There is an interesting case out of Perkins, Oklahoma where Federal Reserve officials reportedly ordered a small bank (The Payne County Bank) to remove religious Christmas displays. I fail to see the authority of Federal Reserve officials to limit the free speech to a bank, particularly religious-based speech. If the bank wants to marginalize non-Christian customers through sectarian displays, I think it has a constitutionally protected right to do so. What it cannot do is actually discriminate in the establishment or handling of accounts.
Federal Reserve examiners reported came for one of their visits (every four years) and saw a posted daily Bible verse, hanging crosses, and buttons saying “Merry Christmas, God With Us.” There was also a Bible verse on the Internet. All were ordered removed by the federal examiners.
The action is based on the Federal Reserve’s “Non-Discouragement” rule contained in Title 12 (Section 202.4). The same section as an anti-discrimination policy:
§ 202.4 General rules.
(a) Discrimination. A creditor shall not discriminate against an applicant on a prohibited basis regarding any aspect of a credit transaction.
(b) Discouragement. A creditor shall not make any oral or written statement, in advertising or otherwise, to applicants or prospective applicants that would discourage on a prohibited basis a reasonable person from making or pursuing an application.
Regulation B further states:
Regulation B
Sec. 202.1 Authority, scope and purpose.
(b) Purpose. The purpose of this regulation is to promote the availability of credit to all creditworthy applicants without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, or age (provided the applicant has the capacity to contract); to the fact that all or part of the applicant’s income derives from a public assistance program; or to the fact that the applicant has in good faith exercised any right under the Consumer Credit Protection Act. The regulation prohibits creditor practices that discriminate on the basis of any of these factors. The regulation also requires creditors to notify applicants of action taken on their applications; to report credit history in the names of both spouses on an account; to retain records of credit applications; to collect information about the applicant’s race and other personal characteristics in applications for certain dwelling-related loans; and to provide applicants with copies of appraisal reports used in connection with credit transactions.
The discouragement provision is hopelessly vague and ambiguous. Most anything could discourage some people. I would be discouraged to see a bank displaying White Sox testimonials rather than loyalty to the Cubs. Moreover, there is no apparent requirement of intent. I have not read any report that the bank preferred only Christian customers, alone actively sought to exclude non-Christians. Discriminating on the basis of religion is a “prohibited basis,” but displaying religious text or symbols is not prohibited for a private company. Section (a) is perfectly understandable and should suffice in this regard. Any active effort to deny service to non-Christian would be a form of prohibited discrimination.
I don’t like sectarian messages in banks. (I prefer a demonstration of economic knowledge rather than blind faith from my bankers). However, I find it deeply troubling to see federal examiners branching out into speech regulation. I would think that they have enough to do with banks failing across the country in this economy.
In an update, the Feds have backed down on the postings after a call from the president of Payne County Bank, Lynn Kinder. I remain, however, a bit concerned about the claimed authority here. Clearly, this regulation has not been challenged and I wonder how many of banks have simply complied with such speech limitations. There remains a troubling regulation on the books and regulators who believe that they have the right to demand the removal of such displays.
On its website, today’s biblical quotation is
Luke 2:1, 4-5
“[The Birth of Jesus] In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.”
A survey of the entire Federal Reserve actions under the non-discouragement policy might also merit a decree or two.
Jonathan Turley
anon nurse, Thank you for the definition.
Well said Mike A.
Buddha,
I see you have made some friends while I was out working!
The obvious purpose of the cited rule is to prevent discrimination in connection with the extension of credit. It has absolutely nothing to do with holiday displays of any sort by small town banks. Reliance on that rule by clueless regulators in this instance trivializes its purpose and lends credence to those who oppose any sort of regulation of the financial industry.
Bdaman
1, December 20, 2010 at 8:57 am
I wasn’t serious. I have a live tree and lots of lights.
I don’t believe in AGW.
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Lottakatz
1, December 20, 2010 at 10:28 am
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I assumed you were kidding but I never pass up an opportunity to lobby for sparkly lights, everywhere, year-round.
What is AGW?
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anon nurse
1, December 20, 2010 at 10:38 am
lottakatz:
Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (AGW)
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Nuts … I thought AGW stood for Against Good Weather and Bda wasn’t in favor of being against good weather … you people are too smart for me. I’m going to have to find a nice, conservative blog where everybody is dumb …
Lottakatz
1, December 20, 2010 at 11:34 am
J. Brian Harris, Ph.D., P.E.: “Alas, a Google Search I did showed an “E Kant” who is clearly not Immanuel Kant or Emannuele Kant, and I kant (oder, Ich kann nicht) think of any reason to contact said “E Kant” to ask about autism.”
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Brian, you play with us shamelessly 🙂 I do love your dry and wry sense of humor, yes I do 🙂
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I second that! Plus … he makes a lot of sense
Buddha’s Boss
1, December 20, 2010 at 10:15 am
There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: ……….
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Hey! Wait just one minute … I thought I was Buddha’s Boss
So if you as a customer walked into the bank wearing a cross and a merry christmas button on your lapel or your blouise will they not accept your deposit?
J. Brian Harris, Ph.D., P.E.: “I was astonished by the recognition that I only wanted to know what happened to me, because it was blatantly obvious to me that I knew what had happened because of how what had happened was affecting me, and was perplexedly flummoxed as to why I could not know what I could not not know.”
Critique of Pure Dread
“In formulating any philosophy, the first consideration must always be: What can we know? That is, what can we be sure we know, or sure that we know we knew it, if indeed it is at all knowable. Or have we simply forgotten it and are too embarrassed to say anything? Descartes hinted at the problem when he wrote , “My mind can never know my body, although it has become quite friendly with my legs.” By “knowable,” incidentally, I do not mean that which can be known by perception of the senses, or that which can be grasped by the mind, but more that which can be said to be Known or to possess Knownness or Knowability, or at least something you can mention to a friend.
Can we actually “know” the universe? My God, it’s hard enough to find your way around in Chinatown. The point, however, is: Is there anything out there? And why? And must they be so noisy? Finally, there can be no doubt that the one characteristic of “reality” is that it lacks essence. That is not to say it has no essence, but merely lacks it. (The reality I speak of here is the same Hobbes described, but a little smaller.) Therefore the Cartesian dictum “I think, therefore I am” might be better expressed “Hey, there goes Edna with a saxaphone!” So, then, to know a substance or an idea we must doubt it, and thus, doubting it, come to perceive the qualities it possesses in its finite state, which are truly “in the thing itself,” or “of the thing itself,” or of something or nothing. If this is clear, we can leave epistemology for the moment.”
— Woody Allen
http://profron.net/fun/WoodysPhilosophy.html
It’s an interesting article. I would like to know if this was the result of one over reaching examiner or a new policy by the Federal Reserve.
From my prospective, we all want regulators to be effective in stopping a bank crisis, but we then elect people who do not beleive in regulating. They in turn, appoint people to be in charge of our regulatory agencies (EPA, USDA, FTC, FDIC, Etc)who do not beleive in regulation. Think back to the last two waves of bank failures, who was the president?
Could you just imagine the outcry if a regulatory agency tried to take away a profitable business line, like credit default swaps or the ability to originate liar loans, away from banks and wall street. Congress and the media would have crucified any regulator if they had been effectively doing there jobs. But then again, it was congress that specifically exluded CDOs from regulation at the behest of wall street.
J. Brian Harris, Ph.D., P.E.: “Alas, a Google Search I did showed an “E Kant” who is clearly not Immanuel Kant or Emannuele Kant, and I kant (oder, Ich kann nicht) think of any reason to contact said “E Kant” to ask about autism.”
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Brian, you play with us shamelessly 🙂 I do love your dry and wry sense of humor, yes I do 🙂
Chan L: “…considering we don’t have free market capitalism and haven’t had it for a good long while and considering the FED controls interest rates which pretty much controls the economy,…”
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Are you nuts? (Not joking either). I don’t know what kind of gasses you wear but the tint is distorting reality:
The Stock market is doing fine.
Tax loopholes have been maintained for run-away American companies.
The wealthiest among us (1%) control around 38% and the next 19% control 50-odd% of the nations wealth and those 2 groups just had their tax breaks lowered for a couple more years after an 8 years long break.
The bottom 80% of the population controls 15% of the wealth/net worth in the country by way of contrast.
Big business profits are record breaking and executive compensation has elevated executives to economic royalty.
The level of most regulation has been reduced to ‘self-policing’.
The Fed discount rate is UP TO 0.75 from 0.5 (great return for the taxpayer huh) and the Fed Funds rate is 0.25.
The real unemployment rate is around 20% (a loose labor market is a boon to business).
The state of business and wealth is just fine from the point of view of the top 1% and the next 19%. The money is out there and free-flowing. Subsidies from government in tax breaks (when and if they pay any taxes) are secure. Times are GOOD.
The only way it gets better from a free marketeer/Libertarian standpoint is if that bottom 80% all starve to death quickly and the cost of their social safety net and entitlements are used to lower the taxes of the top 20% and all business’ to 0%. They won’t even have to go to the trouble of re-branding “trickle-down” and re-selling it every 10 years or so.
Chan L:
Autism is a word I find originally used by Eugen Bleuler circa 1911, as a term for an uncommonly intense experiencing of the self as an object of study. Know thyself? To thine own self be true?
It was in the sense used by Bleuler that I first recognized my being autistic, while reading through Sadler, “Theory and Practice of Psychiatry,” Mosby, 1936; (book my dad got in 1940) when I was in third grade in 1947.
Although Leo Kanner’s 1943 paper, “Autistic Disorders of Affective Contact” predated my first reading of Sadler, and although I easily meet the DSM-IV-TR criteria for “Autistic Disorder,” I find that the manner in which I am autistic is only a mental disorder for folks whose statistical methods are purely of the frequentist camp; I am predominantly, but not exclusively, Bayesian in my statistical machinations.
In the original Bleuler sense, Immmanuel Kant (1724-1804) was surely a student of selfhood — and, as I understand the whole of “the autism spectrum,” autistic; though not especially in the mental-disorder sense.
I am not being “cute” by tossing in Immanuel Kant’s first name; I am aware of, but have never seen nor attempted to read, a book by Norberto Bobbio, “Diritto e stato nel pensiero di Emanuele Kant.” For the purposes of these blog comments, “E. Kant” is the same person as Immanuel, with his name converted to another language.
Asking me about “E Kant” is, in my view, a perfectly valid way to ask me about Immanuel Kant, and not necessarily any sort of mistake.
Alas, a Google Search I did showed an “E Kant” who is clearly not Immanuel Kant or Emannuele Kant, and I kant (oder, Ich kann nicht) think of any reason to contact said “E Kant” to ask about autism.
Being, from the frequentist outlier rejection limit of 0.05 for statistical significance, an outlier (and hence statistically insignificant), I was driven to Bayesian approaches in order to allow myself to exist.
Once I have allowed my existence as Bayesian-valid, I cannot deny validity to anyone, or anything, else which actually exists in the directly-observable sense.
During my unanticipated field work for the Ph.D., done as an iatrogenic psychiatric patient, one of the psychotherapists who was working with me asked me why I “wanted to be so rare.” I replied, in effect, “Everyone is one-of-a-kind-in-forever. I am neither more nor less rare than is anyone else. I only want to know what happened to me.”
I was astonished by the recognition that I only wanted to know what happened to me, because it was blatantly obvious to me that I knew what had happened because of how what had happened was affecting me, and was perplexedly flummoxed as to why I could not know what I could not not know.
Rigorously solving the seeming paradox of that enigma generated the essence of my dissertation. The solution turns out to be the biological mechanism of terror, terrorists, and terrorism, and its plausible future remediation, at the level of the apparently-deepest-possible root cause of human terrorism, which happens to be of the evident nature of the initial cosmology of existence.
The Argentinian film by Eliseo Subiela, on VHS with English Subtitles, “Man Facing Southeast,” is among the accounts of the surface effects of internalized terror and hints at its remediation, that I have encountered.
Perhaps about as much as Rantes (I deem it likely that “you” will have to have seen the movie or see it, to understand this), in the movie, is bereft of direct affective awareness, my cognitively-intellectual life is merely an indirect expression of my actually-real affective-process life.
As I understand the words I have here been able to find, nothing I have here written is deceptive, dishonest, or misleading.
Oooo.
Some nanny nanny boo boo from the sociopath section.
That all you got?
Tell us how no regulations of business equates to fair play under the Jeffersonian take on natural law?
You can’t, but it’ll be funny to see you try.
Tony already rightly pointed out that socialism is the natural order among smaller groups of humans. To wit: “Socialism (not communism) is the default state of how humans organize their affairs in the typical native group of less than 200 persons. Socialism simply embraces the obvious truth that people can cooperate and reduce their costs, whether in terms of money or effort or time. Thirty families can EACH build an oven and a fire and all tend their baking bread separately, or with a tenth of the effort build a large community oven and all bake their bread together, with less firewood and less effort because one baker can tend 30 loaves about as easily as one loaf.
The Romans built the aquaducts because everybody needs water, and they gave it away for free in public fountains and baths open to everybody.
Socialism is the default state of humanity and has existed for as long as we have been modern humans. Probably since before that; there is strong evidence Neanderthalis practiced socialism.”
Which comports perfectly with Jefferson’s natural law.
And be sure to tell us how un-Jeffersonian it is to loathe the abuses of banks and corporations while you’re at making things up to rationalize your greed.
Socialism is a break with the natural law of Jefferson.
I am not the law breaker, you are.
LK,
Might I suggest topping that cereal with some CCC’s?
Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. 😉
This message sponsored by “Hedonism” – if you have to ask yourself “is this too much?”, it ain’t Hedonism!
lottakatz
“Uh, what was the question? Sorry, the 3 cups of coffee didn’t bother me but finishing the big bowl of sugar- coated cereal just pushed me over the edge. Never mind.”
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LOL (’tis the season to indulge…)
lottakatz:
Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (AGW)
But please, tell how unregulated free markets will cure the ills of the world.
Lie to us some more.
Bdaman:
“I wasn’t serious. I have a live tree and lots of lights.
I don’t believe in AGW.”
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I assumed you were kidding but I never pass up an opportunity to lobby for sparkly lights, everywhere, year-round.
What is AGW?
Oh, and a blatant disregard for the law.
Or the rights of others.