Banks blow tax money on hookers and cocaine

Bank of America new-account reps at work

Yes, I made that hookers-and-coke headline up. But America's financial institutions could very well be spending their cut of the TARP loot that way, and we'll never know. And they like it that way.

" 'We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it. We've not given any accounting of, "Here's how we're doing it,"' said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. 'We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to.' "

Now I know what Curly felt like when he'd get that double poke in the eye from Mo.

"There has been no accounting of how banks spend that money. Lawmakers summoned bank executives to Capitol Hill last month and implored them to lend the money — not to hoard it or spend it on corporate bonuses, junkets or to buy other banks. But there is no process in place to make sure that's happening and there are no consequences for banks who don't comply."

That's the Congressional equivalent of handing a homeless heroin addict a thousand dollars and "imploring" him to spend it on vegetables and clean underpants.

" 'Those are legitimate questions that should have been asked on Day One,' said Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., a House Financial Services Committee member who opposed the bailout as it was rushed through Congress. 'Where is the money going to go to? How is it going to be spent? When are we going to get a record on it?'

Nearly every bank AP questioned — including Citibank and Bank of America, two of the largest recipients of bailout money — responded with generic public relations statements..."

If Nancy Pelosi and President Bush look so creepy as a couple, can you imagine the unholy offspring she and "EZ Money" Obama will spawn?

Of course, the economy will recover independently in '09 as predicted by most pundits, and Obama will take the credit like Clinton in the '90s...while, like Clinton, laying the groundwork for the next crash...probably during a Republican administration...assuming the new voter majority with dual Mexican citizenship will allow a Republican administration ever again...but I digress.

Again, this whole collapse was not a failure of capitalism. And (if we had any brains) wouldn't be seen as a call to throw more fuel on the socialist fire. It was a failure of the government's limited, biblical role to ensure just weights and measures. It was a failure of our leaders to hold a biblical view of fallen human nature. It was a failure of Republican and Democrat politician alike, though it was a particular failure of Democrats, and Republicans alone are currently trying to improve themselves.