It's still not clear to me why we're not doing this bank bailout thing more like the Brits. The UK is 'bailing out' the Royal Bank of Scotland, which operates Citizens Bank here in the US. But it works a little differently over there. The government ended up buying almost 60% of the company, after the bank's existing shareholders bought only a tiny percentage of a new offering. So the government owns 60% of the bank and the government's shares are held by something called UK Financial Investments LTD, which has a charge to "protect and create value for the taxpayer as shareholder, with due regard to financial stability and acting in a way that promotes competition."

I had a conversation with a friend a few days ago, in which I agreed that I shared his concerns about direct government ownership of major stakes in these institutions. But as long as that voting power (based on the ownership stake) is insulated from political appointees at Treasury or wherever else -- as they seem to have done in the UK -- by creating a separate chartered entity, I really don't see the problem.

Not that this is an ideal situation. Clearly you'd want some orderly plan for the government to divest itself of this stake over time, as economic conditions warrant. But here you actually have some decent chance for taxpayers to recoup their investment. And you have people with a charter to maximize taxpayer value and stabilize the economy on the bank's boards. It's really pretty demoralizing, after all, to see the taxpayers pony up all this money and then have the banks tell us to go screw ourselves when we complain that they're not using any of the money for making loans.

Yes, there are many layers of complexity. But at the end of the day I still get a pretty strong 'something for nothing' feel about most of these bailout deals.