"About $7 billion of that came in the form of a straight-up, low-interest loan. And about $13 billion came in the form of an escrow account.
So how has GM, which lost $38 billion in 2007 even as it sold 9.4 million cars, paid back its debt? It took money from the escrow account to pay back the $6.7 billion loan."
They literally used loan money to pay back loan money, and they're still in the hole for the stock part, as well as $6M of the escrow account.
>They literally used loan money to pay back loan money
Which is exactly what I said. GM isn't "in the hole" for anything, and what remains in the escrow account is theirs free and clear. The governments obviously hope to recoup their "investments" when the company goes public again, which may or may not happen.
They repaid the loan because they ended up not needing the cash. It can't get simpler than that. The only question is whether they overstated their original request, or if they really have turned around enough.
> They repaid the loan because they ended up not needing the cash. It can't get simpler than that.
However, the point stands that they received lots of other bailout money, money that they haven't repaid.
Yes, that money went for "ownership" and we can hope that is eventually worth more than it cost, but it isn't worth that now and it hasn't been returned to the US taxpayer.
Basically, we hold part of GM as collateral. If they fail, we're out the money.
"About $7 billion of that came in the form of a straight-up, low-interest loan. And about $13 billion came in the form of an escrow account.
So how has GM, which lost $38 billion in 2007 even as it sold 9.4 million cars, paid back its debt? It took money from the escrow account to pay back the $6.7 billion loan."
They literally used loan money to pay back loan money, and they're still in the hole for the stock part, as well as $6M of the escrow account.