Bank CEOs Pledge to Cooperate With Obama – WSJ.com
WASHINGTON — The nation’s top bankers walked away from a summit with President Barack Obama pledging broad support for his bank-bailout program and efforts to revive the economy, but the meeting failed to resolve tensions over executive pay and the president’s tough rhetoric of recent weeks.
The highly unusual meeting, which came after weeks of public feuding between Democrats in Washington and banks, brought President Obama face to face with 15 of the nation’s top bank executives, including the heads of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley. All of the banks have received federal bailout cash — in some cases after being told they must — and some have openly bristled over mounting public criticism of their pay and their banks’ lending.
That was one topic of discussion Friday at a meeting all sides described as cordial. According to participants, some of the chiefs told the president they want to return their bailout money later this year, but Mr. Obama told them that regulators would permit such a move only if the banks were truly healthy. This account of the meeting is based on interviews with participants, White House aides and others familiar with the gathering…
…Said Robert Kelly, CEO of Bank of New York Mellon: “Our interests are very much aligned with the administration’s.”…
…Two weeks ago, in a speech at Stanford University, Wells Fargo & Co. chairman Richard Kovacevich called the administration’s new bank stress tests for Troubled Asset Relief Program recipients “asinine.” On Friday, Wells Fargo was represented by its CEO, John Stumpf, who didn’t apologize for the bank chairman’s comments but did emerge from the White House to declare: “The basic message is, we’re all in this together.”…
…The president turned to Mr. Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase for his opinion of the economic situation, according to White House aides and meeting participants. Mr. Dimon said banks alone weren’t responsible for the financial crisis, citing also the cost of the war in Iraq, the ballooning trade deficit and volatile energy markets. He praised the administration’s financial plan so far, calling it an “overwhelming force” of action.
Mr. Dimon also argued that more regulation, as Mr. Geithner proposed earlier this week, isn’t necessarily the right way to go. “The question isn’t more or less,” Mr. Dimon said. “The question is [whether it is] good.”…
…Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief Lloyd Blankfein expressed greater caution than some about the economy’s near-term future. He warned of the difficulty in harmonizing administration policies such as fiscal stimulus spending with those of other countries, especially in Western Europe where inflation concerns limit government’s room for maneuver.
Separately, a regulatory filing Friday showed that Goldman spent $58 million to buy two of its top executives out of some of the firm’s unprofitable in-house funds. The buyouts were at an undisclosed discount to the funds’ current value.
read entire article here…Bank CEOs Pledge to Cooperate With Obama – WSJ.com.
My question is ‘Who” is really calling the shots? The Banking World has received some 10 Trillion dollars pledged to them… So who really is in control here? (Not to mention the timing of this right before Obama heads to meet the Queen and then the G20) joe
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