Kelton: This week, the Senate voted to shield Wall Street from consumer lawsuits. Does that concern you?
McCulley: Speaking of smell tests of social justice: This Senate action flunks, very bigly!
Banks are many things, but at their core, they have a public utility function, access to the payments system — the highway, if you will, on which you get paid and pay your bills.
In that sense, banks are not different than the gas company or the electric company, connecting you to the grid — a natural oligopoly. Accordingly, I take offense with the notion that banks should have the right to put cram-down arbitration clauses into every citizen’s “hook up” to the payment system.
You really don’t have a choice but to do business with a financial institution connected to the grid. In fact, unless you pay in person at a local I.R.S. office, you actually must have access to pay your taxes.
Kelton: So Donald Trump rode a wave of populist anger — some of it aimed at Wall Street — but when push comes to shove, the Republicans aren’t there for the little guy?
McCulley: I think it took a lot of brass, as former Vice President Biden might say, for the Republicans — including current Vice President Mike Pence — to stand up for the banks against consumers in the wake of the Wells Fargo and Equifax debacles. Access to the court system is a constitutional right, and requiring citizens to relinquish that right in order to get access to the payments grid is repugnant to me.
There is nothing voluntary about needing access to the payments grid, any more than there is anything voluntary about needing access to core household utilities. Social justice — a theme to which I return again and again — demands that citizens have access to the court system for redress in the purchases of services where they have no choice but to buy.
wonkmonk's notes 