Word: chapter
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...because success is not an individual phenomenon; successful people, Gladwell argues, never rise from nothing. This is hardly an uncontroversial claim in a culture that prides itself on being a meritocracy. Tales of 21st century self-made men (and women)—of J.K. Rowling writing the first chapter of Harry Potter on the back of a café napkin when she was a single mother on welfare, or of Steve Jobs dropping out of Reed College because he couldn’t pay tuition—are no less popular now than they were during Horatio Alger?...
Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, the automaker in most imminent danger of failure, gave lawmakers three reasons Chapter 11 isn't an option. First, the special financing that usually tides companies over through reorganization is so scarce right now that GM might not be able to get enough to keep functioning. Second, the stigma of bankruptcy would deter consumers from buying GM cars. Third, GM is already in the midst of a dramatic reorganization that will pave the way to a profitable future...
...other automakers have cut costs sharply, especially since 2005, and the United Auto Workers union has made historic concessions. But GM could accomplish even more along those lines, plus reduce the big debts it has incurred trying to settle pension and retiree health-care obligations, under Chapter 11 protection...
There's a third option, between a no-strings bailout and Chapter 11--what some call conservatorship. It's bankruptcy-by-another-name, in which the government loans money to the automakers in return for equity stakes and concessions from creditors and workers. It's been done before--the 1979 Chrysler bailout followed such lines--but getting it right could be hard. "You're not very good at reworking companies," University of Maryland business professor Peter Morici told members of the Senate Banking Committee. "That's why we have bankruptcy courts...
...weigh so heavily on big old companies trying to reinvent themselves. That won't happen overnight. But this particular economic crisis is so wrapped up in past government decisions--about financial regulation, about budgets, about housing policy, about pensions and health care--that the private solution of Chapter 11 just may not be enough. Bankruptcy-by-another-name it is, then...