Destroyer of economies and rich democratic traditions.

Option #3:
GM is done for; don’t waste another $1 of taxpayer money on GM…shut her down and let the more lean and innovative car makers quickly fill in the resultant void.

As a taxpayer underwriting/supporting GM (involuntarily), I hereby cast my single vote for Option #2. Second in place, Option #3.

PS…way to GM-VOLT.com commenter’s! This is a particularly rich blog thread with many well reasoned and articulated points.
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The only way for Chrysler/GM to continue is if government pours money into it. This was as true last November as it is today. As statik pointed out earlier, as soon as government started to pour money into it, it had the choice of continuing to pour money into it, or stop and look foolish for pouring money in to a broken vessel (not his words, but you get the idea).

Consequently, if Chrysler/GM does survive in some form, it will be under a form of government ownership/control. As many if not most posters have noted, no one wants to buy a government-made, government-controlled product. In short, Chrysler/GM would appear doomed to fail regardless of the outcome of the GSB.

The one smart thing the government could do here is what it won’t do, and wouldn’t do last November:

It could allow Chrysler/GM to fail, with the result that many buyers with domestic loyalties move to Ford, and one healthy domestic automaker emerges out of the ruins of the Big 3. To continue on our current path of continued government meddling is to likely to condemn Ford as well as GM/Chrysler to the trash-heap of history. Unfortunately, government bureaucrats who (in most cases) have never made or designed a product or valuable good or service in lives are unlikely to be blessed with so much foresight (as evidenced by their current set of actions).

NPNS!

No. In that situation, JPM couldn’t do anything. But if their loan was secured, they would retain first claim to the asset in question. If not, they still couldn’t do anything about it. That’s why its in my credit card contract that they can raise my interest rates if I become a riskier bet. In the bond market (which is where GM and Chrysler are), the bondholder takes a loss on his or her bonds.

And yes, everyone assumes that something will arise from the reorganization. At least for GM, Chrysler is more questionable. GM’s assets are worth quite a lot more as a going concern than in a liquidation. Chrysler’s are too, but its continued ability to act as going concern is a lot more questionable.