Bailout

How did the automakers emerge from bankruptcy so quickly?

By Felix Salmon

Micheline Maynard has a good 1,000-word article today on the surprising fact that both GM and Chrysler managed to exit bankruptcy in record time. But who or what should get the credit? Steve Rattner? The two judges involved? Section 363 of the federal bankruptcy code? And is this a heartening precedent for the wave of future bankruptcies which seems inevitable when all those leveraged loans mature over the next four or five years? Or is it a one-off, linked to extreme levels of government involvement, which is unlikely to be repeated?

Full post as published by Macroprudential on July 07, 2009 (boomark / email).