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Posted by: Tango57 8 months, 1 week ago
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Tango578 months, 1 week ago
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States that refuse stimulus money are only hurting the out of work folks in that state. There is no state in this country that can survive on its own. With that said, use the stimulus to create jobs and strengthen the state hood. You'll notice Virginia is a red state. Politics over survival? like biting off your nose to spite your face.
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Endoscopy8 months, 1 week ago
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There is the liberal bias. The federal government knows best what all in the country should get. Big brother will give you everything you need whether you need it or not. Right now a bank that did not want any stimulus money was forced to take it by our esteemed tax fraud Secretary of Treasury. They want to give it back along with some others and he is refusing to accept it. He does not want to break the control he has over them by them having that money. The same thing is going on here. The strings attached to the stimulus money gives many states problems that will be long lived. They want nothing to do with it. But states rights is a bad word to liberals.
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nostalgia8 months ago
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There were many threats:
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Bank of America 'forced to conceal' Merrill rescue facts
Pressure from Fed and Treasury chiefs to complete purchase of Merrill Lynch despite 'staggering' losses
Ken Lewis's position at the helm of Bank of America looked increasingly uncertain on Thursday after it emerged he stopped short of pulling out of the deal to buy loss-making Merrill Lynch after Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson threatened to oust him and his entire board.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/5209788/Bank-of...-
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nostalgia8 months ago
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FNC's Napolitano Claims Bush Administration Committed 'Extortion' Against Banks
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It's no secret the Bush administration used fear tactics to push the $700-billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) through Congress last fall. Both members of the House and the Senate have come out after the fact and disclosed the details.
However, the method the Treasury Department employed to get banks to go along with the TARP bailout breached legal boundaries to the point of "extortion," according to Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Andrew Napolitano, a former Superior Court Judge for the state of New Jersey.
Napolitano told viewers on FNC's April 1 "Studio B" that he had a conversation with a head of $250-billion bank that explained the federal government, under the threat of an audit, forced him to accept TARP funds.
"This person runs a bank that's worth about $250 billion, it has no subprime loans, it has no bad debts, wasn't involved in credit default swaps," Napolitano said. "It didn't need any money. It didn't ask for the money and didn't want it. The FDIC with Treasury backing - officials from both the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Treasury said if you don't take this money, we will conduct a multi-year public audit of you."
Though the bank was solvent, as Napolitano explained, fighting the government on the terms wasn't worth in the final cost-benefit analysis and the bank's board decided to accept bailout money, despite the protests of that bank's head and having the government become part-owner of the bank.
"It would cost them millions in employee time to give the government the documents it wanted, it would cost terrible publicity. The terrible publicity and that would mean a loss of business," Napolitano continued. "He begged his board of directors to let him tell the Feds to go take a hike. The board caved. He was forced - the board was forced to issue a class of stock just for the federal government. The federal government owns 2 percent of this huge bank. As a result of that minority ownership, they now want to control salaries. They want to see his books and they want to tell him who he can do business with."
But as Napolitano explained, the tactic the government employed was nothing short of extortion, under its legal definition. And, as a consequence of the government having a stake in the bank, it is susceptible to having the government dictate business decisions and employee compensation.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2009/04/01/...-
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nostalgia8 months ago
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Now under Obama and Geithner the Feds maintain control of the banks by refusing to take TARP funds back
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Strings attached under the TARP
A few smaller banks have begun to repay money loaned to them under the Troubled Assets Relief Program begun with $700 billion in October when the depth of the financial crisis became apparent, and the government decided some troubled financial institutions were "too big to fail." But, interestingly, repayment is not just a matter of writing a check or making an electronic transfer. The banks must actually get permission from the Treasury Department to repay the loans, and there are reports that it has actually refused permission to some.
This is made all the more curious by the fact that some banks were forced to take the money - on which they have to pay 5 percent interest that is not tax-deductible - regardless of whether they wanted it. In October, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and others gathered the heads of the biggest banks and informed them that they had to accept TARP bailout funds. The stated reason was that, if some banks took the money, and some didn't, it might reflect badly on those who did. Investors might think they were in a weakened position.
Matters deteriorated when the Obama administration came into office, and populist rage about executive compensation developed. The new administration started imposing retroactive restrictions on banks that had taken TARP money, including a cap on executive pay, mandates that banks put off evictions or modify mortgages for homeowners in trouble, reductions in dividends and elimination of some employee training and morale-building trips.
http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/article/200...
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