RUSH: This is amazing. ‘As the watchdog of the government’s massive bailout of the financial sector,’ TARP, ‘Neil Barofsky had a simple question: What had the nation’s banks done with all their bailout money? Can’t be answered, said the Treasury Department, because of the way banks move money internally. The department declined to put the question to the banks. And so Barofsky started asking financial institutions himself, getting answers from more than 300 that had received federal bailout money and learning to what extent they had used the money to increase their lending,’ and so forth.
The bottom line here, there is no transparency in TARP. There are all kinds of examples of waste and fraud and abuse, over 35 instances of fraud in the bill, and from Mr. Transparency himself, Barack Obama, the whole thing is an absolute disaster. Geithner did not allow Treasury to track money to the banks in the bailout so nobody knows. There was no transparency. There was no track. This is a stinging report from the TARP inspector general. This guy will probably get canned, too, like the inspector general for AmeriCorps, Gerald Walpin. It’s a stinging report, just a stinging report. Let me get to the numbers here, ladies and gentlemen. ‘All told, 83 percent of the financial institutions said they used some of the funds for lending. Although there was no effort to verify the reports, Barofsky said the survey provides a useful picture of how funds were used,’ but they don’t have any idea. They really don’t know what was done with the TARP money, other than these instances of fraud.
And, to add insult to injury, from State-Run AP: ‘Obama says he sees a lack of humility among leaders of the financial community. While noting that some of the nation’s most powerful banks had repaid federal bailout money, Mr. Obama said: ‘What you haven’t seen (in the financial sector) is a change in culture, a certain humility where they kind of step back and say gosh, you know, we really messed things up.” He said this on the Today Show today. He said the industry ‘should be more focused on products we’re providing consumers. Let’s make sure we’re operating in a more secure, safe fashion.’ He said we really messed things up. We messed things up? This is what Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Dodd, Biden, Obama should be saying right now, ‘We messed things up.’ You’re the ones that have messed things up, Mr. President. You’ve messed things up for everybody. So they asked Barney Frank about this today. This is in Washington, the House Financial Services Committee here. Well, he wasn’t asked about it, there was a hearing and Barney Frank said…
FRANK (sped up): Here is my problem. I cannot find a villain. Now, many of my colleagues have found various villains. They tend to be private sector or public sector, depending on the ideology of the finder. But, as I look at what happened, what I see is a very difficult situation that threatened further severe damage to an economy already damaged.
RUSH: He can’t find a villain! Look in the mirror, Barn, look in the mirror. Play this again. He cannot find a villain to blame all these TARP fiascoes on. Play 17 again, please. Here we go.
FRANK (sped up): Here is my problem. I cannot find a villain. Now, many of my colleagues have found various villains. They tend to be private sector or public sector, depending on the ideology of the finder. But, as I look at what happened, what I see is a very difficult situation that threatened further severe damage to an economy already damaged.
RUSH: So he can’t find a villain. He’s looking at himself in the mirror, he’s the villain. There’s Barney Frank. There’s Chris Dodd. All of these people are the villains in this. He can’t find a villain, and then he goes on to say this.
FRANK: No one has ever gotten reelected where the bumper sticker said, ‘It Would Have Been Worse Without We.’ You can probably get tenure with that, but you can’t win office. I understand that reality, but we should not let it distort us. And it would not, I think, hurt us every so often to admit that not every action by every public official was a bad thing, and sometimes we should give people credit for trying to cope with an unpleasant reality the best they can.
RUSH: Oh! So now he wants credit for trying. See, we’re back to this. We’ve got to give them credit for their good intentions. Never do we look at their results, and he can’t find the villain. So here he is, the Banking Queen himself.
(playing of Banking Queen)
FRANK (sped up): Here is my problem. I cannot find a villain. Now, many of my colleagues have found various villains. They tend to be private sector or public sector, depending on the ideology of the finder. But, as I look at what happened, what I see is a very difficult situation that threatened further severe damage to an economy already damaged.