4 ms·

I wasn't aware of that number, but I was just thinking recently about how many fewer banks there are today than there used to be. In 1995 there were 10K; as of

I wasn't aware of that number, but I was just thinking recently about how many fewer banks there are today than there used to be. In 1995 there were 10K; as of last year there are less than 5K.[1] So a 50% drop in that timespan, mirroring your numbers. And the first article I came across looking for the latest 2017 number is about Amazon's interest in becoming a bank. Guess the trend validates the dystopian sci-fi trope of multinational conglomerates ruling everything in the future. [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-10-06/amazon-could-be-your-lender-and-upend-wall-street https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-10-06/amazon-...

jacobush 9y ago
"There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT, and AT&T, and Du Pont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today."
icebraining 9y ago
The reason the US had so many banks was due to regulations that tried to prevent interstate banks, and which were abolished in 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McFadden_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McFadden_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Holding_Company_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Holding_Company_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegle-Neal_Interstate_Banking_and_Branching_Efficiency_Act_of_1994 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegle-Neal_Interstate_Banking...
- ad_hominem 9y ago
  Interesting, but if you look at the graph banks were already well on a downward trend before 1994 - there were 14.4K banks in 1984, 13.4K in 1988, 12.5K in 1990, 11.7K in 1992.
BrainInAJar 9y ago
""It is concentration of capitals already formed, destruction of their individual independence, expropriation of capitalist by capitalist, transformation of many small into few large capitals.... Capital grows in one place to a huge mass in a single hand, because it has in another place been lost by many.... The battle of competition is fought by cheapening of commodities. The cheapness of commodities demands, caeteris paribus, on the productiveness of labour, and this again on the scale of production. Therefore, the larger capitals beat the smaller. It will further be remembered that, with the development of the capitalist mode of production, there is an increase in the minimum amount of individual capital necessary to carry on a business under its normal conditions. The smaller capitals, therefore, crowd into spheres of production which Modern Industry has only sporadically or incompletely got hold of. Here competition rages.... It always ends in the ruin of many small capitalists, whose capitals partly pass into the hands of their conquerors, partly vanish." - Marx. Capital Vol I, Ch 25 The idea isn't new, and isn't scifi.

jacobush 9y ago

"There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT, and AT&T, and Du Pont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today."

icebraining 9y ago

The reason the US had so many banks was due to regulations that tried to prevent interstate banks, and which were abolished in 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McFadden_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McFadden_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Holding_Company_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Holding_Company_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegle-Neal_Interstate_Banking_and_Branching_Efficiency_Act_of_1994 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegle-Neal_Interstate_Banking...

ad_hominem 9y ago
Interesting, but if you look at the graph banks were already well on a downward trend before 1994 - there were 14.4K banks in 1984, 13.4K in 1988, 12.5K in 1990, 11.7K in 1992.

BrainInAJar 9y ago

""It is concentration of capitals already formed, destruction of their individual independence, expropriation of capitalist by capitalist, transformation of many small into few large capitals.... Capital grows in one place to a huge mass in a single hand, because it has in another place been lost by many.... The battle of competition is fought by cheapening of commodities. The cheapness of commodities demands, caeteris paribus, on the productiveness of labour, and this again on the scale of production. Therefore, the larger capitals beat the smaller. It will further be remembered that, with the development of the capitalist mode of production, there is an increase in the minimum amount of individual capital necessary to carry on a business under its normal conditions. The smaller capitals, therefore, crowd into spheres of production which Modern Industry has only sporadically or incompletely got hold of. Here competition rages.... It always ends in the ruin of many small capitalists, whose capitals partly pass into the hands of their conquerors, partly vanish." - Marx. Capital Vol I, Ch 25 The idea isn't new, and isn't scifi.