U.S. taxpayers to lose $3.3B more on auto bailout

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Tom Krisher - Associated Press


U.S. taxpayers will lose $3.3 billion more on the auto industry bailout than the government predicted two months ago, hurt by General Motors' falling stock price.

In its latest monthly report to Congress, the U.S. Treasury Department said it expected to lose $25.05 billion on the bailout, up from a previous estimated loss of $21.7 billion. The latest report estimates losses as of May 31. The previous report's estimate was from Feb. 29.

GM's stock price fell 15% during that period, closing at $22.20 on May 31. The stock has fallen almost 8% since then, closing Monday at $20.49.

The government spent about $80 billion to bail out GM, Chrysler and Ally Financial, the former finance arm of GM. So far it's gotten back just more than $37 billion. But the government still owns stakes in GM and Ally.

The Obama administration has touted the auto industry bailouts as one of its successes, saying it saved more than one million jobs and stopped the nation from going into a depression. The Treasury Department estimates that nearly 250,600 new auto industry jobs have been added since the bailout.

Republican Mitt Romney has criticized the bailout and said General Motors and Chrysler should not have received government aid. In June, Romney said he would quickly sell the government's GM shares even if it meant a large loss for taxpayers.

The government spent about $50 billion to bail out GM in 2008 and 2009, using money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, most of which was used to bail out troubled banks.

Through stock sales and loan repayments, it has recouped about $24 billion, according to the Treasury report, which was filed Friday with Congress.

The government still owns about 500 million shares of GM, which would have to more than double in price to $53 each for the government to get its remaining $27 billion back.

Chrysler has repaid all of its loans, and the Treasury said it lost $1.3 billion on that bailout. Ally was given $17.2 billion and has repaid $5.5 billion.

But the government still owns 74% of the auto finance and insurance company.

[RBP]

Huge Success!!

[Arkady Renko]

probably to soon to call, either way. If GM does manage to turn around and remains profitable for a while, the government might well break even eventually if they sell their shares at the right time. On the other hand, there's a good chance GM will keep on struggling against its competitors and the stock price will take another hit.

At least the Chrysler bailout was relatively cheap in the end and they even make money now, although it seems that it won't do them any good because FIAT is in a nosedive now.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Cant wait until we get to bail out these other industries after this amazing success

[Arkady Renko]

bailing out GE would be fun, huh?

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Obama all ready said he wants to start doing bailouts in agriculture and some other shit because this was such a great success

[RBP]

Obama all ready said he wants to start doing bailouts in agriculture and some other shit because this was such a great success

We don't to compete with China... we just have to learn to speak Chinese.

[Arkady Renko]

it's going to be just fine, look at how well the European Union's system of crop subsidies works. We can pay farmers around europe for the most fantastic activities. Such as ruining all sorts of third world peasants with heavily subsidized exports of crops such as pineapple, Kiwi, sugar cane, sorghum etc. that don't even do particularly well here. Producing gynormous quantities of milk, cheese and butter that we need to destroy at regular intervals because the excess production can't be stored indefinitely. Or, this I like best, doing sweet FA because it still costs less than paying out the subsidies they'd get if they actually kept producing as they were.

I'm sure you can see why theis kind of scheme appeals so much to your government.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

We pay corn farmers to NOT grow corn.