< HOME  Friday, January 27, 2006

Wal-Mart attempts silent coup

Bankers are like gangsters, they work together when it's them against the rest of the world. But, they turn on each other in a heartbeat if one tries to operate on the other's turf. And so it goes that with one foot out the door...
Greenspan is urging Congress to close a regulatory loophole that lets companies own a certain breed of banks, including a bank Wal-Mart Stores Inc. wants to operate in Utah.

[Greenspan]'s remarks take direct aim at an exemption in federal law that allows any type of company commercial firm, foreign bank or other to own so-called industrial loan companies in a handful of states, principally Utah, California and Nevada.

When the exemption was adopted in 1987, industrial loan companies, or ILCs, were mostly small, locally owned institutions that had only limited deposit-taking and lending powers.

[By 2004, ILCs had] grown by more than 3,500 percent . . . from $3.8 billion to $140 billion.[!!!]
HOLY COW! What other business on earth can increase its assets at such an astronomical rate? And all this by collecting interest. Sounds more like they're robbing banks, not running them!
General Motors, General Electric, Pitney Bowes and BMW are among the companies that now own industrial loan companies under the exemption, Greenspan said. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, has filed an application to operate an industrial loan company in Utah, he said.

Greenspan's comments didn't make a specific attack on Wal-Mart's efforts but rather were a broader shot at the exemption itself.

The exemption allows the corporate owners of these industrial loan companies to avoid the regulatory requirements that apply to corporate owners of other types of insured banks overseen by the Federal Reserve, said Greenspan. He found this troubling.
Of course, he finds it troubling. As long as it's his buddies who are raking in the dough, no problemo. Now that a gigantic outsider is about to move into the neighborhood threatening to swallow it whole, it's time to impose regulations.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see the whole neighborhood dismantled; I just find Greenspan's hypocrisy amazing (though I should be used to it by now).

Greenspan's warning was addressed to Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, who responded:
"We as a Congress cannot afford to do anything except promote prudential financial oversight" . . . The issue is not Wal-Mart's application but whether Congress has opened the way to a complicated web of financial and commercial cross-ownerships.
Yeah, right. Peddle the prudential banking nonsense elsewhere. Banking is and always has been the least regulated sector on earth and the only reference to prudence in banking that I've come across in my travels conveys an appreciably different meaning:
Bankers function by reference to prudence. It's imprudent for them to do anything until they have to.

--Brian Freeman, Executive Director, Chrysler Loan Guarantee Board.
Not exactly the same usage. Moreover, Congress launched "a complicated web of financial and commercial cross-ownerships" a heck of a long time ago, congressman. Why not just admit that when Greenspan tells you to jump, you proceed to do so frantically before even bothering to ask how high?

7 Comments:

At Friday, January 27, 2006, Blogger efsaturn said...

You are so right. It is ok for Walmart to step on the little people

Seatte Times 1/24/06 excerpt
OLYMPIA — More than 3,100 Wal-Mart employees in Washington were benefiting from state-subsidized health coverage throughout 2004 — nearly double the total for any other company, according to two confidential state reports.
Lawmakers said one of the most startling findings in the new reports is that more than half of the Wal-Mart employees who received Medicaid benefits — nearly 1,800 — were full-time workers.
The reports are sure to fuel the debate over a labor-backed push in the Legislature to require companies such as Wal-Mart to pay more for health care. Democrats in the House and Senate say the reports show that Wal-Mart and some other big companies are shifting millions of dollars in health-care costs to the state.
"I think taxpayers should be outraged," Rep. Steve Conway, D-Tacoma, said Monday. "They are subsidizing one of the wealthiest corporations in the world."

But now that WalMart wants to get in the big boys pockets there is Greenspan protecting his buddies.

I doubt if I had read this on my own I would have figured it out. I wish that weren't true. I've been dumbed down and so has everyone else.

So the Congress will probably listen to him and believe that this will hurt our economy. Not knowing it would only hurt the US Banks!!!!!!

 
At Friday, January 27, 2006, Blogger efsaturn said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At Friday, January 27, 2006, Blogger qrswave said...

efsaturn,

Yes, it will hurt the banks. But, it won't do us any favors, either.

If you read the article, Wal-Mart critics are jumping at this letter and insisting that changes be made. For the banks, however, this is merely an marriage of convenience.

Once Wal-Mart is put in its place, so to speak, and Americans are smug in their hollow victory, central bankers will continue with the business of dismantling whatever's left of America's economy.

 
At Friday, January 27, 2006, Blogger AJ said...

Q,

I am intrigued with this story, and may I say it was a very good catch.
But allow me to come at odds with you on this one.
The Fed does not just control the banks, they control
the money supply
.
They do not have competition, except possibly from the Euro(doubtful) and the Chinese currency(more likely).
If this is actually a concern of theirs and not a smokescreen, then it is about control, not money.
The Fed has the power to influence (demand) many sources against
Wal-mart , if it so desired.

 
At Friday, January 27, 2006, Blogger qrswave said...

AJ, thanks

No doubt it's about control. But, it's also about money. Wal-Mart is by no means a match to central bankers, but it is a heavy-weight player with massive commercial operations that, if left to grow exponentially through financial instruments could pose a threat to the existing establishment.

I'm betting that Wal-Mart management is not part of the close-knit cartel, which makes them a wildcard that may threaten, albeit remotely, their global financial hegemony.

The Fed may control the money at the tap, but Wal-Mart is like a global sponge collecting it from the basin.

 
At Saturday, January 28, 2006, Blogger AJ said...

"I'm betting that Wal-Mart management is not part of the close-knit cartel, which makes them a wildcard that may threaten, albeit remotely, their global financial hegemony."

Well said Qrs, and very possibly true.
Look what it took to get Bill Gates in line....

 
At Monday, August 26, 2013, Blogger Unknown said...

Hello guys

I think it is the best information about commercial loan in Utah

 

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