 percent of Chrysler and 39 percent of GM.
There's some poetic justice in the possibility that organized labor, which had so much to do with the failure of the domestic auto industry, could end up holding so much of the bag for the mess it helped create. But how is it that we taxpayers now would have a share of two worthless companies that months ago should have gone into bankruptcy? The not-so-funny irony....
Read the rest in RealClearPolitics.
1 comment:
Remember, here, that the government is a very minority partner in the proposed restructured company. The real partners running the company will be the UAW pension fund and Fiat. The UAW is getting its share because Chrysler owes it a ton of cash, some $10 billion plus.
The same people who are complaining about this are also complaining that we wasted our taxpayer money on Chrysler. Regardless of what you think of the bailout of Chrysler, or maybe because of your opposition to it, this should be a good thing in your mind. It is clear that the only way we're getting any of it back is to take an investment in the company.
As for the UAW owning the majority of the company, what better way to make them accountable for what they bargain for. It's mostly coming out of their own pockets. It's brilliant!
I don't know what the bankruptcy judge will make of this. Maybe it won't be approved, but that's what the court is for. Should we have let Chrysler fail months ago and reaped the economic effects of that? I don't know that either, but I'm confident that smarter people than I have thought that through and made an educated decision that in the end, the economy will be better off. However, I do know that people smarter than Dennis Byrne have thought it through.
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