A New York Times Editorial:
What would happen if a clutch of big banks decided that a particularly irksome blogger or other organization was “too risky”? What if they decided — one by one — to shut down financial access to a newspaper that was about to reveal irksome truths about their operations? This decision should not be left solely up to business-as-usual among the banks.
That is the way capitalism works (I write this knowing full well my inbox is going to be full), should a business decide not to want to transact with someone/something that is their right. This type of argument means that banks would need to approve a loan to anyone who asks. Banking for large companies is about so much more than having a convenient place to store their cash — banking is about also having a line of credit to pay the bills when cash flow becomes inconsistent. Forcing Bank of America to do business with someone who has their stolen property is no different from forcing a home owner to bail out the guy who just robbed their house.
This is a stupid argument by the NYT.
Capitalism was brought about to stop this. All this type of behavior (from banks) does is opens the door for a new bank to come about and swoop up that unwanted business. Don’t give me this crap that a business should be forced to transact with any being that is not deemed illegal by the government. By those standards banks must continue to work with drug dealers until such a point that they are proven guilty — or have we forgotten that our legal system is based on the notion that we are “innocent until proven guilty”?
I just don’t see how anybody can blame an independent body for deciding not to do business with an entity — especially when:
– That entity wants to harm them.
– People are free to decide whether to keep doing business with the bank.
If you really are pissed about this then it would be unacceptable for you to continue to bank with these institutions — to do otherwise would brand you a hypocrite.