Posted by
Straight Ahead on Wednesday, May 06, 2009 3:03:54 AM
As a lawyer, President Barack Obama is a real piece of work.
In December he slapped $17 billion dollars of taxpayers' money into the hands of Chrysler and GM, along with a deadline of March 31 to either offer up plans to turn their ailing companies around...or face bankruptcy.
At the time he also assured the public that this money belonged to the taxpayers so, in the final structure, it would come back to the taxpayers. This week we learned that those taxpayer dollars will not be coming back to us. They are gone, gone, gone.
Last week, after a one-month deadline extension, Obama declared that neither Chrysler nor GM had come up with adequate turnaround plans. In the same breath, he announced that they would both enter into bankruptcy, Chrysler first.
Next, Team Obama stunned the economic community (if not the working press) with a virtual "Alice In Wonderland" approach to the terms of the Chrysler bankruptcy.
In the history of bankruptcy, only one party -- the secured creditors -- stand to recoup 100% of their investment. They stand at the front of the line. Their position is backed by long-standing federal law.
In ObamaWorld, however, these particular secured creditors were, instead, dissed from the podium by our president. He sneered at the fact that these creditors were (gasp) "hedge fund" investors who weren't willing to sacrifice like the other participants.
On the face of it, this perjorative is, of course, laughable. Perhaps the single largest contributor to the Obama presidential campaign as well as the Democrat party itself, is George Soros -- who bolstered his own personal fortune by investing in, yes, hedge funds (which bet, by the way, against the value of U.S. currency).
What sort of villains, then, would invest in funds that hedged against the value of Chrysler and then dare to demand back the money that (by law) was theirs to demand back?
Incredibly, the dirty-rotten hedge fund investors (secured creditors) in the Chrysler matter include (are you ready for this?) union members, teachers' credit unions, college endowments, pension plans and retirement plans of the investors.
According to Obama, trash such as this should only be allowed 29 cents on the dollar.
At the same time, in a further demonstration of Kangaroo Court-style tactics, Obama would provide 55% of the emerging Chrysler Corporation (majority ownership) to who else but the United Auto Workers who, as unsecured creditors, did in fact play a huge role in the election of President Barack Obama.
All those who smell payback, please raise your hand. And be sure to line up for your ticket to the circus which feature the UAW when they next strike...against themselves?
Hour by hour the plot thickens. Among the secured creditors, some have balked at their treatment. According to their lawyers -- who have a moral, legal and fiduciary responsibility to represent their interest -- several of secured creditors have been threatened by members of the Obama administration who have implied that their reputations could be smeared by way of The White House press corps!
Which may be why we haven't seen any of this reported over ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, you get the drift. But who could blame Andrea Mitchell? She has her hands full of important stuff like describing potato puffs served up to Obama and Biden at lunchtime. She can't be concerned with hinky bankruptcy proceedings or governmental strong-arming.
Understandably, those secured creditors who feel The White House breathing down their necks, do not wish to reveal their names and would prefer to remain anonymous, except as part of a class being represented through legal counsel...lest they become targets of other nut-cases who are not currently on the government payroll and have nothing better to do.
This, of course, is of little concern to a liberal bankruptcy judge who has now ordered them to reveal their names...or face contempt.
Whether any of this will draw the attention of a Special Prosecutor (we bet it won't) or end up before the Supreme Court (we bet it will) remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, President Obama has managed to impart one screwy signal to not only American investors but to the world at large.
At a time when he has propelled our nation into trillions of dollars in debt, this president has to bank on the fact that wealthy nations, such as China, will continue to invest in the United States.
Do his actions in the Chrysler bankruptcy go to strengthen our position as a good investment? By virtue of his willingness to throw aside established federal rules as they pertain to the legal rights of both secured and unsecured creditors, President Obama appear to diminish the phrase, "The full faith and credit of the United States."
If he doesn't know what he's doing, we have a true novice at the wheel. If he does know what he's doing, his actions are reprehensible.
In any case, as a lawyer, President Obama is a real piece of work.