If you could shut down one business...

[Mark68]

Bell should have been nationalized!

So which bastion of efficiency would you choose to run it?  The military, the IRS, TSA, ...

Medicare

[vdeane]

Only the very poorest (who needed to be looking for work, not be on the phone)

Question: how would one look for work if employers couldn't call them to schedule an interview?

[kurumi]

One category (not picking on a particular company): TV news. All of it; network and cable, national and local.

[RobbieL2415]

The AT&T break up was, of course, idiotic.  The whole thing has been rendered moot by cell phones and other technology, but Bell was a wonderful company (and the most broadly owned stock of all).  The situation was really simple.    The only kind of phone was a landline, now called "POTS" for plain old telephone service.  Every place had one and only one telephone company that installed telephones.  In about 80% of the country, this was a Bell, many rural areas, and some places not so rural (Las Vegas, Lexington, Tampa, Raleigh-Durham, many others, plus the odd situations in Conn. and Cincinnati), where there were many other companies including Contel, Centel, GTE, United, and many others. 

You could (and yes there are kids today who do not know this) only call locally, generally your county, for "free" and everything else was long distance.  AT&T handled long distance, both for itself and for the 20% of the country otherwise served.  And, and this is the important part, it vastly overcharged for long distance.  So it could vastly undercharge for local service.  Since the major users of long distance was government, business, and the wealthy, this meant that the rich and big business SUBSIDIZED the poor, insuring virtually universal service.  Only the very poorest (who needed to be looking for work, not be on the phone) could not afford phone service.  A wonderful system.

The AT&T breakup "accomplished" two things. 

First was the break up of AT&T into 8 parts.  AT&T which made phones and handled long distance.  The phone making division, Western Electric, and GTE's companion Automatic Electric, which did the same for the 20%, quickly went out of business, destroying good union jobs and replacing study equipment with Chinese crap.  The long distance division was then forced to compete with other companies, such as Sprint and MCI.  Thus the cost of local service went way up, and the cost of long distance went way down.  In other words, the poor and middle class got screwed, and the wealthy and big business saved. 

Second, the seven other companies were the "baby Bells" regional companies that owned the local phone company in different places.  And?  The fact that my phone company was "Bell Atlantic" and somebody else's phone company was "Bell South" and somebody else's was "NYNEX" was TOTALLY IRRELEVANT.  I had ONE AND ONLY ONE local phone company.  Who cares if it was a part of a huge company that also owned the ONE AND ONLY local phone company in Oregon, or just a really big company that "only" owned the local phone company in Pennsylvania, and some other really big company owned the phone company in Oregon?  Irrelevant.  I had the same choice.  None. 

So, the cost of local phone service skyrocketed.  We were a few years from the end of universal service.  Cell phones and VOIP saved us from that fate, but in an alternate universe  without those inventions, today, nobody who was not at least solidly middle class, if not upper middle class, could afford a phone in their home.

1) It's possible that had the breakup not happened, ATT would have monopolized the mobile telco market.  They could have built towers and used their microwave relay centers for long-distance.  Again, you don't have Verizon without the breakup.

2) The breakup allowed the RBOCs to implement service customized for their regions and to freely do business.

3) ATTs infrastructure backbone is a moot point now.  Data and voice are transmitted a majority of the time over fiber.  The copper infrastructure carries the last mile.  There are many other ISPs that serve the backbone.

4) Universal service requires telcos to provide POTS to any building that has the copper.  The USF allowed ATT to offer subsidized phone service to low-income residents.

[bandit957]

1) It's possible that had the breakup not happened, ATT would have monopolized the mobile telco market.

It almost certainly would have.

Also, I read that Cincinnati Bell was one of very few local phone companies exempt from regulations established by this ruling, because AT&T didn't own a majority stake in it. The regulations should have applied to Cincinnati Bell too. Anyone who's had to deal with them would agree.

[roadman65]

How about CNN? 

[kendancy66]

Koch Industries

[texaskdog]

You can assume that part of the "magic" of shutting down the business includes the ability to move customers and employees to another similar company without problems.

----

I would choose Wells Fargo. They are incredibly dishonest, with multiple scandals, and they're not expected to go bankrupt any time soon.

Goes Double for Bank of America

[roadman65]

You can assume that part of the "magic" of shutting down the business includes the ability to move customers and employees to another similar company without problems.

----

I would choose Wells Fargo. They are incredibly dishonest, with multiple scandals, and they're not expected to go bankrupt any time soon.

Goes Double for Bank of America

Oh yes that bank is terrible.  I used to bank at Barnett, but they got absorbed into Nation's Bank which afterwards got absorbed into them.  I shut my accounts and went to Chase.

[Beltway]

MSNBC

[Scott5114]

You can assume that part of the "magic" of shutting down the business includes the ability to move customers and employees to another similar company without problems.

----

I would choose Wells Fargo. They are incredibly dishonest, with multiple scandals, and they're not expected to go bankrupt any time soon.

Goes Double for Bank of America

Oh yes that bank is terrible.  I used to bank at Barnett, but they got absorbed into Nation's Bank which afterwards got absorbed into them.  I shut my accounts and went to Chase.

There's very little reason to bank at an actual bank unless you're a business. For personal banking, a credit union will perform the necessary services, normally without being shitheads about it, because account holders can vote the CEO out of office if they get out of line.

Banks are only necessary if you need business functions like ordering large amounts of change from the Fed, revolving lines of credit, credit card processing (and even that's unnecessary thanks to Square and Stripe), etc.

[texaskdog]

You can assume that part of the "magic" of shutting down the business includes the ability to move customers and employees to another similar company without problems.

----

I would choose Wells Fargo. They are incredibly dishonest, with multiple scandals, and they're not expected to go bankrupt any time soon.

Goes Double for Bank of America

Oh yes that bank is terrible.  I used to bank at Barnett, but they got absorbed into Nation's Bank which afterwards got absorbed into them.  I shut my accounts and went to Chase.

I only use credit unions.  My company makes me go to the BOA constrictor, they are awful. 

[Scott5114]

You can assume that part of the "magic" of shutting down the business includes the ability to move customers and employees to another similar company without problems.

----

I would choose Wells Fargo. They are incredibly dishonest, with multiple scandals, and they're not expected to go bankrupt any time soon.

Goes Double for Bank of America

Oh yes that bank is terrible.  I used to bank at Barnett, but they got absorbed into Nation's Bank which afterwards got absorbed into them.  I shut my accounts and went to Chase.

I only use credit unions.  My company makes me go to the BOA constrictor, they are awful. 

How do they make you? Once they pay you the money is yours...

[hbelkins]

I've had worse experiences at credit unions than at banks. If I could shut down one, and only one, business, Commonwealth Credit Union out of Frankfort would be very high on my list.

Aren't most credit unions only limited to certain people? You have to work at a certain place, or be closely related to someone who works there?

[bandit957]

Aren't most credit unions only limited to certain people? You have to work at a certain place, or be closely related to someone who works there?

I think there are some that allow anyone who lives in a given area - for example, maybe within 50 miles of downtown Cincinnati.

[SP Cook]

Aren't most credit unions only limited to certain people? You have to work at a certain place, or be closely related to someone who works there?

That was the old law.

Originally credit unions were formed were formed during the Depression to provide bank-like services to people banks would not at the time deal with.  Generally the "members" were people who all worked for the same company.   Credit unions are non-profit, and thus don't pay taxes, and only engage in personal lending, and are exempt from a lot of regulaitons.

Times change and by the 1980s many people were saying credit unions were obsolete, as banks would deal with about anybody.  Banks thought credit unions had an unfair advantage.

After some litigation, the Congress passed a law in 1998 that allowed credit unions to offer "membership" to anyone with a "common bond" which can be about anything, and most credit unions converted from job based to geography based.

Most of the credit unions around here allow "membership" to anyone who "live, works, visits for health care, worships, or attends school" in a particular area, generally a county or within X miles of a place.    Which means, in practical effect, "everybody".  They all also changed their name from something like "XYZ Company Credit Union" to nonsense names like "Freedom America Credit Union". 

Personally, I don't care for them.  Most still keep "bankers hours"; don't have ATMs away from their offices, or in other regions; and don't offer apps or computer based banking.

[DaBigE]

Personally, I don't care for them.  Most still keep "bankers hours"; don't have ATMs away from their offices, or in other regions; and don't offer apps or computer based banking.

Except for the "bankers hours", many of the items you list are overcome by shared-branch co-op credit unions. Granted, not all participate, but basically, it allows you to conduct your financial transactions at a credit union branch that isn't your home CU. And the number of CUs that don't offer online and/or app-based transaction is shrinking every year. While I can't speak for many other regions, around here, you have to search to find a CU that doesn't offer those services.

[Scott5114]

Aren't most credit unions only limited to certain people? You have to work at a certain place, or be closely related to someone who works there?

The credit union that I bank with has a number of rules dictating who is allowed to join it. It depends on either where you work, or what  organizations you're a member of. However, one of the organizations has a deal with the credit union to allow the credit union to process memberships. So if you don't qualify on any other grounds, you just donate something like $5 to the organization and become a member of that, and immediately qualify for credit union membership.

Personally, I don't care for them.  Most still keep "bankers hours"; don't have ATMs away from their offices, or in other regions; and don't offer apps or computer based banking.

The credit union I bank (a very large CU with branches throughout Oklahoma) with has a much nicer online banking system than the real bank I do business banking with. The CU is much more technologically advanced, as well; the business bank still requires you to fill out deposit and withdrawal slips for some reason. With the CU, you just tell the teller your account number (or show them a laminated card they give you with your name and account number on it, or I'm sure they can look you up if you have no clue) and what you want to do and you're ready to go.

The CU is a part of the nationwide Transfund ATM network, so I have fee-free access to ATMs throughout the country. If I do use an out-of-network ATM, the fee is only 75¢ (plus whatever the ATM's fee is). That is one of only two fees I know the CU charges–the other is the overdraft fee of $22.50. There is no "account analysis service charge" (the $3/month the business bank charges me for having the sheer, unmitigated gall to use online banking) or "account maintenance fee" or "lack of activity fee" or charging for replacement debit cards or whatever other horseshit real banks pull.

I can't find a regular bank that offers business outside "banker's hours" that doesn't have a large degree of the aforementioned horseshit. In-branch banking is mostly irrelevant for most customers anyway–I still visit my CU branch because I prefer to do business with $10 bills, which are not stocked in ATMs, but other than that I can do everything I need to with online banking.

[Rothman]

Credit unions used to have the benefit of better savings rates.  Oh well.

Be careful with ATM fees, even when a credit union belongs to a network.  The credit union may not charge -- but the bank that actually owns the ATM may charge its own fee.

[Scott5114]

Be careful with ATM fees, even when a credit union belongs to a network.  The credit union may not charge -- but the bank that actually owns the ATM may charge its own fee.

This is mitigated by learning to plan ahead and visit either the bank or one of the bank's ATMs when cash is needed. (If I am going to a cash-only place, like a casino, I will stop by the bank's drive-thru ATM to avoid the possibility of paying an 8% fee to Everi or whatever other credit card service the casino subscribes to.)

I believe there may be some sort of arrangement with the Transfund network in particular that disallows host bank fees, or else Transfund itself hosts the ATMs. Most of the Transfund ATMs I have seen outside my own CU are in places like Walgreens or 7-11. Either way, the Transfund ATMs are marketed as fee-free for CU members, and in my experience, that has been true.

[cu2010]

I wouldn't shut down any business. Shutting down a business just removes competition, which just drives up prices. Free markets work if we allow them to; they fail when people meddle with red tape and regulations.

On that note, screw Dollar General. Their popping up in literally every small town around here has put so many mom and pop grocery stores out of business the past five years its not even funny. They are far more damaging than Walmart!

Oh, and screw Charter Spectrum too. Not so much because of their rates (because I really don't pay that much for cable and internet), but rather, because their shitty equipment never works when I want it to and my Internet constantly drops... and because I live in the middle of nowhere, I have no other options (well, there is Dish or DirecTV... but for Internet, my only real option is Spectrum, and I have no idea who my local phone carrier is because nobody actually uses landline phones anymore). Then again, if I didn't live in a village with an exclusive arrangement with them, someone else could come in and offer better service at a better price... another argument for letting free markets work and getting governments out of the way!

[Rothman]

I wouldn't shut down any business. Shutting down a business just removes competition, which just drives up prices. Free markets work if we allow them to; they fail when people meddle with red tape and regulations.

There are conditions that need to be met for a market to reach that magic efficiency -- where goods and services are being sold for the lowest price to those who are best able to buy them (of course, every economist out there has a different definition of efficiency, but all definitions have debatable judgments of who should have access to private goods and services).  Those conditions are enforced by government regulations (e.g., the requirement of perfect information is one that is typically lost in "free market" proponents' arguments).  Therefore, doggedly removing regulation actually can cause inefficiency in the market.

[vdeane]

I can't find a regular bank that offers business outside "banker's hours" that doesn't have a large degree of the aforementioned horseshit. In-branch banking is mostly irrelevant for most customers anyway–I still visit my CU branch because I prefer to do business with $10 bills, which are not stocked in ATMs, but other than that I can do everything I need to with online banking.

I would think in-branch services would be required for anyone who lives in an apartment complex that still uses quarters for laundry.  I also tend to deposit things in person as well (on the rare occasion I need to... usually only around my birthday or Christmas), mainly because the deposit tickets that come with my checks won't use themselves.

[bandit957]

I thought coin-operated washers and dryers in apartment buildings were still pretty common. Mine didn't have them when I moved in, but the building owner added them later.

[Rothman]

My bank's ATMs accept deposits without deposit tickets.  Never had a problem with depositing checks into them.