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comment by thenewgreen
thenewgreen  ·  3680 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime Required

    There are people who say the banking agency is overregulated. Those are mostly people who work in banks or for banks, like lobbyists, and complain about every new regulation that comes their way because to a bank, less regulation is good. It means lower overhead and lower oversight.
There is another class of people that are annoyed by banking regulations and this is the entrepreneur. Government regulations can make the barrier to entry in certain industries next to impossible as it takes a banking relationship to start a business. However, some businesses have a very hard time securing these relationships because their industry is either heavily regulated by the SEC or there is such ambiguous rules/regs that banks will not partner with them.

I'm all for a smart regulatory climate. But I'm not for knee jerk regulation to appease people. I'd be okay with less regulation if it meant more money was flowing in to the entrepreneurs.





_refugee_  ·  3680 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This is a totally valid point that I don't/wouldn't have the perspective to consider, and I appreciate it. Every time I see the ABA come out against some new regulations I kind of roll my eyes. I sometimes feel like they fight everything just to fight everything.

thenewgreen  ·  3680 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Conversely, I would imagine that from their perspective sometimes it feels like the government regulates everything, just to regulate everything.

_refugee_  ·  3680 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't know. As a banker, I'm supposed to be on the banks' side.

The sad truth is that the banking industry exists to make a profit and attempts to make a profit however it can. Often, this leads to the banking industry making colossal oversteps and engaging in risky business (sans Tom Cruise) that does not benefit their consumers. Nowadays, I am aware of several problems ongoing in the banking industry involving taking advantage of consumers - the several posts I've made about the prison industry, AND payroll/payday cards being two I can come up with off the top of my head. Both of these, clearly, need to be regulated in my mind. The prison industry money system problems potentially violate the 8th Amendment from where I sit. In addition, the 14th -

    Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
- text of 8th

    Courts have found that incarcerating people for debts they couldn’t afford to pay violates the 14th Amendment.
from

In addition, the ABA and several other banking lobbyists are actively fighting in order to overturn the "disparate impact" section of Fair Housing law. That's the part that basically states "If what you do adversely impacts classes of minorities, even though we can't prove you did it on purpose, that's illegal and you have to stop."

That right there is one of the reasons I'm pretty sure the ABA doesn't have citizens' rights at the top of its list - or even in the middle.