Should Obama be meeting with regional and community bankers to find ways to get credit flowing?

It’s just symbolism. We tell everyone what do whether they meet us for drinks or not.

Definitely not. It would be a total waste of his (very precious) time, plus he could never meet with enough of them to make it worth while.

Unfortunately, such a meeting would make little difference. The capital-flow system on the local and community levels is nearly extinct in the US. In reality, the vast majority of regional and community banks are owned or their ability to make loans is attached to the large national and international banks. The local and community banks have little to no discretion to make micro or small business loans because the Fed, who has immense regulatory powers that favor the big lenders and banks, was set up to make certain that the larger institutions cannot fail. This marriage of international finance and the Federal Reserve was cemented during the 1930’s by the Roosevelt Administration.

The unfortunate by-product of Fed policy is that capitalism has not really existed in the US in the same sense that it did prior to the passing of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. This Act of Congress established two classes of financial institutions in the US: those that are too big to fail and will be saved by taxpayer money and those that must live by Fed policy but are too small to be important enough to be saved by taxpayer money.

Think about it…if you are a community bank that knows that you are not in the first class of lending institutions, why would you want to remain a second-class institution? Therefore, the tendency among the second class institutions is to be gobbled up by the larger national and international institutions.

The final part of @Dracool ‘s question was “How will it help to only meet with a top handful of banks?”

Sadly, unless some entrepreneur figures out a way to introduce a micro loan system that that handful of truly independent local and community banks can use to stay afloat, the top handful are all that “count” as far as the US Gov’t is concerned.

Because those in Washington aren’t nearly aware of the TARP and other restrictions impact to the community. It’s not as simple as they assume.

It’s a balance of govermental policy and banking processes: can they coexist?

“The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.”
—Thomas Jefferson

To get a feel for the situation. Knowing where they stand and were they believe the issues are. Its a step. I will wait and see before judging.

A meeting would at least have the effect of getting the bankers’ heads out of their balance books for a bit. Sounds like a good idea.

NO! Every thime he interacts with a banker, the banker drives away with a truckload of cash taken from the US Treasury.