Quite a bit of stirring in the old folk’s homestead these days. The bank which had a branch on campus went belly up the other day. We had FDIC and bank people here in droves. They tried to reassure people that the bank had been sold and it would be business as usual. But there is much unrest and I fear the new owners will find little left at this branch to justify it continuing. We were leery from the beginning and are hardly involved.
On the other hand, we have a gasoline credit card that is actually issued by one of the giant bailout recipients. They recently sent us a notice announcing an interest rate hike to 29.95 percent. As soon as we can find the little-used card, we intend to “opt-out” as they term canceling. Should I remind them that Shylock would have been hung for a charging such a rate? Since we are getting rid of the car it really doesn’t matter to us. (Nor them)
We continually hear the phrase “too big to be allowed to fail”. I’m not sure why that is true. If I were president, I suspect I’d let a few of these big fellows go under and find out how much worse that left us than the nation’s current circumstances.
