Let's hope helicopters don't have to be sent in someday to rescue bankers.
The pros who take in deposits and make loans are being demonized as the root of the recession.
A major politician called them "robber barons" before a crowd he evidently judged to be no more knowledgeable than those who challenged riot police in Pittsburgh at the G-20 summit.
This wasn't Pittsburgh, though. It was Chicago, a great convention city where the American Bankers Association might think twice about going back.
By daring to meet where bankers have met since the age of Lincoln at least, the ABA seemed to wave red flags.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), his party's No. 2 in the Senate, knows millions of Americans blame the most recent boom going bust on Durbin's own outfit, the U.S. government — for short-sighted laws and regulations that forced banks to make millions of cheap, subprime mortgages that set up the housing boom and bust.
But fess up to lax lawmaking⢠Not in politics. "We need to ensure that the robber barons responsible for this recession don't get away with creating it and then declaring themselves a dividend," the senator told 700 people at a so-called "Showdown in Chicago."
That was a protest called by labor and community groups to make the ABA's annual sitdown as joyless as possible. A prayer vigil and "march of thousands" were on the anti-agenda.
But Durbin's dividend reference was on target. In a demonstration of executive suite tone deafness, huge salaries and bonuses were still to be paid this year in banks "too big to fail." And this within months of rescue by taxpayers, a perfect cue for President Obama's pay czar to jump in and say no.
What boards of directors ought to control the White House will now control, never mind the Constitution or the "kick me" opportunities given to leftists.
"They knew what they were doing when they created this crisis," a regional president of the Service Employees International Union said of the lending fraternity. The SEIU planned to call out 5,000 marchers.
Bloomberg News reported on "Wanted" posters featuring faces and bonus numbers of leading bankers, such as the CEOs of Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, though the vast majority of banks aren't in that compensation class.
Calling for "a regulator with teeth," Sen. Durbin accused bankers of outright social repression when they foreclose on mortgages gone bad.
"As long as those plywood boarded-up houses are sitting there, we are not going to have an economic recovery," he said. "These banks have to realize they can't sit on these neighborhoods, sit on these families and sit on economic opportunity across America."
Inside the convention an ABA executive vice president tried to cool the rhetoric that could lead to window-breaking. He said bankers are working stiffs, too. "These are very tough times," said Bob Schmermund. "A lot of people lost their jobs. They are very frustrated, and they're very angry. What the protesters may not realize is who's attending this meeting ... traditional bankers whose life's work is dedicated to serving the needs of their communities."
