{"id":4230,"date":"2009-02-16T13:00:09","date_gmt":"2009-02-16T18:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4230"},"modified":"2009-04-24T19:54:03","modified_gmt":"2009-04-25T00:54:03","slug":"democrats-are-to-economics-as-dogs-are-to-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4230","title":{"rendered":"Democrats Are To Economics As Dogs Are To Opera"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave Mindeman at mnpACTed <\/em>has the vapors<\/a> over TCF Bank’s planned shell-move to South Dakota:<\/p>\n

TCF Bank announced that they are moving their headquarters to South Dakota. Now before we get all that bogus high corporate tax nonsense, here is the reason:TCF National Bank will move its headquarters from Minnesota to Sioux Falls, S.D. in April to take advantage of more bank-friendly usury laws.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mindeman goes on to quote an explanation of “usury” laws – state caps on interest rates.\u00a0 South Dakota has none; banking is a completely free-market operation there (as well as in Delaware).\u00a0 That’s why so many banks moved their headquarters to the two states over the past twenty years.
\nTo Mindeman, of course, there’s only one response:<\/p>\n

So, TCF (TARP recipient) is setting things up to jack up future interest rates on consumers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Glad to see TCF is going to “help” out on our economic troubles by helping us part with more of our money.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first question that jumps to your mind should be “is Mindeman that ignorant? Or is he just counting on his readers to be that ignorant? Or could it be both?”<\/p>\n

He gives a tiny little glimmer of evidence that he could be “b”:<\/p>\n

Consumers beware!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, duh.\u00a0 Don’t sign up for no-cap-rate credit<\/em>.\u00a0 It’s one of those things in life – unlike, say, government “stimulus” packages that we and the next four generations of our progeny get sucked into on the “wisdom” of Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank – that you can opt out of by (radical concept here) not taking the credit card<\/em>.<\/p>\n

TCF is a bank that’s built its model on low cost, low-entry-point banking.\u00a0 They own an amazing amount of the low-end banking business in the Twin Cities, and earned it by offering aggressive no-cost checking and card accounts.\u00a0 They pay for those low-cost services, among other ways, by having high fees on their services and, yes, high interest rates.<\/p>\n

But just for fun, let’s assume Mindeman really doesn’t <\/em>know better; why does\u00a0 <\/em>he suppose TCF is moving its headquarters (albeit not shedding the HQ jobs in Minneapolis; it’s a change of incorporation more than anything else)?<\/p>\n

Because South Dakota banking laws are more amenable to the bank’s long-term health than Minnesota’s.\u00a0 So they don’t need <\/em>any more bailouts (not that they needed them in the first place; by all accounts TCF got TARP money as a credit pump-primer<\/a>, not a rescue).\u00a0 TCF is doing its fiduciary duty to its shareholders; securing the best conditions in which to do business.
\nAnd, it’s not unreasonable to assume, because TCF has no confidence that the DFL-controlled government won’t make things much, much worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dave Mindeman at mnpACTed has the vapors over TCF Bank’s planned shell-move to South Dakota: TCF Bank announced that they are moving their headquarters to South Dakota. Now before we get all that bogus high corporate tax nonsense, here is the reason:TCF National Bank will move its headquarters from Minnesota to Sioux Falls, S.D. in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-money"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}