The sexiest Finance Minister in the world, The Netherlands’ own Wouter Bos (pictured above, and I swear on my life that is his actual name) announced a bailout of bankus maximus ING today, giving it 10 billion euros in exchange for roughly 33% of the company.  Bos also said at today’s news conference that ING is “a healthy financial institution” which of course is why it needed the equivalent of $13.4b in government money to stay afloat, on account of its running low on capital.

In return, ING has agreed to, if it fires any of its upper management, not give them more than a year’s pay as severance.  ING also cancelled dividends for the remainder of the year, as well as Christmas.  Lest you think they’re really suffering, all of this came about because the company posted its first quarterly loss in 50 years, on writedowns and losses of a whopping 2 billion euros.  ING, please.  Citigroup writes down more than that before Vikram Pandit finishes his Cocoa Puffs and they went an entire year of losses before they went asking for money.

I’m really kind of torn here.  On one hand, I enjoy a good nationalization as much as the next guy, but I also hate the filthy stinking Dutch greatly admire the proud and noble Dutch people, who apparently visit this site in droves.  Still, there’s plenty of room on the failboat for ING, if it comes to that.