GM returns all of its bailout money? Not so fast...

General Motors has made the news recently with its much-hyped announcement that it has repaid $8.1 billion of "emergency" loans extended to it last year by the US and Canadian governments.

The hometown Detroit Free Press was front and center in their cheerleading:

"You have to wonder what those who opposed the GM bailout think about the loan repayment. Some had predicted that taxpayers would never see a dime of the money that was loaned to the struggling automaker. The alternative would have been to let the domestic auto industry crash and burn, taking along with it tens of thousands of jobs at a time when our economy is already reeling.

It’s way too early for those who favored government aid for GM to break out in loud chants of “I told you so,” but if the good news out of GM continues, they might want to start thinking about warming up their vocal cords."

Implicit in GM's aggressive announcements is that it basically is now free and clear of all messy financial entanglements with the federal government.

However, as the website SayEducate points out, nothing could be further from the truth.

"Some $52 billion in additional money was invested in GM by American and Canadian taxpayers who now own approximately 60 and 12 percent of the company respectively. Those monies can only be recovered if and when GM begins to sell stock, something that doesn’t look like will happen before 2011."

So two points can be gleaned from all this noise:

1) GM received over $60 billion in money over a year ago, and has managed to repay a measly $8 billion of that amount, probably with cash that it did not use but rather had parked in a bank account for the very purpose of making this type of PR splash.

2) Taxpayers hoping to reclaim the other $52 billion used to acquire GM shares have to wait for a public offering of GM shares, which should follow the period in which GM has executed a complete turn-around, repudiated its self-immolating contract with UAW, begins to produce cars at a profit that Americans wish to purchase and is valued at at least $52 billion. So in other words, we can kiss that money goodbye.