From: David Baker [mailto:jivemonkey@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 8:07 AM
To: Comments
Subject: CR
Here is just one source of info I read that should deter this from
continuing:
Now the focus
is on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which regulates most
small
banks. Regulatory Risk Monitor said many observers
expect
the FDIC to follow the lead of OTS and adopt the $1 billion threshold.
Banks’ allies in Congress are calling for uniformity in regulation. “We
are once again creating an uneven playing field that competitively
weakens small and independent community banks. It is particularly
ironic that regulators continue to disadvantage our rural and small-town
banks, when they are community re-investors in the truest sense of
the word,” said Rep. Spencer Bacchus, R-Ala., chairman of the
House Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee.
If the FDIC follows suit, 74 percent of the banks now considered “large” by
FDIC would be considered “small,” according to an analysis
of FDIC data by the Center for Rural Strategies, based in Whitesburg,
Ky. That would include all those in Idaho and Wyoming, 92 percent
in Maine and Montana, 89 percent in Arkansas, Iowa and Minnesota,
and between 80 and 87 percent in Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont,
Virginia and Wisconsin. Kentucky’s figures are typical: 25
of the 30 “large” banks would become “small,” a
reduction of 83 percent.
Even if the FDIC does not raise its threshold, members of Congress
are discussing legislation to raise it. Either way, that spells trouble
for rural areas and inner cities where some banks have considered
investment relatively risky, say supporters of the current threshold. “It’s
a bad thing if the OTS goes along with this. It’s an awful
thing if the FDIC goes along,” Judy Kennedy, president of the
National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders, told American
Banker magazine.
Excerpt from Rural Blog.
Please stop the trend this admin. has of ALWAYS putting money before
people!
Truly,
David Baker
Williamsport, IN
|
