Below The Fold

Many of you might be too young to remember, but there was a time when using ATMs was free. At most, an occasional $.50 charge might be levied.
There was a time when banks only charged you a few if you overdrew your account; a time when service charges didn’t exist. There was a time when you didn’t have to pay $4 to walk in to the bank and talk to a teller, regardless of the content of your conversation. Banks would even give you gifts to attract you—toasters, clock radios, piggy banks—to open an account with them. And then, they’d actually pay you interest on top of it!
How did they ever make money?!
Because you let them use your money to invest in other things on their behalf. And they made money off of the interest of those investments.
In the last 20 years, the banking industry has often joined hands with the credit industry in an ongoing march to destroy many people’s lives and further exacerbate the chasm that exists between social castes in this country… and many other countries, for that matter.
That’s why this story is so amazing to me.
Over the last week or so, I’ve been on a tear about my fears of big business and its growing power within this country. While I believe in a free-market system, I believe in a free-market system that always maintains a level playing field, and the latter is all too frequently becoming little more than a mirage—something huge organizations pay lip service to, then strive to destroy at every avenue.
But here’s a story about a bank taking an ethical stand. Sure, it will generate revenue for the bank in the long run—but not the kind of revenue it’s sacrificing by taking such a stand.
Eminent Domain is one of those fairly benign-sounding clauses with very insidious application. It allows for the appropriation of private property for private development if the development is in the public interest.
Now, on the surface, that doesn’t even sound so evil. After all, the highway system in this country was built across the farms and property of many private citizens. But the evil lies not within the words, but their definitions.
Say you’ve owned your house for 20 years. One day, the city comes and tells you you have to sell them your house at fair market value. You comply because you have no choice, by law. The city then turns your house and land over to ABC Inc. ABC Inc. “redevelops” your land into a strip mall—in fact, there’s now a Starbucks sitting exactly where your house once was.
“But that’s private enterprise!” you scream. “That’s not for the public interest!”
Ah, but now, it is. Thanks to Kelo v. New London, because the redevelopment will result in more tax revenue and possibly increased property values, it IS beneficial to the general public interest.
Sorry, but if that’s the price of progress, I’m not buying.
And thankfully, BB&T isn’t investing. They’re not only taking the high road, they’re making a policy of it.