How I think it works....
The Government gives our money to the banks to bail them out. It's not a loan (because they can't pay it back) so the Government takes ownership of the bank, or most of it. We now own the bank.
But the Government needs to get "our" money back so later it sells the part of the bank it owns to anyone who wants to buy the shares and takes the money and pays it back into the Treasury where it originally was paid out from. We don't pay twice because only those who want to own the shares will buy them, and hopefully, at a price the Government makes a profit.
It sounds straightforward, (but have I missed something?)
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