Last week Government Motors Chairman Ed Whitacre wrote a story in the Wall St. Journal called The GM Bailout: Paid in Full” in which he said:

“We’re paying back — in full, with interest, years ahead of schedule — loans made to help fund the new GM. Our ability to pay back these loans less than a year after emerging from bankruptcy is a sign that our plan for building a new GM is working.”

How can a man who cannot do simple math be chairman of one of the largest companies in the world?  The U.S. loaned GM $50 billion.  GM repaid $5.8 billion.  50 -5.8 = $44.2 billion!! See “GM Still Owes Us” and “Fun with Numbers: GM ‘Payback’ of Taxpayer Loans.”  The latter article states, “TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky has asserted, as paraphrased by Fox News, that GM “only repaid the bailout money by dipping into a separate pot of bailout money.”

See the New York Times story called “Repaying Taxpayers With Their Own Cash” for more on this topic.