How about I borrow 60k for a new Vette, pay back 5k and call it paid it full? Liars !

The GM bailout is like chemotherapy killing malignant cells(toxic assets) that divide rapidly and would kill the host if left to do there dirty work. As in chemo this means that it also harms healthy cells that should be dividing rapidly under normal circumstances like we might see in a healthy free market. Its annoying that GM got this cancer as a consequence of there own bad habits.
As to weather this treatment worked and the hospital got paid, to soon to tell. So far it has kept the patient alive, given the number of jobs at stake and the importance of us actually building stuff here I guess thats a good thing. They have made payment on there bill looks like they covered the amount due and mailed it a little early but we will have to wait for the Gov's 60% stock stake to be sold to see if the hospital gets paid in full.
Worrisome that so many public hospital render uncompensated care. They do help keep people alive.

GM will never pay back it's loans because in today's reality, it doesn't have to. (Some of the first money GM received went to finance an engine plant somewhere in South America, if I remember correctly)
Private profits and public risk. The banking industry pioneered these tactics with the SNL crisis.

There is a lot of politics being played with what happened, on both sides of the aisle. They should both shut up, because it's making them both look stupid. GM used an equity capital account to pay their loan that was set up for just this purpose. AIG has one too; in fact, they're REQUIRED to use it this way if they can't pay with earnings. Debt-to-equity swaps are a time-honored way to reduce debt, and I doubt you'd get any disagreement, in private, from finance-savvy republicans whether or not the procedure was legit. I'm glad that GM feels like they can free up enough capital for debt service (esp since the loan wasn't to term by a long shot) rather than use it for, say product development. It's probably a good sign.
Two other motivators: One, the loan was costing them sales, at least among folks who buy cars based on politics rather than economics. Two, it reduced their exposure to the "TARP tax." Given that I consider it a moral imperative to keep my own taxes low, I have trouble not being on board with that one.

Shameless accounting tricks, sad really.

They repaid their "loan" from the government with money the same government GAVE them. Doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling.