From: st1ns@rosie.uh.edu (Ault, Russell W.)
Subject: Re: Can we kill this banking scandel yet/
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 02:27:00 GMT

Note the lack of crossposting to rec.humor in this followup.  It's intentional,
I really don't want to participate in a long (dis)cussion of the "facts".  

In article <1992Sep19.020759.36943@watson.ibm.com>, mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com writes...
>In article <513npx#.jrs@netcom.com> jrs@netcom.com (John Switzer) writes:
>>In article <lbk91jINNooi@spim.mti.sgi.com> mpolen@suntory.mti.sgi.com (Michael Polen) writes:
>>>Mike Schwartz) writes:
>>>Whoa.  NOT ONE CHECK BOUNCED.  EVER.  PERIOD.  We are talking about how
>>>often these congress critters allowed their fellow congress critters to
>>>cover their checks.  

Not having actual copies of the charter or contractual policies of the House Bank
in hand this is partially anecdotal, but from sources I have no reason to distrust
it seems clear that:

   There was no statement in writing that account holders had automatic massive 
overdraft protection as a service of the institution, nor that they had automatic 
unlimited credit privileges.

   There were, on the part of several members, overdrafts which could not have been
covered by subsequent closely-timed deposits, in such numbers that they had no
actual positive balance for protracted periods.  Such continued overdrafts would not
have reasonably been within the scope of any overdraft protection that might have
existed at any bank I have dealt with, for any fee.


The "reasonable man" test (in which one simply asks whether a reasonable man would
conclude that this was a proper course of action) applied to the individual member
accounts scores a lot of "no opinions", it's true.  Clearly, there was such a mess 
made of things that auditing the books completely may never reveal everything that 
actually happened.  Still, though, it was hardly a great secret that there was 
something wrong, and yet the users and abusers alike continued to let it go 
unchecked and unchallenged.  The public reaction of outrage is both correct and
proper, if for no other reason than that the public has an entirely reasonable 
right of expectation that those they elect to serve as their representatives to 
make the laws that will govern them all, will behave in a manner that is above
reproach and exemplary in all respects.  There can be no doubt that this latter
principle was bludgeoned and dragged through the mud by entirely too many formerly
trusted Congressmen.  For those few Congressmen who did finally act to stop the
abuse, and for the others who plausibly might not have known, this has created an
undeserved aura of disrepute.  But for the ones whose checkbooks were nothing more
than a book of withdrawal slips for their fellow Congressmen's deposits, I say
that merely being run out of office is perhaps too gentle a treatment.  They have
trampled the public's sense of honor and right, and made a mockery of the system
that they themselves were sent to run.  If they place themselves above the law,
then they have no business making it.  The general Congressional immunity from 
regulation was meant to be both an acknowledgement that there would be rare times
when the proper governance of the country would require that Congress and its 
members be unfettered by the law, and an indication of the trust placed in them 
not to abuse that privilege.  Clearly many Congressmen have violated that trust
in many more ways than just the House Bank matter.  And the public may, at last,
be approaching emergence from the apathy that contributed to the decay.



If it's green, it's Biology.
If it stinks, it's Chemistry.
If it doesn't work, it's Physics.
If it stinks and it doesn't work, it's Poli Sci.
If it's green and it stinks, it's Business Admin.
If it's green and doesn't work, it's Economics.
If it's green, stinks, and doesn't work, it's a Federally Funded Program.
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