Banks

Party warfare and polarization of ideologies may be significantly to blame for the finger-pointing and squabbling in Washington D.C. Open primaries, term limits, and policies that suspend Congressional pay if shutdowns occur are just some of the answers to questions of how we must reform the internal mechanisms of our government in order to get back on track for being a proud and confident nation.

Yet, these policies may be some time away from now until young leaders are put in power that are willing to limit their own power for long-term objectives. Until that time, we must ask serious questions about how all of us – Republicans, Democrats and Independents – can come together to help shape the new Republican Party and bring back a balance of power to the system to check the unprecedented spending and waste in our federal government.

Every dollar our government spends today is a dollar that young people will have to pay back in their future. This is inherently unfair and unjust. Entrenched leaders in Washington D.C. continue to waste the money of future generations for their own political short-term gain. Our interests, the interests of those in their thirties, twenties and younger – are not being represented.

Young people have an opportunity to take over the Republican Party here in Oregon – be you Democrat, Republican or Independent. We have the opportunity to shape the party for ourselves and take back what is our future to spend – not theirs.

And conservative and progressive values, the real kind that is (as opposed to the kind promoted by the media), may be the kind we younger generations can embrace. We know what it is like to be under the weight of massive educational debt, not to have the employment opportunities we were told would be waiting for us on the other side, and to find ourselves unable to fulfill our American Dreams.

Our current leaders have failed us. We must now take up the torch and lead with real principles. That is, with self-sacrifice, courage, and pride in a future America we can own and love.

Entitlements are wasting our money. Military ventures are wasting our money. Centralized corporate-sponsored federal programs are wasting our money. Congress is wasting our money. This is our future. We want this future to be green, healthy, productive, and local.

To get back in the game we must go to work. We must find work in any sector. If it means working in an area we perceive to be below our educational level, we must work. We must reject anything handed to us. Only then can we hold our heads high. And we must hold our heads high in order to lead.

We will bring jobs back from overseas. We will go to the ports, find out what China is shipping to us, and make those products here. We will make them better and less expensive. We will encourage entrepreneurs. We will educate. We will stockpile. Our future will be one of great influence.

We will put our money into credit unions and keep our organizations nimble, flexible and local – like Privateers. We will execute a trade surplus and pay down our deficit. And we will not be reckless with the future of our next wave of youth.

We will reform Congress. We will take only one term in any given political office and will condemn political entrenchment and the establishment. We will limit our salaries because what we do is a service to our Great Nation, not a pillage of our Great Nation. We will give back, we will pay the way forward, we will unite, we will overcome and we will live mightily on our principles, work and love.

Timothy Crawley, a native son of Oregon, is a candidate for the 2014 United States Senate seat for Oregon.

Dodd-Frank and the Too-Big-To-Fail regulations of the Great Recession have done nothing to curb the growth and expansiveness of multinational banking institutions here in the United States. Our politicians’ actions in Washington D.C. have failed to address the heart of the issue in the big-banking world: accountability. Corporate behemoths such as JP Morgan Chase have shamelessly lobbied Congress for the kind of downside protection that affords key members in the banking echelons not only the notorious golden parachutes that reward failure of duty, but also the kind of criminal immunity that Attorney General Eric Holder has referred to as “Too Big to Jail.” Crony capitalism of this form is the result of a lack in accountability.

The facts show that these obese banks game the system. They have found creative ways around the Volker Rule, legislation that banned the high-risk practice of proprietary trading. The reason they can and do game the system is because their size divests them of accountability to the customers they are supposed to be serving. Indeed, one large bank is known to refer to its customers as “muppets”. As drone attacks make fighting a war more impersonal, and thus, easier to rationalize, so do the actions of institutions that, because of their size, have created positions so specialized as to blur employees’ vision of their broader action and the morality behind such action. The right hand knows no longer what the left hand is doing.

The regulations the federal government has responded with have created the façade that our Congress is acting to curb the growth of these banks. Higher capital requirements, seemingly sensible to reduce risk, are a mere short-run band aid for a problem with no end in sight. Long-run, high-stakes betting, not covered by Volcker remains a virus in the banking system. As often happens when government policies lay down a blanket for reform, the little guys are squeezed out by higher costs in operations. Smaller banks find it more difficult to survive.

Should we not be rewarding accountability and deterring its obsolescence? Small banks (as well as businesses) focus on cutting costs and reducing waste as much if not more than their larger counterparts. Their efficiency is a product of a drive in quality. They are held accountable because clients are not “muppets” but rather the lifeblood of the institution. The clients live next door and form an integral and valued part of the system that generates their profits.

In 1904, Amadeo Giannini founded the Bank of Italy in San Francisco where he provided services to the immigrant communities of the city. He is great not because of his resulting progeny now known as Bank of America, but because his actions, at the most local level, served to ease the painful effects of San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake. Giannini was a banker accountable to his society. His motivation did not lie in the obfuscated derivatives of today’s Wall Street, but in the life of his neighbors who needed his help.

Accountability should be the overall aim of a society, not only for a recovering economy but also for one that wants to achieve sustainable growth, smoother business cycles, and higher quality products.

Youth and the Republican Party: An American Recovery

The Accountability of Banks