Monthly Archives: December 2013

Banking Regulations

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Are they anti-bank?  They’re certainly in the way of getting new organizations into the banking business.  The total number of banks in the US has fallen from a peak over 18,000 to under 6,900 this year.  The first new bank to be Federally chartered since December 2010 [sic], the Bank of Bird-in-Hand in Bird-in-Hand, PA, opened last week after spending 7 months in charter Hell working on getting permission to open.  Here’s a sample of what BiH had to go through to be allowed to operate as a private business.

  • [T]he backers behind the Bird-in-Hand group raised about $17 million from investors.
  • Brent Peters, Bank of Bird-in-Hand CEO, estimated the group spent about $800,000 in preparing its application for a new charter
    • consulting and legal fees
    • rent on a temporary office
    • salaries of top managers, four of whom were on the payroll one month before the bank won FDIC approval
  • [L]ay out internal policies and procedures in detail
  • [S]pecify the systems in place to, for example, guard against cyberattacks
  • Paid consultants analyzed the local lending market and the feasibility of opening a bank there
  • The FDIC interviewed senior management and contacted banks competing nearby

All that because the feasibility of doing business and that business’ internal practices are for government to determine, not that business.

Government asks competitors what they think because competitors get a voice in whether a new bank should be allowed to operate in their territory.

Sounds pretty anti-bank to me.

A Trip for the Pivot

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Vice President Joe Biden is on a trip to Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the People’s Republic of China this week.  What’s the plan?  Is he going to help our allies deal with a newly aggressive PRC and its sea grab for the East and South China Seas?  Or with the PRC’s use of an ADIZ—normally just a warning area regarding aircraft—to seize control of the airspace over the East China Sea, triggered by the PRC’s grab for Japan’s Senkaku Islands in the southern reach of the Sea?

In Japan

Biden will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before focusing on women’s issues with the new US ambassador, Caroline Kennedy.

Because Japan’s post-war human rights record is so dismal, and women’s issues are more important than the threat to our ally’s territorial integrity represented by the PRC’s sea grab.

In the Republic of Korea

The US is trying to complete a major trade agreement by year’s end, but it’s not certain the deadline with be honored.

Issues of market access, environmental protections and intellectual property remain controversial.  It’s also unclear whether Congress will approve the pact without making changes, potentially derailing the deal.

Because the accelerated mutual prosperity is less important than those environmental protections—never minding that that prosperity increase underlies and is necessary for any efforts at dealing with the environment effectively, particularly legitimate environmental concerns, much less any resource waste on anthropogenic climate change claptrap.

In the PRC

Biden [will] hold talks meet with China’s president, Xi Jinping, vice president, Li Yuanchao, and premier, Li Keqiang.

Will he raise the PRC’s human rights record, or their sea grab, which not only threatens Japan, but the Republic of Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and threatens to surround the Republic of China?  Will he remonstrate with them over the PRC’s disdain for the intellectual property of others?  Will he talk about environmental concerns and the PRC’s routine pollution of its atmosphere?

Probably not.

Union Leadership Greed in Illinois

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Details of a plan reached last week appear to show [Illinois] state legislative leaders are attempting to solve Illinois’ $100 billion pension crisis in part by changing workers’ retirement age, reducing automatic pension increases, and limiting their collective-bargaining privileges.

Public union leadership disagrees with this, though, and they’re turning on that Democratic Party leadership.  These union leaders consider carefully selected and targeted Democrats to be “persuadable,” and these unionists are going to do some “persuading.”

Never mind that the plan will save roughly $160 billion over 30 years, according to Governor Pat Quinn (D) and the leaders of the Democrat-controlled State Assembly.

Illinois’ public sector union leaders object to their unions paying their fair share.  They have theirs, and to Hell with anyone else, to Hell with the fact that Illinois is bankrupt in every way but the filing.  Pay up, suckers.

The Government’s Health Care Site

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HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is busily shilling HealthCare.gov as up and running smoothly—but please,

you may want to visit HealthCare.gov in off-peak hours when there is less traffic—mornings, evenings, or on weekends.

And,

Have your information ready when you log on, and comparison shop to get the best deal.

Because you still can’t get into ObamaMart—HealthCare.gov—to see actual plans and what they cover (over and above those contraceptives, prenatal and maternity care, pediatric and child’s dental care that every man or childless couple or empty nester need) without giving up “your information.”  And you still can’t get in to see actual premiums and deductibles that you’ll pay without giving up “your information.”  Never mind that amazon.com, Walmart, Barnes & Noble, or any other on-line or brick and mortar store do not require this as a condition to go in and poke their shelves.  This is your government speaking.

But wait—there’s more!

Critical parts of the back end still aren’t there.  The functions, for instance, needed to transfer to the insurer “your” subsidy aren’t built, so either you’ll still be paying full freight, or your insurer will be forced by the Obama administration to front you the money when you see the doctor the plan allows you to see or go to the hospital the plan allows you to visit.

There’s still no security, so “your information” is freely available to any hacker who wanders by and wants to poke around in your personal financial and health information.  Mike Rogers (R, MI) says

It still doesn’t function right…The security of this site…doesn’t meet the minimum standards of the private sector.

And “work was only just starting to address some of the identity-verification issues as well as enrollment data,” and “the administration hadn’t yet been able to guarantee accurate enrollment data was coming out of the site.”

And HHS delayed for a year the requirement that small businesses get Obamacare insurance policies through ObamaMart.  Even though the data the businesses enter on the paper forms they’re now “allowed” to use have to be entered manually, by ObamaMart workers through that same ObamaMart.

And the IRS—the same gang that’s busily trying to stifle political speech of those groups of whom Obama disapproves, the same gang that routinely reveals the confidential tax information of those disapproved groups, still is in charge of passing around all of the financial data included in “your information.”

And on.  And on.