Help a creaky old clown understand something . . . . .

[Stinky The Clown]

So . . . . we bailed out the Too Big To Fail banks. We rescued the banksters after they lost a lot of money at the Vegas craps tables.

We gave them a large chunk of our national treasure. A HUGE chunk.

And in return we got . . . . what was it?

Lending? You know. That thing that banks were supposed to do. Lending to get businesses started. To get businesses to expand. To get businesses to grow. To get businesses to hire. To get newly hired employees paid so they can go out and spend, thereby underpinning our economy.

I'm right on that, aren't I? That the banks were supposed to lend?

But did we get that?

I read and hear about banks being back in the securities markets. No esoteric, four level deep derivatives yet. Yet. But they're right back on the gaming floor. Maybe not craps. Maybe just the nickle slots. But that's not where it ever stops.

"Stops."

Interesting word.

Who is supposed to stop this sort of shit? Who is supposed to lean on these MOTHERFUCKERS to lend. To support the fucking country and the fucking people whose money these MOTHERFUCKERS were given?

Who is supposed to be doing that?

The economy is headed for a double dip and maybe an honest to gawd, for real, no bullshit, technically qualified DEPRESSION.

There hasn't been any honestly good economic news since April. Some stuff at the edges, yeah. Some token actions. But no fundamental change. Just as an example, all that happy talk about job creation forgets about the need for somewhere between 100,000 and 230,000 new jobs every MONTH just to keep up with new people entering the job market. 69,000 new jobs is a fucking job LOSS.






But back to the issue.





The Banks.





Lending.






The Banksters.





They are NO BETTER than the 1930's depictions of these fucksticks.

And no one is putting a fucking knee into the backs of their fucking necks while twisting their fucking arms.

[unhappycamper]

1. Sssssh.

At least the Wall Street Casinos, AIG, Goldman-Sachs and the banks lived to gamble another day.

[katandmoon]

2. What did we get in return? We got screwed. K&R

[madrchsod]

3. explain this...sam`s club is offering 7.5% sbl`s to their customers

yup...sam`s club small business owners can apply for a small business loan up to 25,000. sam`s club figured out it small business customers could`t get loans from the banksters so not to lose customers they are helping them out.

[NJmaverick]

4. The facts are in conflict with your assertion

with paybacks the bailouts cost very little. Take out Fanny and Freddie and the government came close to making a profit.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. You comment misses the point

Where's the lending?

You can allow that question to stand as rhetoric or reply as you see fit, but I will not be reengaging.

[n2doc]

5. Why would the banks lend?

They can borrow at 0% from the fed. They can then turn around and put that into long term government bonds at 4-5%. Guaranteed money.

Or they can gamble with it in derivatives, secure in the knowledge that their stooges in the government will make them whole if they screw up.

[progressoid]

6. But but but it would have been so much worse it we hadn't bailed them out

:sarcasm:

[MineralMan]

8. I don't know about the big banks, but small business lending

is ongoing by banks here in Minnesota. Your business does have to be a viable one with some history, but several businesses for whom I write web content have borrowed within the past year. I do not know which banks they used.

I guess it's not something that can be generalized.

[treestar]

9. We got less unemployment than we would have gotten

Why people get so fixated like this - you're forgetting the employees. And those who made money by dealing with that bank. If it were gone, other companies would go down. Unemployment could have been 40%. The disruption would have been intense.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dionysus]

28. aren't you a little ray of sunshine!

[Fumesucker]

10. Thank God It Passed..

The person who wrote that line about the TARP bailout was a Freeper ratfucker who was later exposed, TSed and then went back to FR and bragged about his ratfucking.

Draw your own conclusions..

[MineralMan]

11. Here's some pertinent information about what Chase is doing

with regard to small business lending:

http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/07/chase-small-business-lending-initiative.html

From the article,

"Continuing its commitment to small businesses, Chase announced today an innovative incentive that rewards businesses for each new employee they hire this year.

Starting today, Chase will lower its interest rate on a new Chase Business Line of Credit by 0.5 percentage point for each new hire, up to three, for the life of the loan. Counting the discount for a new business checking account, a small business owner could save about $4,000 over three years on an outstanding balance of about $65,000, Chase estimated."


Chase’s continued support for small businesses

In the first quarter of 2010, Chase loaned $2.1 billion to small businesses – a 31 percent increase from a year earlier.

Chase added 235 more small business bankers and plan to add about 100 more by year end.

The bank recently instituted a second review process to give business owners every chance they deserve, making $110 million in additional loans to small businesses."

[MineralMan]

12. Here's another story pertinent to your OP:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/01/smallbusiness/small_business_government_lending/index.htm

From the story,

SBA small biz lending doubles

By Catherine Clifford, staff reporter First Published: April 1, 2010: 6:09 PM ET


"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The lending market for Main Street remains pretty jammed up, but one segment of the credit landscape is recovering thanks to stimulus efforts.

The Small Business Administration's flagship lending program backed twice as many loans in the past three months as it did in the year ago period.

In the SBA's second fiscal quarter, which ended Wednesday, the government's 7(a) lending program processed 16,558 loans. That is more than double the 8,205 loans it backed in the first three months of 2009, according to preliminary data the agency released Thursday.

In total, the SBA 7(a) program lent out $3.7 billion, more than double the $1.6 billion processed in the year-earlier quarter."

[MineralMan]

13. And another pertinent story, demonstrating that big banks are not

the only source of small business loans:

Credit Unions Woo Small Biz

by Dennis Domrzalski Jul 07 2010

With banks holding tightly to credit, small businesses are turning to credit unions for loans. And credit unions are obliging, despite the lending cap that keeps business loans a minority of their lending.

The Importance of Credit to Small Business

What's a bank to do when it has plenty of money to loan out but not enough of the right people to give it to? That's the challenge Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf says his bankers are facing. Read More

Credit unions are lending more to small businesses as bigger banks cut back.
Image: ACBJ archive
It's a trend across the nation: Credit unions are making more business loans, while banks are making fewer.

Many of the nation’s 7,500 credit unions might be making even more business loans if they successfully lobby Congress to change a law that caps how much they can lend to businesses. The law caps credit unions’ business loans at 12.25 percent of their assets, said Bill Hampel, chief economist for the Credit Union National Association in Washington, D.C.

The association has been lobbying Congress to increase that cap to 27.5 percent of total assets, Hampel said, as raising the cap is important to keep money flowing to small businesses.


Read more: http://www.portfolio.com/business-news/2010/07/07/credit-unions-lending-more-to-small-businesses#ixzz0t0KGe4qv

[hobbit709]

14. The only thing that trickles down to us is warm, wet and yellow.

That's why we're called peons.

[Stinky The Clown]

15. I've always contended it is better to be pissed off than pissed on.

[alterfurz]

29. referred to by my Depression-era dad as the "horse and sparrow" theory

If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.

[kenny blankenship]

16. Shoulda nationalized them.

We were warned. All the way. Nobody can say we weren't warned. That's one thing I do NOT want to hear. Oh, but, who could have foreseen that a bunch of proven crooks would take a couple trillion in bailouts and credit backing and just sit on it?

[Stinky The Clown]

17. Yet there are people who see them as the second coming of Mother Theresa

We should have either nationalized them or let them fail and divided the assets among smaller, local and regional banks, who have actually been working in their communities. Still banks. Still worth keeping under scrutiny, but not nearly as bad as the Too Big To Fails.

[kenny blankenship]

21. If you hand over hundreds and hundreds of billions to proven frauds and confidence sharks

not your own money to spend, like Warren Buffet investing in GS, but the people's money - or rather their future money and their kids' money and future creditworthiness - and you don't insist on control of the crooks' collapsed businesses, which otherwise would collapse valueless, it calls into question who is really the bigger crook?

[girl gone mad]

25. 12 trillion ++..

and counting.

[HughMoran]

18. We avoided a Depression

Something you aren't ever going to acknowledge.

The reason we're still in trouble is we need a second stimulus - yes, and that's throwing more money at the problem.

[Stinky The Clown]

19. Bookmarking

[HughMoran]

20. We know what you're hoping for

Let's hope desperate angry people aren't looking for scapegoats.

[Stinky The Clown]

23. What am I hoping for?

[walldude]

27. Funny, I just read where we are pretty much in a depression...

But that was just a Pulitzer Prize winning economist, what the fuck does he know...

[librechik]

30. nah, we just delayed one

nobody's done what they know they must do to stop the next one. Still clinging to their profits--may not last too long, have to squeeze everything they can out of it (and keep as much away from the hoi-polloi) as possible.

Why did I ever think that we still had a working democratic republic that would benefit from a change in President? We are in a full blown fascist state. How long can they keep it a secret to the majority of the population hypnotized by "24?" A frickin long time, I guess...

[blindpig]

22. Nationalize the finance sector

Only way to tame that beast.

[Javaman]

24. Oh Stinky, stop that crazy talk!...

it's never ever been about them being "to big to fail", it's always been about them just being plain better than us! :)

We are just the cogs that keep the machine going. The glue the holds it together, the fuel that powers it, the muscle, sweat, blood and tears that keeps it humming along.

Like the old song goes, "what do I get?" Well, I'll tell you what you get, you get to feel all safe in the knowledge that at any moment at any second, our lives can be dashed to bits on the jagged rocks below!

Now if that isn't something, well, I don't know what is!

From one of societies clown to another, I have to laugh, because it keeps me from crying and no one likes a sad clown. So buck up! The taste of the bullshit sandwich they feed us daily only lasts forever, you will get used to it after a while.