Posted on 02/11/2009 9:18:10 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Barney Frank Tells Banks: Pay Up, or Shut Up @ 12:00 pm by Michael O'Brien
House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Wednesday that if bailed-out banks do not like conditions such as pay caps and restrictions on corporate extravagances placed on their companies, they can give the money right back.
"I'm prepared to say this: if they really feel this way now, and they can't live with the restrictions, and they feel, 'Oh, how dare you ask me how I spent the money,' then give it back," Frank told CNBC during an interview ahead of hearings featuring the CEOs of major banks.
"If they want to pay it back right away, I'd accept it," the chairman, a principal author of the bailouts, added, noting that most companies are too involved with the funds at this point.
Frank insisted he shares Americans' anger over the way the first half of the Wall Street bailout Frank helped author in Congress was administered by the Bush administration.
"I think a lot of people in this country, probably an overwhelming majority, would like to scrap the current system…and start a new one," Frank told CNBC in an interview ahead of today's hearings in which leaders of large banks will be summoned to testify. "The goal is to figure out what to do going forward."
Frank said that the reality is that Congress will likely have to commit more resources to the system, but that he did not like it: "That makes people angry, and I share that anger."
Watch a video of Frank's appearance here:
I agree. The banks should send the money back, like Goldman Sachs is intending to.
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Barney Frank's spouse or partner isn't his friend anymore
According to Page Six, Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank's “friend”, Sergio Pombo, is no longer content with being given that level of status. He apparently wrote an email to Bill Thomas, a columnist with The Hill newspaper, saying, “After five years of dating Barney, I believe, you should upgrade my status from a ‘friend’ to either ‘partner’ or ‘spouse.’” When the journalist asked Pombo, an investment officer at the World Bank, if he and the congressman had gone off to and gotten hitched, Pombo replied, “Not officially. However, most of the directories refer to me as Barney's spouse or companion.”
Did you khnow this little fat queer won 70% of the vote in Massachusetts..
I thought I read that there was an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) being set up to track TARP recipient firms. I think it might be interesting to create an ETF for TARP rejecting firms - methinks they might be a better thing to be long in.
“Did you khnow this little fat queer won 70% of the vote in Massachusetts..”
That’s what happens when you always fight for your district and speak to your constituents in a language they can understand.
It’s weird that he’s the gruffest, most blue-collar seeming street fighter in congress and he’s the gay one. Meanwhile, our reps, especially the most conservative ones, come across as snotty, femmy country club a-holes.
I don’t like Barney either...
Talk is cheap...I’ll believe it when I see Goldmans bringing the check to Congress.
I saw all I wanted to see of Barney Frank when I saw the YouTube of Barney Frank, then the House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Barney in a September 2003 New York Times interview saying…"these two entities – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are not facing any kind of financial crisis … The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."
Barney Frank and his affiliation with Fannie Mae's Franklin Raine is as much to blame for the mortgage crisis as anyone else and should be told to pound sand.
Too bad the banks leveraged themselves into a position where they had to sell their souls to the government...but they did so pay the money back or live with the rules...it’s taxpayer money.
They pay people to write fake letters - letters that are usually sent to Republicans, newspapers that "don't look too closely" and their friends in the MSM.
Bankers will be getting some of those fake letters - and yeah, many of them come from "real" citizens - but citizens who have been helped to write the letters.
I hate to feel sorry for these idiot bankers - the CITI's and Bank of America and Wells Fargo types - but when they're up against Barney Frank - my heart goes out to them...
And who’s fault would that be? Who leveraged themselves into insolvency...they can live within the rules or give the money back. As for bringing the system down, they already did.
That should have been ACORN..
If it’s a loan the government should go pound sand.
I can’t believe this idiot has dealings with our nation’s financial system.
Banks are easy to shakedown - you just have to write them a letter telling them what they've been assessed. Barney and Friends will be raking it in - and those who don't "go along to get along" will be shunned. The good people better stand together...
I Want to be a Company Man!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH-368sRdXg
“Barney Frank is the biggest horse’s ass in the House.
Hmmmm. I think that’s true, but a very strong argument could be made that Pelosi, or Dingell, or Charlie Rangell are the biggest horse’s ass.”
oh tough choice..there are so many horses’ asses in the house to choose from...I can’t decide...
Oh I got it! how about chosing “D” ALL OF THE ABOVE
I hate the arrogance of Bawney.
What might be even hilarious about this (pot Frank meet kettle Bankers) situation is that WHEN it is finally verified and documented that the current President is not a Natural Born Citizen and is not eligible to be any USofA President, ALL THAT MONEY WILL HAVE TO BE REPAID ANYWAY.
You seem to have missed the “If” clause in the comment.
I think the schmucks in Congress and their entire staffs should all take a 50% pay-cut because these a-holes are just as responsible for getting us into this mess as the banks. I’m sure they’d start crying about the high cost of living in Washington, DC, even though the CoL is probably half of what it is in New York City.
The Obama “tax cut” for 95% of Americans treats people who live in high standard of living areas poorly. I am appalled that I could pay $5,000 into Social Security (and my employer is paying $5,000 in SS for me, also), $15,000 directly to the Internal Revenue Service, and $5,000 into Medicare ($30,000 total going to the federal government), and I will only see my $15,000 federal tax burden drop by $1,000 (less than 10%).
Meanwhile some schmuck who pays $500 in SS (and his employer pays $500 into SS for him, also) and $500 into Medicare (and zero federal tax liability) could get a $1,000 check sent to him even though he has no federal tax liability. This guys already probably getting a couple hundred from the Earned Income Tax Credit, also, which means his employer’s payment for the employee’s Social Security is really just going (indirectly) into the employee’s wallet.
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