Taxpayers lose $1.3 billion in Chrysler bailout

[BJJ-Blue]

"NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- U.S. taxpayers likely lost $1.3 billion in the government bailout of Chrysler, the Treasury Department announced Thursday.

The government recently sold its remaining 6% stake in the company to Italian automaker Fiat, wrapping up the 2009 auto bailouts that were part of TARP.

Fiat paid the Treasury a total of $560 million for the remaining shares, as well as rights to shares held by the United Auto Workers retiree trust.

Originally, the government committed a total of $12.5 billion to the struggling automaker, Old Chrysler and Chrysler Group. Of those funds, $11.2 billion has been returned through principal repayments, interest and cancelled commitments, the Treasury said. Chrysler paid back $5.1 billion in loans in May.

Even though that means $1.3 billion will not be recovered, the Treasury called it a "major accomplishment."

"With today's closing, the US government has exited its investment in Chrysler at least six years earlier than expected," Tim Massad, Treasury assistant secretary for financial stability said in a release."


LMFAO at the Treasury Dept calling losing $1.3 billion a "major accomplishment". Just a few more of these "major accomplishments" and we will be bankrupt like Greece.


Source: (complete article)
http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/21/autos/chrysler_government_exit/index.htm?cnn=yes

[rett]

This is why the Swedish govt refused to bail out SAAB around the same time. General Motors screwed SAAB over big-time after they bought it and after they drove the company into the ground and the crisis hit they tried to pressure Sweden into bailing out SAAB. That was just a way for GM to try to write off SAAB without the costs of shutting it down.

The administration caught a lot of flack from the left for not falling for that corporate blackmail, but if they'd bought it out we'd be sitting there bleeding money from our economy for years until someone finally put the company out of its misery. It would've been like putting a chunk of the Swedish economy straight into US stockholder's pockets. I so admire politician Maud Olofsson for telling the arrogant US negotiators to feck off. Too bad, because I really liked the old SAAB 900 series.

Obama fell for that same argument and wasted tons of US taxpayers money on bailouts. Cheap, short-sited populism. Govt shouldn't own manufacturing industry. Maybe energy and a few other critical stuff, but not something as volatile as cars, especially nowadays when cars have to transition to other fuels. Lots of companies have to get culled.

[BJJ-Blue]

Obama fell for that same argument and wasted tons of US taxpayers money on bailouts. Cheap, short-sited populism.

He actually did it to bail out the Unions. Had GM and Chrysler went under, the UAW workers pensions,etc tied to GM and Chrysler stock would have been gone. The bailout was payback for the campaign donations the UAW gives to the Democrat Party. So he really just found a legal way to funnel taxpayer money into the Democrat Party.

But props to Sweden for doing what they did. Thanks for that interesting story. I had not heard that one before.