Here's a good, if depressing, piece from Barron's about the government's bailout not of GM but of the UAW. The title says it all: "Big Wheels Keep on Rolling…Over Bondholders":
"The politically powerful united Auto Workers emerged with an exceptionally sweet deal in the proposed reorganization of a bankrupt General Motors -- and the taxpayer essentially is footing the bill. The federal government may be lucky to get back half of the $50 billion owed by GM, consisting of nearly $20 billion of existing loans and about $30 billion that Uncle Sam plans to extend through so-called debtor-in-possession financing in bankruptcy... The government effectively is making a gift to the UAW, because it is converting about $40 billion of its GM loans that are senior to the UAW claims into a 61% equity stake in the new company, making its recovery highly dependent on the new GM's equity value.
Read the entire piece here. If you want to see it pretty plainly, just look at this chart - especially the right column - to see how the UAW made out on this deal.
