When he refuses to allow the banks to repay the TARP money, the intent is now obvious. I wonder how long it will take you libs to realize you've been had. That is, those of you who are not out and out socialists.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123879833094588163.html

Find a more credible source. Stuart Varney is a bought and paid hack representing FOX News. His anti-Obama bias and evangelical right wing orthodoxy is well known. He has about as much credibility as Glenn Beck.

Hmmm. An opinion piece, written by a host who works for Fox News.

Sadly, as I stated before, we might have to go a bit overboard on the regulatory side to compensate for the massive issues by too much deregulation that have transpired. Deane, I understand your concern, I get it. But, I'd personally rather have MORE regulation right now, than continuing on with the current debacle.

The people that were had were the ones that supported Bush.

Standard liberal modus operandi is to attack the source, not dispute the facts.

Ben Bernanke, head of the Federal Reserve and one of the nation's foremost scholars on the Great Depression, has said more than once that one of the great failings of the Great Depression was allowing banks to fail without any intervention from the Fed or US Treasury.

I would suspect that once it has been determined that we are out of the woods (post banking stress test period and onto a recovery trajectory), perhaps returning TARP monies to the federal government might be an option for some banks. But to call it a power grab by Obama flies in the face of the facts.

Standard conservative modus operandi to post opinion and claim it as fact.

Are you saying they were able to pay the money back?

"Standard liberal modus operandi is to attack the source, not dispute the facts."

Present FACTS Deane, not an opinion piece, then we can debate the facts.

This is an OPINION PIECE.

Again, are you saying they were able to pay the money back?

Standard liberal modus operandi is to attack the source, not dispute the facts.

How about the neo-CONer way?? To just ignore fact all together!!!!!!!!

Again, are you saying they were able to pay the money back?


How are we going to pay back the BILLIONS that DUHbya and Co. spent every month in Iraq? PAY THAT BACK!

Standard liberal modus operandi is to attack the source, not dispute the facts.

Please list the facts that are stated in the WSJ opinion piece, Deane.

OUCH!

*PLONK*

Don't bother, Listenerpete. All Deane will do is ask, "Were they able to pay the money back??"

No. The anonymous bank was not able to pay the money back.

They just don't want to be regulated. Political theatre.

I heard on a fox report today , I believe it was the pundint program with Cal Thomas et al, that so far while checking this story out, no one them or their staff could actually find an instance where a bank tried to give back TARP money and was refused. I was in and out of the house doing yard work and heard a blurb from the panel discussion about this issue.

So, I guess we wait for the hard evidence , sounds like to me.

I see no refusal here.

5 banks repay $353M in bailout funds

By JEANNINE AVERSA – 2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Five banks have repaid millions of dollars they received from the government's $700 billion financial bailout pot, the Obama administration said Thursday.

The Treasury Department, which oversees the bailout program, said the banks returned a total of $353 million.

The banks are: Iberiabank Corp. of Lafayette, La.; Bank of Marin Bancorp of Novato, Calif.; Old National Bancorp. of Evansville, Ind.; Signature Bank of New York; and Centra Financial Holdings Inc. of Morgantown, W.Va.

They were the first banks to repay the government, wanting to escape the increasingly tough restrictions placed on participants in the rescue program.

In addition to the $353 million, the banks paid the government a total of $5.4 million in dividends, Treasury Department spokesman Andrew Williams said.

The program was enacted in early October after the financial crisis — the worst since the 1930s — intensified. The goal of the program was to inject capital in banks so that they would be in a better position to boost lending, a crucial ingredient to any economic recovery. Nearly $200 billion has been injected into banks thus far.

The five banks have 15 days to buy back warrants from the government. If they don't, the government will sell them to private investors, Williams said.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

That's right ! But what Varney alledges is that this " Bank " that tried to pay back less than a billion was a high profile bank, not one of those you listed, which are small banks, relatively according to Varney , which is according to Judge Napalitano of Fox News.

Ok, so this 'Bank " and its CEO are unnamed and no one can find out yet who it allegedly 'was'..or is...

It either didnt happen or it was someone blowing smoke up the Judges backside over lunch at the club or it did actually happen and no one is talking !

All of this allegedly because the Obama administration doesnt want this high profile bank to set some kind of precident too quickly and or wants to control this bank ie: eventually to nationalize it. Allegedly !

All of this is second hand information with no corraboration. Whispers in the dark and right out of the Judge's mouth on Shep Smith's midday report a few days ago on FOX. Stuart Varney picked up on it in an OP ED piece and NOW the crap is hitting the fan once again.

Where's the Beef ?

Man, what's with Deane? How much crow can one human possibly eat?

As much as he can get in his gut! There's lots of crow in NebrASSka....

Why would it be bad to nationalize the banks. After the way they have mismanaged what was intrusted to them?

Contrary to what Deane says, this isn't an effort to nationalize the banks. It's an effort to reign in the regulations, yes, and make sure that the banks do what is in the best interest of the its customers, and not in the best interest of the executives and the pockets of the shareholders.

Failure to do so will result in 1929 all over again.

Simon Johnson on the necessity of breaking the financial oligarchy: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice

Johnson was chief economist of the IMF 2007-08.

William K. Black on the banks' fraudulent behavior that got us into this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/the-two-documents-everyon_b_169813 .html

Black was the senior regulator during the S&L crisis.

Brooksley Born, chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission 1996-2000, saw the disaster of credit default swaps coming over a decade ago. http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2009/marapr/features/born.html

No one would listen. Greenspan, the other regulators, and ultimately Congress froze her out.

Here's another one on the possible necessity of nationalizing the banks:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2009/04/06/090406ta_talk_surowiecki

thats where the money is,when the printing press runs out of ink!?Isn't Obama like Jim Hones?how will the Kool-aid be distributed??

Alfredo, help!

"Isn't Obama like Jim Hones?"

62kgw, exactly who the hell is Jim HONES?!

Purple Koolaid pusher Jim Jones.

I'm becoming gibberish-fluent.

I guess I've killed this thread by dropping too many links into it. So here's another one:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2009/03/16/090316taco_talk_cassidy

KGW is keyboardingly challenged.

Notice that the G and the H are mirrored images on a keyboard. Kind of like a keyboard dislexia, I think.

I'm thinking Kennewickman is finding the keyboard a bit challenging too!

.....Evidence mounts Obama is trying to take over the banks!

Un-named staffer reports to FOCKS news that he found a gray hoodie, starters pistol, and Boosh mask in the top drawer in the oval office while O'bamas were away on vacation.

KGW is back on meth!!!!

Hey, nobody's reading those links I posted. ;)

Well, here's another one to bump this thread:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2009/04/06/090406taco_talk_lemann

Hey, nobody's reading those links I posted. ;)

I appreciate the flow of valuable information, but I did not thank you yet. Thanks Jeffery!

Seconded!

I'm reading a lot on the banks right now. Don't have any comments either. Just trying to sort things out, and that's taking a while!

Today Obama emphasized he doesn't want the banks:

"The reason we have not taken this step has nothing to do with any ideological or political judgment we've made about government involvement in banks. It's certainly not because of any concern we have for the management and shareholders, whose actions helped to cause this mess.

"Rather, it's because we believe that pre-emptive government takeovers are likely to end up costing taxpayers even more in the end and because it's more likely to undermine than create confidence."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june09/econwrap_04-14.html

Healthy banks are beginning to repay the bailout funds. There's a lot to the why and how. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june09/bankbailout_04-14.html

Note that the original (Bush) plan had no provision for repayment, but there is now since the change in administration. See the remarks of WSJ writer Solomon halfway down that page:

"...the previous plan, which was started under President Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, called for these banks to keep the capital, partly as a way to prop up the financial sector by infusing healthy banks, those with enough capital, to have, you know, money, but also helping give cover to some of the weaker banks that weren't at death's door but needed a little bit of help.

"This way, everybody was sort of egalitarian. It was very equal. You couldn't tell who was weak or who was strong. Everybody was getting the money.

"But in February when the stimulus bill passed, there was a provision in there that allowed the banks to get out of TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Essentially, they said, if you don't want to comply with these restrictions, fine, you can get out of TARP."

"That wasn't what Treasury had intended. And so now they basically have no choice but to allow healthy banks to get out of the TARP program."

Note I am still leaning myself toward the pundits who are saying nationalization of the sickest large banks will prove necessary.

I'm there too. The derivatives money pit is very deep, and unstable. Too unstable for my blood. We could very well tweak this or that and see good stuff happen.

The "free market" people are hoping that is the case, so they don't have to come to acceptance on the fact that there are no free markets and that we need to regulate for the greater good of everyone.

Better to face that sooner rather than later and get to the place where we've got things structured to serve us proper, than to put it off or deny and just end up doing this again.

Somebody somewhere made a lot off of this. Once is enough.