'Do We Want a Free Market or Not?': Comments of the Week
Published August 2, 2013 10:00 AM
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Updated August 2, 2013 10:37 AM
1 Min Read
American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. As excerpted from the Comments sections of AmericanBanker.com articles.
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On a federal judge ruling the Federal Reserve's swipe fee cap was too high:
"Simply more and more government intrusion - this time in the form of price fixing. When are they going to go after the airlines and their fees for checking bags? Or the price of milk? And on and on ... instead of letting the marketplace work."
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On a federal judge ruling the Federal Reserve's swipe fee cap was too high:
"Bottom line: Do we want a 'free market' or not? Free markets can be messy, for sure. But, they also empower entrepreneurs to create jobs, discover new inventions and make progress that will never happen under an artificially propped-up economy that the government not only influences, but controls."
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On the government imposing a swipe fee cap on debit card transactions:
"Governments should not be setting prices. Free and open markets are better at that. But this is not a free and open market. With interchange, those who pay - merchants - cannot negotiate since they don't have a direct relationship with the networks (Visa, MC) that set rates."
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On why small-dollar credit is so expensive:
"High demand and low supply. And the state and federal legislators and regulators are doing everything they can to further restrict the supply - with prohibitions on payday lending, usury caps and, most recently, with their proposal to effectively ban deposit advance loans by banks."
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On the possibility that the government will try to co-opt Bitcoin:
"If the U.S. really tried to crack down on the original Bitcoin protocol, it would simply accelerate the brain drain of Bitcoin entrepreneurs moving abroad to start their ventures in more friendly countries."
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On the possibility that the government will try to co-opt Bitcoin:
"The harder government agencies attempt to regulate [Bitcoin], the more visible their fear of it becomes of it, and the more valuable the currency becomes." (via Reddit )
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On the idea that people, not prices, win business:
"Agreed, although the big question is, how to get known, liked and trusted in a digital banking environment with few, if any, person-to-person interactions."
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On the idea that people, not prices, win business:
"This premise holds more water in rural America than it does in a major city. Yet if your pricing and service 'suck,' then your ability to retain this customer declines."
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On why Sen. Elizabeth Warren's Glass-Steagall bill is DOA:
"Reinstating the 1930s Glass-Steagall prohibitions on bank holding companies is an odd way of attacking big banks, since bank holding companies of all sizes - small, medium, and large - have taken advantage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to provide insurance and securities services to their customers."
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(Image: Bloomberg News)
On an alternative plan from Professor Cornelius Hurley to end 'too big to fail':
"Estimating the value of the subsidies is an important and useful step, but we can and should go on to use that information to estimate the value of taxpayers' disadvantaged equity stake in these firms and collect an appropriate dividend on this position."
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On using social media to determine a person's creditworthiness:
"I don't Twitter or Facebook, but thank goodness my name is very common, John Doe-like, so any such social media search will yield numerous hits."
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(Image: Bloomberg News)
