Tag: banking

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national politics & policies partisanship Regulating Protest

Home of the Surveilled 

surveillance, banking, Congress, government, privacy

Abusive investigations that must themselves be investigated are piling up.

In the case commanding our attention today, the meta-​investigating organization is the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. It is investigating the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

Who does FinCEN pursue? True scoundrels? Hapless executives caught in a regulatory net?

Nope. FinCEN has been on fishing expeditions. It hasn’t been going after persons suspected of either willfully committing crimes or even tripping over regulations accidentally, or at least not only such types.

It has been going after anybody whose purchasing history puts them in the category of wrong-​thinking rightists — hence, I guess, crypto-terrorists.

FinCEN has been instructing banks to scan customer records for evidence of suspect purchases. Not illegal purchases. Just “suspicious” in light of an ideological filter, unconstitutionally applied.

On Twitter, Representative Jim Jordan reported recently that the subcommittee now knows that FinCEN required financial institutions to screen transactions in which terms like “MAGA,” “Trump,” “Bible,” and “Bass Pro Shop” popped up. 

Apparently, if you’re fishing while wearing a MAGA cap and quoting Genesis, you just might be on the verge of shooting up your local post office.

Please don’t ask me to explain what anybody involved with FinCEN could possibly be thinking by engaging in this illegal spying. Or whether they have even a glancing acquaintance with constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

I’m just glad Jordan and his Weaponization Subcommittee are on the job, “watching the watchers.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Why the Banks Are Failing Us

banking, surveillance, government, control

We depend on big businesses, especially upon banks. We pay for our food, clothing, medicines, and much else with little plastic cards from our banks. So when those cards stop working, all of a sudden — without warning — our hearts are going to do a bit more than beat just a little faster.

Why would there be big hiccups at all? 

As Brian Doherty remarks at Reason, it’s not just “frustrating when those businesses make seemingly arbitrary decisions that cripple your ability to function in a modern economy,” it’s hard to understand. After all, “the incentives of businesses are to, well, do business with customers.”

Why would banks, then, increasingly treat customers badly?

I’m not talking about the allegedly transient snag in the direct deposit system last week — apparently due to human error — but something more persistent, if scattershot.

Doherty found an answer in The New York Times, in an article “giving infuriating details of innocent Americans being cut off by their banks.” 

It should not shock the reader, Mr. Doherty explains, revealing: “the real cause of the banks’ seemingly arbitrary behavior is government rules designed to make sure it knows everything it can about citizens’ banking business, to discourage big cash transactions, and to ensure businesses the government disapproves of have as difficult a time as possible without being explicitly banned.”

Nearly ten years ago I wrote about it in a discussion of Operation Choke Point. Since then, in the words of the New York Times, “a vast security apparatus has kicked into gear, starting with regulators in Washington and trickling down to bank security managers and branch staff eyeballing customers.”

Who’ll be next?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Old Woke, Not New

SVB, Silicon Valley Bank, interest rates, collapse, FED

Last week’s collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank gets more interesting with each revelation. But one of them is probably not that it was “woke.”

Contrary to rumor, I see no real evidence that SVB gave millions to Black Lives Matter. The bank did pledge $50 million towards an internal program dubbed “Access to Innovation.” This, we are told, “sought to connect women, Black people, and Latinos with startup funding, networking, and leadership development in the venture capitalist ecosystem.” 

Sounds great in a press release, though what it has to do with making profits is a bit hard to determine. 

Very feel-​good, not very bottom-line.

And that’s where the bank failed, on the bottom line. 

Its clientele was concentrated in one industry, which has been hit by rising interest rates. Thus stressed, it was exceptionally prone to “bank run” pressures. Its core asset class was long-​term Treasury Bonds, whose value decreased with rising interest rates — and these were not hedged. 

As Forbes put it, “Whether it was fully or semi-​deliberate, Silicon Valley Bank was betting heavily on interest rates not rising.”

An extremely bad bet.

But you can see why the bankers would make it, right? Why wouldn’t they expect the giveaway mentality of Zero Interest Rates Forever?

Their hopes dashed, they nevertheless turned to their friends … in power. The Biden Administration that failed to keep interest rates down then pledged to cover SVB’s clients — the super-​rich corporations that true progressive Democrats pretend to hate for all their “profits” and “under-​taxed” income — well above the FDIC-​insured levels.* 

We may learn real data about the banks’ wokeness levels, rather than mere rumor, but the bedrock truth reveals itself as all-​too-​familiar: it’s all about monetary policy. 

That is, the “woke” ideas of a century ago, when the Progressives’ beloved Federal Reserve was created.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Like Signature Bank, which was closed on Sunday, the overwhelming bulk of SVB’s deposits were uninsured by FDIC. 

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Can You Bank On It?

Old Glory, bank, money, savings

With major financial institutions going belly up lately, now may not seem the best time to start a new bank.

But economic conditions are always dicey. 

In any case, much depends on whether the partners in such a venture follow sensible policies or treat depositors’ funds as gambling chips to be flung about in accordance with wishes, prayers, and prejudices.

Singer John Rich, doctor and politician Ben Carson, and pundit Larry Elder are teaming up to run Old Glory Bank. They’ve got at least one thing right. They see a market for “digital-​first banking solutions” that is expressly anti-cancel-culture.

The three purchased an existing bank, First State Bank of Elmore City, Oklahoma, and are giving it a new name and modified mission.

According to Elder, Old Glory Bank, currently accepting account reservations, will be guided by principles of “liberty, privacy, security, community, family, and faith.” It’ll eschew what Rich calls “the political weaponization of the financial system.”

This sentiment contrasts with the animus animating outfits like PayPal, which cancels customers for having PayPal-​disapproved views or political goals. (A pro-​democracy group in Hong Kong is one victim of this policy.)

Some standard banks, too, have begun spurning customers involved in certain legal but politically controversial industries, like the firearms industry.

According to a press release issued late last year, Old Glory Bank “will never cancel law-​abiding customers for their beliefs or for exercising their lawful rights of free speech.”

We will hold you to that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights too much government

What’s Being Forfeited

asset forfeiture, banks, banking, IRS,TIGTA, Bank Secrecy Act

What do you call those who prey upon the innocent, illegally snatching their money? 

Thieves? Muggers? The Mob? 

Government.

Last month, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) issued a report on the Internal Revenue Service’s use of civil asset forfeiture against Americans accused — well, not accused … more like suspected … well, not actually suspected of doing anything wrong, but willy-​nilly deemed guilty without charge, judge, jury or conviction — of “structuring.” That’s depositing less than $10,000 in cash into a bank to avoid all the paperwork demanded by the United States Congress at that amount.

Congress passed the Bank Secrecy Act, making structuring illegal, supposedly to trip up drug traffickers and money-​launderers. But that is obviously a ruse, as the TIGTA report makes abundantly clear. The IRS is simply snatching money — they won’t tell us how much — right out of individuals’ and businesses’ bank accounts. 

Pity the cash-​oriented business that doesn’t accumulate at least $10,000 to deposit.

The TIGTA report highlights that an incredible 91 percent of the time, the IRS acted “against individuals and businesses whose income was legally obtained,” and whom the IRS did not suspect of criminal activity. Also, through the IRS’s process of thievery “the rights of some individuals and businesses were compromised.”

Why is the IRS using the law to pilfer from the innocent, instead of the guilty? 

As I explained Sunday at Townhall​.com, it is easier and more profitable to make “quick hits” against innocent businesses rather than devious criminals.

When those responsible for protecting the innocent from criminals, instead, illegally twist the law to victimize the innocent, it’s called tyranny. And what is forfeited is much more valuable than mere money.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly general freedom ideological culture nannyism national politics & policies too much government

“Unacceptable,” He Sputtered

ATM, Bernie Sanders, economics, fallacy, Common Sense, illustration

The King Canute Memorial Award for Clueless Legislation (Winter 2015 – 16) goes to Senator Bernie Sanders. He had stiff competition from ocean-​lowering President Barack Obama, this season, but surely earned it these past few months.

Canute famously warned his advisors that he was no miracle worker. Standing by the sea and commanding the tide to turn only works on a regular schedule — set by natural forces, knowable in advance only after years of careful observation. All the hand-​waving, incantations and official edicts cannot change the tide.

The award goes to those most in need of the Full Canute Object Lesson. Sanders’s latest ninnyism begs for just such a lesson: He wants to establish maximum fees for ATMs, down to $2 per transaction.

As everyone knows, some ATMs charge more than others. Why? It is not costless to provide electronic bank inquiries and withdrawals around the country … and the world. And profitability varies.

Supply and demand. Entrepreneurs do not offer these services out of charity. Close off profits in some areas, there will be corresponding effects.

From my experience, transaction fees range from about five bucks down to … Zero.

I usually pay nothing.

Outlawing fees above some arbitrary maximum will almost certainly ensure there will be fewer ATMs — particularly in low-​use areas — and might even raise those zero-​priced transactions to one- or two-​buck fees.

Prices aren’t arbitrary, so no matter how loudly Bernie Sanders sputters “Unacceptable,” price ceilings aren’t magically going to produce the same service at less cost.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ATM, Bernie Sanders, economics, fallacy, Common Sense, illustration