“But while many stakeholders made sacrifices, some did not. In particular, a group of investment firms and hedge funds that hoped to hold out for a taxpayer-funded bailout. I don’t stand with them. I stand with Chrysler’s employees, management and suppliers. I don’t with stand with those who held out when everybody else made sacrifices.” President Obama announces that Chrysler will file for bankruptcy, and lays the blame squarely at the feet of hedge funds who rejected an 11th-hour deal to save the company, apparently in the hopes of garnering more bailout cash.
The hedge funds in question have fired back, of course. Apparently, they’re all for the “rule of law” and upholding our “world-leading bankruptcy code.” I’d probably be more inclined to take them seriously on these matters if they weren’t also trying to spike regulation of their industry that is long overdue. At it is, i’m thinking profit is more of a motivator here than principled civil disobedience.
At any rate, I think Salon‘s Andrew Leonard is exactly right about where public opinion will come down on this one. Says one observer (cited by Leonard) of what happened today: “The banksters are eagerly, shamelessly, and openly harvesting their pound of flesh from financially stressed average taxpayers, and setting off a chain reaction in the auto industry which has the very real risk of creating even larger scale unemployment than the economy already faces. It’s reckless, utterly irresponsible, over-the-top greed.” From my admittedly limited vantage, that sounds like a plausible reading.