Steal Of A Deal? Feds Now Say US Only Lost $14 Billion On US Automaker "Loans"

If you exchange equity for stock (ownership), the lender can only lose money when they decide to sell, so here is the real question:

Who is forcing the Treasury to sell at the beginning of an automarket recovery? Why is the Treasury determined to get out of any ownership stake in Chrysler before (if) they have an IPO?

And before the haters can hate, I'd like to remind you that:

1) To do nothing would have been the Herbert Hoover option, and the resulting depression from a million job losses would have likely had consequences we couldn't imagine.

1) Chrysler was paying nearly a $1 milllion dollars per day in interest on its Treasury loans.

3) During the same timeframe of the US Auto "bailout" Toyota asked the EU for 40 billion Euro, (11/26/08 LeftLaneNews.com) Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mazda all sought zero-interest loans from the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation to fund their US operations (3/6/2009 AutoBlog.com). Similar "bailout" loans were provided in Europe.

Penny change! That's only about 20 days worth of military spending.

Interesting as the article is almost opposite of the headlines. Quotes like this "Had GM and Chrysler collapsed, it would have cost the federal government about $28.6 billion in lost tax revenues and assistance to the unemployed in just the first two years alone..." and this "By the way, that $28.6 billion figure doesn't include the business taxes the federal government would have lost but can now expect from two large, profitable automakers and their suppliers. It also doesn't include any lost state and local tax revenue." put a better perspective on it. Not to mention the loss this country would have taken losing the talent and knowledge needed to produce heavy industry large scale manufacturing. We are just about down to Airliners and Defense...

Is it any shock that the feds can't even break even on a loan?

People are going about talking as though the Feds were spending their *own* money, rather than spending their *citizens'* money on their behalf.

Why do we have to have stupid articles like this? 009 and the Republicans want to see the end of this nation and it's greatness. so sick of useless articles (with poor headlines) like this one. To whom it may concern this guy 009 is doing more harm to your traffic than good.

Some people just dont get it! This country needs JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS and more JOBS!

@ autospies2 Apparently you have no clue what the word propaganda means. Guess you heard it on fox news. yes Bush had helped GM/Chrysler a little but it took the next president weeks to get things done because of stupid republicans like dan corker, and mit rommney that wanted to just give up on jobs and American manufacturing for political reasons. They call these guys leaders? Look where the Big3 are now so you STFU.