stop, Stop, STOP!
Well dip my hair in Clorox bleach and call me Susan Powter but would somebody please STOP THE INSANITY !!!!!
You can’t swing a cat in Washington DC these days without hitting a politician holding a media rich press conference damning some financial institution. I fully expect the next piece of legislation proposed on the floor of Congress will mandate that all bank presidents must grow a long black mustache and spend at least half their day twisting it at the ends while chanting “You must pay the rent”.
Throughout history there have been numerous occasions where the “money lenders” have been fallaciously vilified in order to deflect negative public sentiment away from governmental shortcomings and onto an easy target group. For those not familiar with history let me assure you that this tactic has never ended well for anyone concerned.
The insanity of this constant fatuous objurgating of any and all things financial is not only doing great harm to the American banking system, but it is doing great harm to the American psyche as well. If people are convinced that banks and greedy bankers are the source of all their pain how likely are they to spend or invest? How likely are we to pull ourselves out of this housing slump if the house buying public is afraid of the mortgage providing banks? How likely are we to pull ourselves out if this economic collapse if people are afraid to spend for fear that banks will come in the dead of night and repo all their stuff. This incessant haranguing is not being done to support small businesses or even large businesses. Businesses understand that they operate on profits not charity. It is being done to influence the public mind set and create a negative, victimized group conscious. Democrats are following their play book to the letter by making victims of the public at the expense of the banks who themselves are actually victims of governmental fiduciary mismanagement through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The poster boy for the Democrats small business victims is Joe Zucchero, or better known in Chicago as Mr. Beef. Zucchero has been serving the Chicago staple Italian beef sandwich for 30 years from his now yuppie filled River North location. Friends and patrons to Mr. Beef have been rallying in support of the beef stand and using it as an example of nasty banks not loaning money to worthy small businessmen. A neighbor of Mr. Beef even created a supportive video of the owner and his business which has been drawing huge attention on the internet and cable news stations.
One of Mr. Beef’s faithful supporters is the querulous US Congressman Luis Gutierrez who invited Zucchero to Capitol Hill to testify how his malevolent bank was forcing him into bankruptcy. The bank being pilloried by Gutierrez is Midwest Bank who received $85 million in TARP funds last November. According to Gutierrez this bank is a prime example of how banks who received TARP funds are still refusing to extend credit to their victimized clients. “Even if you have a business that makes money, they will not extend you credit” said the Congressman. He also talked at length about Mr. Beef being a “humble establishment” with lines of hungry diners going out the door.
But the story goes much deeper than a poor beef stand guy getting screwed over by a big bad bank. Zucchero already has three loans totaling more than $650,000, and while Mr. Beef claimed in his congressional testimony that he has never defaulted on a payment, documentation shows that he and his business partner defaulted on both their October and November loan payments. It was this default that caused the bank to begin foreclosure proceedings and refusal to renegotiate the debt. It also turns out that Mr. Beef and his business partner are in default of an additional $300.000 loan they used to open a new beef stand location last March. While this new loan is not with Midwest Bank, anyone with the slightest understanding of credit risk can see why it would be viewed as a negative for extending them more credit.
Is Congressman Gutierrez really proposing that because Midwest Bank received TARP funds from the government they are now obliged to extend credit to a guy that owns a beef stand and is already in default for just shy of a million dollars in loans? This Democrat poster boy of victimization does nothing but prove that Democrats simply refuse to accept or acknowledge that it was poorly conceived loans to poor credit risks in the housing market that got us in this credit crisis in the first place.
As somewhat of an Italian beef aficionado myself I can understand Congressman Gutierrez desire to help Mr. Beef. A good beef sandwich is a thing of beauty. But even with my limited math skills, I can figure out that you would have to sell a whole bunch of them to pay back a million bucks in bank loans and I can certainly understand how a bank could come to that same conclusion.
And how is Mr. Beef celebrating his public admission of being a loan repayment deadbeat? Well he’s giving away free beef sandwiches of course.
Honest to God, you can’t make stuff like this up.
