Personal Finance Blog By MoneyRates - Banks
What Can Brown Do for Bank Rates?
January 25, 2010
When Republican Scott Brown won the special election to fill the Senate seat long held by Edward Kennedy, the initial focus was on how the shifting balance of Congressional power could slow down, dilute, or even doom health care reform. With banking reform another hot topic in Washington, it is also worth considering what this [...]
Was Bernanke Man of the Year for Depositors?
December 21, 2009
Time Magazine recently named Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as its Man of the Year for 2009. It's unlikely that depositors who are fed up with low bank rates would have voted for him. Time Magazine recognized Bernanke for his role in preventing the financial crisis from getting worse than it did. It's a controversial choice. [...]
Banking Update: Rolling Up the TARP
December 14, 2009
Citigroup became the latest bank to pay back the TARP funds lent by the government in the midst of the financial crisis. Citigroup will pay back $20 billion, while the government will sell off the equity stake it obtained in Citigroup as part of the loan package. As things stand now, the government could make [...]
Bank Rates Would Not Benefit from Dilution of Fed Powers
December 9, 2009
The Federal Reserve and its Chairman, Ben Bernanke, have become Congress' latest whipping boy for the financial crisis. Not satisfied with their public scoldings of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the House and Senate have moved on to criticisms of the Fed. Apparently, the only people exempt from blame for the financial crisis were members of [...]
Banks Not Lending Is a Good Thing for CDs and Savings Accounts?
December 8, 2009
Banks continue to be very stingy with loans. Small businesses are being particularly shut out of the credit markets, much to the dismay of the Obama Administration, which needs the unemployment rolls to slim. However, there is another perspective to be viewed on this matter: According to a provocative but sensible argument posted at Yahoo Finance, banks [...]
Bank Rates Taste Bitter Medicine in Bank Deleveraging
November 25, 2009
The Quarterly Banking Profile from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) showed a dramatic de-leveraging of bank risk levels in the third quarter of 2009. This is a necessary step in curing part of what ails the banking system -- but it is a bitter pill for depositors to swallow. In the third quarter, loan balances [...]
Will Big Banks Really Be Broken Up Into Bits and Pieces?
November 12, 2009
Not sure if you've been following the latest bank hearings--there have been so many of them over the past year, who could begrudge you for missing out--but these bank hearings may be bigger than most. The Senate is dicussing what to do about the "too big to fail" big banks and too big other companies that [...]
"Too Big To Fail" Legislative Talk Has Disturbing Overtones
October 28, 2009
Just about everybody except bank executives with a vested interest agrees that some legislative changes need to be made in the wake of last year's banking crisis. However, legislating in the wake of a crisis is not without risk -- sometimes an overreaction can exacerbate a crisis. In a subtle way, one has to look no [...]
A Delicate Balance: Regulation, Stability, and Bank Rates
October 21, 2009
It's understandable that last year's banking crisis should spark a renewed drive for financial regulation. It's unfortunate that the legislative responses so far seem to be barking up the wrong tree. As promised (or threatened, depending on how you look at it) Senator Christopher Dodd introduced legislation designed to limit banks' ability to charge overdraft fees. [...]
Bank Earnings Hugely Dependent Upon Trading
October 15, 2009
Money-Rates banking expert Richard Barrington called yesterday for politicians to take another look at the Glass-Steagall Act, a longstanding financial regulation that separated banking from investment activities, and was repealed in 1999 with the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act. While this advice to politicians certainly makes extensive sense and might lower the risk of individuals holding money in money [...]
