Bankruptcy Inconsistencies

The recent talks of extending monies to the "Big Three" auto makers has reached a fever pitch.

Nearly every talk-radio show has at one time or another either covered the topic or made it the focus of a segment of an hour, or made it the topic for the hour.

There are many great points made on those shows; especially the point that what these auto makers is facing is the very reason for bankruptcy laws.

Allowing companies to continue to do business while restructuring themselves as they have more time to pay their debts and keep workers (that's real people) from being unemployed due to no cause of their own.

The Congress shall have Power To...establish...uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States.

But, this is so much more than big important and connected people coming in and saving some group and letting others have to follow the laws.

We are in the middle of the Congressional leadership and the Democrat Party's chosen one deciding that the auto makers and therefore the auto workers are more important than our power-supplying companies and therefore the mine workers that supply the coal that is the predominant source of fuel for our power supply.

I was at a loss for understanding how this could be. But, there were no uncertain terms applied to what would happen to any company that would try to build a coal-fired plant:"they will go bankrupt".

Why is bankruptcy OK for one industry, that we all need and use, but not for another that, well hasn't been so very necessary of late - remember it is the "Big Three" of Ford/GM/Chrysler that are on the verge of bankruptcy not ConEd/Exelon/FirstEnergy; yet, very strangely, it is ConEd/Exelon/FirstEnergy (as well as many others) being threatened with bankruptcy if they even attempt to supply more of the product that is in such demand.

The answer my friend is in the rhetoric of the Democrat Party's chosen one.

Remember the number 250,000 ? (or 200,000 or 150,000 or 120,000 whichever the number du jour is)

Oh, sure, when at first we heard him use it, he meant the dollar amount at which your income has made you less important to him. But that number is so much more meaningful.

The United Auto Workers are a group of 464,910 as of the end of 2007. That is a lot of union dues. That is a lot of union dues being funneled into the Democrat Party coffers. Those union dues would undoubtedly be decreased in the event of contract restructuring by a bankruptcy.

The United Mine Workers, however do not make it to the magic number.

The United Mine Workers are a group of 105,000 according to their statement of endorsement of the Democrat Party's chosen one. A large part of that membership is outside of the coal industry, in such varied occupations as public service and healthcare.

That is apparently not enough union dues being funneled into the Democrat Party coffers to care enough about preserving their contracts from bankruptcy restructuring.