Look, how often do I have to explain it to you? "Bankruptcy" --for GM or for any other public company--need not mean liquidation and distribution at distress prices. "Bankruptcy" means you maximize the value of the available assets and distribute the proceeds to stakeholders as their interests may appear. If the business is better off dead, this should mean that you put a bullet through the poor beast and go forward from there. But plenty of businesses are worth more as going concerns than they are in liquidation. If that is the case, then the job is to preserve the value of the going concern--whether or not there is anything left for equity. Think of bankruptcy (this line is not original with me) as a kind of forced sale to creditors.
This is true in Chapter 11, the "reorganization" Chapter. Sometimes stakeholders get to "vote" on a "plan," but forget about that, it's a side issue. Strictly speaking, it is true in Chapter 7, the "liquidation" Chapter, as well. Section 704(a)(8) says that the trustee shall, if the business of the debtor is authorized to be operated, do blah blah. This pretty clearly recognizes thst the court may authorize the trustee to operate the business. Which is just as it should be, if his job is to maximize the value of the assets. Not everyone uinderstands this, but by this time, you should understand it pretty well.
Rephrased, saving the assets is not the same as saving the old equity owners. Who knows, there may be some value in GM--some lines worth saving and suchlike. But equity has no more than lottery ticket value, even now.
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