« Cartoongate Continues at College | Blog Index | USA Today Misleads on Spending Statistics »

Advertisement

recent entries The Palin Factor What The Palin Pick Says About John McCain and the GOP KBR Sued For Human Trafficking Will Palin Bring A Breast Pump On The Campaign Trail? The First Time Hillary Clinton is Mentioned at the Vice Presidential Debate... Obama's Grand Speech: Reason for Hope Fox. Is. Amazing. Gore's Speech: A Reminder of What's Missing Hezbollah Operating From Venezuela?

Wal-Mart and Banking

In a just world, Wal-Mart would have received the corporate death penalty long ago and we'd be done with it. (For reasons why: see T.A. Frank's piece here, or the essay "Inside the Leviathan.") But given that Wal-Mart's not going anywhere anytime soon, I should say I'm fairly persuaded by David Leonhardt's two-part argument as to why Wal-Mart should be allowed to open its own banks.

A Wal-Mart banking system that becomes insanely popular isn't likely to put low-wage workers out of work—it will just hurt other banks—and it is true that many low-income families don't have checking or savings accounts because, as I reported here, of steep fees and barriers to entry. Perhaps Wal-Mart could use its magic to lower those fees and barriers and help more people get savings accounts, which in the abstract would be a good thing. (No doubt the store could figure out ways to screw borrowers over, though.)

Perhaps progressive legislators can strike some sort of compromise: Wal-Mart gets the right to open its own banking services, but in return they'll be required to offer the sorts of not-entirely-profitable services that regular banks don't ever offer yet low-income families often need—such as payday lending—that would enable many poorer workers to escape the exorbitant fees they have to endure on the secondary lending market. That seems pretty unobjectionable.

Posted by Bradford Plumer on 03/15/06 at 3:40 PM | E-mail | Print | Digg this | de.licio.us