FACTBOX: Banks, trade groups meeting with Obama on Friday

The following is a list of banks and trade groups that have been invited to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday, according to a source familiar with preparations:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - Seized by regulators when the cost of failing home loans pushed the mortgage-finance companies toward insolvency. Since being nationalized in September, the companies have been turned into tools to aid the housing market.
JPMorgan Chase - One of three national lenders that hold a large share of consumer deposits and received a $25 billion injection of capital from the Treasury Department in October. Last year, regulators helped JPMorgan buy Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual before they collapsed under the weight of bad housing bets.
Citigroup - One of three national lenders that hold a large share of consumer deposits and received a $25 billion injection of capital from the Treasury Department in October. Since that initial investment, Treasury has pumped another $20 billion into the company, promised to shoulder losses on bad investments and otherwise helped prop-up the global lender.
Wells Fargo - One of three national lenders that hold a large share of consumer deposits and received a $25 billion injection of capital from the Treasury Department in October. That same month, the bank with a strong presence on the West Coast bought North Carolina-based Wachovia before that lender collapsed under the weight of mortgage losses.
Bank of America - The bank received a $15 billion injection of capital in October along with many large financial services companies. In early January, the Treasury Department pumped $20 billion more into the lender and agreed to shoulder some losses in order to preserve its buyout of Merrill Lynch.
Bank of New York/Mellon - In October, the Treasury bought a $3 billion stake in the financial services firm under its Troubled Asset Relief Program meant to buttress banks' balance sheets. The government's investment was one of the smallest under that first phase of the aid program.
State Street - The Treasury bought a $2 billion stake in the Boston-based financial services company in October -- its smallest investment under the initial phase of the TARP. The other eight firms that received an initial capital injection absorbed $123 billion in federal money.
Merrill Lynch - The investment bank received a $15 billion boost from the Treasury Department in October in order to preserve its buyout by Bank of America. Deep losses at the company have continued to weigh on Bank of America's balance sheet.
Goldman Sachs - The investment bank took a $10 billion investment from the Treasury Department in October but has since said it wants to return that government money. Now operating as a traditional bank accepting deposits.
Morgan Stanley - The investment bank received a $10 billion investment from the Treasury Department in October and soon thereafter applied to accept consumer deposits to help stabilize its balance sheet.
PNC Financial Services, USBancorp and Northern Trust - The three financial services companies have accepted $7.7 billion, $6.6 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively, under the TARP program. All three have said that they want to return the money soon. PNC and USBancorp are large, regional lenders.
American Bankers Association and Financial Services Roundtable - Two Washington-based trade groups that represent many of the large lenders and finance companies that have received billions of dollars in federal aid.

Questions pour in for Obama's online town hall meeting

During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt reassured anxious Americans through his famous fireside chats over the radio.Now, in the 21st century, President Obama has found his own fireside equivalent, launching an online town hall meeting Thursday where he will answer citizens' questions about the troubled economy and his efforts to fix it.
"We're going to try something a little different. We are going to take advantage of the Internet to bring all of you to the White House to talk about the economy," he says in an introductory video on the site.
Americans can submit questions on WhiteHouse.gov for President Obama to answer live online Thursday.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, more than 30,000 people had submitted more than 32,000 questions on the official administration Web site, WhiteHouse.gov.
Americans may submit questions, and vote on others' queries, until 9:30 a.m. ET Thursday. Obama has promised to answer the most popular questions through a live video stream on WhiteHouse.gov. beginning Thursday at 11:30 a.m. ET.
The site had recorded more than 1 million votes as of late Wednesday afternoon.
The White House's Web site asks people to agree to post "only questions related to the economy (including topics essential to long-term economic growth, such as education, fiscal responsibility, green jobs and energy, health care reform, and home ownership)."
A quick review of questions revealed deep concerns among Americans trying to make ends meet.
"What is the government doing to make higher education more affordable for lower and middle class families?" asked James of Bloomington, Indiana, who described himself as a full-time student who also works full time, "only to break even at the end of the month."
"Why do I have to be to the point of foreclosure to get any help with my mortgage? Why aren't you helping the people who want to prevent foreclosure?" asked another questioner from Providence, Rhode Island.
Observers say Obama, who revolutionized the use of technology as a political tool during his campaign, will be the first president to address questions from the public live on the Internet. By allowing people to submit any question they want and answering them live on the Web for the entire world to see, the administration hopes to create a more transparent style of governing that will help win public support.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg," said Don Tapscott, author of "Growing Up Digital," a book exploring the generation that has grown up on the Web. "It turns out that the Internet is a new medium of human communication that not only helps you get elected, it changes the way you govern."
Along the presidential campaign trail, Obama was praised for his innovative use of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to announce events, rally volunteers and raise money.
Nine years ago, when George W. Bush ran for president, Internet media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube didn't exist.
Bush and former President Bill Clinton engaged in online chats with citizens, but neither relied on the Internet as a platform for reaching the American public as Obama does, said Andrew Rasiej, co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum and the techPresident blog.
"It's changing the relationship between the president and the country," Rasiej says. "It's building on a 21st-century information age platform. We want to make sure our president isn't stuck in a bubble."
Some observers wondered whether Obama's creative social media initiatives, dubbed Obama 2.0, would continue once he entered office. But Thursday's online meeting -- the first of many, according to the government -- reaffirms his commitment to engaging with Americans through technology, Rasiej said.
While Obama's staffers have stopped posting updates on social networking sites since the election, they are sill reaching constituents through WhiteHouse.gov, which is more interactive than previous administrations' Web sites.
Launching an online town hall meeting will allow more effective communication with citizens, said Ellen Miller, executive director at the Sunlight Foundation, a group that advocates government transparency. Americans can submit their own questions and receive direct responses without questions or answers being filtered by the media, she said.
"There might be a question asked that wouldn't have been asked at a press conference," she said. "It's a significant step forward for new-media communications."
Adam Ostrow, editor of Mashable.com, a guide to social media, said the online town hall-style meeting will encourage Americans to get involved beyond the election.
"It gives people a sense of participation and what is going on and to be able to shape some of the decision that will be made," he said