Tuesday, December 23, 2008

AP to the banks: Show us the dinero; Banks' reply: Bug off

AP:
Think you could borrow money from a bank without saying what you were going to do with it? Well, apparently when banks borrow from you they don't feel the same need to say how the money is spent.

After receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they can't track exactly how they're spending it. Some won't even talk about it.

"We're choosing not to disclose that," said Kevin Heine, spokesman for Bank of New York Mellon, which received about $3 billion.

The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what's the plan for the rest?



Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money, said that while some of the money was lent, some was not, and the bank has not given any accounting of exactly how the money is being used.

"We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to," Kelly said.

2 comments:

airJackie said...

Let's see what the banks say when Obama ask for accountablity. If he gets the same answer then we get all our money back. No answer no money.

PrissyPatriot said...

How could the spokesman say that and not feel like a total @ss? Maybe Ari could tell us what that's like. He was Mr Smooth, those lies would roll right off without so much as an "ah"