U.S. government guarantees on securities totaling $419 billion for bank bailouts provide an early test of President Barack Obama’s pledge to be open with taxpayers about what they have at risk in the credit crisis.
Bloomberg News asked the Treasury Department Jan. 26 to disclose what securities it backed over the past two months in a second round of actions to prop up Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. Department spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said Jan. 27 she would seek an answer. None had been provided by the close of business yesterday.
As with the waiver of the hard line ethical standards requirements regarding the high level political employment of former lobbyists (see Lynn at DoD as well as others) in the Obama Administration, we are about to experience the same ‘administrative flexibility/discretion’ for similar oh such good reasons with respect to the specifics of the bank bailout. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of additional examples Mr. Obama’s ‘mere humanity’ as the tenure of his office wears on.
This morning I read on the Fox News that 18 BILLION of the 300 billion given to help the economy(?) was used by various banks to pass out bonuses to their poor suffering CEO’s. I was having breakfast at the and nearly had gastric problems when I read it.