Mr. President, I Hope This Isn't True....

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Obama Administration is refusing to accept the repayment of about $340 million from four different banks that are located in California, Indiana, Louisiana, and New York. This is the TARP money that they recieved from the Bush/Obama administrations over the last six months. Here is the confusing part for me. These were called "loans" when they were handed out. The purpose of calling something a loan is to indicate that it is to be paid back, sometimes with interest. These banks have decided that they can live without the bailout cash and want to pay it back.

Stuart Varney, of the Fox Business Channel, tells of a true story that was reported by his Fox News co-worker, Andrew Napolitano. According to him, the four banks mentioned above were smaller banks. But a large, prominent, and profitable bank was forced to take the bailout money from the Bush Administration. the government then bought a minority stake in the bank. Today, the CEO of that bank is ready to write a check to repay the loan. The Obama team says, "no", and they have threatened the bank with "adverse" consequences if the bank continues to try to repay. Why?

Obama is now making it clear that the idea here is not to get the money back, but to make sure that the government continues to have leverage and ability to make decisions on how the banks will be run. It's the same thing they are doing with GM and Chrysler. As long as they are in debt to the government, they can be controlled by the government. That's the game plan. Now they have extended loans to life insurance companies. Things are becoming a bit clearer. And I, for one, am getting nervous.