Breaking News We Already Knew.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king's horses,
And all the king's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Headlines everywhere this morning are announcing that the government's Auto Task Force was shocked by the financial state of GM and Chrysler.

In a first-person account posted on Fortune's Web site Wednesday, Steven Rattner, head of the Task Force, said he was alarmed by the "stunningly poor management" at the Detroit companies and said GM had "perhaps the weakest finance operation any of us had ever seen in a major company."

GM's board of directors was "utterly docile in the face of mounting evidence of a looming disaster and former GM chairman and chief executive Rick Wagoner and his team seemed to believe that virtually all of their problems could be laid at the feet of some combination of the financial crisis, oil prices, the yen-dollar exchange rate and the UAW," Rattner wrote.

"We were shocked, even beyond our low expectations, by the poor state of both GM and Chrysler. Looking just at the condition of GM's finances and Chrysler's new-car pipeline, the case for a bailout was weak." Rattner said the task force was divided on whether to save Chrysler. Chrysler was poorly run during its alignment with Daimler AG, and "larded up with debt, hollowed out by years of mismanagement, Chrysler under (private equity firm) Cerberus never had a chance."

"But on the other hand, as we surveyed the interconnected web of finance companies, suppliers and related businesses, the potential impact of the likely alternative -- liquidation -- stunned us. We imagined that the collapse of the automakers could devastate the Midwest beyond imagination."

As I have written in earlier posts, GM's gross sales steeply tanked for the past 10 years with a cumulative loss of over $80 billion. How on earth, then, could anyone be shocked at the financial condition of the company? If there was anything surprising, it was Rattner's revelation that Rick Wagoner, delusional and perhaps even psychotic towards the end, actually thought he deserved to stay at GM's helm!

Folks, it's time to get your head out of the sand. GM and Chrysler's chances of survival are less than 50% even after bankruptcy.

GM's response to Rattner? "Looking back doesn't help us with the important work we have in front of us."

Oh yea? Looking back, you might learn how not to run a car company. But that's something we already knew, too.