There is a club in this country, and you are not in it
Every morning Hank Garrity reads the paperwork the club is forced to file. He tells you who's in it today and what it costs you. When they leave a door open for a regular guy, he tells you that too.
7:12 a.m. Eastern on weekdays, before the market opens at 9:30. 8:50 on weekends.
In October 2008, nine banks got a meeting at the Treasury
banks walked out with $125 billion, signed by dinnertime.
small banks closed over the next four years. Not one of them got a meeting.
Both bars are drawn to the same scale.
The whole story of that afternoon is the first letter Hank sends you.
Its members get one set of rules, and you get the bill
The big banks borrow straight from the Fed.
You borrow at the card rate.
A senator files a stock trade late and pays $200.
You file your taxes late and pay 5 percent a month.
Every morning's story closes on the same two lines.
Who was in the room, by name. The bank, the agency, the fund, the senator.
What it costs you, in dollars, with a date on it. And the one legal thing a man outside the club can do about it.
Then a short roster, and every item carries a stamp
Some mornings Hank is angry. Some mornings he reads all the fine print and tells you to go fishing.
A deal closed to you. They win, you watch.
Hank: suspicious, caustic
The bill lands on you, with a date.
Hank: alarmed, protective
Something a regular guy can use: a program, a rate, a rule change or a refund, and where he gets it.
Hank: excited, happy
He went looking for the catch and did not find it. Sleep.
Hank: calm, reassuring
A club member indicted, fined, fired or broke, once a court or a regulator has actually acted.
Hank: grimly satisfied
Every morning carries at least one Open to you or All clear.
A paranoid who sometimes says “it’s fine” is believed when he says “it isn’t.”
I don't do theories
I do membership lists
Hank spent his working life in community banking in the Midwest. It was the kind of bank that lent on a handshake and a soybean forecast. He never got rich, and he never got in.
He keeps a month of cash in a safe and a generator in the garage. He once watched a bank run from behind the counter. The people in line had done nothing wrong.
You'll always know what I think. You're welcome to fight me on it.