[quote=CA renter]
But don’t forget that with fractional reserve lending, they are making many times the going rate on our deposits.
If we had full reserve banking, I could see charging people for the service provided by a bank, but with fractional reserve banking, they are already making enough money to pay for all the costs and then some. It wouldn’t be as profitable as it’s been these past couple of decades, but banking is, in itself, unproductive, and should be a much smaller part of our economy.
If the banks can’t cut it, then perhaps our financial infrastructure is important enough to be handled by the Treasury. After all, we don’t really need private banks — especially if they are going to privatize all the profits while foisting their losses on the taxpayers all the time, do we?[/quote]
So you’re saying that we as citizens can somehow determine and then should attempt to enforce a “proper” amount of profit for businesses?
It’s my understanding that jewelry stores have tremendous markup on the products they sell…
Does that mean Ben Bridge and Jessup’s should be forced to give some or all of us free watch cleaning and repair, because they “make enough”?
Should we reduce their profits? Should we be able to say what they can charge, or be able to limit their markup, so that the “most vulnerable among us” aren’t victimized? [BTW, I’m one of them].
I mean really, they have watches there that are like 15,000 dollars. Let’s say their cost was $5000. That’s almost a criminal amount of markup! Shouldn’t we prevent jewelry stores from ripping folks off like that? Perhaps we shouldn’t even allow them to sell baubles that are so unnecessary and expensive.
For that matter, do we even need private jewelry stores? Couldn’t the government serve our wristwatch, necklace, ring and earring needs more fairly? Think how much cheaper things would be if we just took profit out of the picture.
I suppose you could (probably legitimately) say “banks are different’. But once you start down that path, where do you stop? What other industries might we be able to convince ourselves that we should get involved in or privatize? Food production? Medical equipment? Insurance? Aerospace and Defense? Energy?
