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| CAMEL COUNTRY! |
Possess that clear, liquid gold, and you have immaculate, lushly landscaped, gated-communities - surrounding manicured golf courses. Without agua, you have a sun-blistered, single-wide at the end of a couple of dusty ruts - parked at the edge of nowhere.
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| LUSH, PLUSH, AND FLUSH WITH WATER ! |
Palm Springs is an arrogant work of man, defiantly thrust into the face of nature. Looking at Palm Springs, it’s not hard to imagine how great cities, entire civilizations of the past came to be abandoned, when natural eruptions or civil disruptions poisoned wells, destroyed aqueducts, or shifted the course of the Tigris and Euphrates. Golf links on the brink - Welcome to Palm Springs!
Well, talking about dry subjects, let me tell you about a recent conference in the "Desert City"....
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| Highly burnished "egg-o's" !! |
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| And, a panjandrum or two... |
You name it - presidents, politicians, polecats, and poachers; preachers, pooh-bahs, predators and pretenders; even a panjandrum or two - all were there! Egos were highly burnished and personalities were clearly megascopic. I felt sort of like a groupie at a Bono "Save the Whatever" rock concert...
The "roundtable" conference most certainly lived up to its name. There were lots of CEOs sitting at roundtables and lots of trade association folks just sitting around. Everybody waited, but not much happened. A few guys without ties talked about the future, a few guys with ties talked about politics, and a few guys with bow-ties talked about the future of politics.
A good bit of the futurism was way over my head; but I did get the gist: "In the future, the world will be run by people who are - or who act like - 14-year-olds." On politics, we were assured that "progress was being made" and a "victory" was near, although no specific year was ever actually mentioned. One speaker talked about a cooperative, national ad campaign - a perennial, CU "zombie idea" which simply refuses to die. He did an excellent job of being thoroughly unconvincing.
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| The next VA? "No Convincing Value Added" |
But the hottest session involved quite a few credit unions raging at length about our "four letter friends" in Alexandria. It was not a discussion designed for tender ears nor the faint of heart! So, what was really at the bottom of their concern? Two things it seemed.
First, the ever increasing expropriation of NCUSIF earnings by NCUA to fund "daily-dilly-dally" operating costs. Second, several CUs had recently converted from federal charters; and, were finding - much to their dismay - that they had not escaped the current, "too much is never enough" regulatory regime at NCUA. As state-chartered credit unions have known for years, NCUA - with increasing impunity - continues to wantonly castrate and gleefully "deflower" state regulators through its role as federal deposit insurer.
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| The duel charter system. (Is only one gun "loaded"?) |
Well guys and gals, all I can say is: "Get over it!"; and welcome to the real world of the dual-chartering system! And yes, it is "a duel" alright! Now more than ever! And, what's worse, NCUA has one additional "character flaw", which should be of far greater concern than fictionalized budgetary overhead and injudicious regulatory overreach; the Agency has decided it no longer needs to listen.... as the Agency has so clearly demonstrated of late in three separate mock "listening sessions"and in contemptuous letters to Congress.
The Agency should reconsider its' self-destructive position of inattentive arrogance. Why? Because some intelligent, influential CU folks from all over the Country have started talking about "turning the water off" at the NCUA .... and Congress appears increasingly willing to listen! Can't happen? Do you remember the FSLIC, or the OTS...?
With the embarrassing RBC rule fiasco, is NCUA "in over its' head"?
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| NCUA: Hemorrhaging credibility? |
... "the fins" are definitely in the water - circling the smell of blood.
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