Why doesn't this surprise me?

According to the General Accounting Office the federal government is unlikely to recoup our full investment in either General Motors or Chrysler. In order to make a full recovery, both companies would have to attain market capitalizations (number of shares X price per share) neither had achieved before their bankruptcies.

Surely someone in the Treasury Department was aware of this at the time the bailouts were being rushed through Congress. The money the government cannot recoup now becomes a taxpayer subsidy of the shareholders of the born-again companies.

In order to recover taxpayer funds handed over to GM , the new company would need a market capitalization of $66.9 billion. The highest capitalization GM had achieved prior to the bailout was $57 billion back in 2000. Chrysler would have to achieve a market capitalization of $54.8 billion for taxpayers to get their money back. Prior to its acquisition by Daimler in 1998, Chrysler was capitalized at $37 billion.

There was a reason the two car makers couldn't round up enough private investment to survive -- investors knew GM and Chrysler were dogs and they weren't willing to put up their cash. Cue los federales.

We can't afford to put more money into health care for the poor, the old, the infirm and children, but we can afford to hand money over to investors. Some things never change.

Bailouts and public disclosures

Congress handed the banking industry a blank check earlier this year in response to Henry Paulson's doomsday-esque plea for a bail out of the financial sector. The banks readily lapped up OUR money like a junkie waiting for his next fix.

But now that questions are being asked about what those funds were being used for, the banking industry refuses to release that information to the taxpayers. What we know, so far, is that AIG continued to lavish its discredited executives with perks and that many other banks and brokerage firms showered their leaders with "retention" bonuses. Why anyone would want to retain the people who ran the companies into the ground is beyond my comprehension.

Loren Steffy, a business columnist for the Houston Chronicle summed up the hypocriscy of the financial sector with this column.

The men behind this financial farce have looted their clients, their stockholders and the taxpayers to line their own pockets. It's time for Congress to require the banks and brokerage firms to disclose how our money was spent. It's time for the banks and brokers to realize that when you borrow someone else's money, you have to play by their rules.

It's time the financial industry understand that beggars can't be choosers.