Fennec : I am not sure about Dodd, maybe more imagined power than real, but Rep. Barney has certainly had more than his share of influence. I was a corporate financial planning exec in banking when the American Community Reinvestment Act (the original ACORN), was put into effect. When my firm, First Union (which later purchased Wachovia, and is now part of Wells Fargo), tried to expand through purchase/merger in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, Barney came to visit our HQ in Charlotte! As an exec in the financial support for the CEO, and an original native of Massachusetts, I was asked about why HE wanted to impose mortgage origination requirements on our operations. I didn’t know then, but I can affirm that we were required to sign a binding agreement to make a certain percentage of our mortgages in the new territory at low interest rate to low income persons in “disadvantaged neighborhoods”, before the mergers were allowed to proceed by the FED, FDIC and Comptroller of the Currency. To me that equals power!
Fennec : I am not sure about Dodd, maybe more imagined power than real, but Rep. Barney has certainly had more than his share of influence. I was a corporate financial planning exec in banking when the American Community Reinvestment Act (the original ACORN), was put into effect. When my firm, First Union (which later purchased Wachovia, and is now part of Wells Fargo), tried to expand through purchase/merger in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, Barney came to visit our HQ in Charlotte! As an exec in the financial support for the CEO, and an original native of Massachusetts, I was asked about why HE wanted to impose mortgage origination requirements on our operations. I didn’t know then, but I can affirm that we were required to sign a binding agreement to make a certain percentage of our mortgages in the new territory at low interest rate to low income persons in “disadvantaged neighborhoods”, before the mergers were allowed to proceed by the FED, FDIC and Comptroller of the Currency. To me that equals power!