Who's a Fat Cat?
Now while I am one of the first to encourage banks to lend, I think it is inappropriate for the Commander in Chief to refer to commercial lenders that make loans to businesses as "fat cat bankers on Wall Street." The "bankers" that got us into this financial mess are NOT the commercial lenders that you see on Main Street in your town. I wonder. . . . .does the President know the difference? Commercial bankers make business loans. Investment bankers aid in the buying and selling of securities, making a market, and assisting in the negotiation of the transaction. Investment banking is a world away from commercial lending. The current financial mess started with "innovative financial engineering” from Investment Bankers and Insurance companies NOT because commercial banks stopped making loans. Traditional commercial lenders aren’t very innovative. As Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve Chairman, said recently, the most innovative thing commercial bankers have