The Big Picture and the Closeup

What’s to prevent, for instance, a legislature chartering a bank one of whose very purposes is to be locally owned and controlled, with charter provisions that prevent out-of-state takeovers or incorporation into bigger banks? And charter provisions that protect its borrowers from usurious out-of-state lending rates? I can hear Tea Partiers complaining that all that local regulation would drive investors screaming to the exits – but bank investors have historically done poorly with the existing setup. Could this be worse?

Bonus Baby Befuddlement            As a number of commentators have pointed out, the $165 million in AIG retention bonuses that have so preoccupied us all in the last couple of weeks are a mere distraction.  Our economy has huge problems to solve, and the bonuses are neither at the heart of the problems nor, in […]