In DC, "Inevitable" Fraud as Obama Jokes with JPM Chase, Meets Citi and ExxonMobil

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/dc1tarp031209.html

WASHINGTON, March 12 -- As President Barack Obama promises to find and "call out" misuses of the stimulus package, and to review the over 7,000 earmarks in the budget bill he signed this week, the chairman of his Recovery Act's Transparency and Accountability Board, Earl Devaney, told the Press of a "naive impression that given the amount of transparency and accountability called for by this Act, no or little fraud will occur... some level of waste and fraud is unfortunately inevitable."

Accordingly, the same is true not only at the United Nations -- despite Obama not mentioning the need for UN reform in his comments Tuesday after meeting Secretary General Ban Ki-moon -- but also with the bank bailout funds of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. Nevertheless, Obama joked with JPMorgan Chase's Jaime Dimon at the Business Roundtable's gabfest Thursday in Washington. As a smaller banker asked the final question of Obama -- no questions were taken after his meeting with the UN's Ban -- Obama said that banking has of late become complex, and that he could ask "Jaime" about it.

Also on the White House's list of Roundtable attendees was Citigroup's longtime board member and now chairman Richard Parsons. Citigroup veered into predatory lending, JPM Chase at a minimum securitized it, while lending to payday lenders and pawnshops. What then is so funny?

Obama's successor as Senator from Illinois Roland Burris is said to have a brother who is going through foreclosure. A well-known Representative from the state of Illinois, sponsoring a pro-industry payday lending bill, has taken over $10,000 from the lender QC Holdings. If this is how politics will be in the current Washington, predatory lending can be expected to continue.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/dc1tarp031209.html