Reply to Thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="SoonerP226" data-source="post: 2110682" data-attributes="member: 26737">I don&#039;t claim to be an expert (my dad told me that word comes from &quot;ex&quot; as in &quot;old&quot; and &quot;spurt&quot; as in &quot;drip under pressure&quot; <img src="/images/smilies/wink.png"&nbsp; class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)" data-shortname=";)" /> ) on those matters, but I was involved in some lively and interesting debates on the bailout back when it was first being discussed. It was a good excuse to get some learnin&#039; done.The market was a lot different then, so all they needed were loans; the Feds didn&#039;t take an ownership position. At the time of the bailout, Chrysler had been circling the bowl for years, and had no future as an independent company, so their position was much weaker than it was in Iacocca&#039;s time. (I also think Iacocca knew a LOT more about leadership than anyone in power at Chrysler, Cerberus Capital, or Daimler-Benz, and wouldn&#039;t have allowed things to go as far as they did.)Personally, I think Mitt Romney was correct--they should have gotten gov&#039;t-backed financing and gone through a normal bankruptcy process, which wouldn&#039;t have left the Treasury (read &quot;us&quot;) taking a loss on the deal. There are many who claim that wasn&#039;t an option because the credit markets were frozen, but we saw banks taking TARP funds they neither needed nor wanted because they felt pressured into doing so to pass the then-upcoming Federal &quot;stress tests&quot;--are you really going to tell me that they couldn&#039;t have been pressured into backing Chrysler and GM in a pre-packaged bankruptcy deal?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="SoonerP226, post: 2110682, member: 26737"] I don't claim to be an expert (my dad told me that word comes from "ex" as in "old" and "spurt" as in "drip under pressure" ;) ) on those matters, but I was involved in some lively and interesting debates on the bailout back when it was first being discussed. It was a good excuse to get some learnin' done. The market was a lot different then, so all they needed were loans; the Feds didn't take an ownership position. At the time of the bailout, Chrysler had been circling the bowl for years, and had no future as an independent company, so their position was much weaker than it was in Iacocca's time. (I also think Iacocca knew a LOT more about leadership than anyone in power at Chrysler, Cerberus Capital, or Daimler-Benz, and wouldn't have allowed things to go as far as they did.) Personally, I think Mitt Romney was correct--they should have gotten gov't-backed financing and gone through a normal bankruptcy process, which wouldn't have left the Treasury (read "us") taking a loss on the deal. There are many who claim that wasn't an option because the credit markets were frozen, but we saw banks taking TARP funds they neither needed nor wanted because they felt pressured into doing so to pass the then-upcoming Federal "stress tests"--are you really going to tell me that they couldn't have been pressured into backing Chrysler and GM in a pre-packaged bankruptcy deal? [/QUOTE]

Verification