Category: Dodd-Frank

There ain’t no such thing as free checking

19 October, 2012 (14:32) | Banking, checking accounts, Dodd-Frank, Innovations, Markets, Regulation and Reform, US News |

By:David A. Smith   Reform is a fine thing that we all support, and free services are fine things we all accept, so we cheer when a regulator reins in a runaway plutocrat, but as the plutocrats’ best friend the Wall Street Journal (September 23, 2012) observes, there really ain’t no such thing as free [...]

Birth of banking’s mammals? Part 2, emerging evolution

6 December, 2011 (11:31) | Banks, Capital markets, Dodd-Frank, Innovations, Regulation, Speculation, US News, Wal-Mart |

By: David A. Smith   [Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]   In yesterday’s post examining a recent New York Times story on the rise of Wal-Mart Money centers, the Times danced around exactly what the Wal-Marts were and whether they were beneficial.   Let’s be clear – Wal-Mart intends to become the nation’s largest bank-by-any-other-name, [...]

Birth of banking’s mammals? Part 1, impending extinction?

5 December, 2011 (15:38) | Banks, Capital markets, Dodd-Frank, Innovations, Regulation, Speculation, US News, Wal-Mart |

By: David A. Smith   Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for millennia – indeed, measured purely by longevity, with 160,000,000 years as the dominant terrestrial vertebrates, they have a fair claim to being the most successful superorder ever.    Yet today, they’re gone, nothing more than bones and the stuff of fantasies.   Once were warriors [...]