[darkwing104]

Does Obama Want Financial Stocks to Go to Zero?

Yes

[LottieDah]

Zero wants the market to fail so badly than any up tick with be credited to his “sound financial policies”.

[kjam22]

Here’s the deal. I’m all in favor of restrictions being associated with TARP money. Really I’d prefer there was no TARP money.... but if we’re gonna give it to them, then we ought to tell them how to use it.

[paulycy]

Obama wants America’s global democratic influence and capitalistic profit levels to go to absolute zero. As quickly as possible.

[napscoordinator]

I think he likes the stock market tanking. He has been President for 20 days and does not want the market to recover until mid 2010 just in time for mid term election. This guy knows what he is doing....it just that what he is doing is wrong.

[Polybius]

Obama rightfully understands that the easiest way to do this is to either persuade banks or to force them. Since banks are private companies, the government can't exactly force all of them to do so. Instead, it can create conditions associated with government TARP financing, ie. if you received any capital, you are now required to renegotiate defaulted loans.

Two separate issues are in play here.

First Issue:

The Golden Rule. "He who hands out the Gold makes the rules."

The banks are not victims here any more than Bernard Madoff is. They were burned at their own highly irresponsible and even criminal game that allowed them to charge fees for the origination of any loan, no matter how unsound, and then profit again by selling that worthless IOU ( now know as a "toxic asset") to investors on Wall Street that included each other.

Complaining that the banks do not now have the full freedom of private companies that function with their own money and not with taxpayer's money is like the murderer that kills both of his parents and then asks the Court to be lenient on him because he is an orphan.

Second Issue:

Irresponsibility: America, from top to bottom, seems to have lost all sense of financial responsibility. From the banker cashing in on fees for the origination of a $300,000 loan to a burger-flipper to the fool with a good, middle class job that bought an $800,000 house he could only afford when monthly payments were artificially lowered by "Interest Only" gimmicks during a grace period, a large percentage of America seems to have as much of a sense of responsibility as a crack addict.

Although the Government has the legitimate right to dictate how taxpayer's money will be used by the banks, subsidizing past irresponsible behavior only perpetuates the rot by rewarding bad behavior. Those who irresponsibly bought homes at ridiculous prices that they could not afford deserve to lose their overpriced houses.

[johnthebaptistmoore]

Yes, and all of the leftists will successfully get away with it, because they will always blame: past and present Republicans, Republican POTUS of the past, and past and present non-leftists for all of the world’s problems on all of the world’s issues for always.

[pabianice]

Dumb question. Of course. Then he can impose Stalinism on the nation, “for our own good,” of course.

[Mike Darancette]

Aren’t mortgages contracts which are under the jurisdiction of the individual states?