Round II?

[Flop The Nuts]

My point of view is that the huge taxpayer bailout of the banks and of the auto firms shouldn't have happened. Instead of letting GM go through bankruptcy, Obama threw taxpayer money at it and then turned it over to the unions. GM is essentially being run by a combination of the U.S. government and the unions. If that's not a scary proposition I don't know what is.

Morgan makes $15 billion a year, a few billion isn't going to sink the ship. Obama and his cronies are using this minor blip as cover for his failed policies over the last three years. Anything to distract from the real financial catastrophe that the U.S. government has wrought.

[LkwdSteve]

Obama's term has nothing to do with it. I've been railing against the morality of Wall Street on these pages since 2007 (before the bail out).

Consider that you brought up an example of short selling a stock. I, for one, have felt that shortselling should be illegal. So.....

[ban basketball]

Aren't the main auto companies doing better now than they have in decades, being partly government owned ("union owned" is a bit of a stretch, as unions have been part of the auto industry since the 1930's)?

[quinn14]

Aren't the main auto companies doing better now than they have in decades, being partly government owned ("union owned" is a bit of a stretch, as unions have been part of the auto industry since the 1930's)?

Where do you get this information. Everything I read says that GM stock is way down, even lower than it was in 2010 when it was first offered publicly. There sales only surpassed Toyota last year because of the tsunami that halted Toyota production. Toyota has since passed them again. Buffett just bought a bunch of stock in GM but it is still way below the price it was just 2 years ago. Here is an article.

GM’s Akerson Impatient to Improve His ‘B’ Grade as CEO - Bloomberg

[ODH]

The GM stock was a record IPO so it is not surprising that it has fallen. Regardless, the company is now viable and profitable. Seems like a reasonable example of government interference that work.

[Flop The Nuts]

Ford is doing pretty well and they didn't take any government money. GM and others would probably doing just as well if they had gone through bankruptcy instead of taking billions of taxpayer dollars and screwing the bondholders out of the money they were due. The auto industry hasn't come close to giving back the money that was used to prop them up, how is this a good deal for the U.S. taxpayer?

I'd be doing a lot better now if the government gave me millions of dollars, but that doesn't mean it's the right way to do things.

[quinn14]

The GM stock was a record IPO so it is not surprising that it has fallen. Regardless, the company is now viable and profitable. Seems like a reasonable example of government interference that work.

I could be wrong about this, like I've said before, I don't know much about wall street. But, if I buy a bunch of stock at $33 a pop and it is now worth $22, doesn't that mean that I have just lost a whole bunch of money? How is that good for someone's 401k or IRA?

[ban basketball]

Looks pretty derned good to this ignunt Iowan!

The comeback of the American car - Jan. 5, 2012

USA! USA! USA!

[Flop The Nuts]

More to the story than just the headline. The government invested $60 billion in GM and now expects a loss of around $24 billion from that investment. GM is able to write off about $45 billion in previous losses going forward. Much more in the linked article. I would hope with that kind of help from the government that things would be looking good for the company. How's it look for the taxpayer?

Like I said, if the government gave me a million dollars then my personal balance sheet would look great, especially if I only had to pay back a little over 1/2 of it.

Treasury Admits What Everybody Already Knew: Taxpayer Losses On GM Bailout Are Going to be Massive - Hit & Run : Reason.com