Stillborn Motors

They have forced taxpayers like you and I to spend $60 billion to keep the UAW whole, without a vote and without a voice.

They have arbitrarily fired seasoned executives and created management teams consisting wholly of inexperienced bureaucrats who have only a minute chance of success.

They have intervened in the auto markets using tax laws, favoring GM over Ford through mechanisms like $7,500 tax credits for consumers who purchase Chevy Volts.

They have avoided a serious reorganization provided for under existing bankruptcy law by kowtowing to the unions whose greedy and ham-handed bosses were largely responsible for the manufacturers' inability to compete with foreign competitors.

They have arbitrarily closed dealerships without transparency, without explanation, and -- seemingly -- by favoring certain political allies and some minorities over others.

In many cases, these dealerships were lynch-pins of their communities; by dint of what seem to be arbitrary closings, they have transformed hundreds of thousands of loyal customers and employees into a cadre of mortal enemies.

They have robbed millions of direct and indirect senior creditors -- from senior citizen bondholders to mutual funds and everything in between -- by contravening bankruptcy law in favor of paying off union bosses.

Would you buy a GM or Chrysler product having just taken a pennies-on-the-dollar haircut forced upon you by an out-of-control federal government?

Would you buy a GM or Chrysler product knowing that the U.S. government favors those companies -- unfairly, using tax breaks and other means -- over Ford?

Would you buy a GM or Chrysler product knowing that some faceless bureaucrat devastated your community without a hearing, without even a sentence of explanation?

They have disenfranchised millions upon millions of prospective customers, breaking bonds that lasted generations and whom, I believe, will avoid the federal GM and Chrysler entities even if they were the last brands on Earth. I've heard people tell me so. And I suspect you have as well.

There's a name for the new GM and Chrysler. Doomed.

And there's always Volga, which seems more fitting these days.



Update: See the music video of this post at Vimeo, courtesy of Jim Durbin at 24th State.

Update II: Similar sentiments expressed at Wizbang's President Obama says 'Buy Foreign!', The Examiner (Hugh Hewitt) and Parkway Rest Stop's What could possibly go wrong?