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Letter from a Dodge Dealer
- Thread starter Tauvros
- Start date
As far as I can tell, all the yelling and screaming in this thread can be boiled down to a handful of statements:
1. The US federal gov't set a very dangerous precedent with the financial industry bailouts
2. That precedent bore fruit with an embarrassingly idiotic and blowback laden auto industry policy
3. The dealer who wrote the letter is finished.
4. The dealer who wrote the letter would have been finished even sooner if items 1 & 2 hadn't happened.
5. The dealer is part of a trade organization that has successfully used the same lobbying tactics that are currently working against him.
Apologies, but I don't see any heroes in this story.
1. The US federal gov't set a very dangerous precedent with the financial industry bailouts
2. That precedent bore fruit with an embarrassingly idiotic and blowback laden auto industry policy
3. The dealer who wrote the letter is finished.
4. The dealer who wrote the letter would have been finished even sooner if items 1 & 2 hadn't happened.
5. The dealer is part of a trade organization that has successfully used the same lobbying tactics that are currently working against him.
Apologies, but I don't see any heroes in this story.
Quote from Random.Capital:
As far as I can tell, all the yelling and screaming in this thread can be boiled down to a handful of statements:
1. The US federal gov't set a very dangerous precedent with the financial industry bailouts
2. That precedent bore fruit with an embarrassingly idiotic and blowback laden auto industry policy
3. The dealer who wrote the letter is finished.
4. The dealer who wrote the letter would have been finished even sooner if items 1 & 2 hadn't happened.
5. The dealer is part of a trade organization that has successfully used the same lobbying tactics that are currently working against him.
Apologies, but I don't see any heros in this story.
Best post of the thread. Ding ding!
Quote from Shreddog:
Are you saying the bailed out banks should have gotten another bailout in the form of a better payout? Kind of an odd argument for you to make.
There's PLENTY that we don't agree on, so I'll just comment on somewhere where we MIGHT agree.
Where you're missing out is thinking that all bondholders who "settled" did so because it was in their best interest. As was rightly pointed out, the TARP recipients really had no leg to stand on, and couldn't put up a credible defense of their LEGAL rights. The investors that did not take any TARP were the ones who got run over. President Obama did a horrible thing casting them as greedy "speculators". If the federal govt goes and changes the terms of an agreement just because some union tells it to, answer this- Who will EVER lend money to American businesses if the terms of that loan can be flushed down the toilet any time the Fed Govt. wants to.
SJFAN- You call yourself a conservative, but that seems unlikely. If so, you should know-- I don't object to the govt closing SOME dealerships, I object to them closing ANY dealerships and if you were, in fact, a conservative, then you would too. If you think that this decision was made by the Chrysler management, and not by the govt. then I think we've found our naif now, haven't we...maybe you ought to spend some time educate yourself about the facts. Learn a little bit about the auto dealer business. Servicing these cars means more to the bottom line of a dealership than selling them does. Read this dealer's letter at the beginning of this thread. These are, in most cases, profitable businesses, not costing Chrysler a dime. Best of luck to you in your continued studies.
IMO you are greatly overestimating the political power of the UAW. They are getting what looks like a better than warranted deal (in the short run) because the last thing the Fed Gov't wants is to deal with the giant Pandora's Box that would be opened if PBGC goes tits-up. It's already technically insolvent, and would not survive a "normal" bankruptcy process.
Personally I don't think that can be avoided anyway, so I'd rather see something resembling a "normal" bankruptcy with "normal" legal rules in place. But the reality is pretty much everyone involved has benefited to some degree from the implicit moral hazards we've been cultivating for the past few decades, so I'm not going to put anybody on the moral high ground.
Personally I don't think that can be avoided anyway, so I'd rather see something resembling a "normal" bankruptcy with "normal" legal rules in place. But the reality is pretty much everyone involved has benefited to some degree from the implicit moral hazards we've been cultivating for the past few decades, so I'm not going to put anybody on the moral high ground.
Quote from sjfan:
I'm not sure if you are disagreeing or just pointing out the binding arbitration clause, which I too would expect to be in the franchisee agreement. Two things though: first, if the arbitration is conducted in an unfair manner, the franchisee can still sue. In fact, there's nothing that prevents the franchisee from suing anyway - it's just that the court will refer to the arbitration clause if there's no reason for it not to apply. That being said, dealerships aren't like other franchisees. A lot of states have special laws that give dealership extra rights. These cannot be stripped away by arbitration or the franchisee contract. As we all know, you can't be contractually binded to do something that's contrary to the law.
Binding means binding, period.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held, on numerous occasions, that unless there is proof of corruption of the proceedings (as in, one of the arbitrators is bribed or had a conflict - something they check for beforehand), there is no basis to challenge the ruling of an arbitrator or arbitration panel, period, in any court.
Yes, Virginia, you can contract to do away with your right to your 'day in court' in modern day American, and it's done routinely now.
Look, despite your initial rant to me you seem like a rational guy that actually understands the world. And so surely you realize Obama's casting of the bond holders as "greedy speculators" and the bondholders rantings of the end of capitalism are all the same thing - BS posturing as part of a negotiation. If the same comments were made by a plaintiffs attorney on the steps of a courthouse by either side your BS meter would be off the charts. But for whatever reason, you choose to call BS on only one side in this case. I don't doubt there are creditors who claim to have gotten run over (wouldn't you? I sure as hell would in their shoes). But I have a hard time believing they had no clue what they were doing. If they didn't understand that despite being a secured lender their wishes could be overridden by the majority of other secured lenders - then they got an expensive lesson that coattailing the big banks isn't always a sure thing. This isn't Joe Sixpack we're talking about here. And this includes the Indiana pension guys - seriously, they bought secured debt in Chrysler thinking it was conservative? My BS meter just went off the charts. So where you see a left wing conspiracy to destroy contract law I see one big poker game where all sides know their position at the table. And they will say ANYTHING to improve their position at the table.Quote from Covert:
There's PLENTY that we don't agree on, so I'll just comment on somewhere where we MIGHT agree.
Where you're missing out is thinking that all bondholders who "settled" did so because it was in their best interest. As was rightly pointed out, the TARP recipients really had no leg to stand on, and couldn't put up a credible defense of their LEGAL rights. The investors that did not take any TARP were the ones who got run over. President Obama did a horrible thing casting them as greedy "speculators". If the federal govt goes and changes the terms of an agreement just because some union tells it to, answer this- Who will EVER lend money to American businesses if the terms of that loan can be flushed down the toilet any time the Fed Govt. wants to.
Quote from Shreddog:
And this includes the Indiana pension guys - seriously, they bought secured debt in Chrysler thinking it was conservative?
That's just it. Either they're morons, or they were making an implicit bet that their position was backstopped by the federal gov't.
Either way, they don't look too good.