The big bank that blessed Brat's upset of Eric Cantor

One of the instant storylines dangled by Prof. David Brat’s surprise primary drubbing of Rep. Eric Cantor in Virginia Tuesday is that it’s a defeat for big U.S. banks, which were staunch backers of the majority leader (and vice versa). Yet one large banking institution, based next door in North Carolina, was firmly opposed, in name and spirit, to Cantor’s incumbency.

Brat is a professor of economics and business in the BB&T Moral Foundations of Capitalism Program at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., established by a foundation arm of BB&T Corp. (BBT), the tenth-largest bank-holding company in the country. The program is rooted in the libertarian “pure capitalist” teachings of writer-philosopher Ayn Rand and was created by BB&T‘s former longtime chief executive and current Cato Institute president John A. Allison, a key patron of the Ayn Rand Institute. Brat co-authored the paper “An Analysis of the Moral Foundations in Ayn Rand," and told the National Review several months ago that, while he doesn't consider himself a Randian, he appreciates the writer's free-market philosophy.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/the-big-bank-that-blessed-brat-s-upset-of-eric-cantor-162821089.html