The U.S. Government took a bigger loss than what was initially reported on the General Motors bailout, a recently released government report from the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program has revealed.
When the treasury sold its final shares of GM stock on Dec. 9, the estimated loss for taxpayers was estimated to be at $10.3 billion. That figured jumped to $11.2 billion after a Treasury Department auditor said the government had written off an $826-million “administrative claim” which was tied to the GM bailout.
The U.S. Government at one point owned 60.8 percent of GM stock and distributed $50.2 billion in emergency aid to GM in late 2008 and early 2009 to help the company out of bankruptcy. Before it sold its remaining GM stock in December, the Treasury predicted a total loss of $9.7 billion.
“The goal of Treasury’s investment in GM was never to make a profit, but to help save the American auto industry, and by any measure that effort was successful,” Treasury spokesman Adam Hodge told the Detroit Free Press.
Comments
The gub-mint motors crowd will no doubt turn this into a major stink.
When you look at it, it doesn’t seem too bad. The ripple effect on the economy if we had lost General Motors would have done much more damage than $11.2 Billion.
The fact is the money spent here has a much more positive and long term effect than any of the so called shovel ready stimulus bill projects or green energy projects. How many billions were lost there in short term projects and failed companies.
The damage done to the loss of GM would have damaged not only all the companies associated with GM but even the other automakers as the suppliers have to work with all of them to make it. Even Toyota and Ford were very worried for the failure of GM.
They may all be competitors but they are all in the same lifeboat of cost savings.