I’m somewhat pleased to say that the Obama Administration is rejecting the restructuring plans of GM and Chrysler.

The bad news is that the Administration has already given them billions of our (taxpayer) dollars and will continue to fund them (Chrysler for 30 days and GM for 60 days) with taxpayer money, at the end of which the companies will likely (in my opinion) have to file for bankruptcy.

I just hope the government is getting to the “front of the line” as far as debtor priority goes so that taxpayers are reimbursed when the companies’ assets are sold off.

The stock market is collapsing today (Monday) on the news, not just because GM and Ford stocks are going down (Chrysler is privately-held) but also because financial stocks are weak on worries about the ripple effects if the Big Three default on their billions of dollars of debt. The market is right to be worried.

The real problem here is government involvement and the confusion it causes. The government saved Bear, Stearns and then let Lehman fail. They give the automakers billions of dollars and then say the companies aren’t viable. The government is apparently making decisions based on worst possible combination of incompetence and politics. It’s no wonder Tim Geithner said on “Meet the Press” that he knows he has to get people to work with him at Treasury who actually have real-world experience rather than just being “policy” people. Because government is not making decisions based on real-world experience or any principle greater than helping their political donors, markets and entrepreneurs have no idea what to expect next. And that’s at least as dangerous as knowing to expect a particular bad decision. Maybe today’s announcement regarding the Big Three is the first step in the right direction: It shows that Obama may be willing to make decisions which dramatically weaken unions, and it shows businesses yet again that they want government as their partner in the same way that an honest businessman wants the mafia as a “partner".

We are living “Atlas Shrugged” right now. It’s going to be painful for some time, but it’s the only way out of the country’s current infatuation with a slick, pretty-boy econo-moron named Barack Obama and his siren song of socialism/fascism with which he is luring the country into financial destruction.