While its recent track record of
intervention in the energy industry is
not great, the U.S. government appears to have successfully shepherded both GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy
at record speed:
In fewer than 45 days each, General Motors and Chrysler swept through government-sponsored sales in bankruptcy court — quick tours that most people in the legal community thought impossible not long ago.
Felix Salmon
poses the million-dollar question - "How?":
But who or what should get the credit? Steve Rattner? The two judges involved? Section 363 of the federal bankruptcy code? And is this a heartening precedent for the wave of future bankruptcies which seems inevitable when all those leveraged loans mature over the next four or five years? Or is it a one-off, linked to extreme levels of government involvement, which is unlikely to be repeated?
Now, GM and Chrysler are hardly out of the woods; nevertheless, this impressively efficient performance (not to mention flashes of unquestionable brilliance like
making the GM logo green) complicates the traditional free-market meme that government intervention always makes things worse. Diehard capitalists mustn't be too depressed, though - the House of Representatives is
moving with equal speed to undo the White House's success.
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