The New GOVUAW Auto Company!

Ahh, that didn’t take long.

Just shy of the heralded 100-day mark of PBO’s presidency, our new administration has wormed its way into owning GM.  Well, they and their first cousins, the UAW.

Apparently, the union will own 39% or so, and the remaining shares, at least 50%, will be held by the Treasury.  Yes, that Treasury.  The government’s Treasury. I imagine they will call the company “GOVUAW”, pronounced “guv-wah”, or, maybe “UAWGOV”, pronounced “u-aw-gov.” I call it “gone.”

What with all the economic woes we’ve seen since October, 2008,–which, by the way, just coincidentally began a day or so after McCain pulled ahead in the polls–and the big, brave steps the gubmint has taken to “fix” it all up for us, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  Firing bank directors, setting compensation limits for people who don’t work for them, and now, assuming ownership of a publicly-held company which I probably had shares of in my 401k.  So, I guess I used to be a part-owner of GM, but now I’m not.  Just like that.

That goes for any of you reading this who either owned mutual funds privately, or had a 401k at your workplace.  Most of those invest in the S&P and whether you realized it or not, you also were a part-owner of GM.  Yes, you liberals too.  Something you owned has now been confiscated by the government.

The argument could be made that I would have lost my investment had the company gone bankrupt.  This is true.  However, call me quirky, but I would rather lose money on an investment gone bad, than have it stolen from me.

But our pennies’ worth of investment in GM can’t begin to compare to the bondholders who hold (held) $27 billion dollars worth of GM’s debt.  They are graciously being offered a 10% share in the company.  So, the UAW is sacrificing $20 billion of benefits for a 39% stake, the government will add in another $9 billion for their 50% (or more.)  The bondholders will put up (lose) the most money and get the smallest stake.

Sounds like social justice for all.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has written a good post on this.

I leave you with the words of Karl Marx, from his Communist Manifesto.

“The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”

Tagged as: Communist Manifesto, General Motors, Karl Marx, UAW