winscape 2381

Back to the customers. You and me.

It it goes as far as Enron there is just jailtime to dole out to the perpetrators. But the problem you have is not Enron, but a payment system that is half non-functional for private persons.

Is this normal for US contracts? I have had my banks for decades at a time, and still have active accounts where I can legally issue checks I have that were manufactured in the early seventies.

Most of the small bills from consumers go to utilities. These are heavily regulated, water, energy, heating, phone, etc. They cannot go away without leaving a forwarding address.

The point is that the banks cannot just make a deal with a large employer and skim interest; they have to sell services that people want.

The right to choose council is a right that is present in most declarations of rights. In the US it applies narrowly. We apply here it applies widely. You have the right to choose lawyers, doctors, brokers, banks, insurance, and most other professional services. Noone can force you to use a bank you don't want to use.

This means the payers in a push system HAS to deposint giros of checques into the bank of your choice, or give you a certified cheque in hand. It helps that the system is fully automated.

The US banking systems have only been overhauled twice; the first time as a part of surviving the bad debt left by the collapse of the confereracy, and the second by the second Roosevelt administration as a part of the New Deal, when they finally got banking defined as Interstate Commerce,.

-- mrr