The article refers to GM as owned by U.S. taxpayers. Shch a statement should make all of us wretch. The U. S. government owns G.M. The taxpayers no more own GM than the people of the Soviet Union owned the productive capacity in that communist state.
Marx’s BS notwithstanding, government officials and Communist Party members “owned” the means of production in the Soviet Union. They allocated the capital and they reaped the rewards. In the U.S., government officials and GM’s union employees (who are really government employees and, along with other unionized government workers, are analogous to Communist Party members in the USSR) allocate capital connected with GM and reap the rewards.
If you want to support Marxism, buy a GM product.
Yes, if you look at GM's investor FAQ (found as a link from http://www.gm.com/corporate/investor_information/), you run across this:
There are currently no shares of General Motors Company for sale to the public. It will initially be owned by the U.S. Treasury, the governments of Canada and Ontario, the UAW VEBA and Motors Liquidation Company. We expect that shares of the General Motors Company will be publicly traded in the future, and this may involve an initial public offering. Also, as early as the second quarter of 2010, General Motors Company may be contractually required by its new stockholders to register their stock for sale to the public; however, we do not know when or if any of these stockholders will sell any of their shares.