Instapundit has a link to a post by Mickey Kaus asking if the GM IPO is going to happen. Prof. Reynolds posted a comment from Jim Bennett, which I am going to repost here:
I have been wondering about this for a while. The USG could easily make some moves that would spike GM stock up temporarily, so the administration could dump it on the good news. “It’s not illegal if the President does it”, as another President once said. The really interesting question s whether the UAW would be allowed to dump their stock, giving them a huge war chest they could spend in 2012. Know anything about whether the UAW is free to sell its stock in the IPO?
The stakes are so high, it is hard to believe that the Obama administration will not use this for political advantage.
The GOP political leadership needs to be focused like a laser on the resale of this GM stock.
The MSM will cover up or refuse to report on this, or may simply not be smart enough to understand it.
Transparency is the only solution. Only massively crowd-sourced scrutiny will prevent the worst abuses.
Corruption on a multi-billion dollar scale is inevitable otherwise.
There are good reasons why we do not have the Government buying and selling huge companies. The GM buyout should never have happened in the first place. A cookie jar this big will attract grasping hands.
Is anyone paying attention to this?
I wonder who would be dumb enough to buy that worthless paper. The theory I have heard is that the IPO is hype for the election and once that is over, it will never happen.
Hard to believe it will happen as hyped. There’s too much risk of a poor outcome that would be politically costly. But there’s much political profit and little downside in promising a sale.
Jonathan,
There’s too much risk of a poor outcome that would be politically costly.
Don’t underestimate the power of groupthink and political delusion. Obama’s biggest problem, which those around him share, is that he believes his own press releases. He and his team maybe incapable of understanding GMs reality.