Actually, General Motors was not saved.

Today we have General Motors COMPANY which was a NEW company formed after the old General Motors Corporation went bankrupt and changed it name to Liquidation Motors. The old shares went to ZERO. So it is a myth that General Motors was bailed out. It was really the employees and pensioners of the old General Motors Corporation that were bailed out. Most of the top management of old GM rightly lost a lot too, but probably did not lose their pensions.

It's easy to claim that General Motors Corporation was bailed out or saved from collapse. Everyone wants to believe that. But it is simply not true, not for those who owned shares.