GM Bondholders Getting the Shaft?

You keep reading about the GM bondholders holding out, slowing up the works, gumming the wheels of progress. Ninety percent of us must agree by May 26 to a swap deal for GM common stock or else the company files for bankruptcy. Forget bloated union contracts, foreign competition and decades of decline -- it's the bondholders that will drag down GM. Unless we take one for the team.

It's a real hustle down the aisle for a deal that, as a former Miami resident I can say, blows like a hurricane. And though Chapter 11 bankruptcy seems unavoidable, weary bondholders -- it's been a rough ride, people -- are expected to leap in front of each other to swap out our notes for stock shares that may soon be meaningless.

Oh yes, there's also an under-publicized 1-for-100 reverse stock split attached to the offer. And the company rounds down each fractional share while converting your notes. The well-publicized 225 shares for every $1,000 of principal actually ends up being two shares. Two shares, not 225.

Such a deal!

Here's my personal slice of the choices facing GM bondholders. If you see me on the street, feel free to buy me a beer and commiserate over my losses.

In 2006, I inherited GM promissory notes with original principal value of $62,500. Some of them dated back to the 1940s, when my grandfather the banker scraped up the bones to invest in the rising auto company. The market value on the bonds, what I could get for selling them in 2006, was about $40,000. - CBS News Story

This is Obama's America. Screw the man who has propped up these fledgling car makers for years and reward the Unions that have helped drive them into the ground. Makes perfect sense to me!?