Two possible objections to my banking reform plan

In a prior blog post (click here to see it), I advocated certain reforms or new ways of running accounts for banks that, in my opinion, would help resolve the problems people face with overdraft fees. I can imagine two more possible objections:

• If my plan were made compulsory among banks--something which I would not insist on but which I don't dismiss out of hand--perhaps this type of plan would lead to stricter requirements for checking accounts and the end of what is known as "free checking." (In order for banks to advertise a checking account as a "free checking" account, such accounts need to meet certain requirements under the law, such as no minimum balance fees or annual fees.) I'm not sure if such would be a consequence, but it could plausibly result.
• In that blog post, I also discussed the possibility of equipping ATM's with the ability to disperse pre-approved money orders. I'm not sure if there is the technology to do so, especially if these money orders are to be linked to a customer's account. The reason: such monetary instruments would probably have to be MICR encoded (MICR refers to "Magnetic Ink Character Recognition," which is a way to make account numbers easily routable by machines), and while (I presume) ATM's could be equipped with their own MICR encoders, such machines would present a huge potential liability, even more than the amount of cash that might be stolen. As it stands, ATM's have a certain amount of cash, and it's possible (I don't know how easy it is, but it is possible) for a thief to steal the money. Stealing a MICR encoder might be one more item you wouldn't want a would-be thief to have.
  

Anyway, those are two additional objections. I'm sure there are more.

A new approach to overdraft fees

In the recent clamor for the reform of finance regulation--a process I have not followed very closely--there is much ado about the bank overdraft fees* and about ways to use government regulation to curtail what are considered the more extreme fees. I think this is a real problem that admits of no easy solution, but one reform that might help would be a policy to encourage banks to develop what I'd like to call "money order plus" accounts.

On the significance of blog rolls

Not that anyone asked, or even cares, but here are my reasons for including sites on my blog rolls:

• To give a shout-out to my friends--both my "real" friends and my internet friends--who have blogs or websites they run. I don't always or necessarily endorse the views of these people. For example, I probably see things a lot differently from Laura(southernxyl), but I appreciate her thoughtful commentary that offers a different perspective from one I am used to reading.
  
• To use as a convenient way to "bookmark" sites I like and that I have a hard time remembering the URL for. For example, I read the Volokh Conspiracy a lot, but its URL is so familiar to me, that I don't include it. On the other hand, the URL for Paul Campos's "Daily Beast" articles are harder for me to remember.
  
• To endorse a particular viewpoint represented by the blog in question. This is true of the "green party" sites I include for the people who are running for Cook County Board president, for Illinois governor, and for the U.S. Senate for Illinois. (I might blog later on why I intend to vote for these folks instead of for the major party candidates, but as an aside I'll say right now that yes, I realize they have little chance of being elected, and yes, I believe elections have consequences, and no, I don't believe the Democratic and Republican parties are "essentially the same.")
  

Occasionally, I'll decline to put an item on the blog roll, or decide to remove it from the roll, when its point of view or, more often, tone is so confrontational and extreme that it closes off (for me) any thoughtful discussion.

Eau Canada!

I shall be leaving in a few days for a research trip to Canada (Ottawa, to be precise). The national archives in Ottawa has much of the material I need for my historical research, in particular, it has numerous newspapers published throughout Canada.

I have already made two trips to Ottawa and one to Toronto for research, and I have to confess how fun it is. There's something about traveling to a different country with a reason other than just merely tourism and vacationing (I'll be doing some of that, too. My girlfriend and I are taking the time as a small vacation as well as a research trip). I don't know why, but it's nice to tell the customs official "business" when he or she asks "business or pleasure?" (it's also amusing to see their eyes glaze over as I try to explain that I'm writing a dissertation on "antitrust policy in Chicago and Toronto as it may or may not have applied to coal dealers"). I've been to Montreal and Vancouver as a tourist, and it was fun, but after a day or two, I was just some slack-jawed person who walked around wearing a backpack and who haunted coffee shops and other picturesque places where I could write my poetry....all stuff I could do pretty much in any city in North America.

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I complain a lot about academia, and most people who know me well know that I have a lot of qualms about history as a profession and even as an undertaking. In short, I'm not quite sure how to justify studying history, and I'm even less sure how to justify requiring people to study it, beyond some vague sense that "we need to understand our past to be good citizens" or that "a knowledge of history gives people the cultural capital they need to succeed."

But I must say that research is, to put it bluntly, fun. I feel like a detective, uncovering about which few know or (especially for my topic) care. There's something about spending a week in an archive that is exciting.

It's also fun to practice my French.

Laundry agonistes

When you live in an apartment building that has its own washer and dryer, and you have a lot of clothes to wash, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE be vigilant about taking your clothes out when the loads are done just on the off chance that someone else in the building also finds it necessary to do laundry. It's one of the easiest things in the world to set a timer or watch the clock to know when the laundry is done. (Hint: the machines in our building take 30 minutes to wash and 45 minutes for one dry cycle.)

As a corollary: out of common courtesy, don't wait a whole month to do your laundry and expect to monopolize the machines an entire day. Some of us do laundry on a weekly basis in part so we don't overload the building's capacity. In fact, when I have a more than normal amount of laundry to do, I go to the laundromat down the street.

Corollary #2: This applies especially when the building has only one washer and one dryer.

Corollary #3: This might not apply to tenants who have children. I imagine with children, the amount of laundry increases almost exponentially and the would-be launderer probably doesn't have any choice. But when there are zero (0) people with children in the building, it's inexcusable to let the laundry pile up in between beer runs and "DJ night" upstairs (when, for some inexplicable reason, my neighbors play what sounds like the "Super Terrific Chicago Night Dancing Party").

On the advantage of background

Most of the classes I have taught or TA'd for have been courses that are known as "surveys." These classes are introductions to general, broad topics in history. For example, the American History survey, part I, provides a broad overview of U.S. history from colonization through Reconstruction; the American History survey, part II, provides a broad overview of U.S. history from 1877 to the present day. (In other words, the Civil War and Reconstruction always get lost in the shuffle. But that's not my point now.)

It is easy, in teaching these classes, to despair of their worth for students. Most of the students who take these classes are non-history majors and are merely trying to fulfill a graduation requirement. Some of the students are, oddly enough, getting their masters in teaching history, but they are required to take the class. Some, a few, students are bona fide undergraduate history majors, many, maybe most?, of whom probably have a background in US history and probably don't necessarily need the class.

Another cause of near despair is that in covering such a broad swath of history (it's gets worse in "Western Civ" or "World History" classes, where the geographical scope and span of years are usually even broader), it is possible only to skirt over the basics. Teaching the class in anything resembling an accurate manner paradoxically requires the teacher to overgeneralize to the point of being inaccurate. The history majors who take the class, if they really need it, will probably spend the rest of their academic careers unlearning or learning the exceptions to the overgeneralizations.

But, as usual in a blog about this, this post isn't about them, it's about me. The dissertation I'm working on right now is, in some respects, a comparison between US and Canadian history. My knowledge of US history is very good: broad-ranging and deep, if I may be immodest. I have, in some respects, been studying studying history with avidity since at least 7th grade or so. There is much that I don't know, but I feel as if I have more than a good command on US history.

But Canadian history? There, I am very, very ignorant. I know the broad outlines that most Americans (i.e., Unitedstatesians) know: the origins in French Canada, the imperial wars of the 1700, the Quebec Act of 1774, the War of 1812, the British North American Act of 1867, the Louis Riel Rebellion (I know that it happened, but I don't know the details or the years) and the Patriation Act of 1982. Additionally, I know a few tidbits relevant to my topic of antitrust: Canada past its first antitrust law in 1889, amended it in 1899 (and again, I think, in 1901, but I'm unclear on that point), 1910, 1923, and in the 1930s.

But the point is, I know precious little about the basics of Canadian history or even Canadian government. And my ignorance is conspicuous. At a conference a couple years ago, I flubbed a very basic fact about Canada and was corrected (and I'm glad I was....I learned from the experience and the one doing the correcting did so nicely, after my presentation was over). Further, as much as I like history and even, sometimes, reading textbooks, I learn new historical subjects best when I have to take a class in them. If my university offered a survey course in Canadian history, I'd probably take it.

The "equally valid viewpoints" straw man

I am working my way through a book about the (political) life and times of Ronald Reagan. In the introduction, the author--whose name I won't disclose but whose last name rhymes roughly with the capitalized part of the sentence "WHY LEND Scott the money?"--states

I reject, however, the now fashionable claim that objectivity involves reporting all views or interpretations as equally valid.

This type of statement is common in my experience in academia, and I submit that it is a straw man. I know of very few people, even at the level of the "popular" trade-book audience to which Mr. Wilentz's this author's book is directed, who really believe that "all views or interpretations are equally valid." At least, I have not encountered any personally, and I have not read any who make such an extreme claim.