TBAR/TLR: The Trust Texas Project

The Trust Texas Project is a key element within the Texas Banking and Finance Project. Honesty can be a discriminator setting Texas banking apart from NY City banking. Since federal regulators have been derelict in their duties, if Texas banking and securities regulators were rigorous and reliable then we could make Texas a haven for people looking for honest banks and investment firms.

I do not believe Texans are considered any more honest than anyone else, but if we did launch a Trust Texas Project that included strong audits and regulation, then we could point to a Texas system that is more honest than the federal system of regulation. Having Texas impose regulation might be tricky, it might be difficult, it might be limited by existing laws giving preference to the federal government, but that is why have leadership, to address and solve these kind of problems. See [1] below for an example of voluntary self-regulation.

"... one of the most important lessons we can learn from an examination of economic life is that a nation's well-being, as well as its ability to compete, is conditioned by a single, pervasive cultural characteristic: the level of trust inherent in the society." [2]

Yet, we could and should still strive to increase the level of honesty within Texas. Elementary education is the time to stress honesty. If we developed a culture of honesty, then that could be a greater selling point than the culture of secrecy the Swiss bankers have developed.

Robert Canright

[1] The Wall Street Journal, Thursday February 26, 2009, ran an article, "Pair Lived Large on Fraud, U.S. Says," by Steve Stecklow, et al, which gives a good example of voluntary self-regulation. The National Futures Association on Feb. 12 suspended Paul Greenwood and Stephen Walsh, money managers running several financial companies, including WG Trading Investors Co., for failing to cooperate with the NFA and produce books and records for an audit. Shortly after their suspension by the NFA, several investors sued for an asset freeze, the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission then filed civil charges. If you do not have the power to bring charges, you can at least put a spotlight on shady business practices with voluntary self-regulation.

[2] Trust by Francis Fukuyama, The Free Press, 1995, ISBN 0-02-910976-0, page 7.

See also:
Friday, January 30, 2009: Faithfulness and America's Economic Collapse

Remember
TBAR = The Texas Business and Arts Renaissance
TLR = The Texas Leadership Revolution