A new adjective to describe the size of our government: gynecomastic.
Stock recommendation coming. But first, a rationale.
You might have noticed that there’s no disclaimer on ControlYourCash.com, the absence of which is yet another feature that sets us apart from almost every other personal finance blog.
There are at least 2 reasons for this. We never included a disclaimer because if you’re stupid enough to lose money on an investment just because we recommended it, that’s your problem, not ours, and we’re willing to argue that in a court of law should it come to that.
We hate the very fact that we had to mention that, which indirectly explains our other reason for the lack of a disclaimer. If we were to act out of defensiveness, submitting to the framework devised by the lawyers who run our nation, that would make us complicit in the problem. It’s the same reason why every time either of us checks into a hotel room, the first thing we do is take a pair of nail clippers and remove that sticker on the blow dryer that tells you not to immerse it in water. Along with the smaller sticker that proclaims that the state of California has determined that the cord is poisonous, therefore you should wash your hands after using it. That we’ve attributed the power of reason to a fictitious political entity, and that most people don’t seem to notice or mind, augurs horribly for the future of a nation in decline and an ostensibly free people.
So here’s the aforementioned stock recommendation. Well, more of an industry class recommendation. Stay the hell away from community banks and invest in the big ones. Because not only are the latter “too big to fail”, but their being too big to fail necessitates that the former must be too small to succeed.
Main Street Bank is, soon to be was, a small commercial and personal lender in the suburbs of Houston. Main Street is a modest little $45 million business (modest as bank sizes go) that’s about to go out of business.
The company’s financials are fine. It’s not being swallowed by a corporate raider and chopped up asset by asset. It didn’t lend more than it could afford to, nor is it the victim of executive malfeasance.
Does Main Street have a lot of bad loans? No. Main Street’s default rate is 31% below average. (That is, better than average, because defaults are bad and you want the numbers to be low.)
Main Street’s business largely consists of lending money to independent businesspeople who use the loans to buy equipment. The equipment ideally enables them to sell more of whatever it is they sell, or do so more efficiently, thus resulting in increased profits, which means the bank gets its loans paid back and everyone’s more successful than they were before the arrangement began.
Unless, of course, the federal government orders Main Street to stop lending so much. Not unlike the absurd CAFE standards for fuel economy, the government has decided what Main Street’s portfolio should consist of. 90% of Main Street’s loans go out to small businesses. The feds have determined that 70% of that outstanding money ought to be loaned out elsewhere.
Title IX is a federal mandate that require colleges to offer as many women’s sports as they do men’s. Ignoring that men like sports more than women do, the inevitable result is that most colleges just end up dropping enough men’s programs to get the numbers to match. In much the same way, Main Street honored the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s orders by lending out less money. One fewer lender in the neighborhood means less choice for the suburban Houston small-business owner, which means the remaining lenders can raise rates and high-five over the handicapping of a competitor. Meanwhile, Citibank not only could “borrow” $45 billion from taxpayers, but practically had that loan forced on it by a complicit executive branch.
If you’re an investor, what are you going to invest in? Main Street was closely held by its founders and not open to independent shareholders, but the principle is the same for dozens of other banks. Given the choice between a bank ordered to shrink by the federal government, and another one ordered to grow by same, an investment in which has bigger potential?
Main Street’s CEO put it best:
“The regulatory environment makes it very difficult to do what we do.”
First, again we’re attributing human failures to institutions. It’s the regulators, actual people in the employ of the government, who are making it difficult for Main Street Bank to accept deposits and lend out money. And ultimately forced it to return its banking charter.
Given how many politicians of both parties have uninspiringly described the ongoing interminable financial crisis as benefiting “Wall Street over Main Street”, well, today’s story about a dying bank is ironic on a level that even a congressman should be able to understand.
Thanks to Robin Sidel of The Wall Street Journal for basically doing all the prep for us.
**This article is featured in the Carnival of Personal Finance #323-Better Late than Never Edition**
