The last GM car I owned was a 1989 (or maybe 1990, Model year vs. Calendar year.) Saturn SL2, which I bought new. It was a piece of junk from Day 1. I put three alternators on it in less than 70,000 miles. I lost track of how many times I had to work on the brakes.
It left me stranded several times, including once on Connecticut Ave. in DC rush hour traffic. A homeless man helped me push it out of the flow of traffic. I gave him $20.
I drove that thing for 10 years, mostly because I couldn't afford a new car. I finally got rid of it when it's book value was $1,200 and it needed $800 of work.
After that I've bought Mitsubishis and Toyotas.
I don't want to own GM.
I don't want to debate the quality of the Big Three's cars vs. Japanese makes. That's not my point here.
Nor is this an anti-union rant. My Mitsubishi was UAW made in Normal, Illinois (I always liked that town's name, "Normal, Illinois". What could be more normal than Illinois?). I have a beautiful smile because of the UAW's mid-70s dental plan.
My point is that I won't volunterially give GM a single dollar of my money. Not to buy a car, nor to buy its stock.
Yet somehow, I've ended up owning GM.
But I don't really own it.
Promoters of this plan are saying "The taxpayer now owns GM", or something like that.
But is that really true?
The Federal Government bought a $50B position in GM. That's about $167 per person or $450 per household.
I've just been laid-off from my job. I can think of lots better ways to spend $450 than to buy GM stock. If I really owned $450 of GM, I'd sell it right now. I could seriously use the money.
But I don't have that option because I don't own the stock. The Federal government owns it.
My best hope is that sometime, years from now, the feds will dispose of the stock in a way that turns a profit.
That's cold comfort when I could use the money now.
How is this fair to anyone?
I don't want to own GM stock. If I did I would have bought it myself.
What happens to Ford now? The Dow was up slightly today. Ford was dead flat. Would you buy Ford stock tomorrow based on its financials or would you be betting on a bail-out for Ford?
BMW, Toyota and other car companies have billions of dollars invested in Southern states. Do South Carolina BMW workers want their tax dollars going to their competitors? I doubt it.
Is there a good way out of this?
Eventually, hopefully quickly, the government will want to get out of its GM position. When that time comes, how will they do that?
Governments have a terrible track record of getting out of these kinds of arrangements. It may take decades to sell off the position we just bought. Decades of special interests argueing about whether now is the right time to dump 60% of GM's stock back onto the free market.
I see no good end to this.