e20 - Local Banking to Help our Communities

04/27/23 • 12 min

There's a been a lot of banking discussions in the last few months - the Silicon Valley Bank run, Credit Suisse, RBC looking to buy HSBC. There's so much talk about banking and how it fits into our communities. I see local and community banking as a piece of the infrastructure that is necessary for a healthy community, especially the business community. As the banks have merged to become larger, the local decision making and understanding of the local business community has been removed. Every business is the same, but every business is also different. More local understanding of businesses can increase the access to capital available for small businesses and in communities. Credit Unions can be a source of this local banking infrastructure, but they are consolidating themselves to compete with the large banks. One option for the Federal Government to consider - Postal Banking.

Links from today's episode:

Links from today's episode:

Previous Episode

e19: Get that Trash Outta here - Municipalities can be anti-monopoly too

Welcome back to Monopolies Killed My Hometown. We're back after my little hiatus with an episode on garbage removal and how I see Municipalities contributing to the Anti-Monopoly Fight. In this episode we're looking at the Town of Amherst's tender process for the new 5-year waste removal contract. My take is that the Town of Amherst combined their tender with the Municipality of Cumberland to increase their bargaining power in order to get the best possible value for Citizens. I appreciate this goal. However this approach only solicited two tenders, and I'm certain with two bids we didn't get the lowest possible price. I explain my theory that breaking the tender into smaller pieces could have actually solicited more tenders, and perhaps a lower price for Citizens.

Some links from the episode:

Next Episode

E21: What happened to "Busy" Amherst?

I'm heading back to the Royal Commission on Price Spreads Report from 1934, specifically to look at the Chapter on Industry.

I wanted to look back at this chapter specifically for two reasons. First, the switch to a consumer welfare focus to our competition and anti-trust laws reduced people to only consumers. It removed any considerations about all the other roles people play in their lives like, friend, family member, business owner, worker, community member. It put the focus solely on our ability to spend money. This chapter on industry brought in so many of those other roles.

Second, Amherst historically had a large manufacturing base, and at the turn of the 20th century Amherst was known as "busy" Amherst. We've had plants that manufacture train cars, pants, trunks and baggage, boots, wool, steel i-beams, airplane parts, license plates, appliances, windows and doors, plastic bags, amongst many others.

Enjoy the introductory episode on Industry.

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