A year ago, BB&T Bank was applauded by a lot of Libertarians for their stance on eminent domain. For the purpose of refreshing our memories, here's how one newspaper reported the story:
BB&T Corp., the second-biggest bank in the Washington area, said yesterday that it will not lend money to developers who plan to build commercial projects on land taken from private citizens through the power of eminent domain.
BB&T is now engaged in additional free market activity. Here's the scoop:
Winston-Salem-based BB&T's philanthropic organization, BB&T Charitable Foundation, recently made the $1 million donation to UNC-Greensboro to establish the BB&T Program in Capitalism, Markets and Morality. The program also will create the Ayn Rand Reading Room in the school's library. The room will include fiction and nonfiction works by Rand, who was an economic freedom advocate, and other authors.
BB&T Chairman and Executive Officer John Allison IV said the grant would help to promote students' understanding of concepts outside the technical framework of businesses. "Unfortunately, we find that many students who graduate with business degrees while understanding the 'technology' of business, do not have a clear grasp of the moral principles underlying free markets," Allison said.
The gift will fund an undergraduate course on markets and morality and a separate course for graduate students. It will also provide faculty grants for curriculum development to increase students' knowledge of capitalism and moral foundations in the economic principle.
Also included in the gift is the creation of the BB&T Distinguished Lecture Series in Capitalism, which will promote discussions on business ethics and values. Dr. Bruce Caldwell, a professor of economics at UNC-Greensboro and editor of The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, will be among the various presenters during the lecture series.
Congratulations are due to BB&T for their continued work in advancing the cause of liberty.
Do the higher ups at BB&T do anything to promote libertarianism in the political world? We'll take what we can get, but it would go a long way to have a Washington area recognizable business endorsement of what we're trying to do here.
I will be most impressed were I to find out that BB&T was maintaining 100% reserves on its demand deposits. As I know darn well its not, its just another block in the Federal Reserve's inflationary tower. Until central banking is abolished, no bank will can truly call itself a free market institution.
I do applaud their stand on eminent domain, my previous paragraph notwithstanding.
Maybe somebody can make an eminent domain claim over hammeroftruth.com and libertymix.com since Michael Badnarik recommended that libertarians donate to the former toward the creation of the latter; nearly a year later there's barely a sign of either despite numerous broken promises (most significantly June 6th and election Tuesday) and over $10,000 in funding.
All businesses are regulated by our government, but they can still try to be free market enterprises in spite of the control they wish was not over them. At least they are trying. Give them credit for that much.
The Federal Reserve requires that banks hold in reserve only ten percent of the money which citizens give them. Any bank that wishes to do so may hold in reserve more money, but they may not go under 10%. Austrian economists tend to see fractional reserve banking as fraudulent, and the cause of inflation and invariably the business cycle. Technically, any bank that wishes to do so can, right now, declare that they will reserve 100% of the money they take in, which is what Austrians would prefer. They don't have to get any permission from the government for doing so. However, then banks, to make money, would have to charge a fee to those citizens wishing to store their money. Since no citizen is going to do that, when he could go to another bank and get interest, no bank reserving 100% of the money it takes it can prosper or last on the unfree, Fed-cartelized market.
Alexander S. Peak:
I concur with your comment. The only solution is the abolishment of the Federal Reserve entirely and the establishment of a 100% reserve banking system, with all demand deposits and banknotes redeemable in gold bullion or coin on demand. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Do the higher ups at BB&T do anything to promote libertarianism in the political world? We'll take what we can get, but it would go a long way to have a Washington area recognizable business endorsement of what we're trying to do here.
Posted by: Nick at December 6, 2006 04:31 PM