U.S. Treasury Is Getting Out Of GM

GM will be stuck with the "Government Motors" tag for at least a generation. Look at the Chrysler bailout of the 80s. Yes, I know it wasn't a bailout, it was a series of Federally insured loans which were all paid back. But in the minds of most people it was a bailout, which is the point of the first sentence.

It would have been better for the US taxpayer if the Treasury had held onto their shares instead of selling them when the shares were trading in the low to mid $20 range. In a couple of years, GM stock will likely be trading north of $40 per share. But that's what you get when you have extremists who know little of what they are talking about being preoccupied with a govt. entity owning shares in an automobile company (doesn't seem to hurt Daimler or BMW) and pressuring for the sale of the Treasury's GM holdings. Not surprisingly, the Canadian govt., which doesn't have the same pressure to sell, will come out with better financially since they decided to hold onto their shares.

@bd2 The administration, which has made the decision to sell, is awfully far to the left, but I wouldn't call them extremists. They are just mainstream progressives.

@thelaine Nice try, but the administration doesn't work in a vacuum. It's been the far right that has been pressuring the govt. to get out of the "car business."

@bd2 You just think the current administration is doing something stupid and want to blame someone else. What exactly would they gain from knuckling under to the "far right?" They could be friends? Olive branch? Start of a new era of peace and cooperation? Give me a break. It is their decision and their responsibility. You can't blame someone else forever. Your enemies are not all-powerful and sometimes even your heroes make mistakes.

@bd2 Wow. Just wow. The pressure Pinocchio is receiving to divest his GM holdings is coming from his banker buddies. The stock won't go anywhere until the government sells their shares, as until then there will be uncertainty about the market impact of selling off such a large position. Chairman Doh's backers want to ride the stock back up after the sale, during which they'll buy at the bottom. Caving to far right pressure? That must explain why he's read at least one House passed budget in the past five years. Just kidding. He's got a perfect propaganda machine, a zombie majority, and the Senate. The only moderating influence on his power comes from the law, and even those limitations are increasingly theoretical.

I agree with Buickman on this one. Selling the GM stock is not the end of it. It may be high time for the US Treasury to get out of GM, and long overdue, but we, the people, are still going to lose our collective as ses on this one. It may be trite to state that we should never have bailed out this dead American auto manufacturer, but we did. What the taxpayers got in return for the handouts, bailout and nationalization was not worth having. The bottom line is that Bush shouldn't have done it when he started it, but Obama made it worse and the UAW thanks them both for it. There were other, truly bad financial investments Obama and his administration made with taxpayer bucks, like Solyndra et al, but that is what America voted for, twice! And America always gets what it deserves because we vote for it. Majority rules! And America's majority loves the freebies and handouts.

@highdesertcat "There were other, truly bad financial investments Obama and his administration made with taxpayer bucks, like Solyndra et al, but that is what America voted for, twice!" Of course, Solyndra was also conditionally approved by the Bush administration and also backed by right-leaning investors, so all of the op-ed non-sense is exactly that. http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/03/obama-proposes-2-billion-fund-for-alternative-fuel-vehicles-no-mention-of-hydrogen/#comment-2021151