Disclaimer: I'm not a banker and have never worked in a bank, so this may be way off base :P

I was trying to go to sleep earlier but instead started thinking about some of our economic problems. Among the problems:
*Credit is tight
*Businesses can't get credit so they don't expand operations and thus don't hire people
*Businesses don't hire so we have high unemployment
*Unemployment means the unemployed can't pay their mortgages
*Banks have to foreclose on the mortgage and get houses worth less and less
*Credit stays tight

So given this, if I'm the manager of a bank I think I'd start a new program. I'd send a letter to everyone close to getting foreclosed on by my bank and say 'If you aren't paying your mortgage because you're unemployed, send me your resume.' Then I'd go to companies that want credit, hand them the stack of resumes, and say 'Sure, I'll give you a loan, and I'll even reduce your rate by a certain percentage for each of these people that you agree to hire.' Companies then get a low-interest loan, a few people that didn't have a job now have one and can restart payments on their mortgage, and the bank makes up for the low-interest loan by receiving payment on once delinquent mortgages. If it catches on and more banks start doing it, home prices could start to rise, banks benefit again, and I have just saved the US economy. Thoughts?

Klown for president!

i clicked on this thread planning to make fun of whatever you posted, but damn this is actually a really good idea...

sounds good, but credit sucks. you're borrowing against your future instead of building from past success.

good idea, but the red tape and restrictions on things like this would prevent it from ever happening imo.

Really? Just seems like basic capitalism to me.

Yeah, but the Feds control the base loan rates, among a good number of other things.

The capitalism of the unitedstates isn't what it used to be. It's a nice ideal, but the US is far from pure capitalism

The idea is GREAT. Unfortunately, the barriers to it are manifold. :(

Banks usually huge corporations, with tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of employees, tens of millions of clients, hundreds of billions (sometimes even trillions) of USD in assets, often with thousands or even tens of thousands of branchs.

Customer service is not that personal, even more with the rush toward automatization these past couple of decades.

There are quite a few of these, but so far as I can see, banking follows the other markets in the US with a few giants dominating the upper levels of the industry on a national/international level, and 100's of smaller individual banks provide service on a local level, with a moderate number operating on regional levels.

Granted this is changing with the giants buying out the failing small guys, but there are still lots of small guys. That's where I see this idea as more of a solution for the last two rather than the first.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763206.html

most of the market share is among the big ones really.

anyway, I doubt there is much difference between a robo signer and the way they actually work fluff there.

btw, the costs of this smaller bank would likely be higher with personalized service. this means higher interest rates.

nvm the too big to fail advantage big banks enjoy in the USA because, in the end, it will be the insurance company (or the feds, if the problem is too big) that will be shafted by the default.

That's no different than any other industry though really - 3-5 giants control %85 of the market, and the other %99 of them fight for the left overs.

I bank with a regional bank, and their personalized service is fantastic. I get called by my first name when I walk in the door, get a monthly call from my banker whether I need something or not, and they even send me a x-mas card. lol!

I also think it's more likely to be the medium sized financial holdings groups that will likely suffer over the insurance groups. Insurance company holdings aren't nearly as vulnerable to a volatile market as groups of short and medium term investors by my understanding.