More or less, from what I gather. My brother's father-in-law lost his retirement medical benefits just before he retired. IMO this should really piss off taxpayers more than the actual bailout. When it comes to the bailout, there is much reason to believe it will be mostly paid back, if not fully, and possibly with interest. But picking up all those retires on Medicare/Medicaid is a cost that GM was able to just drop in our laps. That was probably the biggest bailout. A great uncle of mine was a test driver for Cadillac. He raised 4 kids, had a house and a cottage, etc. Test driving Cadillacs! And he knew just how good things had been for him... -he referred to GM as "Generous Motors".
Dude, current estimate is that the taxpayers are going to take a $20B+ haircut. ABC (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/06/how-much-did-th...) said in June/2011 that it was $14B for GM and $1.3B for Chrysler. And don't forget that this was when GM stock was at $30, it's fallen a lot. "Friday, the Treasury Department announced that expected losses to taxpayers from the bailout would increase more than $3.3 billion to $25.1 billion -- up from $21.7 billion last quarter." That's some dang expensive jobs "created or saved." And I'm sorry that the retirees from GM are having to do what most people at that age have to do - use government mandated healthcare. I just wish we'd have gotten to that point about $25M earlier. -XC
We have no disagreement with the amount it sucks, or the fact that it was a plain problem brewing, but so was the whole subprime debacle. GM shouldn't have been able to get into the corner it did as much as AIG. But, interests, interests, interests... (on both sides of the aisle) just not ours.