BankThink

Credit Union Journal recently reported on a substantial operating loss reported in our third quarter 5300 Call Report. While the story contained accurate numbers, I wonder if it will be helpful to let you know the background behind those numbers.

"I can't remember if I cried / When I read about his widowed bride, / But something touched me deep inside / The day the music died."

For many, the "thanks" being expressed around Thanksgiving tables this week will be a long drumstick removed from the "thanks" shared just a year ago. Thanks for having hung onto a job. Or the house. Or the car. Or, if those have been lost, perhaps a thanks for family or health or maybe even a credit union that is helping a member through tough times.

Everybody wants a little glasnost, as the saying goes. Bloomberg News is suing the Federal Reserve Board to get it.

With Congress' return came the reappearance of consumer advocates vying for lawmakers' attention. Codepink and the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America arranged a couch and some chairs on the sidewalk outside the Rayburn building on Capitol Hill this morning to protest home foreclosures.

Whatever the Treasury Department's bailout is, it is not an experiment. Or so that's what Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson would have his audience believe.

New developments in the nascent regulation of credit-default swaps: Regulators announced an agreement Friday to share information about CDS clearinghouses, hoping to boost confidence that order was coming to the market despite an agency turf war.

Among life's little, often overlooked insights is just how small the difference can be between a good and a great idea.

Hell no, don´t let Sheila go!

Widely reported this week is the story of the Treasury Department´s sly tweaking of a tax rule that sweetened the deal for healthy banks buying failing ones. It´s not news (American Banker reported it October 6; the Wall Street Journal October 18), but fresh attention by the Washington Post and the Associated Press could whip up interest on Capitol Hill.