President Obama met with a number of America’s biggest banks, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup, via teleconference, earlier today, and urged them to lend to small businesses in an effort to speed up the economic recovery.
Obama told the bankers in a noon meeting that they must explore “every possible way” to increase lending, as they had an obligation to do so.
In remarks after the meeting with the bankers concluded, Obama said, “America’s banks received extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers to rebuild their industry. Now that they’re back on their feet we expect an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild our economy.”
Obama has come under heavy criticism from the American public over his handling of the banking crisis, in which billions of taxpayers dollars, under the Troubled Asset Recovery Program (TARP) were provided at zero interest to help shore up the banking system.
So, perhaps Obama was setting the tone for his lunch meeting when he said on 60 minutes on Sunday night that,”I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.”
While many big banks have already paid back the government under TARP, (banks used the free money from the government, purchased bonds and made billions) some commentators believe that Obama has now lost his leverage with them and they are unlikely to necessarily take on board his exhortation to make loans to small businesses.
Said Obama, “Ultimately in this country we rise and fall together: banks and small businesses, consumers and large corporations.”
But just perhaps Obama’s challenge to banks might be too little, too late.
OBAMA AND THE BANKS
He says that the banks should lend more,
So we Americans can spend more,
Go grab your plastic,
Let’s do something drastic!
Go buy a GE or a Kenmore.