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Wednesday, 12 November, 2008
American Express Is Now A Bank
(with comments)
Just like that... American Express becomes a bank.
American Express won U.S. Federal Reserve approval to become a bank holding company - giving it access to the bailout party as credit card defaults climb.
Bloomberg News says that the Fed waived the usual 30 day waiting period because (in the words of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke) we're experiencing "unusual and exigent circumstances affecting the financial markets." Today, American Express has requested $3.5 billion in taxpayer-funded capital from the federal government, says the WSJ.
Hey Ben, can I be a bank too? I'll settle for only a $1 million piece of that bailout pie. You won't even notice it.
- By Klaus. Comment posted 12-Nov-2008 @03:14pm:Get in line, will you?
- By Doug. Comment posted 12-Nov-2008 @03:50pm:I'm not sure how much usage this term has in the USA, but in Canada we'd call them Corporate Welfare Bums.
- By Cris Cohen. Comment posted 12-Nov-2008 @07:04pm:Next in line for bank status: That Nigerian Prince who keeps sending people emails.
- By . Comment posted 12-Nov-2008 @08:10pm:Once upon a time, when there was still some regulation, you couldn't combine all these functions. Stocks? No banking, and so on. Then the Republicans started working their wonderful deregulation mojo, and see how we've prospered! Oops. Isnt this kind of thing what just caused a disaster in the financial markets?
- By . Comment posted 12-Nov-2008 @10:14pm:Hmmm...700 billion divided by 300 million people means we're being charged $2000 apiece (more, actually) for a bailout pie that's going to be split how many ways?...Talk about re-allocation of wealth...
- By Evil Klown. Comment posted 13-Nov-2008 @06:57am:Yes, Barbwire, it's all the Republicans' fault.
The Bush administration called for more oversight in the GSE's and got this repsonse from the Democrat in charge of the committee:
"These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. - By Bisbonian. Comment posted 13-Nov-2008 @09:00am:Last I checked, Henry Paulson, who demanded and threatened Congress to approve his plan for all of this, IS a Republican, appointed by Bush. But maybe he appointed him BECAUSE of the Democrats. Probably, in fact.