Voice of Reason

"The sky is falling, the sky is falling," yell banking industry insiders, "community banks will have to sell out or close up shop because they won't be able to afford complying with the new requirements."

Other commentators write things like: "Yet, at the end of the day, essentially nothing in the entire legislation will reduce the potential for massive system risk as we head into the next credit cycle."

I suggested, yesterday, that each of us looks at a chair differently.  Those differences pale in comparison to the various ways we interpret written words.  As I write about the financial reform bill that languishes in the back rooms of the U.S. Capitol, I'm constantly balancing the two very different viewpoints expressed above.

You and I know better than to accept those views at face value.  They're devices, used to further their authors' bias and self-interest.  I think it's unfortunate that screamers of extreme viewpoints seem to get much, if not most, of the attention today.  I guess that's how money is made.

I hope our young people get the picture.  I suspect they're ahead of the rest of us, a generation or two farther removed than we from the grandmother who believed "if it's in writing, it's true."  They know better than to believe what they read on the Internet -- until they've rechecked with a variety of independent sources.

"So you're the voice of reason," says Virginia.

OF COURSE I AM!