6/1/09- TWD's Day For The Agenda: Chapter 11 (Updated)

The demise of GM reaches full proportion today, as they file for Chapter 11. But it is important to note, that GM is going under a massive reconstruction and not "folding for good." Then distinction is very crucial to make.

And sigh, another divisive headline to stir it up from the Fudge Report:

As the great Marcy Wheeler astutely points out, the Administration isn't really trying to make it their company:

It's a bunch of pablum designed to calm the fears of those worried about socialism, but it doesn't really add up to protecting the interests of Americans. For example, when asked whether the government would limit executive compensation, they said only that the company had to comply with all laws (they mentioned the Dodd amendment specifically), and otherwise, that the compensation committee would decide executive compensation.

Michael Moore couldn't have explained it better:

It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.

11 assembly plants will be shut down, three of them will be idle.

21,000 GM workers will be laid off. Obama will speak on this later.