Tuesday Stuff

I read a good opinion column in the Bucks County Courier Times today (shocking, I know) written by a guy named Mike Krauss, chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Bank Project, talking about all of the good work done by community banks in a fledgling movement that is slowly but surely starting to pick up steam (here is a link to his web site).

Here is an excerpt...

The St. Louis Federal Reserve reports that five Wall Street firms — JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. — now control 48 percent of total U.S. banking system assets.

At the end of 2011, these five firms controlled $8.5 trillion in assets, equal to 56 percent of the U.S. economy. The other 7,307 banks held the remaining 44 percent.

The result? The affordable credit that is the life blood of any modern economy is still largely unavailable for the small (and not so small) businesses that can power economic development and jobs creation.

I thought it was worth the read (and here is a reminder why this remains an important issue, with one of the characters primarily to blame remaining thoroughly unrepentant)…



…and it looks like, based on this, this guy is trying to breathe life into the vinyl disc once more – kudos (sorry, no video).