Barack Obama spoke to an empty room of Wall Street suits on Monday, a day after his scathing ’60 Minutes’ interview decrying the “fat cat Wall Street bankers”. The room wasn’t empty as there were at least a dozen or so members of the financial industry on hand. It’s just that the biggest players opted out of the meeting instead making the president talk to them via tele-conferencing. It looks like the fat cats are now showing the president who the big dogs really are.
CitiBank has agreed to return $20b of the $45b it was issued as part of the TARP bank rescue program. There was also an agreement for a $300b ‘backstop’ to be guaranteed to cover all the toxic loans that CitiBank had granted. Paying $20b back seems like a wild discount doesn’t it? I hate the fact that I can not understand shit with all of this banking chicanery.
The one thing I do understand is that there are going to be billions of dollars in bonus money doled out by Wall Street before the years end. The economy is fixed someone said. Yeah, show ya’ right. I prA’li shouldn’t have used that headline since this story isn’t about the fact that the president is a schvartze in some fancy schmatte being stood up by some schmucks in as much as it is the power dynamic of capitalism manifesting itself.
G DUBBZ knew better than to throw the bankers under the bus.
I think Joe Louis would make it as a wrestler. . .
Haha. Word.
There is no one person or group to blame for the economic crisis we experienced. Bankers gave loans that they knew people couldn’t pay, people took on mortgages they knew they couldn’t afford, and investment bankers packaged them to “mitigate risk” when they really didn’t know the value of the financial instruments. Not to mention the government giving incentives to give shitty loans and allowing the 5 biggest firms to be except from a leverage law. Everyone is responsible, so we all must help clean this shit up.
*exempt*
I dont gotta clean nan nuffin.
I use a credit union, and I rent. . .
Dom, I never want to make the complex simple so you’re correct BUT…
How about we start with Robert Rubin, of Goldman Sachs… of Clinton… of Obama?
I can’t pretend to keep up with all the fuckery because then I’d be martyred twice (broke AND distracted from real work by all their bullshit) but from what I do know, the repeal of Glass-Steagall Act that Rubin supported played a big part in this.
That Clinton was, in fact, a scumbag isn’t news to DP readers I’m sure but Obama’s embrace of his people and policies is… puzzling?
Personally I think Obama is stunting and won’t PUSH to change dick (ll) on Wall Street, esp. not with Charles Schumer protecting their back.
If I can, sometime in the next year, buy affordable government health insurance, I’ll be shocked but at least I’ll have something to show for it.
p/s: Robert Rubin of Citibank too, how could I forget?
But hey, Obama made a GREAT appointment with BX Borough Pres Adolof Carrion* as “Urban Affairs Director” right, so maybe I should cut him some slack.
Feel my urbanity!
* DP, it’d be funny as hell if you tried to get Carrion for “Stadium Status”; remember Koch and I think Richard Ravitch (MTA Pres) in “Style Wars”?
“G DUBBZ knew better than to throw the bankers under the bus. ” that was because he was getting a cut. you can’t fuck with your own kickbacks that is crazy.
Koch and Ravitch were classic in Style Wars.
DP: You forgot to mention the $38 billion in tax abatements Citi got to keep.
Dom: The government didn’t give incentives to dole out shitty loans. The vast majority of subprime loans were originated from 2004-2007 by private banks. Fannie, Freddie and HUD sub-prime loans defaulted at a substantially lower rate than those loans in the alt-a and bbb- tranches of Goldman, Citi, Merrill B of A, etc.. Between that time period 1/4 of all people who took sub-prime loans actually qualified for prime loans and were swindled by their mortgage brokers. It’s very important to refute this point because you’re indirectly spreading a canard that allows the market-fundamentalist apologists and rightists to lay this crisis at the feet of minorities/poor. The incentive programs you mentioned were actually started to ameliorate the damage of decades of red lining.
I’m a few days late on this but if we fail to properly diagnose this problem the bankers get off with no reprimand and blame us.
Peace
Jean
Jean,
You weren’t late at all, but right on time and on point. Thx for your comment.
I made a joke during Black Friday that everyone should hug a Black because with 84% of African American households carrying credit card debt they make the season possible.
Maybe Dom was being tongue in cheek [ll] as well. Yeah, but I doubt it.