General Motors is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection as early as May 31, but a speedy restructuring of the carmaker faces headwinds from an increasingly sceptical US Congress.
Under the current plan, the US government would cancel most or all of its existing debt in the company and invest in a “new” GM that could emerge from bankruptcy in the autumn, said a person close to the matter.
GM would receive tens of billions of dollars in new government money, probably in stages, to prop up its business at a time when car sales are threatening to be lower than the 10m annual rate at which GM says it can break even.
What terrible, stupid, destructive idea this is. GM needs to go Chapter 11, reorganize itself top to bottom under the auspices of a bankruptcy judge, and try to make it as a new company. The $20-odd billion we’ve pumped into this zombie haven’t had the desired effect of forestalling its collapse; it’s time to let it live or die on its own merits rather than forcing tens of billions from taxpayers to prop it up at the expense of other capital-deprived firms. Enough is enough.
Oh, and I have a GM vehicle, worked for years at an assembly plant as a contract engineer and have a lot of friends there still. I won’t buy anything made by Government Motors. Period.