Bailed Out Banks Won’t Say How They Spent The Money

If a bank gives a loan to an individual or business, it expects to know how the money will be spent. It is natural to expect the same from the bailout money spent to prop-up the banks.

Apparently, the banks don’t see it that way.

AP has these responses when 21 banks that received at least $1 billion were contacted:

“We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,’” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.”

“We’re not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking,” said Barry Koling, a spokesman for Atlanta, Ga.-based SunTrust Banks Inc., which got $3.5 billion in taxpayer dollars.

“We manage our capital in its aggregate,” said Regions Financial Corp. spokesman Tim Deighton, who said the Birmingham, Ala.-based company is not tracking how it is spending the $3.5 billion it received as part of the financial bailout.

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

“We’re not sharing any other details. We’re just not at this time,” said Wendy Walker, a spokeswoman for Dallas-based Comerica Inc., which received $2.25 billion from the government.

Not a single bank explained how the money was spent.

Billions of dollars have been passed out, and no one in Congress thought to make the recipients accountable. Amazing stuff.

In the political campaign, earmarks were railed against as wasteful government spending, but least we knew which rat hole that money went down.