There were two major court rulings yesterday -- one in Detroit and one in Washington -- which were hard to accept, but which were also exactly the right things to do.
The most important was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?s who issued a stay delaying the decision made in bankruptcy court last week that was to have let the Fiat-Chrysler marriage go into effect yesterday afternoon.
This ruling came just after I finished taping a half-hour TV show with two automotive industry experts. They gave Chrysler a chance to survive, but only if nothing happened to mess up the alliance with Fiat. Chrysler is losing $100 million a day, and the fear is that any delay could cause the company's value to fall even further. So what in the world was Justice Ginsburg doing?
The answer: Her job.
This deal allowing Chrysler to emerge from bankruptcy and merge with Fiat was rushed through the courts and the normal time delays waived. But two Indiana pension funds who are owed a lot of money by Chrysler filed suit to stop all this. They argued in bankruptcy court that the U.S. Treasury violated their property rights.
They lost the argument there. But they've changed tactics. The pension funds are now saying it was unconstitutional for both the Bush and Obama administrations to use the so-called TARP funds --Troubled Asset Relief Program --to bail out the automakers.
Whatever the merits of that argument, it may deserve a hearing in the nation's highest court. And frankly, something of the gravity and scope of all this deserves a bit of judicial review.
Chrysler didn't get into this pickle overnight, and a few days more or less isn?t going to decide the fate of western civilization.
There was a second legal decision that was of much less importance for the economy, but closes a long chapter in our history A Wayne County judge allowed the City of Detroit to complete demolition of the ruins of Tiger Stadium, an icon of baseball history.
This was, sadly, the right thing to do. I say that as someone steeped in baseball nostalgia. I saw famous games there, some almost half a century ago. My father saw Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
I never thought they should have built a new stadium in the 1990s, but they did. The city deliberately let the old park decay and crumble. Last year they tore most of it down. A die-hard group called the old Tiger Stadium Conservancy fought to save the remnant.
They wanted to build a museum and a field for youth leagues. But there was, and is, no money, in this city with tens of thousands of vacant buildings and children with too little food.
We didn't take care of it, and it was time to let it go. Tiger Stadium, like Chrysler, were born in an era when baseball was the only big-league sport, and cars were propelling our state into unheard-of prosperity. We live in a different world now.
Let's hope we keep the best of our sometimes glorious past, and find the way to a successful future.
Would someone please correct me if I am wrong in this, but is it not true, that the money spent by the City of Detroit on the malfeasances of Kwame Kilpatrick (settlement of the Brown/Nelthrope lawsuit, legal fees, subsequent investigation and fees, etc.) would have been sufficient to provide basic maintenance for Tiger Stadium (estimated at $300,000 to $400,000 per year) during the entire tenure of the Kilpatrick Kleptocracy?
If I am mistaken about the relevant figures, I shall expect that the collective genius of the world wide web will soon correct me. I do not think I am incorrect.
Posted by: Anonymous | June 09, 2009 at 10:06 PM