27 March 2009

Neither a Borrower, nor a Lender Be?

There's an old axiom that states you should never lend money to someone who really needs it. It seems that over the past decade or so, banks - in their haste to make a quick profit through sub-prime loans - have forgotten that old saw. How ironic, then, that when distributing this year's big bailouts to the banks, the federal government is reviving the saying.

In central New Jersey, at least.

A recent story in the Courier News reports that the community banks in our area have been doing just fine - weathering the economic downturn by employing sound business practices. They certainly didn't need any TARP money earlier this year. But they took it anyway.

In fact, the TARP money was awarded as a RESULT of their good performance! Bankers in our area have stated that NOT accepting the bailout would have implied that they were in trouble.

Why am I not surprised?

And what of us, the taxpayers, who gave all of this bailout money to the banks? Well, they would like you to know that they are looking to lend it back to you - with interest of course.

Reminds me of that other old saying - "There's a sucker born every minute!"

No comments:

Post a Comment