Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez again threatened the country's banks with expropriation if they didn't loosen up lending, saying that he had to “meterle el ojo” ("keep an eye on them").
We really need to keep an eye on private banks," said Chavez. "I do not have any problem nationalizing them, or expropiating them. We will not accept that banks continue to joke around with people who do not have a home.”
Chavez, by the way, has been advised to temper his remarks about government control of banks, lest he cause a panic and a run on funds...he's trying, I suppose, unlike a certain North American president...
So -batting second: Barack Obama, on Bank of America's decision to charge debit-card users $5/month:
The bank’s decision to charge customers for its services “is exactly why we need somebody whose sole job it is to prevent this kind of stuff from happening,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “If you say to banks, ‘You don’t have some inherent right to get a certain amount of profit if your customers are being mistreated, that you have you have to treat them fairly and transparently,” then some will hopefully get the message, he said.
Obama used the question about the Bank of America’s decision to charge $5 for the use of its debit cards to champion extended government oversight of the banking industry, adding, “Without those kinds of protections, we’re going to continue to see these kinds of problems.”
Obama, unlike Hugo Chavez, seems not even remotely concerned about causing a market crash with his illogical, ill-timed, illiterate remarks:
Today, as the president joined Democratic politicians in complaining about the bank’s decision, its stock fell from $6.10 per share this morning to $5.60 by the end of the interview.
That’s a drop of 50 cents per share, or roughly 8 percent.
If the bank recovers only half of that drop, today’s political push-back could be blamed for wiping out $2 billion in shareholder value.
Most of which belongs to middle class stockholders and folks who hold shares in mutual funds in their 401(k) accounts. Heckuva job, Baracky, you've just set retirement back years for tens of thousands of innocent Americans, the same ones you always piously claim to be trying to help.
Are they even smart enough to be in cahoots with each other? Jeez, the two of them don't seem to even equal one quality idiot...
Although since we are dealing with a Chicago politician here - a moral shade below a Latin American strongman - there may be other factors in play. I'll juxtapose two stories here:
'Disappointing' turnout at Warren Buffett-headlined Obama fund-raiser
Tycoon Warren Buffett, headliner of last night’s fund-raiser for President Obama at the Four Seasons, reiterated his advice for a tax on “ultra-rich people who are paying very low tax rates.”
But the message appeared to have limited appeal to donors expected to pay $10,000 a plate; the turnout was “disappointing,” according to one guest.
An Obama fund-raising insider said the campaign has been getting resistance from some Wall Street donors from 2008 over the proposal, though Buffett said the event “went OK.”
And this, from the Daily Caller story above, referrring to the $2 billion dollar loss in shareholder value:
It will also have sliced $250 million from a $5 billion investment made in late August by Obama’s political ally, Warren Buffett.
Guess you need to fork over a bigger envelope to the boss next time, Warren, or else you'll really see what trouble means. You sold your soul to the Devil, pal, and it appears as if you got a pretty poor return on that deal as well....
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