Patterico's Pontifications

12/14/2009

Obama Rallies His Team of Bank Executives

Filed under: Obama — DRJ @ 4:51 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

In a White House meeting with bank executives, President Barack Obama today called on them to stop fighting regulatory reform and lend more money for the benefit of all:

“The president said it is not his intent to vilify one person or industry — to not dictate to them or micromanage their compensation practices.

“My job is to ensure that consumers and the larger economy are protected from risky speculation and predatory practices, that credit is flowing, that businesses can grow, and jobs are once again being created at the pace we need.”

In working together towards a lasting recovery, Mr. Obama said, “we rise and fall together: banks and small businesses, consumers and large corporations. And we have a shared interest in working together to ensure a lasting recovery that will benefit all of us and not just some of us.”

However, Obama apparently had a difficult time sticking to his theme that “we’re all in this together” since he followed it by calling these bank executives a bunch of losers:

“A White House official tells ABC News that on the subject of executive compensation, President Obama told bank executives today, “you guys are like overpaid pitchers on a team doing poorly. The concern is less when your team is successful – but you guys didn’t win the World Series this year.”

Obama: Motivator of men.

— DRJ

24 Responses to “Obama Rallies His Team of Bank Executives”

  1. Get ready for Subprime II: Insolvency Boogaloo.

    Another Chris (470967)

  2. “you guys are like overpaid pitchers on a team doing poorly. The concern is less when your team is successful – but you guys didn’t win the World Series this year.”

    Considering Obama’s turning into the political version of Steve Blass, that’s an appropriate analogy.

    Another Chris (470967)

  3. Another example of Obama’s utter lack of clues regarding how the real world works.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  4. I’d be underimpressed by that if I was in the room….. It’d be hard not to blurt out something like “well then don’t micromanage and regulate my pitch selection, speed and location… you’ve never played the game and you are telling me… *bleep*”

    SteveG (909b57)

  5. Asked if he had any qualms about holding out for a bigger salary than was paid to President of the United States Herbert Hoover, Babe Ruth famously replied, “What the hell has Hoover got to do with it? Besides, I had a better year than he did.” Other than presiding over the spewing firehose of federal money his party has uncapped and an unearned Nobel Prize, Obama hasn’t really had any conspicuous successes this year. He’s very lucky that his own compensation as CEO of the U.S. government isn’t performance-based.

    Beldar (2dfb11)

  6. Damnit, Beldar says it better than I did … again.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  7. I always feel that way about Beldar’s comments, SPQR. Fortunately he has such a strong work ethic that he doesn’t have the time to comment enough to really hurt my ego.

    DRJ (84a0c3)

  8. There is that slight consolation, DRJ.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  9. This is worthy of Hugo Chavez, or any other kleptocratic dictator of choice. The Glorious Leader seems to think that all the country’s resources, particularly its money, belongs to him, and it’s his duty to ensure that some of it gets turned into baksheesh and handed to his political supporters.

    His ACORN days must be resurfacing, and the campaign to lend other people’s money, whether or not it’ll be paid back, is on again full-strength.

    Come to think of it, the CRA provides for exactly that, and it has never been repealed. Let’s hear it for baksheesh and Reinvestment!

    Insufficiently Sensitive (a939d1)

  10. Obama’s salary as President is $400,000 a year. The minimum salary in Major League Baseball, paid to rookies and marginal players, is also $400,000 a year. Draw your own conclusions.

    Official Internet Data Office (0a4bf0)

  11. He feels free to rag on them (Wall Street) because he knows they won’t give money to those Socialists over at the GOP.

    AD - RtR/OS! (cc5dea)

  12. …and, if he were in “The Show”, he’d have to worry about being sent down for “reconditioning”.

    AD - RtR/OS! (cc5dea)

  13. The heads of three of the biggest companies — Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup — did not even make it to the White House meeting in person. They had waited until Monday morning to travel on commercial flights to Washington and then were held up by fog.

    By contrast, James E. Rohr, PNC Financial’s chief executive, drove his own car on Sunday evening to Washington from Pittsburgh, stopping at a Wendy’s for a sandwich en route. Other chief executives made sure they would arrive on time: Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase flew into Washington on one of the bank’s private jets, while Kenneth D. Chenault of American Express took Amtrak.*

    Helene Cooper services narrative with all the dignity of Rachel Uchitel getting her rent together for the month I think.

    happyfeet (71f55e)

  14. The bankers have long since figured out that they do better glomming onto the federal teat than messing around with those dangerous consumer and business loans. There are now two groups within the financial industry. There are people like Brown Brothers, Harriman who are partners and whose own money is tied up in their investments, and corporations like Lehman Brothers, who were public corporations, in which they were investing stock holders’ money although the bonuses they earned were private.

    How have those two models worked out ?

    Well, Brown Brothers Harriman is still there and Lehman Brothers ?

    Not so much.

    There is a lesson there. If you are doing private business and have your own interests involved, you take better care of things. If you are running things with other people’s money, either in a corporation or as a federal bureaucrat, you have socialized risk and privatized gain.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  15. What’s ironic is that many of the individuals that work in this administration are the same people he’s railing against regarding the financial implosion last year. Can you say “cognitive dissonance?”

    Dmac (a964d5)

  16. rotflmao!!! Obamao telling businesspeople how to run a business!!!! Is this guy on drugs?

    J. Raymond Wright (e8d0ca)

  17. An update from Oklahoma:
    Oklahoma law passed, 37 to 9, had a few liberals in the mix, an amendment to place the Ten Commandments on the front entrance to the state capitol. The feds in D.C., along with the ACLU, said it would be a mistake. Hey this is a conservative state, based on Christian values…! HB 1330

    Guess what………. Oklahoma did it anyway.

    Oklahoma recently passed a law in the state to incarcerate all illegal immigrants, and ship them back to where they came from unless they want to get a green card and become an American citizen. They all scattered. HB 1804. Hope we didn’t send any of them to your state. This was against the advice of the Federal Government, and the ACLU, they said it would be a mistake.

    Guess what………. Oklahoma did it anyway.

    Recently we passed a law to include DNA samples from any and all illegals to the Oklahoma database, for criminal investigative purposes. Pelosi said it was unconstitutional. SB 1102

    Guess what…….. Oklahoma did it anyway.

    Several weeks ago, we passed a law, declaring Oklahoma as a Sovereign state, not under the Federal Government directives. Joining Texas , Montana and Utah as the only states to do so. More states are likely to follow: Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolina’s, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia, Mississippi, Florida. HJR 1003

    The federal Government has made bold steps to take away our guns. Oklahoma, a week ago, passed a law confirming people in this state have the right to bear arms and transport them in their vehicles. I’m sure that was a setback for the criminals (and Obamaites). Liberals didn’t like it — But …

    Guess what……….. Oklahoma did it anyway.

    Just this month, my state has voted and passed a law that ALL driver’s license exams will be printed in English, and only English, and no other language. We have been called racist for doing this, but the fact is that ALL of our road signs are in English only. If you want to drive in Oklahoma , you must read and write English. Really simple.

    By the way, Obama does not like any of this.

    Guess what….who cares… Oklahoma is doing it anyway.

    To Verify:
    http://newsok.com/oklahoma-state-capitol-to-display-ten-commandments/article/3370730
    http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-01-09-immigcover_N.htm

    Or go to google.com and write in “Okahoma did it anyway”. You’ll pull up a host of articles on this very thing!!!

    FIRST BOOK OF GOVERNMENT: PSALM 2009

    Obama is the shepherd I did not want.

    He leadeth me beside the still factories.

    He restoreth my faith in the Republican party.

    He guideth me in the path of unemployment for his party’s sake.

    Yea, though I walk through the valley of the bread line, I shall fear no hunger for his bailouts are with me.

    He has anointed my income with taxes, my expenses runneth over.

    Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me all the days of my life, and I will live in a mortgaged home forever.

    I am glad I am American, I am glad that I am free.

    But I wish I was a dog … and Obama was a tree.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  18. Glenn Reynolds nails it:

    OBAMA WANTS BANKS TO LOAN MORE MONEY TO SMALL BUSINESS. I’d be willing to bet, though, that part of the problem is that small business isn’t keen to borrow or expand right now — in large part for fear of what Obama’s tax-and-health-care-and-carbon-tax policies will do to their future prospects.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  19. Oops, that whole thing was not supposed to paste – sorry. Only the Psalm.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  20. Don’t be sorry, Mr. Rocks…the first part was the best part. Priceless. If Arkansas and Missouri sign on, my relatives will be ecstatic. I’d even consider moving ba…never mind, just remembered the weather.

    political agnostic (452587)

  21. #6 SPQR:

    Damnit, Beldar says it better than I did … again.

    He does that a lot to the rest of us too.

    EW1(SG) (b52493)

  22. We’ve got the FHA following Fannie and Freddie down the shitter. Obama strong arming banks not to foreclose on home mortgages – prolong the agony. Shenanigans being played with goodwill being counted as capital in bad banks the government is arranging to be merged – remember supervisory goodwill people. Now Super Genyus Obama who doesn’t understand a lick of business and has mainly academics and lifetime government apparatchiks at cabinet level in his administration presumes to tell bankers how to run their companies? This from the guy who gave us Cash for Clunkers and thought it was a wild success? What COULD go wrong? What COULD go wrong?

    daleyrocks (718861)

  23. “By contrast, James E. Rohr, PNC Financial’s chief executive, drove his own car on Sunday evening to Washington from Pittsburgh, stopping at a Wendy’s for a sandwich en route. Other chief executives made sure they would arrive on time: Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase flew into Washington on one of the bank’s private jets, while Kenneth D. Chenault of American Express took Amtrak.*”

    Fuck yeah Amtrak! NE corridor FTW!

    [note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]

    imdw (f0f574)

  24. The Commission would have met as usual in Apalachin, NY, but the weather was bad.

    ropelight (5883b5)


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