seems to get more frightening as time passes yet the Dow holds above 8,000. A disconnect appears to exist.

I've read a bit about this, but can't find a good explanation of the mechanics here, does anyone know exactly how "the government" is giving the bondholders a raw deal?

If GM has not yet filed for bankruptcy, what is the relationship that gives "the government" so much power over the offer that GM makes to the bondholders?

Is this about doing some kind of "special" restructuring where the Feds would use tax money to prop up GM, but *only* if certain conditions are agreed to by the board and GM's creditors?

As one of the best exports from Texas, Jim Hightower, says, we need a "Doug Jones" index. The Doug Jones index would calibrate real unemployment rates, real inflation, real GDP, foreclosure rates, poverty levels, malnutrition rates, individual debt, health care rates - even life spans - and education levels, among other things (you can add here... like pollution and environmental damage) to get a true index of what is going on with the vast majority of the population, not just investors and their 'investments."

While a tiny majority of the country now has stock of some kind - forced by 401K plans, for instance - the overwhelming majority of stock is still controlled by a tiny minority. And that stock number of the DOW is dutifully reported by every single news outlet in the US every single day, like our national 'temperature.' Even the oh-so-liberal NPR and their 'investigative' news slant.

I would think a left-wing economist/statistician somewhere could come up with a roving number, that would go up - or down, based on this basket of weighted indicators. This Doug Jones number would reflect the true situation of population, not the on in the fun-house mirror called the DOW.

Ignoring for the moment the fact that many people are hurt by GM's failure, this makes me very happy. Vehicles designed specifically to be BIG and SCARY are a menace on the roads IMO, and they certainly increase the rate of (only partly unintentional) vehicular homocide.

The roads will be safer without GM. Quieter, too.

It may appear that shareholders have taken their share of the pain as well, but bankruptcy law is pretty clear about who goes to the head of the line. The loss for bondholders is final, but shareholders who are allowed to keep their interest in the company may recover their losses. Bankrupcty proceedings such as the one done on retailer K-mart, which owned a great deal of real estate, serve as example. Existing shareholders were excluded from the proceeds, which were purchased by Eddie Lampert, and the stock in his holding company profited nicely.

Events in Argentina during their crisis had similar results. Telecom Argentina stock, which traded under a dollar, is now where it was before their crisis, but bond holders were forced to take permanent losses. Something similar may come out of the GM deal, but you and I won't share in it, except to take our share of taxpayer losses.

I base some of my optimism for GM's future on their unfortunate situation concerning the weak dollar, which you can characterize as unfair competition, foreign automakers who pay no legacy benefits, and industry which is effectively subsidized by government.

By law the bondholders deserve to be first in line, but that isn't always the way it happens.

People aren't going to stop owning cars no matter how hard the horse riding hippies of Salon pimp on it.

i'm all for it - the peoples index as it were

The Doug Jones index would calibrate real unemployment rates, real inflation, real GDP, foreclosure rates, poverty levels, malnutrition rates, individual debt, health care rates - even life spans - and education levels, among other things (you can add here... like pollution and environmental damage) to get a true index of what is going on with the vast majority of the population, not just investors and their 'investments."

I like the idea, but I'm not sure how it would help anything.

Collating and publishing the information is just a first step. In order to change anything, the stranglehold that big business interests have on the American press would have to be broken, and there doesn't appear to be any will to do so.

Heck, I don't even think the majority of Americans have ever given it any thought.

So providing a Doug Jones index is fine, but if it existed right now, I'd expect to see it reported on the teevee news every night that, "The radical left-wing anti-globalization crowd is still publishing negative Doug Jones figures, while respected economists and our country's most valued, important, and beautiful rich folks all agree that the economic situation is terrific and getting better every day."

Unfortunately, some viewers would believe it. Anything that gets broadcast on *every* channel must be true, right?

People aren't going to stop owning cars no matter how hard the horse riding hippies of Salon pimp on it.

I'm sure that some people will own cars for a long time, but the number of people who can afford to do so decreases every day. And just wait until the oil speculators give us another dose of $5/gallon (or higher) gasoline, or runaway inflation does the same thing.

By this I do not mean the line workers at the Big Three U.S. plants deserve to lose their jobs, not that we can separate the two. My feeling is that these three companies have spent much of the last forty years fighting safety recalls tooth and nail - and sending many drivers to their deaths - instead of doing the right thing and taking care of the problems. Companies like Toyota, Subaru, and the kraut importers tend to fix defects instead of running the issue through the court system (on the taxpayer's dole) and needlessly delaying the repairs for years. Sadly the exec's bank accounts are already fat, so it's the lowly assembly line & office workers work suffer.