Wal-Mart Bank Bill Introduced In Congress

Isn’t it nice of these congressmen to look out for those poor defenseless little banks like JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America and all the rest.

Tony, you seem to have forgotten ARVEST. Or did you omit that one on purpose?..... You know, the bank thats owned by the Walton family, you know, the largest stock holders of WM stock.

DAVE SMITH
PROUD UNION IRONWORKER

Dave, you’re losing it.

So Someone, just what part of that was wrong? Are you saying that ARVEST bank is NOT owned by the Walton family? Or are you saying that they are not the people that own the LARGEST block of WM stock? Please tell me which part of that is incorrect.

DAVE SMITH
PROUD UNION IRONWORKER

Dave, you seem to have forgotten that 1 + 1 = 2. Or did you omit that one on purpose?

Where did I use the word “wrong.” What you said, factual or not, wasn’t relevant to the discussion, if you can call it that. Arvest has absolutely nothing to do with this. Clearly, you were just looking to jump on Tony over something.

Now back to Tony’s point. It’s not the local banks the proposed legislation would benefit. It’s “those poor defenseless little banks like JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America and all the rest.”

Dave

Jim Walton may be the chairman of Arvest. He may even be the owner. But he is merely an investor in Wal-Mart and not even a direct investor at that.

I don’t know if you are really ignorant of the banking business or if you are just trying to blame Wal-Mart for something else. Wal-Mart is a powerful company, with great profits. But it is not as powerful or profitable as the big banks nor does it have a good profit margain. Read these numbers from 2005:

Wal-Mart Revenues ($315.654 billion) Profits ($11.231 billion) Profit margain of 3.55%

Citigroup Revenues ($131.045 billion) Profits ($24.589 billion) Profit margain of 18.76%

Bank Of America Revenues ($83.98 billion) Profits ($16.465 billion) Profit margain of 19.6%

JP Morgan Chase Revenues ($79.902 billion) Profits ($8,483 billion) Profit margain of 10.62%

Wells Fargo Revenues ($40.407 billion) Profits ($7.671 billion) Profit margain of 18.99%

SO, Wal-Mart has revenues of $315 billion. These four superbanks have combined revenues of $335.334 billion.
Wal-Mart’s profits are $11.231 billion. The banks, despite revenues that were 6% more than Wal-Mart’s, turned in combined profits of $57.208 billion, or 80% higher. Wal-Mart has about $139 billion in assets. Citigroup alone has over $1.1 trillion in assets.

So, please explain to me why the banks need protection from Wal-Mart?

EllisW,

“I don’t know if you are really ignorant of the banking business or if you are just trying to blame Wal-Mart for something else.”

Of course, Dave is just trying to blame Wal-Mart for something else. 

And, why are you trying to confuse him with facts and figures, all he knows, is that Wal-Mart makes lots of money and should spread it around.

Dave,

If the Walton’s own ARVEST, why don’t they just have them process all of Wal-Mart’s checks and credit cards and give Wal-Mart a low rate to do so?  That way, they could keep it in the family, right?  What is the reason they are trying for an ILC at all, if they could just do all their business through ARVEST?

Bob in

Thats my point!

DAVE SMITH
PROUD UNION IRONWORKER

WalMart- Give us an ILC and we will give new meaning to advanced payday loans.

Does anyone remember the FSLIC bailouts. WalMart wants to enter into the next round of federal insurance scams. Neil Bush did very well at Silverado S&L;in Colorado with huge bailouts. The Bush crowd must secure another loan stinkhole by way of WalMart banking at taxpayer expense. Remember the ratio of required deposits to loans. You only need to keep about 5-6% of asset deposits available on hand compared to all the money you can create and loan out to your friends.

Giving WalMart an ILC would be like giving Hannibal Lechter
a board seat at Forrest Gump S&L;. ‘Don’t worry, Sen. Clinton I’ll be good.”

GOOD TO SEE SOME FRESH POSTS HERE, SANDIEGOVIEW

Amen and Amen again, SanDiego!  I referred to the FSLIC bailouts some time ago in another post.  It’s good to see that there’s somebody else out there that acknowledges that fiasco.  In fact, I refered to other government bailouts in the past.  Remember how Chrysler was bailed out and Penn Central Railroad?  Apparently the “Bush crowd” won’t be satisfied until Wal-Mart can someday be added to the list!

I am opposed to government bailouts of any kind but I don’t see Wal-Mart asking for a bailout here. Neither do I see them asking for a merchant banking license. They are asking only for an ILC, so that they can process their own credit and debit card transactions and save tens of millions per year in fees.

As for the Chrysler bailout, sure it was wrong. But today, tens of thousands of UAW members have high paying jobs. I have two uncles who work for Daimler Chrysler in the Jeep plant in Toledo. They both grossed over $100,000 last year and that was with moderate overtime. Apparently, they can work over whenever they feel like it. Also, if the plant shuts down for a week due to a lack of orders, they still get their full benefits and something like 96% of their base pay. So the Chrysler bailout, which cost $1.2 billion and for which taxpayers were paid back 8 years early, with interest and huge profits on stock warrants, turned out to be a government expenditure that actually MADE money for taxpayers. It should be studied in classrooms everywhere. One of millions of taxpayer financed items that actually offered a benefit to taxpayers.

San Diego View

Do you have the same complaints about Warren Buffett? Sure, he’s a genius and I admire him but how did he get the capital to get so rich? He bought an insurance company and incorporated it in Nebraska, which has lax insurance laws. In Nebraska, insurance companies have a much lower reserve requirement, ie. they have to keep a much smaller ratio of premium money in reserve for claims. Buffett was able to keep the balance between the remaining claims money and actual claims paid (the “float") and invest it in blue chip stocks that were almost guaranteed to grow faster than his need to pay claims, in addition to throwing off nice cash flow. Do you have issues with Buffett’s use of the law here? Why do companies incorporate in Delaware? Why to banks operate out of the Caymans? Why do wealthy individuals spend so much time in Geneva? All to hide their money and increase their wealth. Nothing wrong with it if it’s legal and you can afford it.

“Nothing wrong with it if it’s legal and you can afford it.”
EllisW-

Judas was a capitalist as well. Your attitude about capital stinks.

Capitalism is at its best when it behaves itself for the benefit of all concerned.

“...I don’t see Wal-Mart asking for a bailout here. Neither do I see them asking for a merchant banking license.”
Try www.Helen Keller.org

WalMart- Our ‘war room’ people must make us look good by making Warren Buffet and others look worse.

Dave,

“Bob in

Thats my point!”

What IS your point?  That you were, just trying to blame Wal-Mart for something else or that EllisW, was trying to confuse you with facts and figures or that if Wal-Mart owns ARVEST BANK, why don’t they just do all their business through ARVEST?

SanDiegoView,

“Capitalism is at its best when it behaves itself for the benefit of all concerned.”

That goes for BOTH sides!!  If a person, who’s labor is WORTH $7.00 an hour, expects to be paid $15.00 an hour for that labor, he/she is NOT behaving “for the benefit of all concerned”.  The fact that 1.4 million people are willing to work for what Wal-Mart pays, shows that it is a FAIR pay for the labor provided, either that or you are saying that 1.4 million ‘associates’ are STUPID, and I say, if they are STUPID, they don’t deserve higher pay, we don’t pay high wages for STUPID in capitalism.

Bob-

That you were, just trying to blame Wal-Mart for something else or that EllisW, was trying to confuse you with facts and figures or that if Wal-Mart owns ARVEST BANK, why don’t they just do all their business through ARVEST?

I believe Dave is correct in that the Waltons (not to be confused with Wal-Mart) do own Arvest Bank. I still fail to understand his point in bringing it up.

EllisW and Tony - you guys hit the nail on the head!

In a previous post elsewhere on this board, I rambled about much of the same.  In fact, Ken Lewis, the CEO of Bank of America Corportation has made it publicly known that he doesn’t want Wal-Mart to get into the banking biz.

Why?

Because Wal-Mart “might” take some business from his 5,000-plus bank branches (which spans 30 states and the District of Columbia).  For those who haven’t yet figured it out, much of the nation’s checks you write/cards you swipe get processed by BofA and other big banks (not necessairily the Federal Reserve, as many may think).

Contrary to what the unions and other Wal-Mart distractors may have everyone thinking, this isn’t about your small bank on Main Street going-away (chances are that happened back in the late 90’s during the bank merger boom).

Again, Wal-Mart wants an ILC - nothing more, nothing less—but as far as I am concerned, so what if they want to get into banking on a larger scale?  I’m sure a lot of those predatory payday lenders would close-up shop in a heartbeat!

Just my two cents’ worth…

Jim, EllisW, Someone

Thanks for understanding the point of my post and for your intelligent responses.  It blows my mind that so many people fail to see the real motive (and money) behind this proposed legislation.  This issue is so much bigger than Wal-Mart.  It’s really about the power a handful of banks wield over the assets and economy of this country.  This is no more than an attempt to help preserve their near monopolistic control over banking.  The Congressmen’s biggest donors are in the financial sector, imagine that.  Unfortunately, too many people on this sight fail to see the bigger issue because of their blind hatred for Wal-Mart.  This extends way beyond Wal-Mart and the end ramifications may be much greater.  Please take the blinders off. 

Peace

Beyond the fact that anything that obstructs the will of the Beast costs it money and is therefore a good thing, I’m all for Wal-Mart getting into the banking business in a big way.

Judging by their inability to handle payroll data correctly, I say turn them loose on millions of transactions a day!  This could be a fiasco of monumental proportions!

And how would you like to get involved in the credit transactions of the average Wal-Mart shopper?  It won’t be long before Bentonville sees a profit to be made in collections.

Beyond the fact that anything that obstructs the will of the Beast costs it money and is therefore a good thing

This line of reasoning is precisely why no one with a mind can take the anti-Wal-Mart movement seriously.

By implication, Someone, H. Lee Scott then is without a mind since he characterized the anti Wal-Mart movement as:

“...one of the most organized, most sophisticated, most expensive corporate campaigns ever launched against a single company.”

Dealing with Wal-Mart is like the joke about the mule and the 2x4.  First you have to get their attention. And how, you may ask, do you get Bentonville’s attention?  By costing them money.  By making everything they do cost more and by encouraging people to buy their toilet paper at a dollar store.

When I joined the anti Wal-Mart movement (5 yrs) there was always some pro Wal-Marter ready to dismiss any fine or lawsuit loss as a “drop in the bucket”.  You don’t hear that much any more since the drops have gotten so large and numerous.