My latest from BlownMortgage:
At this point in the economic down-turn there’s really only one question on most of our minds: How can I become a commercial bank or an automaker?
Old friend Helen Kennedy put it succinctly in The New York Daily News: “Two more pillars of the American economy are coming to Washington hat in hand: American Express and Detroit’s Big Three. The struggling New York-based credit giant reportedly wants a $3.5 billion bailout. American Express got permission to become a bank holding company this week, making it eligible for a piece of the $700 billion bailout.”
The Federal Reserve gets to make the decision about who gets to be a bank. Since the Fed has already decided to leave us all holding the bag for bank companies, it seems only fitting that we should also get a chance at being a bank holding company as well.
Use the following checklist to see if you qualify:
- Do you need to cut borrowing costs?
- Are your main sources of funding in danger of going away?
- Do you need access to government money?
- Has your inability to get credit endangered your fiscal health?
- Would the ability to issue government-backed bonds keep you solvent?
- Are you willing to take deposits from both consumers and companies?
- Is your current role in the financial system mostly watching your investments lose money?
If you answered yes to all these questions then CONGRATULATIONS!!! You clearly meet all the essential qualifications needed to be a bank holding company.
Not sure of all that it takes to become an American car company but I do know I can fulfill one of the basic obligations: I guarantee no one will want to buy a car I build.
Is it just me or does the plan to throw more money at the car companies give new meaning to the phrase “Grand Theft Auto”?
Collateral Damage 
Note that the companies that used to make cars and ocassionally lend money have become banks that sometimes build cars. And they don’t build cars very well — no wonder they have bccome bansk that now qualify for TARP!
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In the case of the auto-makers’ bailout, it’s a relief to have a national issue that is so straightforward: American cars tend to break down and fall apart therefore people have stopped buying them. If GM and Ford don’t want to go out of business, they should start making decent cars. To bail them out would be to reward their terrible manufacturing standards.
my momma done tole me … never argue with someone when they are right.