Posted on 03/05/2009 7:02:59 AM PST by jessduntno
The Handout Handback
Bill Cooper, Bank CEO: TCF never really needed the money in the first place. The regulators suggested that we take it, and strongly suggested it, and they said that the money was only going to go to strong banks.
The deal has kind of changed in connection with the regulations and so forth, the rules they want to apply to companies that take the TARP money. And there are a lot of reasons why it does not work for us.
We do not need it. We don't need those additional rules and regulations.
And the public perception now is that those banks, those TARP banks are kind of shady characters that are kind of criminally taking money from the government, and we do not need that image. We haven't done it. We never did any of the subprime lending or all the other kind of things that people do. We have had 50 consecutive quarters of regular earnings.
So we will give it back and let them give it to somebody who needs it.
VAN SUSTEREN: Bill, I was hard on another bank, Northern Trust, because it took some money and then had a big, fancy party. And they said we never meant to take the money. We didn't need it. It was forced on us.
Talking to you, was money almost forced on the banks? Explain that to me.
COOPER: In the banking business, when a regulator makes a suggestion, they say "jump" and you say, "How high?" And it was put to us that only the strong banks were going to get this money and it was going to be for the good of the economy so that you would be able to lever that money and make loans to customers and so forth.
This is almost literally right out of Atlas Shrugged.
My thoughts also. Everyday I see the scenario coming more and more closer to reality. Ayn Rand had these twits nailed loooong ago..............
TCF is Twin Cities Federal.
“Finance capital, concentrated in a few hands and exercising a virtual monopoly, exacts enormous and ever-increasing profits from the floating of companies, issue of stock, state loans, etc., strengthens the domination of the financial oligarchy and levies tribute upon the whole of society for the benefit of monopolists.”
“During periods of industrial boom, the profits of finance capital are immense, but during periods of depression, small and unsound businesses go out of existence, and the big banks acquire “holdings” in them by buying them up for a mere song, or participate in profitable schemes for their “reconstruction” and “reorganisation”. In the “reconstruction” of undertakings which have been running at a loss, “the share capital is written down, that is, profits are distributed on a smaller capital and continue to be calculated on this smaller basis. Or, if the income has fallen to zero, new capital is called in, which, combined with the old and less remunerative capital, will bring in an adequate return.” “Incidentally,” adds Hilferding, “all these reorganisations and reconstructions have a twofold significance for the banks: first, as profitable transactions; and secondly, as opportunities for securing control of the companies in difficulties.”
“The supremacy of finance capital over all other forms of capital means the predominance of the rentier and of the financial oligarchy; it means that a small number of financially “powerful” states stand out among all the rest. The extent to which this process is going on may be judged from the statistics on emissions, i.e., the issue of all kinds of securities.” - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Legal Plunder Has Many Names
Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole — with their common aim of legal plunder — constitute socialism.
How to Identify Legal Plunder
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system. - Frédéric Bastiat
IIRC the CEO of US Bancorp stated the same thing. Apparently there were some very ugly threats made to “encourage” solvent banks to take the $$$.
“IIRC the CEO of US Bancorp stated the same thing. Apparently there were some very ugly threats made to “encourage” solvent banks to take the $$$.”
The same MO as the ACORN thugs threatening to shut down non-sub prime lending banks...this is a coup, not an administration...I hope Bayh and friends stick to their guns...
How many banks are going to end up taking the TARP money, and the strings that go with it, to offset the massive increases in FDIC insuruance premiums the fed is imposing?
I guess it's time for me to read that book.
Yes, it has always been a good book, but it is MUST reading now. I am not really a fan of Ayn Rand in most respects, and this book gets way too preachy in the end, but the book is downright prophetic in many ways. The subject of this thread is a perfect example. It is so close to something that happened in the book (as the government got more and more panicky about it’s fixes not working) that it is as though Obama is using the book as a playlist.
The gov probably did this in part to make it harder to determine what banks are really in trouble, thus slowing the flight of investors and depositors, which would have made the situation even worse. Course in my mind, and I am no expert on how banking works, the problems are centered around a very few large banks with friends in DC, and DC is trying to exploit the troubles, painting them worse than they really are, in order to proceed with an agenda. The government is doing nothing to improve the economy and anyone that believes otherwise is kidding themselves.
The children in my school are doing the “pennies for patients” program. They bring change to school to support children with leukemia or lymphoma. I went to three different banks to have the change counted. The first two would have charged a fee for counting the change, eventhough the money was going to a charity. The last bank, TCF, not only counted the money for free, the manager put in some of her own money to the cause.
Hooray Bill Cooper! TCF...I have done my banking there for many years.
I hear it happened with Wells Fargo too.
The banks should have stuck together and said “NO”.
I would have already changed banks.
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