As if this financial crisis couldn't get more complicated, the Obama Administration announced a new program that would consolidate US debt into a single, monthly payment. The irony, of course, is that the very subprime lending practices that Congress derided back in 2008 are now saving our future. "My fellow Americans, we have just taken the first step toward regaining control of our finances," said President Obama at a press conference. "Thanks to a joint arrangement between the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and Check N' Go, we can finally reduce the amount of late fees, high interest rates and harassing creditors."
In a follow up meeting, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that the US is in the process of signing a loan that would bring together all $12,693,181,208,437.87 and combine it into one easy payment of $33.4B per month. Gibbs praised Check N' Go's service and said, "They even came in, sat down with the entire Cabinet and gave us a free quote."
Under the terms of the agreement, Check N' Go will have a first priority lien on the Capitol, the National Mall, the Grand Canyon, not to mention the states of Alaska and Utah. When asked why those assets during the Q&A session, Gibbs responded that Check N' Go wouldn't take CA or FL and that the White House was already under negotiations for a mortgage modification through the HAMP Program. When asked if pledging AL and UT was politically motivated, Gibbs declined to comment, but added that those states could be part of a contingency plan sale that could be invoked prior to 2012 if the economy doesn't improve.
The Administration first came up with the idea back in July of last year when Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel became aware of Check N' Go while watching late night television. Apparently, after failing to structure a consolidation deal with a series of banks, the Administration had little choice. One banker that asked not to be named for this article said that while his bank was invited to the syndicate meeting, this deal was "a no-go from the start." The banker went on to say, ""When home improvement companies [Lowes] are trading at better levels than the US Gov't, you have to really stop and consider the risk you are getting your shareholders into. Besides, we have an exam next month and I am scared to even think about what type of loan loss reserves we may have to hold. No matter how good the cash flow, we fear what the regulators could say about an appraisal on the US."
The move helps explain why non-banks are not slated to be included in the upcoming financial reform bill and we hope to be able to offer participation from Check N' Go soon for banks that are looking to take on more credit risk.
At the risk of stating the obvious, we wish our readers a happy April Fools and say for the record not to believe anything above this line. We will be back tomorrow with some serious insight. Until then, we look forward to hearing stories of bankers wrapping co-workers desks in aluminum foil, gluing caps on their pens, modify their Word auto correct feature to change a common word to something embarrassing and, our favorite, making them fill out fake TARP forms.