Bridge Loan to Nowhere - Altman

Bridge Loan to Nowhere - WSJ.com: "NYU's Edward Altman said the company proposals were 'doomed to fail.' He proposed a prepackaged bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler, with the government providing the debtor-in-possession financing if necessary. His point, which ought to be sobering, was that outside of bankruptcy there is no way to make these taxpayer loans senior to existing secured debt -- meaning the government might never get paid back if the companies go bankrupt later.

Mr. Altman's suggestion has a lot of things going for it. Instead of the politically driven 'car czar' being mooted to oversee the bailout, you'd have a bankruptcy judge to make sure that the companies did, in fact, emerge as more viable businesses. The resulting restructuring would be far more likely to be driven by business considerations than political and environmental ones."