Article Suggests Checking Bank Ratings

MGIC No Stranger to B of A Issues

Editorial: TARP, and the Stimulus, Worked

Opinion: Money Smart Week Beneficial

‘Real Regulators or Toothless Tigers’?

“We will need more of [the truth] if we are to stand a chance in the great wrestling match over how the banking bill will be implemented — with real regulators or toothless tigers in charge of key agencies, with consumers calling the shots or lobbyists continuing to define things, with Wall Streeters forced to take responsibility for their greed or with taxpayers facing the threat of another ‘bailout’ raid on the treasury,” writes John Nichols of the Capital Times in an op-ed column about the Fighting Bob Fest and this year’s speaker, Jim Hightower.

Study: Wisconsin Losing Economic Ground

“Wisconsin has lost ground against the national average in key indicators such as per capita income, new jobs created and business creation. Over the past decade, we rank 44th in per capita income growth,” write Mike Knetter and Linda Salchenberger, deans of the business schools of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Marquette University, respectively. Read more about their Wisconsin Competitiveness Study and their ideas in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Column: Reform Bill Hurts Business Lending

“If small business is the foundation of our economy and community banks are the cornerstones to needed loans, one could formulate that fewer small business loans will be made and result in slower future economic growth” as a result of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform bill, writes Mike Stoetzel, a partner at Clifton Gunderson and the company’s financial institutions practice leader for Wisconsin, in the Small Business Times.

Editorial: Feingold’s Opposition Cost Taxpayers

Did U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold’s opposition make the financial reform bill more progressive? “No; it did the opposite — it shifted $19 billion of the bill’s cost from banks to taxpayers,” according to an editorial in the Tomah Journal.

Letter: Examiners ‘Issuing Nuisance Consent Orders’

“FDIC federal bank examiners are trying nationwide to slow loans made at local level community banks. The practice of issuing nuisance ‘consent orders’ and other patterns of harassment are used to make examples of progressive banks for other banks to see,” writes Steve Mugerauer of Oshkosh in a letter to the editor of The Oshkosh Northwestern.

Bank Ownership Changes Irk Columnist

“We have changed banks again for the fourth time in not-too-many years. It is not due to lack of good service or competitive offerings. It is due to the seemingly constant shuffle of owners,” writes columnist Al Campbell in Germantown NOW.