So with the bailouts, they took the haircut right away and baked the risk into the deal they made with the auto manufacturers. Then they ate the risk in their transaction right away and wrote down the loss.

With the loans they made to Ford they used a different tactic -- they said to hell with the financial risk (which you usually bake into your interest rate) and made the loans anyway and left open the possibility of devastating financial losses. The only reason we're looking at this positively is because Ford was a success story. Had Ford folded, congressional heads would have rolled and we'd be cursing the TALF loans and praising the TARP bailouts.