GM got over $49 billion in taxpayer money. Just for the taxpayers to break even General Motors must have a net worth of somewhere in the $66 billion area. When General Motors came out of bankruptcy the United States Treasury converted most of those loans into a percentage stake in the company's stock. General Motors did NOT repay any of the loans from its earnings.

Now let's talk about Citi. The government, or should I say taxpayers, gave them bailout money. Made a LOAN to them. However Citi did NOT pay back the the loan in $$$. Instead the government was given Citi stock at a rate of approximately $1 per share, a rate that would equal the total amount of $$ given to Citi for the bailout. When the Citi stock finally rose a few months back, the government SOLD those shares and that is how the government recouped the taxpayers money that was LOANED to Citi. It was a very risky move and in truth it was NEVER clearly explained to the public just how the bailout money was going to be recouped. As a mater of fact the government took a HUGE risk in setting up the payback for these loans *see footnote

Citi did NOT really pay back the LOAN to the taxpayers as it was being reported all over the news several months ago.

And I won't even go into A.I.G. or unemployment.

One could argue that the bailout given to GM was a success. Time will tell.

As for Citi, although I feel that the government was not forthcoming on how they were going to hold Citi accountable in paying back A LOAN, but instead took a huge risk with our tax money, in the end it did work out. BUt overall the bailout has not been a total success just yet because when you lump together all of the the banks, the car companies, and A.I.G., the Treasury has recouped only something like $200 billion of the $600 billion. Whether it will ALL work out still remains to be seen.





*which it turned out were not really loans but investment risks where our tax money was used in playing the stock market. Thank GOD that it wound up, at least with Citi, working out for the taxpayers. But tell me, where have all the profits that were made by our Government on the selling of the Citi stock gone to? No one in government has given a clear answer when presented with this question!