The husband, God Bless him, has many problems with the Kelo decision, one of which is that he believes there won't be much of a market for home mortgages if governments can just up and give your property to someone who will pay more taxes. Free market logic follows that while lenders will be leery of lending to individuals in a post-Kelo world, they'll still lend money to developers.

But perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to condemn the bankers...

CHARLOTTE — Regional bank BB&T will make no loans to developers who plan to build commercial projects on land taken from private citizens by the government through the power of eminent domain.

"The idea that a citizen's property can be taken by the government solely for private use is extremely misguided; in fact it's just plain wrong," John Allison, chairman and chief executive of the Winston-Salem-based bank, said Wednesday.

No other large U.S. bank has a similar policy, according to BB&T spokesman. The bank declined to estimate how much business they expect to lose as a result of the new policy. {...}

The ninth largest bank in the United States of America just said that their non-commercial customers were more important than property developers. That's customer service.

If I lived in that neck of the woods, you could be damned sure that I'd switch my accounts to BB&T.

{Via Martini Boy and Below the Beltway}

Posted by: Kathy at 11:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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