At a meeting held at the White House on Monday, President Barack Obama urged Wall Street banks to do their part to rebuild the economy as soon as possible. His argument was that American taxpayers have done their part to contribute funds for federal bailouts. Now that the banks are back on their feet, he expects them to circulate the money and help the economy get back on its feet.
Obama’s Requests
In his speech, Obama applied a bit of pressure on the nation’s top dozen bank chief executives to accomplish the following:
- Open up lending: Obama wants banks to open up the lending spigots so that economy recovery can speed up a bit.
- Curb compensation: He also mentioned that some of the top executives needed to curb the high-level compensation.
- Stop gouging: Even though the Credit CARD Act is close to being implemented, Obama still urged the top banks to stop gouging customers with high credit card rates and hidden overdraft fees.
In a public statement made after the meeting, Obama said he also wanted bankers to stop lobbying against parts of the financial legislation that would prevent a future financial crisis.
Are Banks Taking Him Seriously?
According to some attendees from the meeting, some of the bank executives may not be taking the president as seriously as he would like. While it seems that the executives may have appeared to agree with his sentiments, some critics suggests that the federal government may have lost its leverage over the banks that repaid their bailout money.
Also, it seems that some of the New York chief executives from some of Wall Street’s largest banks didn’t show up because they said fog delayed their flights. They instead attended via teleconference.
What About the Taxpayers?
It seems the moral of the story may be that some of the banks don’t want rules shoved down their throats if they feel they’ve done their parts. At least, this is referenced in a new report recently released by the American Bankers Association that says banks made $2.2 trillion in new loans since receiving the TARP funds. Additionally, there is word that Washington has created an unstable regulatory environment, which has slowed lending.
Hopefully, a cross between banks and the White House won’t have a negative effect on the millions of Americans who are desperately trying to stay afloat. Rebuilding the economy stretches beyond chief executives’ goals, so we hope that everyone can get on the same page to make much-needed improvements for those truly affected: the American people.
if everyone works together – we will definitely see a positive change – too bad the world isn’t like that.
The piece titled “will banks take him seriously’ shocks me, how can they not? He’s the president! I hope that this plan works, it’s time for a positive change.
HOW TO REBUILD THE ECONOMY AND CREATE JOBS
With today’s economy in such jeopardy, we believe it’s time to go back to the tried and true principles of
American capitalism which built this great country. Although we live in a country which exemplifies
free enterprise, most schools don’t teach students how to succeed in our capitalist system, and most Americans
don’t have a clue as to how a product gets to market.
With nearly 10% unemployment in America, jobs leaving the country,
and a scarcity of jobs available within our country,
self-employment is the answer to creating jobs, and rebuilding our economy.
We are offering a free video presentation at
http://www.cossman.com
which shows viewers how to build their own business.
The proven methods offered in this video are based
upon our own experience of manufacturing and marketing over 20 million of our own products …
ranging from toys … to household items … to art prints … to insecticides … to sporting goods.
Our company was built using our own innovative entrepreneurial methods.
This enabled us to make each dollar spent dot he work of 50.
Although we never had more than a handful of employees
at any given time, we were able to take substantial market share
from companies hundreds of times our size.
In the beginning, we used these methods out of necessity,
however , even after we took in tens of millions of dollars,
we continued to apply the same methods, regardless of what we
were selling.
After several decades of successful manufacturing and marketing,
we diversified into teaching others how to build a business of their own.
To date, we have shown over two million people how to build their own
business, in their own field of interest, with little or no money, even if
they had never been in business before.
“When you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day …
When you teach a man to fish, you feed him for life”