The Float
Has anyone other than me noticed that banks are floating your money --- more than usual? By holding your checks for a prolonged period without releasing the funds, the banks are living on your deposits. That act of clearing your funds while withholding access to your funds is illegal. All funds clear within 24 hours and have for some time now. We should complain to DOJ, but it will do little good unless the DOJ decides to act on it.
Why would the DOJ and the Department of Commerce decide to do nothing? Political pressure, these are the same folks that brought us the Savings and Loan scandal. Remember that one. The bueaurocracies may think that by giving the bankers what ever they want, they are supporting the economy. In reality, that favor will undermine our economy. The harm done to business with a four day stealing of capital, because that is what it is, the holding of precious capital for an arbitrary and self-serving period, is indeed nothing less than robbery. The windfall to the bank’s bottom line may pretend to benefit the Treasury Department but the loss to business and the loss of free and fluid transfer of funds, does far more harm to the coffers of the Treasury than the bank’s gain ever could.
The Administration must be desperate to generate revenue and curry favor with big business because it seems that, at every turn, the Administration supports the monopoly and the cartel over the interests of competitive small business. Just last month, my wife’s small coffee import business had a check held up for a week by a Florida bank resulting in an aborted coffee shipment, the results of which cost over a thousand dollars. I had a similar experience last week, which was much less costly. The inquiry into these two events prompts these comments.
It is hard to steal $10 for bread, but I submit it is easy to steal billions, as is surely the case with banks withholding funds. Some one out there may well know more about this than me so speak up. This is probably an easy theft too because it seems so much a matter of bank policy that must be accommodated while, in reality, the illicit financial gain to the bank would stager the imagination.
Why would the DOJ and the Department of Commerce decide to do nothing? Political pressure, these are the same folks that brought us the Savings and Loan scandal. Remember that one. The bueaurocracies may think that by giving the bankers what ever they want, they are supporting the economy. In reality, that favor will undermine our economy. The harm done to business with a four day stealing of capital, because that is what it is, the holding of precious capital for an arbitrary and self-serving period, is indeed nothing less than robbery. The windfall to the bank’s bottom line may pretend to benefit the Treasury Department but the loss to business and the loss of free and fluid transfer of funds, does far more harm to the coffers of the Treasury than the bank’s gain ever could.
The Administration must be desperate to generate revenue and curry favor with big business because it seems that, at every turn, the Administration supports the monopoly and the cartel over the interests of competitive small business. Just last month, my wife’s small coffee import business had a check held up for a week by a Florida bank resulting in an aborted coffee shipment, the results of which cost over a thousand dollars. I had a similar experience last week, which was much less costly. The inquiry into these two events prompts these comments.
It is hard to steal $10 for bread, but I submit it is easy to steal billions, as is surely the case with banks withholding funds. Some one out there may well know more about this than me so speak up. This is probably an easy theft too because it seems so much a matter of bank policy that must be accommodated while, in reality, the illicit financial gain to the bank would stager the imagination.
posted by Clancy Hughes | 5/04/2006 02:32:00 PM
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