Barack Obama is really doing wonders when it comes to building confidence in our financial institutions. (Please note the sarcasm.) Obama wants to make sure that you know that Wall Street is still going to be an important part of our economy, but it will never be half of our economy ever again. At least, if he gets his way.

What does this mean? Obama says, "That means that more talent, more resources will be going to other sectors of the economy ... I actually think that's healthy. We don't want every single college grad with mathematical aptitude to become a derivatives trader. We want some of them to go into engineering, and we want some of them to be going into computer design."

Ironically enough, what is the "other" sector in our economy that is showing the most growth right now? That would be the government. It takes college grads with mathematical aptitude to control so many people's lives you know.

How many of you remember the "Know Your Customer" program that the feds wanted to impose on banks some years ago? Now that Barack is so determined to control the banks in this country, could "Know Your Customer" be on the way back? Not the Know Your Customer program put into effect under the Patriot Act ... I'm talking about the program proposed by the Clintonistas many years ago.

If you don't remember the program, perhaps you need to be listening today. I'll remind you of what was and may be again.

I'm just waiting for the Obama crowd to bring back the imputed income idea and, if we're really lucky, a one-time seizure of pension and IRA funds.

Last week Barack Obama met with top executives of US banks. This was his message to the banks: bonuses are not acceptable.

That's right. Not just "excessive" bonuses or bonuses paid with bailout money. But bonuses. Period. They are unacceptable while other Americans are struggling to make ends meet.

On CBS's "Face the Nation" Obama said that he made sure the bankers knew that big bonuses during a financial crisis is "just not acceptable." He also told the bankers, "Show some restraint. Show that you get that this is a crisis and everybody has to make sacrifices."

Sadly, the American people will applaud this move. They just won't understand that the amazing financial minds that we need to turn these banks and other financial institutions around are simply going to go somewhere else .. perhaps to another country .. where they can sell their services in a free economy.

Perhaps we will find out what these people are capable of when they're working for our overseas competitors where their earnings are unrestrained.

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... and the change you asked for and got is an executive branch that covets the power to seize private businesses when it sees fit. HTCWICOTTD* Tim Geithner wants Congress to recognize his regulatory powers to seize non-bank financial companies. And what is Barack Obama's response? I hope "it doesn't take too long" to convince Congress to approve this new authority.

This is an unprecedented amount of power being requested by the Obama administration. In fact, I wouldn't even say requested so much as demanded and expected. That government should have this level of power and influence in your lives, your businesses, your money, your property and your freedom. This is what Democrats have been wanting. And with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi by his side, Barack Obama and Tim Geithner may very well succeed.

Thanks for the change!

By now I am sure that you've heard about the Wall Street Journal report on Maxine Waters. Maxine Waters is arguably one of the most brain-dead politicians in Washington today. Do you remember her recent attempt to grill bank CEOs? Yeah, it is hard to watch, ain't it?

It is pretty well-known that Maxine Waters has close ties with OneUnited Bank, which happens to be a minority-owned institution (at least that is the politically correct way to say it). And when I say "close ties" I mean that Maxine and her husband have large financial stakes in the bank and her husband used to be a director. While enjoying the benefits of her family ties to OneUnited Maxine was publicly boosting OneUnited's executives and criticizing its government regulators during congressional hearings. Last fall, according to The Wall Street Journal, Maxine helped secure the bank a meeting with Treasury officials.

Here's more ....

In January, Ms. Waters acknowledged she made a call to the Treasury on OneUnited's behalf. The bank's capital, which was heavily invested in shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was all but wiped out with the federal takeover of the two mortgage giants, and the bank was seeking help from regulators.

OneUnited eventually secured bailout funds under the government's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was set up later that month.

In a brief interview in January, Ms. Waters said she was unaware the bank received $12 million of TARP money, which arrived in December. OneUnited was "just a small" bank, she said.

A provision designed to aid OneUnited was written into the federal bailout legislation by none other than Barney Frank, the chairman of the financial-services panel. Mr. Frank has said he inserted the provision to help the only African-American owned bank in his home state. He said in an interview that Ms. Waters's interest "had zero impact on the outcome because I would have done it anyway."

All together now ... "Yeah, right."

Barack Obama came into this presidency preaching transparency. But Congressional investigators have found that the Obama administration has failed to properly oversee foreign deals by banks receiving money from the $700 billion bailout.

A report by a House oversight panel raised questions about the following deals ... a $8 billion financing deal for Dubai by Citigroup (recipient of at least $45 billion in bailout funds); a $1 billion investment in India by J.P. Morgan (which got $25 billion from the government rescue); and a $7 billion investment in China by Bank of America (which got $45 billion from the bailout).

The overseas deals were not illegal and it is impossible to know if they were funded by bailout dollars or not, but that is precisely the point .... Congressional investigators are troubled that the Obama administration did not implement oversight or reporting requirements. Remember the outrage over George Bush's lack of scrutiny under his half of the bailout plan? Looks like things aren't any better under the Obama administration.

As of right now, only the largest 20 recipients of bailout money are required to file reports with the government while the other 297 companies are not. In other words, we're probably never going to know how the bulk of this money was spent.

I'm sure that Obama and many of his sycophants are OK with this though. What's $8 billion for a deal in Dubai, or another billion in India? Just as long as these people don't ride on a private jet, right?

This whole "want him to fail" nonsense is so absurd. Here's the question: "If Obama's goal is to create a European socialist state in America, do you want him to succeed or to fail?" There! Now just how difficult was that? Now let's get to work preventing Obama from succeeding in his socialist welfare-state plans.

Some news about two of our favorites .. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The New York Times reports that more than likely, the companies will never fully return to private hands. This is a fact that lawmakers and company executives are starting to realize. Maybe that is why Freddie Mac's CEO just resigned after six months on the job.

One reason sighted is the fact that Fannie and Freddie must repay the taxpayer dollars invested, plus interest in order to become independent once again. Even if they are profitable once again, it could take them more than 100 years to pay back the taxpayers. And that assumes that they start turning a profit - something they aren't expected to do anytime soon.

Many are worried that this is a sign of things to come for another industry in peril: the banking industry. If the government should nationalize some of the large banks .. will they end up in this same situation - as permanent government institutions.

Next up ... the automakers?

As I said ... Obama wasn't willing to put any of the blame on the government for any of the problems we're facing. I guess placing blame on the entity you believe makes America great isn't the right thing to do. For Obama and government fans everywhere the blame rests solely on capitalism and the evil private sector ... especially bank CEOs.

Terence Corcoran is a columnist and editor of Canada's Financial Post. He is one of Canada's leading business writers. Here's an excerpt from a recent column. If you voted for Obama this might mean nothing to you. Then again, you're never too old to learn:

"How convenient it is to blame bankers and CEO compensation for triggering the crisis, especially for politicians and regulators. Charging bankers with greed and incompetence gets politicians and bureaucrats off the hook for what is now clearly a global systemic failure. . . . [I]f the U. S. Fed sets low interest-rate polices, and the U. S. government, through agencies, is promoting and subsidizing mortgage lending, it is not the role of the bank alone to grasp the full systemic risk being created by the incentive structure created by policy. Nor can each individual bank be expected to understand the full range of risks being undertaken by all banks all over the globe. . . . Understanding systemic failure on this scale requires much more than name-calling and cheap accusations aimed at markets and bankers and capitalism in general"

Makes perfect sense to me. Much more so than blaming banks and CEOs for all that is wrong with our economy. Obama loves government. You don't blame your lover for your problems.

We already knew that Barack Obama wants to limit executive pay to $500,000 for executives of companies receiving bailout funds. As Obama put it, the compensation restrictions would only apply to banks that receive "exceptional assistance."

But thanks to Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, that is not exactly how it is worded in the government enhancement bill that will be signed into law tomorrow. The bill will limit executive bonuses on all banks that receive bailout money .. not just those receiving "exceptional assistance." The rules written into the stimulus bill also apply retroactively to companies that have received TARP money. And when it comes to those evil corporate bonuses, Chris Dodd has a plan for those too .. although any bonuses included in contracts before February 11th will not be affected.

Here's the deal:

"Under the new restrictions, top executives can only collect bonuses no larger than one-third of their annual salary. And those bonuses must be given in the form of restricted stock options that executives could not cash in on until their company's bailout money was repaid to the government ... In terms of how many executives would be impacted by the rules in the stimulus bill: The restrictions would only apply to the highest-paid employee for companies receiving less than $25 million in government funds, but they would impact senior executives and at least the 20 next most highly paid employees at companies receiving $500 million or more in TARP funds."

Now the Obama administration says that it wants Congress to change parts of the executive compensation provisions included in the stimulus. Obama is apparently angry that Chris Dodd is trying to "one up" him with even more restrictions on executive compensations.

Whatever happens with the bonus provisions of the bill one thing is certain .. these restrictions ill insure that the affected companies cannot go into the marketplace to find the best available executive talent to bring their companies back to profitability. But the wealth-envy crowd will be happy.

California Congresswoman Maxine Waters .. arguably the dumbest member of Congress ... grilling Bank CEOs. The pinnacle of absurdity.

Slobbering Barney Frank has a message for you bankers out there: people hate you. No, seriously. He said Tuesday during a briefing of his agenda, "People really hate you, and they're starting to hate us because we're hanging out with you. And you have to help us deal with that." He also returns to these evil corporate jets, which have become the newest target for the wealth-envy crowd. He says, "Oh, and they need to not buy $50 million corporate jets if they're getting taxpayer funding, either ... They've got to lean over backwards not to offend people."

Offend people? Slobbering Barney is talking about not offending people?

Then there is this letter that appeared in the Sunday edition of the Naples Daily News. Give it a read .... Feel the wealth envy.

Did you notice the key phrase that point to a severe case of wealth envy on the part of this writer? We have MBAs who "don't belong to country clubs." Right there we know that this writer is driven by jealousy. Someone out there has something that he doesn't have ... and that's just not right.

What's worse ... he thinks that you can get qualified MBAs to work for $100.000 a year ... the types of MBAs who are qualified to run the nation's largest financial institutions. Oh ... and 9/11 was a phony emergency and Iraq was all about Halliburton.

Terry Coppens ought to apply for a job on McCaskill's staff.

The Wall Street Journal came out with a pretty sobering (but not surprising) report yesterday: Political Interference Seen in Bank Bailout Decisions.

The Treasury had said it would give money only to healthy banks, to jump-start lending. But OneUnited had seen most of its capital evaporate. Moreover, it was under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives' use.

Nonetheless, in December OneUnited got a $12 million injection from the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. One apparent factor: the intercession of Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful head of the House Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Frank, by his own account, wrote into the TARP bill a provision specifically aimed at helping this particular home-state bank. And later, he acknowledges, he spoke to regulators urging that OneUnited be considered for a cash injection .....

He cites the bank's status as the state's only financial institution owned by African-American (blacks). "We did say, yes, I thought it would have been a social tragedy if the one minority bank in Massachusetts that has been working so hard and had been overextended into housing was to be wiped out by a federal action, the Fannie-Freddie preferred [shares] thing, and that's why I think it was important to try to help them.

So .. there you go. Barney Frank raises his handsome head again; this time he is send money we don't have to a black-owned bank. The purpose here was not stimulus. The purpose was to use the financial crisis as an excuse to shore up a politically favored bank in Barney Frank's district.

There is not one bit of doubt in my mind that, considering the various ways Barney Frank has been involved in this financial mess, if he were a Republican the media and the entirety of the Democrat Party would be yelling - and yelling loudly - for his scalp.

Get used to this.

Yesterday the taxpayer ensured the fate of Citigroup to the tune of billions and billions of dollars. Citigroup will live to see another day. And maybe another bailout ... who knows. Now get this: despite the fact that it is now on the taxpayer hook, and recently fired 53,000 employees, Citigroup says it plans to maintain its $400 million contract with the New York Mets. They will pay the Mets $400 million so they can call their new stadium "Citi Field."

Now that just ain't right.

And it's not just Citigroup, folks. AIG pays a British soccer team $125 million to put "AIG" on their uniforms. This is the same AIG that just got a $150 billion loan from the taxpayers. Someone from a group called Taxpayers for Common Sense says it would be more accurate for the soccer team to put "US Treasury" on their uniforms. How about "U.S. Taxpayers"?

There are more examples. Bank of America took a $25 billion loan for the Treasury's Troubled Assets Relief Program. Meanwhile, Bank of America wants to pay the New York Yankees $20 million per year to be their sponsor. Bank of America also has its name on the Carolina Panthers football stadium ... that cost them $140 million.

Look, folks ... I'm sure that there are a lot of companies out there that have done it right. But there are a heck of a lot, especially on a larger scale, that just don't seem to get the message.