For those that do not understand the reference, “It’s A Wonderful Life” 1946 Movie Building And Loan Chair George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart).
How else can you explain the lack of a Savings and Loan Now-a-days?
For those that have forgotten just what that is or was,
Local folks with Secure Vaults hold the savings of other local folks and pay them interest on their money.
The money is then made available to other local folks for lend at a premium over the interest paid to the savers.
Yes, I think Mr Potter has won the day.
What kind of interest do you make on savings now ?
If you borrow, look at what they charge for the lease of the money and those hidden rules and fees seem to change no matter if you are “good for it” and probably worse if you are good for it. Mr Potter (The banks) have become so large, they do not know who you are. Just how much juice can you squeeze from that lemon.

But please take a moment to ponder if all of this had not happened. I mean to say that the most of us put a third of our savings into a Savings and Loan where local money stayed local much like George Bailey’s Building and Loan.
I can’t say you would be better off personally but your community would be better off and you personally would be better for it as you would have more folks working and paying taxes so your share of those taxes needed would be less. It seems to be a simple trend to follow, the more and bigger the companies get, the fewer jobs there are and the higher taxes we are asked to pay in the following years.

Now Mr. Potter has become so large and greedy after putting the thorn in the butt Bailey Building and Loan out of business that he can not manage his own affairs and asks us for a hand-out. Because so much is riding on so few, it is a major event that they should fail and now we must actually do something for him as he controls so much. Gee, I thought we were to bail-out George Bailey not Mr Potter. I have never seen a bigger argument to “Break-Up” the Mr Potters of the world into smaller, more manageable parts but the reverse seems to be continuing despite our recognition of that. Show me where and how many people have benefited by allowing big mergers and and will show you more that have lost, just over a longer period of time so the losses remain a hidden statistic. Just not enough competition for a Mr Potter now-a-days. He spent so much acquiring competition, he can not sit-out a small storm, instead, a small storm is now a hurricane for all of us.

Now when you spend your money at The Big Box Marts, Company Owned Franchises or the Local Gambling parks of the world that Mr Potter Types Owns or Controls, you help a local employee with a small wage and that is all. The profits are taken to be spent in other regions of the country and world. Mr Potter just horded the money to benefit only himself and that is legal and O.K. but what does it do for your choices to put your money spending or saving?
Local money taken to other areas is local money never taxed again that tax loss you must now make-up for while your new Franchise or Mart has been costing you in other ways in the form of Roads/traffic control, police and fire protection and water and sewer improvements. Now you have little choice as Mr Potter is are all that survives but at a price we shall all pay.
We are all guilty of greed and unlike the movie, You sold your shares to Potter, Now You Must Deal with Mr Potter! How do you like him so far? Much more of Mr Potter to come if you have not yet made up your mind.
Yes, George Baily must have jumped from the bridge or got his wish and never have been born.
…signed – Clarence, who never got his wings and now wishes to join George and not been born and therefore moot.

Where are you George Bailey, we need you !
Merry Christmas Everyone!

GM, Speaking before Congress says that filing bankruptcy is “NOT AN OPTION”.
I can only imagine the reason why is because the type of bankruptcy they would file would be
a Chapter 11 (reorganization) and allows the government to see the books and
allows a judge make the decisions about what is cut including the CEO and board wages/benefits.
I do think there are many secrets in those books they do not want to share or have investigated.
In a earlier post, we touched on the fact that they were nearly selling as many cars as they
did before the 4 record setting years and seemed to make money then. Of course now
everyone is too scared to buy anything and that has to hurt everyone including GM.
I found an interesting fact from a non-featured article at Forbes.com that mentioned in later text
that GM, after re-tooling with original taxpayer money (25 billion) the past year, is taking the large equipment
purchase tax write-off in a 1 year write down instead of the normal 7 year depreciation.
This allows them to show no profit/big loss for the year and this increases their bargaining power with labor,
Bond Holders and the like as this makes the books look much more dyer.
It is a bit irritating that I keep hearing a quote of Line Workers at GM making $78 per hour.
Lets set the record straight on this right now as some folks are repeating in a way that gives this
a new meaning. They DO NOT MAKE $78 per hour. The number that everyone seems to be
repeating and not quote the source is a cost of the employee with medical and retirement expenses of both
the current and already retired workers included that GM did not properly fund the pensions of. So if you do as they do, compare this to a worker at a US Toyota plant, keep in mind Toyota does not have “Legacy Retirement Costs” to deal with or at least yet.
Nobody has been there long enough to collect a 20 year funded pension with benefits that would be added on the cost of a current worker. The line worker makes about the same as a Union Iron Worker, where the jobs they do are a bit more dangerous. Reality is they probably do make 15% more wages and benefits than similar industries but please keep in mind they negotiated those benefits so that means GM is also partly to blame for it.
A quote from Forbes.com
“workers at GM make $28 per hour, versus $25 at (nonunion) Toyota plants in the U.S. Benefits and payroll taxes add $33 an hour at GM ($22 at Toyota). Another $17 an hour of compensation at GM (nothing at Toyota) is for health care for current and future retirees”
So it is not a fair comparison but does reflect the need to do something with the rising cost of health care that is a big part of this number
and growing for them and the rest of us.
I don’t see anyone comparing the wages and benefits of the CEO & CFO to Toyota counterparts as the margin is much greater there.
In any case, the UAW at GM will take control of their own Benefits in 2010, taking the burden off GM, but the company is still 10 years overdue for a trim and a new vision of what they want to be in the future, much more than Chrysler did in the 70’s !
In any case this is an attempt to have a bankruptcy without a judge to force cuts on the top end.
Why can’t they just file like anyone else.
I find it most upsetting that companies who have made much foreign investment instead of domestic investment, are now asking me for a hand-out to support their overseas investing !
Chew on that one for a while….

Why can’t someone in the media just say it….
The reason for the stock market woes is “Confidence by Banks Lending to Other Banks”
And the politicians probably need to keep their mouth shut for a while (if that is possible in an election year or any time of year).
Wall street has a lot to digest and if they think a politician is going to make a change in what the market now holds, they sit it out to see what the effect might be. That means less buying. Less buying means values will drop.
So call’m up and tell them to SHUT-UP for a while. Wall street would like to deal with what is at hand, not what might be at hand. You only intervene when they are at an impasse.
The government only needs to do what was done during the great depression. Go around and certify (and guarantee) a bank is solvent, one by one. Let the weak fall, put the criminal in jail. After all, this is the capitalism they boast about.
Problem is, some of these criminals are on Capitol Hill!
This is still a matter of the books being cooked that started back in the 90’s and the politicians have done more to insure this was more possible than anyone is telling you. I do want to see some heads hang on this, I mean real time in real jail and not just some discussion in front of a congressional committee where a Politician gets a headline for lashing out.