Volt Community vs M ark M odic a: Show Him We Wont Take His Misinformation Lying Down

[jeffhre]

Mark Modica has real gripes. The GM retirees were protected in the bailout while the small bondholders like him and some dealerships like his were thrown under the bus.

Modica is on a lifetime vendetta against GM. You could tell him to get a life, but this is his life. He sees the Volt as a weak spot but he'll go after any GM target he finds.

Since he is not going to stop, the best we can do is rebut his claims when they are picked up by the media.

Investments are not risk free. To structure them so would be to invite moral hazard;

Moral hazard does occur with companies run by executives arm in arm with union leaders who all feel they are too large, popular and powerful to be toppled, and run the companies down hill for decades.

Or people who structurally must sell giant trucks into high gas demand and high oil prices, and can never profit by selling small, efficient cars.

Or people who lend any amount of money to anyone, insulated from risk, until the entire economy hiccups and reverses.


His entire premise is based on values that lead to bankruptcy, decline and collapse.


You are right, his claims should be rebutted.

[ViperRT10Matt]

I've never heard of the guy , but I'm sure he appreciates the fact your giving him more publicity .

You're right, ignoring him till he goes away has worked great for the past 18 months, during which time he's managed to get himself on national TV, and onto the first page of Google results for "Chevy Volt" anytime he posts a new blog entry.

[WopOnTour]

Well his readers will not be able to link to his referenced gm-volt.com thread, due to a techncial issue...
WOT

[Ron C]

I hate those technical issues.

I'm a technical guy, I'm familiar with these kinds of things, and sometimes they just won't take a fix. This could be one of these kind, I reckon.

[pjwood]

I Saturn dealer GM bondholder, has leveraged his financial loss at the hands of the government bailout [/url]

Hold on. Loss, at the government's hands?

I do believe GM bondholders received 25 cents on the dollar (not GMAC). That sounds bad, but consider this. GM's debt was trading at 13, to 20, cents on the dollar, for just about the whole year before they went into bankruptcy. If you bought GM bonds, that whole time, you exited a winner. I was considering that very move, tracking prices.

I like how the bondholders, their lawyers and the financed media campaign cry so foul about the "unfair" treatment of the unions, but they're mum over what their bonds could have been worth if that company went into liquidation. Who was gonna become the legitimate debtor in possession of the largest global automaker, in 2009?? Nobody. That's who. That's how Chapter 11 works. It would have lead to a massive yard sale. And in the middle of that American auto-sector apocalypse, greedy idiots who think they have the higher ground, like Modica, would have been lucky to see 25.

[dukecola]

I've never heard of this guy nor have ever seen him on Fox news and I watch Fox every night. What has he said about the car itself, not GM but the car? The technology? This is what we need to reject, inaccuracies about the CAR. A lot of what you hear about GM is true, bailouts, union kickbacks, political donations,, skewing sales numbers by selling to gov't and GE, etc. It's all politics. If we could just focus on the car, we could filter out all this BS.

[Ladogaboy]

Every idiot is entitled to their own opinion, and I am entitled to not have to listen to them. The only proof I need that a majority of people are smart enough to not listen to this guy comes from the fact that everyone who has commented about my Volt has done so purely out of curiosity. As individual owners, we are ambassadors and representatives for the Volt with far more clout and influence than this guy will ever have.

[jeffhre]

Hold on. Loss, at the government's hands?

I do believe GM bondholders received 25 cents on the dollar (not GMAC). That sounds bad, but consider this. GM's debt was trading at 13, to 20, cents on the dollar, for just about the whole year before they went into bankruptcy. If you bought GM bonds, that whole time, you exited a winner. I was considering that very move, tracking prices.

I like how the bondholders, their lawyers and the financed media campaign cry so foul about the "unfair" treatment of the unions, but they're mum over what their bonds could have been worth if that company went into liquidation. Who was gonna become the legitimate debtor in possession of the largest global automaker, in 2009?? Nobody. That's who. That's how Chapter 11 works. It would have lead to a massive yard sale. And in the middle of that American auto-sector apocalypse, greedy idiots who think they have the higher ground, like Modica, would have been lucky to see 25.

LUCKY? Only way he'd of been that lucky would have been if gold rained down from heavens silver lining. Salvage prices for automakers assets in 2009 were at NEGATIVE numbers. You would have to pay shipping charges for physical assets to get someone to take them off your hands. And financial assets...they were exactly why the term "toxic assets" was invented.

[Ron C]

I like how the bondholders, their lawyers and the financed media campaign cry so foul about the "unfair" treatment of the unions, but they're mum over what their bonds could have been worth if that company went into liquidation. Who was gonna become the legitimate debtor in possession of the largest global automaker, in 2009?? Nobody. That's who. That's how Chapter 11 works.

I think you're confusing Chapter 11 with Chapter 7. Chapter 11 Bankruptcy is "Reorganization" while Chapter 7 is "Liquidation". So which was it - Ch. 11 or Ch. 7? My recollection was a Ch. 11 with a restructuring of the company to a) reduce debt and b) reduce costs. The former came with a restructuring of both debt and liabilities (think "pension") and the latter came with a sell off/closure of brands (Pontiac, Saab, Oldsmobile, Hummer, and Saturn come to mind) and a reduction of authorized dealers (which I still don't get).

Chapter 7 would have resulted in the entire company shutting down. I didn't even think that was on the table - it was an argument over HOW to reorganize that was being discussed.

[Zythryn]

...
Chapter 7 would have resulted in the entire company shutting down. I didn't even think that was on the table - it was an argument over HOW to reorganize that was being discussed.

As I recall, there were no banks that would put up the funds necessary for a reorganization. If the government had not stepped in GM would have liquidated. I believe this would have led to bondholders getting much less, if anything.
If Modica is upset at anyone, it should be the company that got itself into bankruptcy problems, not the government that bailed it out.