Llewellyn King: Some things you won't like in 2015

The new year demands predictions. As those demands must be satisfied, here are mine: President Obama will be blamed for everything, from pet obesity to sunspots.

Jim DeMint, president of The Heritage Foundation, will continue to solicit me for money and will write me ingratiating letters as one conservative to supposedly another. Things are terrible because of Obama, he will say. But if I send him five bucks, the day can be saved for America.

Sen. Al Franken (D-.Minn.) will ask me for money, five bucks, to save America from the likes of DeMint.

Amtrak — whose high-speed train between Washington, D.C. and Boston, Acela Express, is so expensive that only rich business people can afford to ride it — will seek a larger federal subsidy. At present, it stands at $1.3 billion. Ordinary people, whom Congress had in mind as riders, can’t afford the Acela’s astronomical and predatory fares. So it has become a service for business executives and corporate lawyers. (You can tell from the overheard cell phone conversations. A billable hour is a terrible thing to waste.)

The airlines will find new ways to discomfort you. Watch out for toilets that big and tall people can't sit on, seats that recline a 16th of an inch, and bad food that you’ll buy only if you’re off your medicine. Don’t change your ticket, bring a suitcase or seek a seat with legroom. There are fees for that kind of convenience and comfort. Don't ask for logic in routing: How about Providence to Washington, D.C., with two stops and a travel time of 10 hours and 20 minutes? An air travel Web site tried to tempt me with that “super-saver” fare. I reckon you could hitchhike it in about the same time.

If you thought it was difficult to reach any large company in 2014, it will be much worse in 2015. There are consultants out and about in America, teaching corporations how to avoid their customers. Gone are the days when you could expect customer service of some sort, albeit from Rajiv in Bangladesh. Amazon, always a pioneer, has produced the anti-consumer masterpiece. If you have a question about your Kindle, you have to give the company your credit card if you want it answered. It's the no-pay-no-help line.

Talking of the perils of being a customer, Bank of America refused to give me the phone number of the local branch where I have an account. When I finally got through to the manager, she said that Bank of America didn't give out the number because “the phone would be ringing off the hook.” I didn’t know people called the bank just to chat. No thought that those callers might be customers.

Just remember new the mantra of big business: “The customer is always wrong, a nuisance, and fitted for nothing better than hanging an hour on the phone with a simple inquiry.”

Next year the save-a-buck Congress will  ravage the Post Office. Sad, because it's the one place that still works, and where you can get a question answered promptly. That will not do. The Social Security Administration is efficient and polite, too. So Congress has its hatchet out.

Now that the Republicans have control of government, they'll be out to prove that government doesn’t work. I’m sure they will pull it off. The Democrats will be complaining — having snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the midterms.

How can you lose an election when the economy is turning around? Ask Senator Franken when you send him your five bucks. Bet he won’t tell you. So I will. You turn your back on your president. That makes you look really bad, and looking really bad is a bad election strategy.

Happy New Year!

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Llewellyn King (lking@kingpublishing.com) is executive producer and host of “White House Chronicle” on PBS.

William A. Collins: State banks are a good idea

By WILLIAM A. COLLINS NORWALK,  Conn.

Vermonters aren’t like the rest of us: They live in a small state with a flinty history and a legendary suspicion of outsiders.

That independent streak gained luster when 15 Vermont towns voted earlier this year to reinforce this independent tradition by approving a proposal to create a state bank.

The Vermont Economic Development Authority would get a license to do what private banks normally do — only with a mandate to serve the public interest no matter what.

This isn’t unprecedented. North Dakota has enjoyed a flourishing state banking system for nearly a century.

Costa Rica set another good precedent. Its public banking dates back to 1949. As of a decade ago, its four state banks held 75 percent or more of all individual deposits.

All this is quite vexing to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. As elsewhere, they have muscled Costa Rica to privatize its government-owned businesses. Costa Rica has largely done this, but it won’t let go of its state-owned banks. For some reason, Costa Ricans don’t trust the commercial ones.

No, Americans don’t trust our banks either. But only North Dakota’s state bank remains under public control.

Everywhere else, banking laws have made it very profitable for old-fashioned mutual (non-profit) savings banks, once popular, to sell out their depositors and turn commercial. The executives who accomplish this switch all do very nicely for themselves.

Luckily, credit unions carry on from bygone times as a thorn in the side of the industry, but Wall Street is working hard to extinguish them too. Credit unions depend heavily on their non-profit status to protect them against taxes, so conservative outfits like the Tax Foundation are trying mightily to squash that exemption.

Theoretically, the government is our protector from the avaricious cartel of private banks. Both state and federal laws ostensibly provide us with banking watchdogs which safeguard the honesty and fairness of our saving and borrowing.

That’s really just in theory. Unfortunately, a cynical revolving door regularly sends regulators wheeling into bank jobs and bankers hot-footing it over to regulation. At the same time, lobbyists sap the rectitude of those lawmakers and oversight agencies who you might have thought had our best interests at heart.

Hence, banks feel unrestricted to manipulate credit cards, student loans, mortgages, securitizations, hedge funds, credit default swaps, currency exchanges, and all manner of rigged financial transactions. Our regulators rein them in sometimes, but in many cases not until after the damage is done.

As a result, when mortgages default, neighborhoods collapse, families are ruined, and the economy tanks, the banks go right on — perhaps with their wrists slapped.

One other savings alternative does exist: the U.S. Postal Service. In years gone by, the Postal Service doubled as a bank that had lots of branches and no securitized mortgages.

But given the general lack of trust that  most people have in commercial banks, some lawmakers are looking to bring the Post Office back into banking. That would be a new American Revolution.

 William A. Collins is a former Connecticut state representative, a former mayor of Norwalk, Conn., and a columnist for OtherWords.org, where this column originated.