PayThink

On a recent flight, the gentleman next to me shared a banking story that made my day.

Surveys show that what Americans want most is a good job, no surprise there. Over the last few decades, the best jobs have been in the public sector and those requiring a college degree. But the productivity of a growing public sector already suffers from rising costs and diminishing returns that impede economic growth, as in Greece where public sector employment doubled in the last decade or in Spain, where youth unemployment is 50%.

We simply have to face the fact that banking is fundamentally risky. As I decided long ago when working in banks, the reason we needed to wear dark suits and have classic buildings was to look conservative in order to offset the real riskiness of what we were doing.

JPMorgan Chase had a bird's-eye view of Jon Corzine's brokerage – and a history with its compliance chief. The bank must have at least a clue about the missing $1.6 billion.

The individual responsible for "enterprise growth" at American Express was recently quoted in this newspaper, saying about mobile that the "data is more valuable than the payment transaction." We're told this preference for data contradicts Amex "tradition." No, it contradicts Amex experience.

A homeowner's struggle to get a loan modification demonstrates the insanity (and inanity) of dealing with lumbering corporate bureaucracies.

A discussion of the Credit Union National Association's Governmental Affairs Conference.

CEO Francis R. Harmon of Delta-Wye Federal Credit Union discusses his issues with the National Credit Union Assoctiation's micro-management style.

As a credit union leader you know this is the time to live up to your title.

To borrow from Mr. Becker's disingenuous BankThink piece ("More Credit Union Business Lending Would Boost Economy"), it's time for our nation's leaders to get serious about credit unions.