U.S. government loses $9.7 billion in GM bailout http://www.torontosun.com/2013/10/29/us-government-loses-97-billion-in-gm-bailout DETROIT -- The U.S. government has booked a loss of $9.7 billion on the nearly $50 billion bailout of U.S. automaker General Motors Co, according to a quarterly report to Congress on Tuesday. In 2009, the U.S. Treasury extended $49.5 billion in loans to GM in exchange for $2.1 billion in preferred stock and a 60.8 percent equity stake. Treasury has since whittled down its stake in GM through a series of stock sales. Those sales have all taken place below the price Treasury needed to break even on its GM investment, resulting in the loss, according to Tuesday's report from the Special Inspector General overseeing the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Treasury has sold its preferred stock and reduced its equity stake to 7.3 percent. Treasury owns 101.3 million GM shares as of Sept. 26, the most recent date available. The U.S. government has said it plans to sell its remaining GM shares by April 2014. Some analysts said Treasury could even unwind its position by year end. The exit of Treasury will eliminate the stigma of government ownership that has hovered over the automaker since the bailout, which prompted some critics to dub the company "Government Motors."
The UAW is happy. They got a great return for their investment. That's all the democrats care about anyway. It's not like it was their voters who would be paying for it or Obamacare.
"A Center for Automotive Research (CAR) study reported that in just a single year, 2010, the automotive industry generated $91.5 billion in state and local tax revenue and $43 billion in federal tax revenue in the United States.[19] The CAR studies have shown significant government tax revenues are generated by the auto industry.[20]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors#Chapter_11_reorganization
If the Government did not give GM 50 billion dollars would there still be cars?. Would state and local tax revenue still be received?
Yes, but maybe not American made cars. If no American made cars, then there would be no tax revenue from American car manufacturing.
Did Ford get vaporized or something? Also, lots of foreign manufacturers get breaks on taxes by having manufacturing facilities here, and pay tax to the US.
I said "maybe", and I abstracted slightly to shine light on the point. You're right in the second sentence, and it's better than nothing, but owned and operated by Americans is preferable in my view.