Congress is considering allowing retail behemoths to handle your checking and savings accounts, too.
The change could create The First National Bank of Wal-Mart.
The proposed changes in federal banking laws would blur the lines between commercial enterprises and financial institutions by allowing companies to buy entities known as industrial loan companies (ILCs) and branch them out to other states.
Wal-Mart, for example, has had the muscle to run many small businesses out of a market. If they come in and do that to small banks, a small business could soon find the only place it can go for a loan is its competitor.
It's really ClearChannel all over again, isn't it? Except this time with your money instead of your music. Our corporatist state ...
Still, it seems there are some differences of opinion in the ruling party on this one (Greenspan is against it), so things could play out in several ways.
Maybe WalMart could bring Neill Bush in to run the banking operations?