Thursday, March 28, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor

"Who's Watching the Big Banks?"

NOVEMBER 20, 2007 --

That is the title of an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, November 13, by Henry Kaufman.   

The article calls for more oversight of bank practices.  Mr. Kaufman does not mention the predatory practices that banks use against credit card customers.  It would seem that on this issue, it is LPR who is doing the watching.  

BTW -- LPR , in recent weeks, has gotten emails and phone calls offering debt settlement and lower interest rates.  These solicitations prompt an obvious question: why don't the offending banks act reasonably on their own?  

Once upon a time, banks that sought to make killings via oppressive interest rates were stopped on the ground that such rates were unconscionable.   Does 'unconscionable" have any meaning, legal, moral, or otherwise, these days?