Truth in Sarcasm

Last weekend, SNL had a hilarious skit mocking the Big Three CEO’s trip to Capitol Hill. When asked if there was a plan for spending the requested $25 billion, the parodied CEOs responded by saying:

“The plan is to comeback on Dec 15th and ask for another $25 billion, then on January 1st we’ll ask for $50 billion, then 2 months later we’ll as for additional $100 billion.”

Obviously playing on the notion that these seemingly dense CEOs will wastefully spend the money and continue to come back to the taxpayer trough. There is definitely some truth to this. At least 3 other time in the past 20 years, the American automakers have received billion of dollars. The last was in 1999 for R&D of fuel-efficient vehicles. There was much a-do but after the election of 2000, we never heard about it again.

However, this same sarcasm should be levied on the financial industry. Why weren’t the CEO’s of AIG, Morgan Stanley, Citi-Group asked to testify as to their “plan” as to how they will use the –>$250 billion<– of the overall $700 billion? Hmm, inquiring minds want to know?