We the tycoons

It’s Joe Biden’s favorite line. “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.” It’s true too. Mostly. Osama bin Laden has been dispatched by the SEALs. And General Motors is indeed alive. Although, it seems, not quite yet entirely out of intensive care. It turns out the government still holds some 500 million shares of GM acquired during the government-managed bankruptcy that led to what’s known as “the bailout.” The 500 million shares are 26.5 percent of the company.

The Wall Street Journal reports that GM’s on-site business managers — as opposed to the off-site government managers in Washington — are starting to chafe over taunts lampooning the company as “Government Motors.”

The Wall Street Journal piece also gave the impression that the GM managers have just about had their fill of the Obama geniuses butting in and telling them, “Stand aside, let us show you how to make cars.”

GM reportedly wants the government to get out of automaking and stick to whatever it is it does in Washington. GM wants the government to start selling off its GM shares.

The thing is — and this is something Joe Biden doesn’t delve into — the shares would roughly have to double in value for the government to break even on its investment. (Or break even on YOUR investment, if you insist on being a stickler for accuracy.) To put it another way, if the government sold its stock now, it would lose your shirt.

The Joe Biden line about Osama and GM is a partisan gibe at Mitt Romney.

He favored letting GM go through regular bankruptcy proceedings rather than the governmnent-managed one. Which proceeding would have been preferable can only be guessed at now. But any hapless schlemiels who held GM corporate bonds are no doubt shouting, “Regular bankruptcy, regular!”

Bond holders are first in the line of creditors in regular bankruptcies.

But in the government-managed bankruptcy, they got moved to the back of the line while the Washington-based automakers attended to the priority concerns of the UAW.

The bailout arrangement required GM to lower labor costs from around $80 an hour down to around $60 — still some $20 more per hour than other automakers.

Joe Biden likes to crow about the thousands of jobs the GM rescue saved. And indeed it did — including some 140,000 jobs overseas, where about seven out of 10 GM jobs are located.

The managed bankruptcy certainly worked as planned to this extent: Obama’s running ahead in Michigan and Ohio.

If such places as China and South America had electoral votes, Obama would be standing in tall cotton indeed.

But fret not about the auto industry. If we the taxpayers don’t flourish as automakers, maybe we’ll prosper as bankers. Turns out we have $200 billion or so invested in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and 300 other financial institutions.

Hey, sit back and light up a big stogie. You’re a tycoon! Enjoy!