So GM has filed Chapter 11. We gave them billions, they filed anyway (which most sane people knew they would), and now they want billions more after filing. Certainly they will get it, and eventually they will be a mere shadow of what they were – if around at all.
How often in business or government is it not the case that money gets thrown at a failure in expectation that cash is some sort of magic pixie dust? GM will be able to pay back little, if any, of the money it has been given because it is now probably destined for complete disintegration. Seriously, knowing that they are in bankruptcy, how many people will be buying their cars? They sold less and less every year up to now, and does anyone seriously think that they will sell as many as they had been selling (let alone more) in order to make enough to pay the American people back?
We have been given the arguments that bankruptcy should not sway us against buying from GM. The government is trying to convince us that everything will be backed by the government, so there should be no concerns. How can they seriously even try to pull that one on us? In the last year, nearly everything that they have done with regard to this whole financial situation has gone down the wrong path (not to mention the government caused a good of it in the first place). Why would any sane person put any faith in a statement like “don’t worry, it’s backed by the government.” So long, GM.
One last comment. Time for the news media to stop saying that the government owns GM or the financial institutions; GM or the financial institutions will repay the government, etc. It’s the American people that are owed, not the government. Tell it like it is, maybe more people will wake up to this mess that we and the next who-knows-how-many generations are now stuck with.
June 1, 2009
