GM's CEO Rejects Repaying Feds for Bailout Losses

PolygamousRanchKid writes with news that GM's outgoing CEO doesn't agree with the National Law and Policy Center's call for GM to repay the loss made by the Treasury from their bailout. From the article: "GM CEO Dan Akerson rejects any suggestion that the company should compensate for the losses. He says Treasury officials took the same risk assumed by anyone who purchases stock. Akerson said that GM repaid all the debt issued by the government beginning in December 2008 when George W. Bush was still president and extending into the first year of Barack Obama's presidency. He added that it was the Treasury's decision ... to take an ownership stake in the form of company shares."

Comments

Risk pool payment, not payback.

[patrixmyth]

Absolutely right, they shouldn't be forced to pay back government losses. They, along with every other too big to fail corporation, should pay annually in perpetuity into risk pool that will handle all future bail-outs. Not as a tax, but as an insurance pool, that coincidentally, should be required to be held in US treasury bonds.

I'm sure if you presented that idea, they'd rush to substitute the $10b payback.

Right and wrong

[Monoman]

He is technically right and morally wrong.

Let the shareholders decide by vote. We the consumers (and the taxpayers) can then decide if we want to continue to buy their products, bail them out, or invest as shareholders. This is a decision that will have very long term effects on GM that will affect them long after the CEO is gone. I know it will affect my future buying decisions.