From the "And I thought we were supposed to run the government like a business" file...

From "DM&E waits to hear on federal loan," Minnesota Public Radio, December 13, 2006:

Minnesota Public Radio filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Federal Railroad Authority for detail on DM&E's loan application. That agency responded that the information is proprietary and can only be released with the railroad's permission.

Kevin Schieffer, DM&E CEO, says only government loan processors should see some of the information, not the public. "There are some things we don't have the authority to disclose because they're subject to confidentiality agreements," says Schieffer. "That's very typical in the business world. This is an area where people can get hurt by information. People being utility customers and others. They're subject to serious retribution if they're found out to be working on agreements with us," he says.

Now let's see if I got this straight:

We taxpayers are stockholders in a bank called The United States Government. The United States Government Bank is considering giving out a loan for $2,300,000,000. This loan will be unsecured, meaning the company that is borrowing the money is putting up no assets as collateral. This is unlike, for instance, a home mortgage, where if the mortgage payments are not made, the house defaults to the lender. No such thing with this proposed $2,300,000,000 loan. If the loan recipient can't pay the loan back, we taxpayers are SOL.

Now a few of us are saying, "Whoa, let's look at this more carefully. What happens if this company defaults on the loan? That means we're left holding the bag. Perhaps it would help us a little if you let us look at your financial statements and balance sheets. Then we could make a better judgment if this loan will be viable or not."

The company says, "Nope. That information is secret. You have to give us the loan based on trust. We're good guys. Don't you trust us?"

Hey, I got an email about a deal like this awhile back. Some fellow in Nigeria wanted to give me a whole bunch of money if I let him transfer some of his money into my bank account for a short period of time. Now, what did I do with that email? It must be somewhere on my computer....