I guess I'm more bewildered about how the public has been duped into siding with the bank lobbyists and opposed to creating more wealth for ourselves and not fight this. I guess; as a society, we're so far leveraged that 1 or 2 more credit interest points wouldn't make a difference.

Of course more competition in banking would be good, but the same economic ignorance that makes people think that wal-mart competing with grocery stores, hardware stores, appliance retailers, etc, is bad for the community think the same thing about this.

Our standard of living increases when resources are allocated properly throughout the economy. If we can get rid of a bunch of unnecessary banks and reallocate the labor and energy to something more useful, we will have a stronger economy.

Until Walmart got big enough to start dictating what the interest charges would be. I don't think it is out of the realm to think it could happen. That's their way, freeze out the little guy, by opening giant stores and charging less until the competitors are gone. Walmart's prices vary widely from store to store, based on the amount of competition left in the area. They can absorb losses from Store X for quite a while to put the hammer on the local guy.

I don't blame folks for shopping Walmart, but I've seen what they can do to a small town. I avoid them myself. In the Atlanta area, it's not such a drastic effect as it can be in smaller towns.

Do you have any idea how many republicans, conservatives, either own the existing banks or serve (a loose word) on their boards of directors because they bought the original stock (will hold five years until sold to a chain for 100 times the purchase price, or sit on the chain's board?)
We are talking big bucks lost here by bank Presidents, managers, etc., for simply loaning money and collecting interest.
With WalMart----the janitor would open the bank, gather up the loan requests, and forward them to the Home Office in Bentonville.
They would sell their CDs, etc., over the TV and internet.