At this point though, does anyone really have a sense of what the billions upon billions means anymore? After a while, the numbers all sound like a blur. Not that it's a good thing, but it's how it is. Also, as bad as this GMAC news may be, somehow they don't inspire the fury that the Wall Street banks do. Again, not to excuse GMAC but they didn't appear to be as arrogant, as overpaid or as destructive to the overall economy. They're still under fire yet the real problems from Wall Street have bounced back with enough money to throw money at Congress and derail reform. Not to excuse GMAC or those who may have failed to properly monitor their situation, but somehow I'm a lot more concerned with Wall Street trashing reform than with GMAC.
In a new report, the Congressional Oversight Panel said it is "deeply concerned" that the Treasury Department has not insisted that GMAC "lay out a clear path to viability or a strategy for fully repaying taxpayers."If "more competitive lending market" means the same Wall Street banks who are blocking reform, then I don't care. There's too much concentration with the big banks and spoon feeding them even more business to grow larger is completely uninteresting.
To date the government has dished out $17.2 billion for GMAC, giving taxpayers a 56 percent stake in the credit arm of General Motors. The latest infusion of federal funds for GMAC came in late December, shortly before the lender announced a fourth-quarter loss of $5 billion.
While the watchdog acknowledged that the government bailout of GMAC "played a major role in supporting the domestic automotive industry," the Panel cautioned that the bailout "came at great public expense" and may also have obstructed "the growth of a more competitive lending market."
