Next Wednesday, Feb 11th, CEOs from the first eight banks to receive funding from the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) will testify before congress to explain how they spent billions of taxpayers dollars in the bailout so far. These 8 banks are Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, State Street, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of New York Mellon.
Check out the Reuters article here
Only $350 billion of TARP’s $700 billion has been spent so far, and the Obama administration and Congress want to ensure that the banks are spending their bailout money wisely, before they give out the other $350 billion.
Questions asked by the U.S. House Financial Services Committee are likely to revolve around issues such as executive pay, dividend payments and whether banks are using the money for consumer loans.
All of these questions around financial responsibility and responsible lending sure beg the question of why banks are still financing dirty energy with hundreds of millions of dollars going to coal and oil projects every year. These projects aren’t safe investments in our future; they are clinging to out-dated and irresponsible energy infrastructure in this country. As the US economy continues to stumble, and government struggles end the crisis, shouldn’t we be looking to fix aspects of the economy that are broken – not just prop the system back up the way it was?
What questions would you ask the CEO’s of 8 of the largest banks in the world if you had the opportunity?
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What’s with the fancy toilets guys?!?! That’s what I’d ask them — that said, interesting to note two developments this week: Obama recommending limits to executive pay (wildly popular, but there’s already talk about the loopholes the banks will be able to find) and then….today’s news that the government paid ‘substantially above’ market value for troubled financial assets in the bailout package phase 1. Does make it rather difficult to trust that the bank CEOs.
I’m glad Congress is doing this. I really hope they ask tough questions and demand answers. The previous Congress didn’t do enough of that.
I’m hoping that since the members of Congress seemed to work together a bit to compromise on the stimulus package that they can continue to work together on this issue. It would certainly be to the benefit of the country if they can.
I saw that the Friends of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is asking people to give their opinion on the most important thing for Congress to do next. Then they are going to focus their efforts on getting Congress to accomplish what we actually want them to do.
What do you think Congress should do? Should they revise the original bailout? Should they put forth more effort toward revising banking legislation? Or should they focus their efforts on completely different areas? Make sure to add your opinion so Congress can know what we want them to do next – http://www.friendsoftheuschamber.com/email/email4.cfm?id=200