Don't Call It Bankruptcy

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Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, the automaker in most imminent danger of failure, gave lawmakers three reasons Chapter 11 isn't an option. First, the special financing that usually tides companies over through reorganization is so scarce right now that GM might not be able to get enough to keep functioning. Second, the stigma of bankruptcy would deter consumers from buying GM cars. Third, GM is already in the midst of a dramatic reorganization that will pave the way to a profitable future.

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The first two are good reasons for Congress to take the carmakers' pleas seriously--a shutdown of GM is not what anybody wants now. The third argument is more problematic. Yes, GM and the other automakers have cut costs sharply, especially since 2005, and the United Auto Workers union has made historic concessions. But GM could accomplish even more along those lines, plus reduce the big debts it has incurred trying to settle pension and retiree health-care obligations, under Chapter 11 protection.

There's a third option, between a no-strings bailout and Chapter 11--what some call conservatorship. It's bankruptcy-by-another-name, in which the government loans money to the automakers in return for equity stakes and concessions from creditors and workers. It's been done before--the 1979 Chrysler bailout followed such lines--but getting it right could be hard. "You're not very good at reworking companies," University of Maryland business professor Peter Morici told members of the Senate Banking Committee. "That's why we have bankruptcy courts."

Then again, Congress can do things that a bankruptcy judge couldn't--such as revamp health care and retirement policy so the costs don't weigh so heavily on big old companies trying to reinvent themselves. That won't happen overnight. But this particular economic crisis is so wrapped up in past government decisions--about financial regulation, about budgets, about housing policy, about pensions and health care--that the private solution of Chapter 11 just may not be enough. Bankruptcy-by-another-name it is, then.

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