How GM Became Uncle Sam’s Bitch

March 30, 2009 10:44am by Barry Ritholtz

As soon as the news broke about Waggoner’s resignation, I put up a quick post, writing:

“I am no fan of Wagoners, but I have to ask the geniuses behind the bank bailouts: When are you going to ask the TARP and bailout recipients to step down? Ken Lewis being asked to step aside after many years of running BofA ? How about Blankfein? Pandit? And the rest of the TARP recipients?”

That generated the following comment:

I think this is kinda scary that the government can now force the CEO of a private enterprise to step down. I know they received money and they want more but the fact is that they should not have received it in the first place. And GM isn’t owned by the govt. like AIG. I’m not saying Wagoner was a good CEO. Only the principle is scary.

Private enterprise? How do you figure? Once they asked for and got $30 billion from the government, they gave up all pretenses of being a private firm. The “G” in GM now stands for government, as in Government Motors.

As soon as you become dependent upon the biggest guy in the cell block for protection, you become his bitch.

Previously:
Why Are Banks So Different From Autos? (December 9th, 2008)
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/12/why-are-banks-so-different-from-autos/

Why Bankruptcy For Autos But Not Banks? (February 23rd, 2009)
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/02/why-bankruptcy-for-autos-not-banks/

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