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The little guy appears to be losing out on the General Motors initial public offering. Trading shops like E*Trade, TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab aren't getting access to the GM public offering, expected to occur next week. Despite 35 underwriters and at least 365 million shares, there isn't enough to distribute to online brokers that cater to small, retail investors.

As the powers that be are certainly aware of the political sensitivity surrounding the GM IPO, this exclusion seems tone-deaf. That said, a bigger political risk may lie in the pricing of the IPO: an under-priced IPO profits politically connected financial institutions -- having excluded retail investors -- at the expense of taxpayers. If the IPO turns out to have been overpriced, such that those in on the IPO lose money initially, excluding small investors will turn out to have been politically fortunate.

As to why politically connected financial institutions might collectively overprice the GM IPO...

Less conspiratorially, its reasonable to observe (conflictingly) that retail investors represent a more uncontrollable/unpredictable element in the mix, and that excluding people from the initial offering may serve to build-in immediate demand for the stock in the markets.