happy valentine's day to all those I love.

gone too soon

Yesterday, was a given the news that a friend of mine died as a result of a car accident. An accident, a single car accident. It happened fairly close to here and the weather wasn't particularity bad.

He was a nice man. He always was kind to me, and he had a strong marriage and family. My heart breaks for his wife and his two children. He is gone, and someone was waiting, doing normal things, just waiting until he came home.

He never came home, he will never be home again.

My heart just breaks.

TARP: just another four letter word.

This is a tale of two cities and two banks. One bank, PNC very healthy (at the time), no need for federal TARP money and the other, National City (headquartered in Cleveland) sinking slowly into the abyss, desperately in need of TARP assistance. Both cities similarly situated economically.

National City Corporation based in Cleveland, Ohio and founded in 1845, used to be one of the ten largest banks in America in terms of deposits, mortgages and home equity lines of credit. National City was expecting to be successful in their request for TARP money, however surprised in Washington; it was a Comptroller of the Currency, John Dugan, who informed National City executives they shouldn't apply because their bank was too weak. Instead, he told the bank to sell itself.

PNC set their greedy eyes on National City. PNC was the first U.S. bank to use money obtained under the government's $700 billion bailout program to make an acquisition. The acquisition, which completed on December 31,2008, was described as a "take-under," meaning the purchase price was below National City's market value.

Results……PNC Financial Services Group Inc. said Tuesday, just a little more than three months after receiving $5.6 billion, (yes billion with a “B”), that it plans to cut 5,800 jobs. PNC didn’t need to “take-under” any bank they just became greedy. Had the TARP funds had gone to National City as requested, I believe that National City would have recovered and jobs for both cities would have been preserved.