"At the time the GM-Chrysler merger was being considered, Chrysler was primarily owned (80 percent) by the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, L.P., headed by Stephen A. Feinberg and Jacob Ezra Merkin. Cerberus is named after the mythological three-headed dog of Hell*. It should be noted that Feinberg and Merkin also controlled General Motors Acceptance Corp. (GMAC), the financial services branch of GM.

GM sold 51 percent of GMAC in 2006 to Feinberg's private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, and Jacob Ezra Merkin became chairman of GMAC. Had the merger gone through, Feinberg and Merkin would have probably become majority owners of both GM and Chrysler. This appears to have been the plan. Feinberg and Merkin, the owners of GMAC, had plundered and conspired to bring down GM so that they could take it over...

[Merkin is also] one of the key players of the multi-billion dollar criminal fraud carried out by Bernard Madoff. Merkin secretly diverted untold billions to Madoff's fraudulent investment fund. One of Merkin's funds 'lost' $1.8 billion of investor cash with Madoff.... Merkin had been chairman of GMAC since November 2006. GMAC reportedly lost nearly $8 billion while Merkin was in charge. Despite Merkin's huge losses at GMAC and his involvement in the Madoff criminal scam, the U.S. government evidently had no problem providing billions of taxpayer dollars..."

-- Christopher Bollyn

* Like Cerberus, the creature who guards the entrance to Hades, these hyenas of high finance are only too happy to welcome the unwary into their realm; but escaping their clutches and returning to the world of the living is another matter.