That Was The Implicit Deal, After All

The fact that Obama now has to make the deal explicit is a bad sign. The banksters don't get it. Don't they understand? Sad. But even a mule will eventually get it if you hit it with a baseball bat hard enough and often enough. What's the excuse of the banksters?

When Obama says "I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of, you know, fat-cat bankers on Wall Street," that's technically true, but his entire modus operandi since he took office has been to do exactly that:

Even as another major bank announced it was repaying its bailout money, President Obama today told executives from the nation's largest financial institutions to return the taxpayer's largesse in an additional way -- increase lending to small businesses to help the economy create more jobs.

"My main message in today's meeting was very simple: that America's banks received extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers to rebuild their industry, and now that they're back on their feet we expect an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild our economy," Obama said after a White House meeting today that he described as "candid and productive."

That sort of pay-it-forward duty "starts with finding ways to help creditworthy small and medium-sized businesses get the loans that they need to open their doors, grow their operations and create new jobs," the president said.