Quote Of The Day – Pitchforks
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Banks, Barack, Economy, Quotes
“Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that. My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”
- Obama cautioning bank executives on justifying high salaries in a recent private meeting
I think it’s pretty clear that the bank executives simply don’t get how angry folks are. And that’s understandable. Because for the past 30 years they’ve been accustomed to getting whatever they want. So it makes sense that they feel entitled to do whatever they like. That’ll obviously change, but it’s hard to teach these old dogs anything new.
But to that point of training these folks for the hard road that lies ahead, I like this description of the meeting…
There were signs from the outset that this was a business event, not a social gathering. At each place around the table sat a single glass of water. No ice. For those who finished their glass, no refills were offered. There was no group photograph taken of the CEOs with the president, which typically happens at ceremonial White House gatherings but not at serious strategy sessions.“The only way they could have sent a more Spartan message is if they had served bread along with the water,†says a person who attended the meeting. “The signal from Obama’s body language and demeanor was, ‘I’m the president, and you’re not.’â€
According to the accounts of sources inside the room, President Obama told the CEOs exactly what he expects from them, and pushed back forcefully when they attempted to defend Wall Street’s legendarily high-paying ways.
How these bankers think they can take trillions from the federal government and not be treated as if they seriously screwed up is beyond me, but hey…we’ll see how the adjust.
This entry was posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 and is filed under Banks, Barack, Economy, Quotes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 3rd, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Wow, what arrogance. By EVERYONE in the room. A year from now, I wonder who will be standing between Obama and the pitchforks? Bloggers perhaps?
April 3rd, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Speaking only for myself, what Obama said to those bank execs is PRECISELY the message I would have asked him to deliver, if I had personally been given the chance.
I see no reason at all why I might have wanted Obama to behave in a humble manner before these bank folks. Obama is, after all, the President. And personally I have ZERO trouble with him reminding certain folks of this if it happens to be warranted.
Obama isn’t just the guy standing between these banks and the pitchforks. He is also the guy standing between these banks and insolvency.
And while Obama probably isn’t anywhere close to having all the answers to this crisis, at least we can say that he wasn’t involved up to his eyeballs in causing it. Like, you know, the people running these banks who invested gigantic piles of investor cash in risky investments that, let’s face it, they clearly did not really understand.
And now some of them seem to be moving quickly onward to a new misunderstanding. Because at least some of them seem not to understand what a complete and utter disgrace it is for a Bank President to let his bank invest money in investment vehicles that he or she doesn’t really understand.
April 3rd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Of course, Congress can be indirectly responsible for selling half of all of the toxic assets to the banks; or actually making them toxic by collateralizing subprime loans through Fannie & Freddie; the SEC can be responsible for rating them AAA; and Greenspan can be responsible for giving out all of the free money to the banks so they could leverage up, but hey… no pitchforks for them.
When a bunch of drunken teenagers go crazy at the prom, they should be kicked out of the party. The Chaperones who spiked the punch bowl need to be fired as well.
April 3rd, 2009 at 2:48 pm
The Chaperones were kicked out, now we have a new house dad.
April 3rd, 2009 at 3:00 pm
popurls.com // popular today…
story has entered the popular today section on popurls.com…
April 3rd, 2009 at 3:16 pm
>the SEC can be responsible for rating them AAA;
SEC doesn’t rate securities.
Independent bond rating agencies do.
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Amen to Jimmy the Dhimmi!
To rephrase Justin’s final paragraph: “How these politicians think they can take trillions from the people and not be treated as if they seriously screwed up is beyond me, but hey…we’ll see how they adjust.”
And Kranky Kritter, about the following statement:
“Obama isn’t just the guy standing between these banks and the pitchforks. He is also the guy standing between these banks and insolvency.”
You say “insolvency” like it’s a bad thing.
Obama may not have caused the crisis; only time well tell, I suppose, if he’s made it better or worse. . . .
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
This all seems ridiculous and a bit infuriating. Do people really believe the entire financial sector should receive 100% of the blame for this recession?
What about the media under the Bush Administration? What about our double edged economic alliances with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, or hostile regions in south america?
Take my angry story for what you will. My father, former CEO of the worlds 5th “best” public auditing firm stood as of 2006 as the only accounting firm to receive a perfect score from SEC oversight in the state of California. Since I can remember my dad always fired an employee at the first sight of dishonesty or possible future dishonesty in any arena — financial or not.
He now stands next to THOUSANDS of business men who work 60-80 hour weeks to keep our economy afloat who did NOTHING wrong. Remember months ago when one french banker brought down the entire french banking system? Less than 5-6 employees at each A.I.G. F.P. branch were to blame for this clusterf_ _k yet we crucify an entire company of thousands. Out of hundreds of branches at A.I.G. only the F.P. branch can receive proper blame for any of this yet we blame the entire company AND the entire sector?
As Steven Colbertte accurately joked I hope after the dust settles in a year or two some of these business folks which our government and media put up to slaughter as scape goats bother doing business again with the U.S. Government.
Please realize the more we talk with pitchforks in hand the more foreign banks and branches of foreign national banks gain market share in the US. Is that what we want? An american banking system OWNED by ING, UBS, Royal Scotland, and the hundreds of Asian branches of the Asian Tigers?
For F’ sake, would everyone calm down so we can start saving our Economic asses?
Please President Obama, lead by example and help us regain our sense of logic, discipline, honor, and intelligence =(
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Interesting that Obama is at least consistent. An arrogant “I am the President” bastard to everyone.
What is so hypocritical is that Obama’s Democratic party started all this banking collapse when Clinton signed a law the “punished” banks if they didn’t loan money to people to buy houses they couldn’t afford. 80% of the collapse is a result of bad loans to people who could not afford them.
And as far as bonuses are concerned…Obama AUTHORIZED bonuses to be paid by signing into law his Pork Stimulus Bill that specifically STATED that bonuses earned before Feb.11 COULD be paid. Obama only got angry and pissy after he found out how pissed the American public was.
He’s a Sham, a CON ARTIST and HYPOCRITE.
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
“Of course, Congress can be indirectly responsible for selling half of all of the toxic assets to the banks; or actually making them toxic by collateralizing subprime loans through Fannie & Freddie; the SEC can be responsible for rating them AAA; and Greenspan can be responsible for giving out all of the free money to the banks so they could leverage up, but hey… no pitchforks for them.”
Protip: Next time, try actually reading about the financial mess instead of getting dumbed-down (and incorrect) summaries from Fox News.
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:26 pm
“adjust”. Heh.
Heheheh.
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Good one.
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Hi All –
Pitchforks are a common theme lately. People are angry, investors are angry, taxpayers are angry.
Recently a client I work with penned this post on pitchforks – thought it would help add some thought to the discussion.
http://www.lakesidecapitalblog.com/?p=71
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Lets see, he just handed them the equivalent to a stack of signed blank US treasury checks while telling them they better be good little boys and girls.
I you can not see the total theft that is going on here, the fascist state has successfully lobotimized you through years of consumerism instead of democracy.
Most people still don’t grasp the magnitude of this theft. If you think Obama has a shred of humanity left in him, you are pretty far gone.
April 4th, 2009 at 12:27 am
wish it were true but it is not, check out: LINK
April 4th, 2009 at 1:41 am
Indeed Jedadiah. Those of you who refuse to accept truth and insist on living in the facade of happy land need to wake up.
April 4th, 2009 at 2:25 am
Wolfy, get your facts straight.
One, Before bush only 1 in 50 loans were sub prime.
Two, in 1994 Congress passed the Homeowners Equity Protection Act, which empowered the Federal Reserve to set rules on mortgages. Yet from 1995 until last year, the Federal Reserve refused to exercise that authority
three, hen the GOP was in charge, whenever the Democratic minority wanteto bring up regulating the mortgage companies the GOP majority shot it down.
After bush’s tax cuts failed to deliver the promised level of employment they had to come up with another scam. As far as I am concerned the Bush admin wanted to stoke the housing bubble to make the economy look good. President Bush’s “America’s Home Ownership Challenge” pushed the private lending sector (as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) to make more than 5.5 million new minority and low income mortgage loans. To meet his challenge to the private lending industry, twenty four of our largest banking and lending companies pledged to make 1.1 trillion dollars in low income and minority loans. Bush pushed private lenders to “create more creative” loan products, and encouraged them to “loosen underwriting standards.”
numero whatever…. in 2005 the bush admin called for the elimination of the requirement for a 3% downpayment for a HUD/FHA loan.
From last year’s business week
“University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr testified back in February before the House Committee on Financial Services that 50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject comprehensive federal supervision and another 30% were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations.”
By 2006 half the loans were sub prime.
The worst thing CLinton did was sign Gramm’s bill in 1999. He shouldn’t have.
April 4th, 2009 at 5:48 am
Much of the blame for the mortgage lending meltdown has been placed on the “failure of the free market.†But is there really any truth to this?
The financial industry is the single most regulated industry in the economy. The failing institutions are precisely the ones that New Deal policies were meant to protect us from: the FDIC was supposed to prevent bank runs, the SEC was supposed to be stop shady investments, Fannie May and Freddie Mac were supposed to make sure that loans went to people who deserved them.
Opportunistic politicians are quick to blame the capture of regulatory institutions on lobbyists and “special interests.†They promise to fix the problem by giving yet more money and power to corrupt government agencies, much like a mob boss who blames his enforcers for his protection schemes, and then promises his victims to lay off them if they just give him more guns and money.
The only reason that special interests are so involved in government is that the government has ingrained itself so deeply in our lives. Giving more power to the state to regulate markets and redistribute wealth and privileges from one group to another only increases the incentive to strengthen one’s political connections.
April 4th, 2009 at 8:16 am
darn….
Marcus, Dan Springsteen,
It’s my job to dispute all the nonsensical Jimmy and Wolfy Fox mis-information. Now I don’t have anything to write about….
I guess it doesn’t matter, no matter how many times you prove them wrong, they just keep coming back with the same false GOP talking points. Do you think it is because they don’t want to learn, or that they cannot?
April 4th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Please, this man was put in office by the financial sector, and you sheep don’t really buy into this bullshit do you. Nothing but a puppet for the Zionist. He is a just a front man, every word that comes out of his mouth is pure propaganda.
April 6th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Wow