The above statements include a material omission. Banks do not just take in money. Banks create money. In essence, they merely press some keys on a computer keyboard. The Economist s claim is demonstrably false.
Banks have much more lenient even derelict reporting requirements than other companies.
For example, banks alone are exempt from the Securities and Exchange Commission regulations that require publicly held companies to mark their balance sheets to market. Banks alone have been given the privilege of valuing their investments at historic cost rather than at market value. This means that banks, and banks alone, are able to hide the deterioration of their balance sheets from public scrutiny. Representatives of some of the largest banks have been empowered by law, which created a body called the Federal Advisory Council, to meet regularly and in secret, with no oversight with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in order to give advice to the Board and to air their concerns. No other regulated industry has the privilege of meeting with their putative regulators in this manner.