From the the year 1885 to 1900 the value of the USD went up from 30x current value to 215x current value

This represents an increase in value sevenfold.

The Sherman antitrust act passed in 1890 broke down giants Standard Oil and US Steel into dozens of subsidiary companies, stimulating competition, but not unchecked competition.

These companies were still held by titans JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, and their management was run carefully so that competition did bot get out of hand, allowing maximum gross product at the expense of neither the customer nor the corporation.

If we allowed companies to reconsolidate, and then broke them down again, we could recreate the conditions that created a spike in capital value growth unparalleled in recent history.

However, these are the same conditions that led to over speculation on the stock market, causing the great depression, and brokers seems to have learned nothing since then, so its a toss up.

That's dumb. We should just break up the banks,

The other day I went into a Chase bank and asked the manager why their bank still existed.

He was taken aback, and asked what I meant.

I told him:

JP Morgan has no place in the 21st century.

Federal insurance protects my money in the event of bank failure, and electronic banking has eliminated the need for there to be a branch everywhere I go.

Your size isn't helping you lead the industry in in interest rates, either in loans or in account growth, and you've done little with your credit program other than shill for the oligopolic airline industry.

So why does your bank still exist?

Quote from: dassengerB on April 11, 2016, 04:56:09 PM

We should just break up the banks,

Don't be dumb.

Super Banks that don't use their superior available capital to offer more affordable services have no place in the world.

I used to work for Zurich Financial, and we had an available liquid capital not including member accounts of 420 billion, and our services were by far more costly than locally owned and operated alternatives.

It's ridiculous.

Quote from: dassengerB on April 11, 2016, 04:56:09 PM

We should just break up the banks,

Don't be dumb.

But meta
it's going to work
I don't know how
but we're going to do it

Quote from: Solonoid X on April 11, 2016, 06:25:07 PM

Super Banks that don't use their superior available capital to offer more affordable services have no place in the world.

The entire reason banks don't extend affordable credit to low-income individuals is due to the burden of regulation on such services. It's entirely why predatory pay-day lenders exist; the banks can't compete them out of the job.

It's not just about credit.

We're also talking higher interest rates on savings, lower rates on insurance, and a broad number of financial services.

My bank, Randolph Brooks, offers mortgages from 1.95% to members, and also gave me a line of credit at 17% despite my income being less than 30K annually.

Discover Financial also gave me a line of credit, when I was making even less money.

So yes, low income individuals have access to credit, but almost exclusively at above 21% annually.

However, Chase and BoA wouldn't offer me anything, since running into financial trouble my credit score has tanked.

Hopefully I'll have it running smooth this time next year, but this time last year I was pulling a solid 718.

You would think think that they would offer affordable interest to low income individuals with good credit on the basis that they wouldn't be getting their money back at 21% annually, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

What they want is to raise the amount owed as quickly as possible so that they can close the account and send it to collections, then make an astronomical return on a miniscule loan.

This is a blatant abuse of their huge operating capital.

Smaller banks actually compete with each other and offer better services accordingly, but massive banks run off of their size and brand recognition alone to cheat people out of insane amounts of money.

They are literally contrarian to capitalism.

Quote from: Solonoid X on April 11, 2016, 07:27:35 PM

Smaller banks actually compete with each other and offer better services accordingly, but massive banks run off of their size and brand recognition alone to cheat people out of insane amounts of money.

What, you think different sized banks aren't subject to different regulations which affect operating costs?

It's virtually impossible for decently-sized banks to offer 'payday' credit at reasonable prices.

Quote

Currently, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates banks, has such stringent underwriting standards that it costs more for banks to meet the paperwork-intensive requirements than they could reasonably charge for such small sums. Indeed, the regulations have in practice (though not in rule) banned banks from offering small credit to a broad range of people.

Where on earth did payday credit become involved in this?

The simple fact is that larger banks with resources to lower prices choose not to.

I didn't say we should go out giving loans to people with bad credit, only that giving medium to low interest loans to low income individuals is working for small banks and there's no reason it couldn't for large banks.

I don't suppose you've ever had an underwriting job before (its what I did for Zurich) but this is how it goes.

β€’A legal team writes policy backs and calculates rates to plug into them according to variables that the applicant may represent.

β€’Policy backs are updated when new regulatory data is released

β€’Clients plug in their own information and rates are instantly calculated

β€’An underwriter reviews client information to ensure eligibility, then either green lights, or adjusts rates, or denies the application

β€’The client pays back their loan with interest [in the case of credit cards this step is repeated many, many times]

The expensive part is step 2, which has to be done whether you offer affordable interest to the poor or not, and if you offer no credit to them, you only lose money.

Banks have figured that out, and offer small, high interest loans to low income individuals, not quite as high as payday lenders, but its still there.

The payday loan market exists to take advantage of people with bad credit, not low income.

And by loan I'm talking almost exclusively about credit cards, mortgages, tangible things like that, not cash in hand loans, which should be reserved for those who have the means to pay them back curtly.

Banks that operate in every state do spend about 50x as much in underwriting, because every state needs its own policy back, but they compensate by make 100x+ more capital income.

Quote from: Solonoid X on April 11, 2016, 09:04:20 PM

Where on earth did payday credit become involved in this?

How do you say that, and then say:

Quote

only that giving medium to low interest loans to low income individuals is working for small banks and there's no reason it couldn't for large banks.

This is literally what payday loans are. At least, that's what they refer to over here.

A payday loan is when you get a few hundred dollars in exchange for your entire next paycheck, with some collateral on the table that's worth thousands of dollars ensuring you follow up.

Quote from: Meta Cognition on April 11, 2016, 09:35:51 PM

Quote from: Solonoid X on April 11, 2016, 09:04:20 PM

Where on earth did payday credit become involved in this?

How do you say that, and then say:

Quote

only that giving medium to low interest loans to low income individuals is working for small banks and there's no reason it couldn't for large banks.

This is literally what payday loans are. At least, that's what they refer to over here.

A payday loan is when you get a few hundred dollars in exchange for your entire next paycheck, with some collateral on the table that's worth thousands of dollars ensuring you follow up.

As far as I know, that's not correct. Literally the first line of the Wikipedia page specifies that payday loans are not backed by collateral, and are not necessarily related to the borrower's incoming wages. And I can say that, at least in the U.K., this is usually what payday loans refer to. Just small and usually short-term loans.

Quote from: Solonoid X on April 11, 2016, 04:54:42 PM

If we allowed companies to reconsolidate, and then broke them down again

Why on Earth would any company cooperate with this when there's already a mad dash for inversions and regulation avoidance in the U.S.?

That's why we don't tell them the plan.

You lift antitrust regulations and let them go nuts and then slap them right back on and experience fifteen years of glorious capital growth.