adviser on president obama s auto task force and john heileman. msnbc political analyst and writes for new york magazine. gentlemen, i want to start with steve. take a look at something you wrote in today s new york times. you wrote romney s managed bankruptcy plan, quote, sounds like a wonderfully sensible approach, except that it s utter fantasy. i ve heard you say this before, but remind us. what is his plan and would it have killed the auto industry? you just heard him say he wanted them to go through bankruptcy and if government needed to help on the way out, they could. the problem with his idea is that if the auto industry had gone into a so-called managed bankruptcy, it would have never come out. in late 2008 when bush first gave them money and 2009 when president obama did, there wasn t a penny of private capital anywhere in the system that had any interest in financing these companies. they would have shut their doors, laid off their workers and liquidated and put over
i wrote an op ed in the paper and i said absolutely not. these companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy just like airlines have and other industries have. go through a managed bankruptcy. and if they go through the managed bankruptcy and shed the excess of cost put on them by the uaw and their own mismanagement, then if they need help coming out of bankruptcy, the government can provide guarantees and get them back on their feet. well, just the proof that he had that audience stacked out there. they applauded the word bankruptcy. no audience in america aplauds the word bankruptcy unless they were cued to do it by a bunch of whips now the the audience. steve rattner was the lead adviser on president obama s auto task force and john heileman. take a look at something you wrote in today s new york times. you wrote romney s managed bankruptcy plan, quote, sounds like a wonderfully sensible approach, except that it s utter
these companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy. just like airlines have. just like other industries have. go through a managed bankruptcy. go through that managed bankruptcy and shed the access of cost that s been put on them. then if they need help coming out of bankruptcy, the government can get them back on their feet. just to prove he had the audience stacked out, they applauded the word bankruptcy. no audience in america applauds the word bankruptcy unless they were cued to do it by whips in the audience. steve rather in was the leaded a virus for president obama and john heilemann is an nbc political analyst. let s look at something you wrote in the new york times. you wrote that romney s managed bankruptcy plan sounds like a wonderfully sensible approach except that it s utter fantasy. i have heard you say this before, but what is this plan?
how about this? out with the old, in with the knew. social network goes public and iconic airline sheds 13,000 workers. a tale of two u.s. companies, facebook and american airlines. one of them on the verge of becoming a huge success, the other crumbling before our eyes after decades in the business. stuart varney joins me now with this interesting dichotomy this morning. good morning, stewart. good morning, martha. martha: a tale of two american companies for sure. you want to start with american airlines? let s start with american airlines. the american airlines as you know now is going, going gone. this the demise of an american icon. the company is bankrupt. it will shed 13,000 jobs. it wound up four pension funds in the biggest pension default ever. it lost $12.5 billion in last 10 years. the american airlines you know, it is going. on precisely the same day that american airlines declares its bankruptcy plan, along comes facebook with
christian, under a bankruptcy plan. yeah, you know, this is certainly not the solution for harrisburg, you know, harrisburg issue is that they have a huge amount of debt, three times more than they bring in in property taxes, it s not like other communities, they simply have a problem balancing their budgets and they have deep, deep issues and the reason they re not allowed to proceed with the bankruptcy because the mayor disagrees with the city council and if the politicians are not on board no way you can manage a bankruptcy effectively and harrisburg has rejected the idea of going into state, state covered receivership, which is really what it ought to do. and as i believe, jonas mentioned there are plenty of options, they have yet to pursue, such as selling or releasing assets and bankruptcy is not the anchor. frankly, taxpayers are going to pay with that in the form of higher municipal bond rates forever. and two taxpayers, and would the taxpayers, why