Okay, so let me get this straight. Not only were certain banks forced by the powers that be to take TARP money, now that they want to pay it back, they have to ‘prove’ to those same powers that be that they can raise money in the public market. So at first the taxpayers got screwed and now the shareholders of these certain banks get diluted and lose 4% overnight as these banks had multi billion dollar stock offerings.

When will all of this nonsense stop? After all why should these banks have to prove that they can raise money? I thought that the results of the ’stress test’ was proof in the pudding as to the financial situation of individual banks?

If this isn’t further proof of the dangers of government intervention, I don’t know what is. Anyone notice a pattern? Government gets involved in an industry, taxpayers have to foot the bill as billions of dollars are thrown into a black hole, and then the government sets another rule that ends up diluting or in the case of the auto’s, completely wiping out any value that shareholders had.

As usual it’s the little guy that gets screwed!

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The richest women in Israel, Shari Arison came out swinging today, blasting the Bank of Israel and accusing them of trying to nationalize her bank. Fresh off news that she is in divorce proceedings from her felon-husband Ofer Glazer, Arison is taking out her frustration at the BOI and she may be justified.

After all, the government doesn’t own the bank so why should they have a say in who she hires and fires as CEO of Bank Hapoalim?

According to Globes: “Arison said, “This isn’t control. This is a raid. It is creeping nationalization, and rapid creep. I won’t lie to myself, and I won’t do something that I don’t believe in just to placate a demand that I consider utterly unjustifiable. I feel very hurt. An arrow was fired and the target was drawn around it. There’s a feeling of McCarthyism - no law, no justice. This is simply a frame-up just because someone doesn’t like somebody else.”

Maybe the Bank of Israel should stick to payinmg attention to the economy, and worry less about non-government companies. Go get ‘em Shari!

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I have heard about companies setting up credit unions for their employees, but I have never heard of a terror organization starting up a bank for its’ own terrorist members. Well that is until today.

According to Ynet: “The National Islamic Bank has $20 million in start-up capital and will operate under Islamic finance rules, he said. With offices on four floors of a building in central Gaza City, the bank will hold the accounts of 6,000 Hamas employees whose salaries are to be deposited in the bank. Rafati did not say how the Islamist movement acquired the start-up capital in a territory under Israeli embargo since Hamas, which is pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state, violently seized power in 2007. Because of the blockade, which has prevented all but essential humanitarian goods from entering the territory, Gaza’s banks have faced a virtually constant liquidity crisis. Rafati said no such problems would plague the new bank. “We have absolutely no crisis of liquidity, be it shekels or dollars. This will allow us to win the confidence of customers.” Although the vast majority of the board of directors are members of Hamas, including Rafati, he said the bank was “a private enterprise aimed at making profit and is not associated to Hamas or to the government in Gaza.”

You don’t think this will become a hub for money laundering, do you?

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Thanks to THEGRUBSPOT.com for submitting this post:

No new clothes. Enter the black-tie affair after photographers have already gone home. So is the life of a wife of a man who is CEO of a financial institution that accepted TARP funds.

According to Portfolio.com: ” I haven’t even looked at spring clothes; God forbid someone catches me out in something new. Keeping up with fashion seems somehow decadent in this new era, like getting Botox injections or catered dinners. Like so many others, I’m shopping in my closet. I’ve bought exactly two things this year—makeup and panty hose. If I buy a present for someone, I have the package sent to their home. I don’t want to be spotted climbing into a taxi, laden with Bergdorf Goodman shopping bags.

As you can see, being a TARP wife means, in short, making decisions according to a complex algorithm: balancing the need to look like your world hasn’t crumbled beneath you-let’s not alarm the investors!—with the need to appear duly repentant for your subprime sins. It also means we’re part of the community of more than 400 companies that have received government bailout funds, whose fall from grace has been swifter and harsher than any since Mao frog-marched intellectuals into China’s countryside.”

She clearly has a point. After all in just 3-4 months we no longer applaud success, instead, successful people have become demonized.

She goes on to say: “Here is the reality: TARP managers are scared to death. The executives of these companies are desperately trying to hold their businesses together while complying with a slew of damaging bills flooding out of Congress. My husband has battled the shutdown of the credit markets and a deteriorating business environment for two endless years without respite. He’s exhausted, terrified of losing the company, and beaten down by the constant criticism hurled at him.

I’m trying to buck him up and not complicate his life. The last thing he needs is unpleasant publicity, so I’m learning to fly so far below the radar that I have perpetually skinned knees. We’ve picked up new habits, like making donations anonymously and sneaking in late to black-tie galas after society photographer Patrick McMullan has packed up his camera and gone home. We now regularly turn down the invitations we receive from museums and arts organizations that will inevitably be followed by a request for funds. No point in getting their hopes up. “

Let’s hope we get back to encouraging success, and stop taking out our frustrations on innocent CEO’s.

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