{"id":943,"date":"2006-05-07T20:25:21","date_gmt":"2006-05-08T01:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/take-it-to-the-bank\/"},"modified":"2006-05-07T20:25:21","modified_gmt":"2006-05-08T01:25:21","slug":"take-it-to-the-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/take-it-to-the-bank","title":{"rendered":"Take it to the bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Reich, Clinton’s secretary of labor, argues for Wal-Mart’s inclusion into the banking\/credit field<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I say, let Wal-Mart under the tent. Commercial banking is now one of the stodgiest and least-competitive parts of the American economy. Fees and prices are way too high. Service is lousy. The industry needs a shakeup. Have you ever had a bank give itself an interest-free “float” on your money while you waited two weeks for a check to clear? Have you ever filled out twenty-five forms to get a simple bank loan? Have you ever collected anything close to fair interest on money you keep in your checking account?<\/p>\n

I guarantee you Wal-Mart\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s low-price business model will force complacent bankers to do better.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve still never been to a Wal-Mart, but they’re building one about 10 miles away, so maybe I’ll check it out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Reich, Clinton’s secretary of labor, argues for Wal-Mart’s inclusion into the banking\/credit field: I say, let Wal-Mart under the tent. Commercial banking is now one of the stodgiest and least-competitive parts of the American economy. Fees and prices are way too high. Service is lousy. The industry needs a shakeup. Have you ever had … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Take it to the bank”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-suburbs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-fd","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1114,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/will-on-wal","url_meta":{"origin":943,"position":0},"title":"Will on Wal","author":"Gil","date":"September 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"George Will on the Democrats' strategy of attacking Wal-Mart: Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets, because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1326,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/im-the-agent-orange-of-change-agents","url_meta":{"origin":943,"position":1},"title":"I’m the agent orange of change agents","author":"Gil","date":"February 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This article on BizWeek about the downfall of Wal-Mart ad exec Julie Roehm makes for entertaining reading. And it's worthwhile to note that advertising people really do talk like this: Wal-Mart, she says \"would rather have had a painkiller [than] taken the vitamin of change.\" What has she learned? \"The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1159,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/dont-win-ben-steins-money","url_meta":{"origin":943,"position":2},"title":"Don’t win Ben Stein’s money","author":"Gil","date":"October 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Ben Stein on making money: You make money by making money for people who already have money. This is another reason finance is such a well-paid field. One good day\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s work for a man who has a $100 million account you are trading is worth far more than a lifetime\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1470,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/flat-panels-cratering-sales","url_meta":{"origin":943,"position":3},"title":"Flat Panels, Cratering Sales","author":"Gil","date":"April 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's an article from BW about how Wal-Mart's flat-panel TV pricing for the 2006 holidays helped destroy a number of electronics stores. Looks like the chain's decision to sell a 42-inch Panasonic for under $1,000 sent its (partial) competitors off a price-war cliff: Along with Wal-Mart's determination to lower prices,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":694,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/heading-in","url_meta":{"origin":943,"position":4},"title":"Heading in","author":"Gil","date":"October 15, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"We're heading for NO,LA in a few minutes. We spent yesterday visiting Amy's extended family, and hearing lots of stories about the last few weeks.There were plenty of tales about the day-to-day disruptions, the massive lines at the Wal-Mart, the limited menus and lack of napkins at some restaurants, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2936,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-nov-21-2008","url_meta":{"origin":943,"position":5},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Nov. 21, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"November 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I took yesterday off to recover from my biz-trip to Atlanta. When I got back to my home computer, I discovered a mere 1,600 items in my RSS feed. So here's a new set of links, all freshly pressed for you! Just click more! Huxtable! Lopate! It's on! * *\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}