Banking/Finance

Former Barack Obama supporter Jim Cramer on Friday said the stock market would have a huge rally if Scott Brown defeats Martha Coakley in Tuesday's special senatorial election in Massachusetts."I think investors who are nervous about the dictatorship of the Pelosi proletariat will feel at ease, and we could have a gigantic rally off a Coakley loss and a Brown win," said Cramer on Friday's "Mad…

It goes without saying that what America's struggling banking industry doesn't need is for all of its depositers to withdraw their funds.Regardless of this seemingly obvious truth, the folks at ABC and "World News with Diane Sawyer" actually did a report Friday profiling a campaign started by the far-left website the Huffington Post to get people to pull their money from the larger national banks…

While countries like China, Brazil and India are on the path to ascendency, the United States appears to be heading in the opposite direction, according to the former CEO of a major U.S. bank. In a segment on the Jan. 7 broadcast of the Fox Business Channel's "Stossel," John Allison, the former CEO of North Carolina-based BB&T Corporation (NYSE:BBT), the 10th largest bank in the United…

The network news media cheered when Obama called for restrictions on CEO pay or bonuses that, according to reporters, exemplify the Wall Street "greed" that toppled the American economy. But when $42 million in cash compensation packages were announced on Christmas Eve for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives, the networks couldn't muster any anger toward the highly connected groups. Although…

While much of the national media was focused on a Christmas Eve Senate vote to pass health care reform legislation, the Obama administration's Treasury Department was tending to other business that will have serious implications for the U.S. economy. But did anyone notice? As Zachary Goldfarb reported for The Washington Post on Christmas Day, the Obama Treasury said it would lift the limits on…

In the midst of a left-slanting report on Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-CT) triumphant return to his home state, there was a brief moment of sanity provided by (presumably) a Dodd constituent.This can’t be a good omen for Senator Countrywide (hat-tip to FireAndreaMitchell.com):REPORTER: A tired, but triumphant Senator Chris Dodd meets the media just hours after passing health care reform in the Senate,…

In keeping with the tradition of the holidays - the minds at MSNBC, the place for politics if you're of the lefty persuasion, decided rate the top 10 political stories of the decade. And leading this gang of masters of the political journalism universe was "Hardball" host Chris Matthews, who on the broadcast of his Dec. 24 program, announced that conservative activism, mainly the tea party…

You can't get blood from a stone or get more milk from this cow. That doesn't mean they won't stop trying though.

If you believe polls, current Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke favorability has been slipping. A recent Rasmussen Reports poll indicates that only 21 percent of Americans favor his reappointment as the Fed chair. And this hasn't gone unnoticed by some members of the Senate, where Bernanke's fate lies. Bernanke's reconfirmation passed through the Senate Banking Committee by a 16-to-7 vote…

CNN’s Larry King equated efforts against further regulation of the banking industry to letting the mentally ill run their psych wards on his program on Monday. King pressed conservative columnist S. E. Cupp: “Banks are lobbying against a bill to tighten regulatory controls. Are you going to let the inmates run the asylum? You don’t think we should regulate banks?” [audio clips from the segment…

At the top of Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith enthusiastically proclaimed: “A frustrated President Obama gets set to read the riot act to the heads of America’s top banks.” Minutes later, Smith claimed it would be a “tough day for America’s biggest bankers” as the President planned to admonish them over executive compensation and lending practices at a White House meeting.  White…

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Monday's Today show, in his first question to RNC Chair Michael Steele, asked if opponents to Barack Obama's health care reform bill, were going to deprive the President of politically joyous holiday season, as the Today co-anchor pressed: "So is the President's stocking going to be empty on Christmas Day?" Lauer then went on to question if the Republican's entire strategy…

On his first day as the new co-anchor of Good Morning America, former Clinton aide turned journalist George Stephanopoulos lobbied for a windfall profits tax on the bonuses of bankers. Also on Monday’s program, senior White House advisor David Axelrod reminded viewers of Stephanopoulos’ liberal background. [Audio available here.] After the rookie GMA host asserted that Axelrod "has an office…

Maybe President Barack Obama's administration is just trying to trying to get some George Soros funding. Why else would Obama's people be playing the media criticism game again? In the latest of a series of White House - media head-on confrontations, Jared Bernstein, the chief economist and economic policy advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, took on the Wall Street Journal in a Dec. 1 post on…