Free Republic

As more money continues to flow into the pockets of Mexican drug cartels, traffickers need to maintain a solid network of places—often along the southwest border—where they can launder drug money. However, in an attempt to stymie these efforts, several major US banks have been closing numerous branches in the region and shutting down hundreds of customer accounts. According to a WSJ report, the Arizona border town of Nogales, population 21,000, is feeling the financial pinch most strongly. In the past several months, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc.-owned Banamex USA have shut a total of four...

Witnesses told The Post that tourists snapped pictures on their cellphones of the gruesome aftermath. In the past year or so, there's been a spate of suicides among financial-services employees. Financial firms have been trying to do more to improve the lifestyles of their employees, especially younger ones.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has begun layoffs that are expected to total more than 5,000 by next year, people familiar with the matter said. This latest phase of cuts started earlier this year and would eliminate at least 2% of the bank’s JPM, workforce over the next year. The moves come as the nation’s largest bank overhauls its 5,570 branches to rely more on technology and less on human tellers. Chairman and Chief Executive James Dimon said Wednesday that the average J.P. Morgan Chase branch would lose one employee over the next two years, mostly through attrition....

“The top six bank holding companies are considerably larger than before, and are still permitted to borrow excessively relative to the assets they hold,” the report states. “They are dangerously interconnected and remain vulnerable to sudden runs, because they borrow billions of dollars from wholesale lenders who can often demand their cash back each and every day.” It goes on: “Banks can still use taxpayer-backed insured deposits to engage in high-risk derivative transactions here and overseas. Compensation incentives fail to discourage mismanagement and illegality, given that when legal fees, settlements, and fines mount, it is usually the shareholders, not the...

China is trying to fix its banking system. Not by piling on more regulations in the name of protecting consumers and the financial markets. Instead, it's trying to inject more free-market competition into the system so as to improve its stability and efficiency.

Editor's Note: The following column is by Veronique de Rugy. Have you noticed that everyone in the top tier of Republican presidential candidates -- Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Scott Walker and Jeb Bush -- has gone on record against a small New Deal-era crony agency called the Export-Import Bank of the United States? In fact, Sen. Rubio recently came out with all guns blazing against the bank, arguing that it picks winners and losers and shouldn't be reauthorized once its charter expires June 30. Maybe their commitment to end Ex-Im cronyism and corruption will rub off on their...

Some of the world's biggest banks, including JP Morgan, Bank of America and US Bancorp, are withdrawing from the student loan market. That's according to a series of reports over the past couple years.It couldn't come at a worse time.That is because it coincides with a rise in students who want student loans.And, the amount of money those students want to borrow is also going up because the price of of a college education keeps rising.This chart tells the story: Federal Reserve Bank of New York -- Staff Reports April 2014 NY Federal Reserve report shows borrowers, and their average...

I received a letter this past week from Chase because I was a safe-deposit-box customer. It was heavy handed and startling. Some of the terms included that lessee agrees not to have more than $25K worth in there (what's that? half of a good diamond?), that you can't have cash or coins in there (right away I thought Krugerrands, etc), and that the bank can restrict access to the box for any reason, or for no reason (unexpected circumstances, natural or manmade -- the sky is the limit). The contents are not protected against loss or damage. Oh, and they...

There was a time when it was possible to ‘retire’ from investment banking in your 30s. That time has passed. As the the trajectory of banking careers changes, 30 has instead become the age at which you must be positioned at a firm that will see you through to your 40s and beyond. Swapping banks when you’re aged 30+ is increasingly challenging. Headhunters working across business areas bemoan the lack of recruitment beyond vice president (VP) level. “Banks have become incredibly cost-conscious,” says a partner at an M&A search boutique. “They’re not making a 25% return on equity any more...

American businesses are borrowing at historic high levels, but the only thing growing as a result is how fast their equity capital is vanishing, according to David Stockman, White House budget chief during the Reagan administration. Stockman blamed the Fed and the Fed's Wall Street cheerleaders. He said the Fed’s balance sheet has ballooned by nine times since 2000, yet real net investment in the business sector has cratered by 33 percent during the same time period. “Once upon a time businesses borrowed long term money — if they borrowed at all — in order to fund plant, equipment and...

David Alan Stockman interviewed on CBS-TV 60 Minutes (October 2010) Highlights of recent interview by Harry Dent. David Stockman: People don't want to hear the reality and the truth that we're facing. But I think there is an enormous appetite out in the country to get a different perspective than what you have from the media day in and day out, so I say the fed is out of control. Its balance sheet is exploded. It's printing money like never before. Zero interest rates for 70 months have basically destroyed the pricing function in the financial markets. I said...

Having already proven that their institutions are above the law in the aftermath of the financial crisis, executives at the “Too Big to Fail and Jail” banks have decided it’s time to teach Senate Democrats a lesson. Not being content with trillions in taxpayer backed bailouts to protect and further consolidate virtually all wealth within their oligarch fiefdoms, these bankers are irate at the notion that a commoner would dare criticize their unassailable crony privilege. However, the worst part of this story, is that while Warren is harsher than most of her completely bought and paid for colleagues, she is...

The move to a cashless society won’t happen overnight. Instead, it is being implemented very slowly and systematically in a series of incremental steps. All over the planet, governments are starting to place restrictions on the use of cash for security reasons. As citizens, we are being told that this is being done to thwart criminals, terrorists, drug runners, money launderers and tax evaders. Other forms of payment are much easier for governments to track, and so they very much prefer them. But we are rapidly getting to the point where the use of cash is considered to be a...

On March 24th, Coach is Right published—“The Obama Administration’s Operation ‘Choke Point’ now in the open”. That piece is currently available on the CiR site under Recent Posts. On Monday, Richard Manning, Director of Communications for Americans for Limited Government, said this of the Obama Administration: “Their intent is to create a government sanctioned means of driving private industry out of the business of providing payday loans.” Peter Barden, of the Online Lenders Association agrees that what the Obama Administration is doing is outside its legal authority. Manning was referring to a particular, ongoing use of Operation Choke Point, a...

Operation “Choke Point” is not new. It began as an outgrowth of the President’s Financial Fraud Task Force in 2009. Choke Point never acquired congressional authority to begin operations though it was started by the DOJ, FDIC, and the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in 2009. It is called “Choke Point” because its main purpose is to choke off lending to industries which are out of favor with the Obama Administration. In essence, if businesses can’t process payments, they can’t survive. Choke Point operations were first begun against payday lenders in New York by the NY Financial Services...

Operation “Choke Point” is not new. It began as an outgrowth of the President’s Financial Fraud Task Force in 2009. Choke Point never acquired congressional authority to begin operations though it was started by the DOJ, FDIC, and the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in 2009. It is called “Choke Point” because its main purpose is to choke off lending to industries which are out of favor with the Obama Administration. In essence, if businesses can’t process payments, they can’t survive. Choke Point operations were first begun against payday lenders in New York by the NY Financial Services...

U.S. strategy on China’s new bank has been flawed from the start. Time to step back and regroup. It is time for Washington to take a step back and regroup. Its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) strategy, ill-considered from the get-go, has now taken a major hit with the announcement this past week by the United Kingdom that it plans to join the Chinese-led AIIB. Washington’s concerns over the AIIB are well-established: the competition the AIIB poses to pre-existing development institutions such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank; concern over the potential for weak environmental standards and social...

Extortion: After 16 banks caved in to White House demands to refund billions in losses to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, one outlier remains unrepentant. Nomura Holdings refuses to succumb to the political shakedown. The Japanese bank's U.S. unit won't give in to extortionist regulators protecting Fannie/Freddie who claim it hoodwinked the toxic twins into buying pools of subprime mortgages, like it claimed Bank of America, JPMorgan and other U.S. banks did in the run-up to the mortgage crisis. The government demands $1 billion in damages. Nomura says it won't give a dime toward the $18 billion ransom the feds...

GOP power broker Haley Barbour’s lobby shop, BGR Group, represents a Russian bank that has financed a company that helped build Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, according to corporate documents and lobbying disclosure records. The bank is owned by a secretive oligarch, Mikhail Fridman, who has met at least twice with White House officials in the last few years, according to visitor logs.

This happened to me yesterday. 3/11/15 at Olive Garden.