EclecticLip

It was reported recently that GM was using bailout money to expand production in Brazil.  Fortunately, it appears as though the sources were misquoted.  (Hat tip to Jesse.)  If that had been the case, then I think the automaker’s leaders would’ve been called back to Washington for a verbal grilling.  Or whatever passes for a verbal grilling by lawmakers who for the most part can ill afford to make deep-pocketed enemies.  (The individuals, not the companies, that is.)

That’s why this harangue by Michael Capuano (D-Mass) to the CEO’s of the US’s eight biggest banks — which even got excerpted on CBC radio — was particularly gratifying.  Even if — or perhaps, especially since – the CEO’s will probably escape further consequences.  Sadly, like so many US industries, the financial sector appears to have achieved regulatory capture of the regulators intended to oversee them, in the public’s interest.

(video under the fold)

It wasn’t quite on the level of George Galloway’s evisceration of Norm Coleman in the US Senate a few years back, but it was potent.  My favourite lines from Capuano’s four-minute rant:

“I cannot believe no one has prosecuted you on this.”   

and

“You come to us today on your bicycles, after buying Girl Scout cookies and helping out Mother Theresa, telling us you’re sorry, you didn’t mean it, ‘we won’t do it again, trust us’.   Well, I have some people in my constituency that actually robbed some of your banks — and they say the same thing!  They’re sorry, they didn’t mean it, they won’t do it again, just let’em out!”