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December 14th, 2009
01:00 PM ET
Banks, bailouts, bonuses – have lessons been learned?
President Obama is meeting with some of Wall Street's biggest bankers today. A lot of Americans are wondering exactly what we got out of the deal for bailing those banks out last fall, because some CEOs are still collecting and handing out bonuses like the financial meltdown never happened.
On Monday's American Morning, we spoke with Diane Brady, a senior editor with "Business Week," and our own Christine Romans about how much influence the president has over banks that received taxpayer bailouts.
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More Americans are wondering why you, reporters, are not talking about the lack of enforcement of the Law.
Where are the reports on the lack of enforcement and investigation by the SEC? Madoff, the derivative mess, bad mortgages, to name only a few places where there ought to have been investigations and charges brought, by the SEC, U.S. Attorneys, and local prosecutors, years ago.
While you have done one or two general stories on some of these issues, nothing has been done for some time, and nothing has been done in any sort of depth.
While there's a lot of hindsight that avers that had action been taken early on, 2002, 2004, or in some instances, 1999, that a great deal of the things that caused the current situation would not have occurred.
Two or four prosecutions, successful or not, would have stopped most of these things from occurring.
Why were resources cut? Who caused them to be cut? Were prosecutors, and U.S. Attorneys lead away from these kinds of cases, and if so why?
Has anything changed in the way any of these groups work, does anyone see a need for change? What are you as reporters doing to ensure that you don't miss, as you so obviously did, things of this type in the future?
The problem is not so much what the banks did, or are doing, you can always trust a leopard to be true to its spots, but what you, the people who ought to be watching for their black deeds are going to do to stop being blind and deaf?
Republican lawmakers are simply rewarding the American corporations which placed hundreds of millions of dollars into their pockets.
If America doesn't like nor appreciate what they did, they should vote Republicans out of office. What they did and why they did this has been going on longer than you can say 'Ronald Reagan'.
Fewer Republican lawmakers in office will prevent much of these kinds of abuse upon Americans.
Take your money out of the bank and stop paying these idiots. We pay enough on taxes and these big shot CEO's don't deserve any more of my money. They want to spend our tax dollars going on extravagant vacations but yet I'm still saving for a getaway from HOME, I will take my money to MY OWN "Bank of Melanie".
Lessons learned? Lets see. Banks were failing so we had to bail them out. Now banks are making so much money, off of us, that they are paying back the loans in full! WE are the ones now paying "new increased fees", with less service, and the "big guys" are getting the government out of their business so they can get their bonus!
There certainly is no longer any need to believe this country is a democracy, it is a corporate oligarchy. Nothing will change ether because the common business practice of divide and conquer is played out with the citizens in the form of two party politics. This keeps the people at each others throat's instead of focusing on the true problem which is big business and the lobby system. Also, every politician of every party is on the take, so they are more or less an employee of those corporations.
American taxpayers are getting very little. We get higher fees, more predatory practices, and NO loans! These folks are laughing all the way home from the Banks!