Chrysler and Ford have finance companies too. Does anyone know why they haven’t dashed into a phone booth and emerged as a bank, to join the Treasury Soup Kitchen line?

It was a simple two-step. GM first successfully converted GMAC into a bank holding company (a process which just involves knocking at the Fed’s door and going “Pretty please?”):

The Federal Reserve gave General Motors a crucial boost yesterday by approving a request from GMAC, which provides funding for most of the automaker’s dealers and many of its customers, to become a bank holding company.

The move gives GMAC access to new sources of funding, including a potential infusion of taxpayer dollars from the Treasury Department and loans from the Fed itself.

That approval was the Fed’s Christmas present to GM. And it didn’t take long at all for that potential infusion to turn into a done deal:

The U.S. Treasury committed $6 billion to support GMAC LLC, the financing arm of General Motors Corp., widening the government’s effort to keep the largest U.S. automaker out of bankruptcy.

The Treasury will purchase a $5 billion stake in GMAC and lend $1 billion to GM so the automaker can contribute to the lender’s reorganization as a bank holding company, according to a statement issued yesterday. The loan is in addition to $13.4 billion the Treasury agreed earlier this month to lend to GM and Chrysler LLC.

The fresh capital will enable GMAC to expand lending to car buyers and help save GM. The automaker’s U.S. sales plunged 22 percent this year through November after GMAC ran short on cash and limited loans to people with only the best credit.

Wasn’t GM the auto company that was being vilified the most for having made crappy corporate strategic decisions? They seem to have moved pretty adroitly to profit from the prevailing economic climate in Washington.