Obama pressures banks to start lending again

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I hate banks. They do nothing positive for anybody except take care of themselves. They're first in with their fees and first out when there's trouble.

- Earl Warren -

According to Politico, bank CEOs told "President Barack Obama in a meeting on Monday that they are ready to 'step up' and take additional steps to promote economic recovery." Apparently, Obama's view is that banks "have a special responsibility to help spur recovery because of the extraordinary bailout assistance they received last year." (The meeting was held this morning.)

Well, yes, they do, and the president is right to play a bit of hardball. You'll forgive me, though, for being, oh, a tad skeptical. Banks hardly make Main Street, or the overall health of the economy, their top priority, and they'll only start lending again if they think they can rape society and ordinary working Americans profit from it.

Also, shouldn't there have been such strings attached from the start? I get that Geithner and Summers were all about refinancing their buddies on Wall Street, but, you know, it wasn't exactly hard to see this coming.