Tagged: bailout

Chrysler repaid $7.6 billion to the U. S. and Canadian governments back in May.

Recently, General Motors announced the addition of 2,500 jobs to its Hamtramck plant and plans to invest $130 million in a new data center in Warren, Michigan.

Michigan Radio's Jenn White helps us get a look at the political implications of the automotive industry’s progress.  She spoke with Susan Demas, political analyst for Michigan Information and Research Service and Ken Sikkema, former Republican state Senate Majority Leader and senior policy fellow at Public Sector Consultants.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney made a pair of campaign stops in metro Detroit on his first trip to the state as a declared candidate.

The former Massachusetts governor was greeted with protests at a Livonia diner in the morning. Romney then headed to the business incubator Bizdom U in Detroit, where he offered advice to a handful of entrepreneurs.

Now that Chrysler paid off its debt six years ahead of schedule, Michigan congressman Gary Peters is inviting Senator John McCain to see the automotive industry recovery for himself. In 2009 McCain said he’d like to meet anyone who believed Chrysler would survive.

Peters says he wants McCain to see the progress Chrysler has made in two years.

Two years ago, when President Obama decided to spend billions to prop up General Motors, and then to guide it  through a cushioned, “soft landing” bankruptcy, there were a lot of doubters. Many thought nature should have been allowed to take its course, and that the once-mighty General should have been allowed to die.

At the time, a commentator on NBC News said “As the GM bailout goes, so goes the Obama presidency.”

The head of the government's bailout program says the U.S. Treasury Department hopes to sell its remaining shares of General Motors stock over the next two years.

The Associated Press reports:

Timothy Massad, the senior Treasury official managing the government bailout fund, told a congressional hearing that there is now a path forward for Treasury to sell its remaining shares in GM over the next two years if market conditions permit. The Treasury Department trimmed its stake in GM to 26.5 percent of the company, down from 61 percent, when it sold $23.1 billion of GM stock at an initial public offering in November.

General Motors (or should I say General Motors Holding Company) is planning to hold a public stock sale in mid-November. It will be the first since the world's largest company emerged from chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization last year.

General Motors Holding Company emerged as the wheat. Motors Liquidation Company emerged as the chaff.