Can't bank on anything now
Merciful heavens, my favorite bank is about to change its name, again.
Never mind that our local Wachovia Bank branch near Wawa on Garrisonville Road has been known as the friendliest place around, or at least as friendly as it’s possible for those traditionally cold bank lobbies to get. (Aside: Wachovia and Wawa: What language is that? Add Wahaha, a Chinese beverage company.)
Unfortunately, friendly doesn’t count for squat today. For Wachovia is in the process of becoming a branch of Citi, a familiar bastardization of Wall Street banking monikers. But wait! Riding to the rescue is Warren Buffett and Wells Fargo. Back to the drawing ,er, sign board, as lawsuits fly.
This kind of evolution of bank ownership is nothing new, of course. Except that the current one is the result, not of the customary greed and the gobble-up mentality we’ve seen before, but the threat of Wachovia’s going belly up, like many others in the current financial crisis we’re trying to see our way through.
For local historians trying to keep score on our bank branch’s changing labels, recall that 30 years ago when I first moved into Aquia Harbour, it was Peoples Bank of Stafford. I became a client when it was the only place nearby with safe-deposit boxes available to rent.
In short order, its name got changed, first to Jefferson National Bank and then to Wachovia. And now to something else. Say tuned.
Thank goodness the tellers have remained pretty much unblemished, as far as I can tell. They all still love Lollipop, my little old Yorkie dependent, and they dole out doggie bones to her every time we visit--an appreciated dividend.
The outside world, however, has been crashing around us, like many others, it seems. Explanations? Don’t ask me--although I’m a true treasure trove of knowledge a mile wide and an inch deep. Others far more erudite and learned will be doing that endlessly and confusingly over the coming months and years of our darkening recession.
Just don’t expect any illumination on the crisis from Congress. (Pardon me while I throw up.) The Democrats and Republicans alike stood around twiddling their thumbs while allowing, yea forcing, Fannie and Freddie to promote outrageously dangerous home loans until it was too late to do anything to fend off the resulting foreclosure fiascos.
Others have long warned of the foolishness. As I recounted last March in this space, billionaire Mort Zuckerman--editor of US News and World Report--was one of the early predictors of the events that are unfolding, before everyone else chimed in. He wrote: “[T]his financial crisis is the worst since the panic that led to the Great Depression.” --The last time I dared sneak a peek, the stock market was down over 33 percent from a year ago. That spells major trouble.
But enough of the recriminations. Another of our local bank branches also deserves name-change mention. Bank of America‘s new North Stafford branch is across from Wachovia in Stafford Marketplace. B of A is the nation’s biggest acquirer rather than an acquire-ee. Fate has had me also tied to its fortunes.
Let me start at the beginning. Way back in 1963 in my Falls Church neighborhood a new bank opened, featuring no-charge checking accounts. I signed up. Soon, although tiny Commonwealth National’s free feature remained, the bank sequentially got gobbled up by Virginia National Bank, then Sovran, then Nations Bank, and now B of A--which by the way has even gobbled up much of Merrill Lynch.
Even so, over the course of nearly 50 years and through all the name changes, my no-charge checking account status remains. Is America great or what?
Still, the current financial situation is dire, to put it mildly.
As Instapundit blog’s Glenn Reynolds summed it up recently: “It's clear that the federal government can't spend as much as it's committed to spending, and can't raise taxes enough to make up the difference without killing the economy. And the economic bailout-and-regulation talk now doesn't make me think that we'll see enough economic growth over the next five or 10 years for this problem to fix itself, which was never likely and seems less so now.”
Not that stalwart Stafford residents like yours truly would have all that much to worry about. We federal retirees, with our guaranteed pensions and health plans, are sitting pretty, regardless. That’s true unless extreme hardships were to force our former little chicks to come back home to the nest. I do love my grandkids, one and all, and even more so my great-grandchildren. But standing in line to go to the bathroom, given the recently increasing urgency of my visits, isn’t my vision of a happy retirement.
Thus would a recession quickly become a depression here at home.
Never mind that our local Wachovia Bank branch near Wawa on Garrisonville Road has been known as the friendliest place around, or at least as friendly as it’s possible for those traditionally cold bank lobbies to get. (Aside: Wachovia and Wawa: What language is that? Add Wahaha, a Chinese beverage company.)
Unfortunately, friendly doesn’t count for squat today. For Wachovia is in the process of becoming a branch of Citi, a familiar bastardization of Wall Street banking monikers. But wait! Riding to the rescue is Warren Buffett and Wells Fargo. Back to the drawing ,er, sign board, as lawsuits fly.
This kind of evolution of bank ownership is nothing new, of course. Except that the current one is the result, not of the customary greed and the gobble-up mentality we’ve seen before, but the threat of Wachovia’s going belly up, like many others in the current financial crisis we’re trying to see our way through.
For local historians trying to keep score on our bank branch’s changing labels, recall that 30 years ago when I first moved into Aquia Harbour, it was Peoples Bank of Stafford. I became a client when it was the only place nearby with safe-deposit boxes available to rent.
In short order, its name got changed, first to Jefferson National Bank and then to Wachovia. And now to something else. Say tuned.
Thank goodness the tellers have remained pretty much unblemished, as far as I can tell. They all still love Lollipop, my little old Yorkie dependent, and they dole out doggie bones to her every time we visit--an appreciated dividend.
The outside world, however, has been crashing around us, like many others, it seems. Explanations? Don’t ask me--although I’m a true treasure trove of knowledge a mile wide and an inch deep. Others far more erudite and learned will be doing that endlessly and confusingly over the coming months and years of our darkening recession.
Just don’t expect any illumination on the crisis from Congress. (Pardon me while I throw up.) The Democrats and Republicans alike stood around twiddling their thumbs while allowing, yea forcing, Fannie and Freddie to promote outrageously dangerous home loans until it was too late to do anything to fend off the resulting foreclosure fiascos.
Others have long warned of the foolishness. As I recounted last March in this space, billionaire Mort Zuckerman--editor of US News and World Report--was one of the early predictors of the events that are unfolding, before everyone else chimed in. He wrote: “[T]his financial crisis is the worst since the panic that led to the Great Depression.” --The last time I dared sneak a peek, the stock market was down over 33 percent from a year ago. That spells major trouble.
But enough of the recriminations. Another of our local bank branches also deserves name-change mention. Bank of America‘s new North Stafford branch is across from Wachovia in Stafford Marketplace. B of A is the nation’s biggest acquirer rather than an acquire-ee. Fate has had me also tied to its fortunes.
Let me start at the beginning. Way back in 1963 in my Falls Church neighborhood a new bank opened, featuring no-charge checking accounts. I signed up. Soon, although tiny Commonwealth National’s free feature remained, the bank sequentially got gobbled up by Virginia National Bank, then Sovran, then Nations Bank, and now B of A--which by the way has even gobbled up much of Merrill Lynch.
Even so, over the course of nearly 50 years and through all the name changes, my no-charge checking account status remains. Is America great or what?
Still, the current financial situation is dire, to put it mildly.
As Instapundit blog’s Glenn Reynolds summed it up recently: “It's clear that the federal government can't spend as much as it's committed to spending, and can't raise taxes enough to make up the difference without killing the economy. And the economic bailout-and-regulation talk now doesn't make me think that we'll see enough economic growth over the next five or 10 years for this problem to fix itself, which was never likely and seems less so now.”
Not that stalwart Stafford residents like yours truly would have all that much to worry about. We federal retirees, with our guaranteed pensions and health plans, are sitting pretty, regardless. That’s true unless extreme hardships were to force our former little chicks to come back home to the nest. I do love my grandkids, one and all, and even more so my great-grandchildren. But standing in line to go to the bathroom, given the recently increasing urgency of my visits, isn’t my vision of a happy retirement.
Thus would a recession quickly become a depression here at home.
posted by Ben Blankenship at
11:42 AM
