We are paying for restructuring of Opel. Thank you government. That is what we’ve been taxed for.

gm uses there platforms for there cars here. also if they restructure them right they and start making good money will be coming back to the U.S.

Exactly worst 3!

What was stopping them doing this before? Lefty will state that Bush and Cheney did, but really?

If you turnaround Opel that would be Lepo… duh.

In the middle of the year what was stopping them was a lack of money while they were going into bankruptcy.

After bankruptcy the new board was unfamiliar not only with how GM is a global company and the value of Opel to GM but how the auto industry works. They are now “getting it” and recognize the value of Opel within the GM empire. AND GM now has little debt and lots of cash to invest.

Yep, cash called treasury investment. Little debt is hard to swallow (do I sound like Monica Lewinsky?). 50 billions invested by taxpayers and only 17 planned to be repaved is sound like “new” math to me.

Borat- you should be thanking the head honchos at GM for pulling out of the Magma deal……not the gov’t.

why I should be thankful to anyone at this point? This saving of US jobs cost each US family $800 as of now. How we to know that we saw the end of it? If economic conditions do not improve, does anyone has any doubt that more greenbacks will be shipped to Detroit? this maybe the money pit of a century. I know about financial money pit, but banks always had carnal relationship with treasury. Auto industry was private affair up until 2009.

If they do a good job restructuring and If they make money. we’ll see

it was bush and cheney…now what was the question?

money pit of the century? not even close…look up AIG in wikipedia, for just one example:

“AIG suffered from a liquidity crisis when its credit ratings were downgraded below “AA” levels in September 2008. The United States Federal Reserve Bank on September 16, 2008, created an $85 billion credit facility to enable the company to meet increased collateral obligations consequent to the credit rating downgrade, in exchange for the issuance of a stock warrant to the Federal Reserve Bank for 79.9% of the equity of AIG. The Federal Reserve Bank and the United States Treasury by May 2009 had increased the potential financial support to AIG, with the support of an investment of as much as $70 billion, a $60 billion credit line and $52.5 billion to buy mortgage-based assets owned or guaranteed by AIG, increasing the total amount available to as much as $182.5 billion.[3][4] AIG subsequently sold a number of its subsidiaries and other assets to pay down loans received, and continues to seek buyers of its assets. In March 2009, AIG faced public outrage and media and political backlash for its retention payments of $165 million. During this time period, many AIG employees endured hate mail and death threats.[5][6][7]”

and i would also argue that the war in iraq, which is closer to a mother****ing trillion is a bigger money pit than gm by a long shot…anyway, you’re way too focused on the bottom line and whether every cent is paid back…the purpose of bailing out gm wasn’t to just break even on the loans…the purpose was to keep jobs and our manufacturing capability in a critical time for the economy…the downstream effect of keeping those jobs alive you can’t possibly measure, and in my estimation if you totaled all the benefits up you would more than pay for the effing bailout…

You do not need to calculate it. It was outlined in the report by CARS before the bankruptcy proceedings began.

Found the report, if GM would have liquidated:

Economic Impact, Billions of Dollars (Nominal)
YEAR……………………………………….2009… 2010…. 2011
Personal Income……………………. ..-125.1… -86.4 ….-64.2
Increase in Transfer Payment ……….1.9….+7.5…… +5.2
Decline in Social Security Receipts -17.5. -12.1 …….-8.9
Personal Income Taxes…………….. -20.5 …-14.1 ….-10.4

Social Security would have lost $38 billion all by itself and income tax would be $50 billion. This also assumes that many would find new jobs in 2010 and 2011. Yea, good luck with that.

In toto after 3 years:

Personal Income ($ billions) -275.7
Combined loss of tax receipts and increase in transfer payments ($ billions) -108.1

I’m not thrilled with the idea of our tax money being used to fund foreign ventures. HOWEVER, Opel platforms are what’s saving GM’s back side right now and I actually want to see more. Also, as long as GM is paying back the loans (with the appropriate interest), I guess the funding doesn’t bother me as much.

What is the name of the car in the photo?

for the love of god, get over the $50 billion. its gone, get over it. GM is not sending anyone a check for repayment or giving out free cars. be happy that taxpayers will be getting back maybe ~10%. no one seems to care where the other billions go the govenment spends. if you actually knew, you’d be more upset.

Lefty, you are confusing industries. AIG was a regulated industry. It was regulated by US government when it was selling financial instruments across the globe. Government failed to monitor and regulate, i.e. was asleep at the wheel of financial industry. Responsibility for banks and international financial houses was always part of government oversight. After all, they were selling government financial instruments and government guaranteed them. Neither Bush’s, Clinton’s or Obama’s financiers (or tzars as media calls them) know all the instruments that are being sold and technique of those sells. That is the problem, regardless of administration. Obama did not fired Bernanke for incompetence, there is no one better! This is extremely complex issue (in language you accustom to: it is like virus that mutates with speed of veracity of HIV).
Auto industry was a private matter, until it became government matter. Based on history at British Leyland (which obviously Treasury not aware off) it should never became public matter.
The general gripe with administration is in my view is that president run on platform of change and making government smarter and better government. There is no sign of this happening; for most people bigger does not mean better, unless you talking SUV crowd .

Tell you what, call it an INVESTMENT of public funds and you should feel better. In the case of GM the government essentially bought a near bankrupt company with the aim of restructuring it and turning a profit. Guess what… this is a pretty reasonable gamble and I am confident we will all reap the rewards as they are happening right now.
Sometimes SH*T hits the fan and somthing extra ordinary needs to be done about it unless you of course prefer a depression.

Constitution was fairly clear of form and function of investing of public funds by government. Buying auto. appliance, or pharmaceutical companies was never mentioned or interpreted to be mentioned in constitution. Commons sense would definitely prohibited such “investment” for non-communist society.
I would like government to buy out local pizza guy who can’t make decent pizza. What’s the difference?

Wher in the constitution does it prohit such acts???
It does not

A little present from Opel:

The Regal in the US is different than the Korean market version in tuning only, it shares 95% of it’s parts with the Insignia. Basically the changes come down to different headlights and tail lights per federal requirements, new software in the radio and navigation system, different rear view mirror glass, and all-season tires. They actually improved over the Insignia’s NVH requirements, adding sound deadening material in the cabin to make it align with Buick targets.

We drove the European spec Insignia against the Regal and believe it or not, the Regal is better.