By some accounts, U.S. taxpayers will be borrowing more than $3,000 per capita to bail out banks, insurance companies and other investment firms. While the cost of the bailout will fall on U.S. taxpayers, the firms being bailed out are not entirely owned by U.S. shareholders. One feature of the bailout will be a transfer of wealth to foreign investors. It would be useful to have a deeper understanding of this aspect of the bailout, particularly as the beneficiaries of the bailout appear to include businesses that are not subject to significant limitations on foreign ownership. Given the enormous magnitude of the financial crisis, and the fact that the administration, the Congress and the press seemed not to have anticipated the extent of failure, it may be time to insist on more transparency and better data on issue like this.
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