Obama frowns, Citigroup jet goes down.

Why does it seem that the Feds have zero problem with injecting their desires and expectations into the private businesses they have bailed out but do not impose similar criteria upon state governments and GSEs that they bailout?

One of the Feds’ bitches, Citigroup has scuttled a plan to purchase a $50 million jet when it was found out that certain members of their new board of directors in Congress didn’t think it was such a hot idea. In fact, in his newly expanded role as CEO of Citigroup, President Barack Obama didn’t believe “that’s the best use of money” for companies that are receiving taxpayer assistance.

Never mind the fact that Citigroup was financing the purchase of this new jet with the sale of old ones and thus replacing older technology with new, or the fact that they were planning on reducing the number of jets from 5 to 2, anyway, the new bosses have spoken.

This incident is a great illustration of just why this bailout nonsense is such a horrible idea. Citigroup, a formerly fully private entity, will not be able to sneeze without Carl Levin finger-wagging disapprovingly.

So the majority of the financial sector now has been reduced to conducting business via symbolism; by meaningless populist acts of omission and in the case of ousted Merrill Lynch CEO, John Thain who apologized for spending $1.2 million on his office remodel, vacuous acts of contrition.