Fed Says Taxpayers So Far Have Lost Only $9.7 Billion On Sale Of "Investment Grade" GM Stock

So 20% loss on a loan is acceptable accounting for the Fed? Yeah

More acceptable than say 80 to a 100% loss. So you still think nothing was gained from the bailout?

The free market system would have prevailed. Yes GM would have folded, but the sales volume would have to go somewhere and the other automakers would have had a boon. Even the supply chain would have been preserved because the volume would have remained relatively the same.

Incredible age we live in where voters tolerate a type of government which

1. ignores the will of the majority and
2. bails out a failed company.



As long as people are fat and happy and continue to get their disability and their unemployment everything else is irrelevant to them. It doesn't matter how deceitful, inept, and corrupt the government becomes for everyone else. If only the auto unions and their lawyers and lobbyists were so Ignorant and apathetic.

When the failed company happens to be as intimately tied to the economic health of the nation, is it any surprise? Let's not be naive. It's not like this was some senator's son's lemonade stand.

And if only the alleged fiscally concerned would acknowledge the real waste in our budget: the jobs program known as the defense budget.

Pfft. If you actually think a failed auto company like GM is intimately tied to the economic health of the nation, you've been brainwashed.

This line is contrived auto-union P.R. spin and it's total bullshit.

The loss of GM would have been undetectable. Not just in terms of GDP, but also in more ordinary terms across most of America, as a near total majority of us would have felt NOTHING, just as we felt NOTHING when Pontiac and Oldsmobile vanished. Or Eastern Airlines. Or Lehman Brothers.

GM's former employees, meanwhile? Boo fucking hoo. These folks would have received unemployment compensation for a year or two then would have been asked to FIND OTHER WORK. And guess what? Their total unemployment benefits still would not have exceeded $6 billion. FAR LESS than the $40 billions squandered on bailing out this ancient, bloated, poorly-run company.

Larger companies have risen and fallen, some in just a day's trading session, and yet... here we are. WE SURVIVED. How crazy is that?

Let's be logical here. The loss isn't that great compared to the original price tag. And as reaganeatbrains said, they're closley tied to the economy. The supplier network is so vast, there would have been a ripple effect had they collapsed.

And let's not be ignorant to the SEC lawsuits against Big Banks. The will of the majority never asked for a purely capitalistic system where subprime, predatory lending and misrepresentation ranked supreme. The size of the settlement agreements to avoid further SEC probes into toxic financial asset sales easily eclipses the loss to GM.

GM actually offers a tangible product where as the stock market only exists to separate fools from their money. It amazes me how uninformed the public at large is on these matters.

You must be one of these people at large because you are pretty uninformed yourself. The "Big Banks" weren't engaging in predatory lending. It was much smaller firms which found the practice shamefully easy and profitable because of the gross misconduct of some unnaturally powerful, government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) ... Fannie and Freddie. If it weren't for these "implicitly taxpayer-backed agencies" BUYING the garbage loans, they would NEVER have been approved in the first place.

The supplier network? Boo fucking hoo. They have seen buyers come and go for their pieces and parts. Some of these businesses, the smarter ones, actually hedge their business and produce other types of parts and WOULD HAVE SURVIVED. Others, well, THAT'S LIFE. Still stamping steel drums for that impala? TIME TO MOVE ON.

The gov't will hedge just like any other company. It would be difficult for Fannie or Freddie to make an informed decision if the securities have misrepresented credit worthiness. Not entirely their fault there. And they only represent a portion of the investors that bought the garbage securities. The $9B loss is offset by the SEC settlement agreements that are actually for the underlying problem that created the collapse to begin with.

Some buyers are bigger than others. And with as long as GM has been in business with its supply chain, I can almost bet complacency would be rampant. Hedging would help only a small portion. The majority of the suppliers would have been greatly impacted because they're already carrying debt on the product. Imagine if they didn't get paid.

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYES. It's that time again regressives!!! Our shining moment! LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLets get ready to bash Obama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's what we live forrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bush initiated the auto industry bailout you iiiiiiignorant littttttle thuggggg

Stock market just reached the highest its ever been. Can we blame that on Obama? never right?

And yet it was at 14k in Bush's last term, I bet you were still crediting Clinton though.