Posted on 09/03/2009 12:08:20 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Remember last fall when all those gigantic financial institutions that have been bankrolling Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd's campaigns all these years were about to go belly up because of irresponsible lending practices encouraged or mandated by the government thanks to the likes of Sen. Dodd?
Remember how the Fed and Sen. Dodd and a raft of others in government said those banks had to be rescued because they were "too big to fail"? Remember how Congress borrowed $700 billion from the Red Chinese and others to throw Sen. Dodd's TARP over those banks to unfreeze the credit market, only to have the banks use the money to shore up their balance sheets and buy or merge with other banks?
Well, like a magic trick, the TARP now is being pulled away to reveal — presto! — the too-big-to-fail institutions are bigger and more interconnected than ever.
And while they were in Sen. Dodd's bank-protection program, some of their toughest regional competitors, which were not deemed too big to fail, in fact failed, giving the new behemoths "even greater control over consumer lending and more potential to profit," The Washington Post reported the other day.
"... Fresh data from the FDIC show that big banks have the ability to borrow more cheaply than their peers because creditors assume these large companies are not at risk of failing" because they assume the government will have their back if things go wrong.
So now J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup are writing one of every two mortgages in this country, issuing two in every three credit cards and holding more than a third of all bank deposits. They stand to make gobs of money, and with their profits, they will be able to buy even more political influence via campaign contributions to well-placed lawmakers, especially those who saved their backsides but face tough re-election fights. Such as the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
Well done, Sen. Dodd. Well done. Now go out there and tell the people once again how you've never been influenced by campaign donations.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
Dodd and his sandwich-building buddy better burn in hell....
(I'm assuming his buddy is already there being stir fried...)
Thanks for the ping Graybeard.
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