I know everyone in America is on board with hating the banking CEOs. They took big bonus' and bought airplanes and redecorated their offices. Yes, that was excessive and evokes a gag reflex because they didn't even seem to be aware it was inappropriate. But they were not the only greedy ones. Dangle free money and watch what happens in banking or government or Wall Street...or on my street.
Nonetheless, this week I watched that row of bankers sit there in the crosshairs of Barney Frank and Maxine Waters and the rest of the Congressional Finance Committee. The bankers were accused and harrangued and humiliated ("raise your hand if you...") until I felt sorry for them.
Why the compassion? Barney Frank and the Congress passed laws to MAKE those same bankers lend to unqualified folks. Community Organizers marched outside banks threatening lawsuits to intimidate them if they didn't. So the banks made the high risk loans. Barney said not to worry, that Fannie and Freddie would cover them if the loans went south. Right. Maxine said Fannie and Freddie were in good shape. Right. Unbelievably, Barney Frank is on record saying "the private sector got us into this mess, the government will have to get us out".
Well, maybe those institutions (FM/FM) COULD have helped if THEIR head guys hadn't siphoned off millions. It is disgusting for the ones who started trouble to be sitting in judgment of others.
And for Maxine Waters to ask repeatedly why the banks charged a fee for taking the TARP money...and two different bankers answered her but she didn't "get it"...so she just ratcheted up the gestapo tactics until the Chairman put a muzzle on her. Someone please pull her aside and translate what those big words were. You could see the bankers look at one another in wonder.
I just don't know why the Democrats are not held responsible for the Community Reinvestment Act. They passed it. It worked about like you thought it might...giving money to people who didn't have to prove they even had a job or a way to pay back the loan. Common sense banking practices were declared discriminatory. "Redlining" (identifying areas hazardous to banking good health) was now politically incorrect. And THAT governmental tinkering...not the free market system...began our economic woes.
But somehow now the bankers are in the black hats and Barney is the sheriff. It would have been fun if the bankers had been on the other side of the tables, and they were grilling the Congressmen. Sometimes life is just not just. But if the Bible was ever perfectly illustrated, our culture has shown that...
"the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil" 1 Timothy 6:10
P.S. An interesting disclosure about what the original TARP money went for can be found at
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