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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKilling Off Community Banks: Intended Consequence of Dodd-Frank?
Killing Off Community Banks: Intended Consequence of Dodd-Frank?Ellen Brown
Web of Debt
Meanwhile, their smaller competitors are struggling to survive. Community banks and credit unions are disappearing at the rate of one a day. Access to local banking services is disappearing along with them. Small and medium-size businesses the ones that hire two-thirds of new employees are having trouble getting loans; students are struggling with sky-high interest rates; homeowners have been replaced by hedge funds acting as absentee landlords; and bank fees are up, increasing the rolls of the unbanked and underbanked, and driving them into the predatory arms of payday lenders.
Obviously, making the big banks bigger also serves the interests of the megabanks, whose lobbyists are well known to have their fingerprints all over the legislation. How they have been able to manipulate the rules was seen last December, when legislation drafted by Citigroup and slipped into the Omnibus Spending Bill loosened the Dodd-Frank regulations on derivatives. As noted in a Mother Jones article before the legislation was passed:
The Citi-drafted legislation will benefit five of the largest banks in the countryCitigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. These financial institutions control more than 90 percent of the $700 trillion derivatives market. If this measure becomes law, these banks will be able to use FDIC-insured money to bet on nearly anything they want. And if theres another economic downturn, they can count on a taxpayer bailout of their derivatives trading business.
Very interesting article. More at the link on North Dakota's banking model.
Omaha Steve
(99,508 posts)K&R!
OS
Nuclear Unicorn
(19,497 posts)hfojvt
(37,573 posts)when they write things like this
"Meanwhile, their smaller competitors are struggling to survive. Community banks and credit unions are disappearing at the rate of one a day. Access to local banking services is disappearing along with them. Small and medium-size businesses the ones that hire two-thirds of new employees are having trouble getting loans; students are struggling with sky-high interest rates; homeowners have been replaced by hedge funds acting as absentee landlords; and bank fees are up, increasing the rolls of the unbanked and underbanked, and driving them into the predatory arms of payday lenders."
To me that reads like a blivet of hyperbole and cliches.
Right, people are going to payday lenders because of bank fees. Yeah, that makes all kinds of sense.
Of course, back in the year 2000 I did have a renter who was paying more than $40 a month to cash his paychecks at a grocery store.
Near as I could understand his reasoning, he apparently owed somebody some money and was afraid that a bank account could be seized. Hence, no account and no other way to cash a check.
I am pretty sure that free checking is still fairly readily available, even if small, short term loans are not.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)Until we find a way to elect candidates without their money, the corporations will continue to laugh all the way to their too big to fail banks.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)If they ever went out of business I would be screwed given that I'm overseas. I opened that account when I was in college and although I stopped using it for a period of time while I was still in Oregon, I started using it again and it is my only bank account in the US. Most likely that one will be fine as it has always been well managed.