Treasury Department provides privileged briefing to investors

The bailout has yet to come to a vote and already the Bush regime has created the opportunity for select firms to engage in insider dealing, according to Naked Capitalism:

Various readers wrote us, and it was confirmed by a detailed report on the call at DealBreaker, that the Treasury Department held a conference call this evening for investors on the bailout bill. A memo was evidently sent to SIFMA members; others may have been contacted by other means. But the report I got from one person who was on the call was the the [sic] questions came from financial services industry members. In other words, this was most assuredly not intended to be a call open to the public at large [sic] If anyone from the media or other member of the great unwashed was listening in, it was by accident.

This is simply scandalous. To have a group of interested parties get a privileged briefing by government officials on a matter of keen public interest flies in the face of what a democracy is supposed to be about. The proper method would either be a published FAQ on the Treasury website or a briefing with the media included. But why should I be surprised? Favoritism has been a staple of the Bush Administration [links added].