.: GM Files For Bankruptcy :.

GM filed for bankruptcy protection today, the largest automobile bankruptcy in US history as the company is said to be in USD 172.8 billion debt vs only USD 82.2 billion in assets.

How does this affect the US - taxpayers and President Obama?

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama couldn't let General Motors fail, but he won't concede he's taking over the company.

With a 60 percent equity stake in the carmaker and $50 billion in taxpayer money riding on GM's success, the federal government isn't exactly a hands-off investor.

As GM enters into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Obama's economic team is stressing that its goals are to maximize the return to taxpayers and to exit from its involvement as quickly as possible. But as one administration official put it Sunday night, there is an inevitable tension between those two objectives.

And the snap in that tension could sting — politically for Obama, economically for the auto industry and fiscally for the taxpayer.

How well a leaner GM adjusts after a trip through bankruptcy court is an open question. So is the payback to taxpayers. Administration officials already have warned that $2 of every $5 pumped into GM might be difficult to recover.

Given the current economic crisis, the Obama administration's aggressive intervention is a defining moment for capitalism. Whether the president's actions serve as a private sector lifeline or a tether is a question that Obama and his economic team must confront not only with GM and Chrysler, another bailed out automaker, but with the financial sector as well.

But the sheer size of GM's bankruptcy protection filing, the magnitude of the government's role and the company's status as a fallen symbol of American industrial might make this intervention perhaps the most remarkable.

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