Obama, Bankers Sit Face to Face - President: "Excess is out of fashion" (WaPo)

[jefferson_dem]

Obama, Bankers Sit Face to Face
President Urges More Lending
By Binyamin Appelbaum and Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 28, 2009; Page D01

Lend more. Spend less.

That was President Obama's message yesterday during a meeting at the White House with the chief executives of the nation's largest banks. The president told the bankers he understood their critical role in renewed economic growth, and was committed to returning the industry to long-term health.

At the same time, Obama said the executives needed to understand and acknowledge the public's anger over the financial crisis and the massive paydays that have continued long after the industry went on the public dole.

"Excess is out of fashion," Obama said, according to participants in the gathering.

The president held himself up as an example, saying that he had not yet renovated the Oval Office and was still using George W. Bush's furniture, even noting the stains on the carpet. He urged the banks to show comparable "constraint and responsibility," adding that the nation had undergone a cultural shift.

The bankers, a roll call of industry titans including the heads of Bank of America, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase, arrived with their own message: The government's steady support is a critical prerequisite for increased lending. The administration, they said, needs to provide more steadiness and support

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032703315.html?wprss=rss_business

[jody]

1. One person's excess is another person's trillion dollar budget deficit. n/t

[Political Heretic]

2. I find that comment offensive.

Out of fashion?

We're not talking about something that just happens to be out of style now as though at some point in the past (when the public was asleep) it was okay and perhaps at some point in the future (when the public goes back to sleep) will be okay again.

But that's exactly what that comment sounds like. It sounds like "Bankers, you need to understand that the public is awake right now, so you can't go around making your multibillions of the backs of poor people and handing yourselves fat loot right now.. at least not until the public calms down and we can repacify them with our Work/Consume/Buy/Die info-tainment propaganda....

Corpoorate Cronyism and our extremely inequitable economic system isn't just "out of style" Mr. President. IT IS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED.

[Mass]

3. Is it about fashion, or is it about what is fundementally wrong?

There is a fundemental problem with the finance industry and it is not that they went on a spending spree. It is that the economical model of the country (and the world) have changed in the last 40 years to make the finance industry too powerful and too important.

When is Obama and other Democrats going to talk about this rather than talking about cosmetic problems like that.


http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice