I think if the NY banks were wiped out, Charlotte, NC could take over. While driving through on my way to Florida in 1999, I talked to one ham radio operator there and he told me that it was the banking center of The South.
“I think if the NY banks were wiped out, Charlotte, NC could take over. “
During the 2008 financial crisis the New York syndicate took care of its own and tried to remove the Charlotte threat by forcing Wachovia to merge with Citicorp. The government and Fed would have taken care of the bad debt of both banks and Citicorp would have taken Wachovia’s very profitable national retail network. The deal as structured was so sweat, Wells Fargo swept in and took over Wachovia. In any event the objective was achieved and a powerful Charlotte bank was taken out of the system. Later, Ally Bank (formerly GMAC) was convinced to stop the in process move of its headquarters from Detroit to Charlotte.
Breaking up the New York bank cabal, and reigning in the Federal Reserve, must be accomplished to return the US to free market principles. The concentration of banking power on Wall Street has resulted in New York having too much control of investment capital allocation in the US and has encourage banks to speculate globally with the deposits and retirement savings of American citizens. We need more competition in the banking business, not the current concentration of assets in the hands of a few government allied “too big to fail” institutions.