The consequences of violating property rights and the rule of law.

http://tinyurl.com/oq992z
About Those 'Speculators' . . . Pension funds also got whacked by Uncle Sam. WSJ MAY 21, 2009 Remember how President Obama blamed Chrysler's bankruptcy filing last month on "a small group of speculators" who turned down Treasury's $2 billion final offer for their $6.9 billion in debt? Well, it turns out that hedge funds and other short sellers weren't the only secured creditors who got a raw deal from Uncle Sam.Indiana ...state's police and teacher pension funds have lost millions of dollars in the Chrysler "restructuring." ...Far from being speculators, these funds represent retired public employees, including cops and teachers. The funds paid a premium to buy "secured" status, only to discover that they were politically outranked by the United Auto Workers in the White House hierarchy.
"In the past, to be 'secured' meant an investor was 'first in line' in the event of a bankruptcy and 'non-secured' creditors would receive value after secured-creditors were paid," ..."In the Chrysler bankruptcy, however, secured creditors received $.29 on the dollar even as non-secured creditors received higher values and ended up with a 55% ownership of the new company, which is fundamentally wrong and a dangerous precedent to the capital markets." We've worried that the Chrysler sandbagging would discourage bond investment. And, sure enough, Mr. Mourdock says that from now on no funds under his control will invest in the secured debt of "General Motors, other manufacturing companies, or those insurance companies who have or will be receiving bailout funds." Given the recent actions by the feds, he adds, "the risk is too great for any prudent investor to accept." This isn't political grandstanding. Public investment officials like Mr. Mourdock have a fiduciary duty to seek maximum returns for retirees. The question for all public officials responsible for investing pension money is whether they too should conclude that investing in U.S.-aided companies now carries so much political risk that it violates their legal obligations. Such are the wages of White House disdain for legal contracts.
The situation w/r GM bondholders is even more egregious. GM bonds were sold in smaller-than-usual denominations to small holders who are now out of pocket and anything but "speculators." They are, however, still outranked by the UAW......
http://tinyurl.com/pjuk3nTheft In Name Of Stimulus Is Still Theft By WALTER E. WILLIAMS Most of our nation's great problems, including our economic problems, have as their root decaying moral values. ...we have become an immoral people left with little more than the pretense of morality....Do you believe that it is moral and just for one person to be forcibly used to serve the purposes of another? And, if that person does not peaceably submit to being so used, do you believe that there should be the initiation of some kind of force against him?...For me, the answer is no to both questions, but I bet that your average college professor, politician or minister would not give a simple yes or no response. They would be evasive and probably say that it all depends. In thinking about questions of morality, my initial premise is that I am my private property, and you are your private property. That's simple. What's complex is what percentage of me belongs to someone else....accept the idea of self-ownership, then certain acts are readily revealed as moral or immoral. ...rape and murder are immoral because they violate one's private property rights. Theft of the physical things that we own, such as cars, jewelry and money, also violates our ownership rights.
The reason why your college professor, politician or minister cannot give a simple yes or no answer to the question of whether one person should be used to serve the purposes of another is because they are sly enough to know that either answer would be troublesome for their agenda. A yes answer would put them firmly in the position of supporting some of mankind's most horrible injustices such as slavery....A no answer would put them on the spot as well because that would mean they would have to come out against taking the earnings of one American to give to another in the forms of farm and business handouts, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and thousands of similar programs that account for more than two-thirds of the federal budget. There is neither moral justification nor constitutional authority for what amounts to legalized theft. This is not an argument against paying taxes. ...no way out of our immoral quagmire....now that the U.S. Congress has established the principle that one American has a right to live at the expense of another American, it no longer pays to be moral. People who choose to be moral and refuse congressional handouts will find themselves losers. They'll be paying higher and higher taxes to support increasing numbers of those paying lower and lower taxes.
As it stands now, close to 50% of income earners have no federal income tax liability and as such, what do they care about rising income taxes? ...once legalized theft begins, it becomes too costly to remain moral and self-sufficient. ...join in the looting, including the current looting in the name of stimulating the economy....a historian, a hundred years from now, will footnote America as a historical curiosity where people once enjoyed private property rights and limited government, but it all returned to mankind's normal state of affairs — arbitrary abuse and control by the powerful elite.