RE: More Proof Centralized Entities Cannot Be Trusted
You are viewing a single comment's thread:
They might not be on paper, but in reality they are. Banks are heavily regulated. You can't just open a bank like you would open a shop that sells shoes. That limits supply. On the other hand there are laws (at least in EU) that force businesses to use banks for payments above certain amount (that artificially increases demand). Also since for businesses and individuals the only form of money other than what is in banks is the cash, and that is in short supply compared to all the money in existence, you could say that money don't exist outside of banks. Being declined service by the banks is therefore akin of being denied the right to even own money or do business. Such a thing can easily become heated political issue, especially if banks start to collude. F.e. decline service based on carbon footprint or other ESG-like score.
As far as I remember couple of years ago there was something along the lines:
In light of possible regulation heavily affecting that type of businesses, we refuse to service retail arms dealers.
How did that end? As far as I know the banks were actually slapped by government for doing that.
Regulation only serves to insulate the banks against competition. As you said, you cant just open one up.
As for regulation, if they ignore it, is it really in effect. US banks have paid over $500 billion in fines since the Great Financial Crisis, meaning that is just a cost of doing business.
Since bankers never face criminal charges, they do what they want.