The Band of 15 Meets With Obama Today

The White House released the list of bank executives who will meet with President Obama today. Here they are: Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase; Ken Chenault, American Express; John Koskinen, Freddie Mac; Ronald Logue, State Street; Robert Kelly, BONY-Mellon; Rick Waddell, Northern Trust; James Rohr, PNC; Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs; John Mack, Morgan Stanley; Vikram Pandit, Citi; John Stumpf, Wells Fargo; Cam Fine, Independent Community Bankers; Edward Yingling, ABA; Richard Davis, US Bank; Ken Lewis, Bank of America.

Reactions on the meeting from Jamie Dimon, Ken Lewis, John Mack, and Lloyd Blankfein.

Robert Gibbs, Obama’s press secretary, on the meeting:

The President believed they had a good, productive and frank conversation. The President opened up by talking about the importance of dealing with toxic assets and getting banks lending again. There was a discussion about the President’s and the administration’s plan to deal with housing that many of the bankers discussed positively.

There was next a discussion about regulatory reform, and it’s fair to say that they agreed on the need to update the framework of regulation and that being important. Also discussed were issues of compensation and the importance of recognizing what the American public is going through in this economic crisis. The President emphasized that Wall Street needs Main Street, and that Main Street needs Wall Street; that everybody has to pitch in; that we’re all in this together.

Overall, the President was very pleased about the meeting; continued to stress the need for open lines off communication, and also to stress that there was no agenda — he had no agenda beyond working to get a solution — the right solution for our financial system and to get it stabilized and working again for the American people.

Q On the bankers meeting, how strongly did the President press the bankers to sell their toxic assets through the Geithner program? As you know, a lot of them are reluctant to sell them at these prices, hoping that when the economy recovers they can get a better price, and that won’t solve the problem.

MR. GIBBS: Well, I think there was a broad discussion about the program. Obviously, as I talked about a couple times this week, and many people have talked about the need for the financial system to be stabilized by getting a lot of these toxic assets off the balance sheets of bankers, and that because of that, there’s an incentive through the market to get a price that’s established that works for both investors and for those that want to rid their balance sheets of these assets.

So I think the policy is structured so that there is that incentive, and obviously the President believes that — and I think the bankers said after the meeting — that what they’ve heard is a positive first step.

Q But the incentives for the taxpayers are different than the incentives for the bankers. They want the highest possible price —

MR. GIBBS: Well, again, I think — you know, obviously there’s — and one of the reasons that many, many months ago under Secretary Paulson, the theory was that you might not be able to get this worked because you had — you lacked an incentive to change something that somebody might value at 95 cents on a dollar and someone might value at 25 cents on a dollar.

Obviously we believe that because of the way the plan is structured, there is an incentive that protects the taxpayers but also gives incentives for banks to want to move those assets off their balance sheets by not totally giving up on them.

Q And what did they say about his message on compensation? Were they receptive to that?

MR. GIBBS: Well, yes, I — look, I think, and, again, I think as you heard the bankers say, they understand that. I think —

Q They said you didn’t talk about it.

Q They said it didn’t come up.

MR. GIBBS: I did not hear that. It was discussed.

Q — said it didn’t come up.

MR. GIBBS: It was discussed.

Q Were you in there?

MR. GIBBS: No, Jen was, but I also talked to the President about it.