The Bank With No ATM, Only One Branch -- November 17, 2014; Big Health, Big Government In Mutually Beneficial Relationship -- NYT

Fun fact:  All 50 US States will experience temps below freezing tonight somewhere within state lines! -- being reported by National Weather Service out of Wilmington, North Carolina.

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Original Post

The only state-owned bank in the US is in North Dakota.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting:

It is more profitable than Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has a better credit rating than J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and hasn’t seen profit growth drop since 2003.

Meet Bank of North Dakota, the U.S.’s lone state-owned bank, which has one branch, no automated teller machines and not a single investment banker.

The reason for its success?

As the sole repository of the state of North Dakota’s revenue, the bank has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the boom in Bakken shale-oil production from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

In fact, the bank played a crucial part in kick-starting the oil frenzy in the state in 2008 amid the financial crisis. When other banks around the U.S. were curtailing lending and increasing reserves, Bank of North Dakota helped smaller banks in the state ride out the crisis by providing them with letters of credit, loan sales and bank stock.

Since then, its total assets have more than doubled, to $6.9 billion last year from $2.8 billion in 2007. By contrast, assets of the much bigger Bank of America Corp. have grown much more slowly, to $2.1 trillion from $1.7 trillion in that period.

I am absolutely convinced "the Bakken" did not JUST happen. This is just one more example.

Much more at the link.

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They Built It: A Powerful, Mutually Beneficial Relationship -- Big Health, Big Government

The New York Times is reporting, we get what we vote for:

As Americans shop in the health insurance marketplace for a second year, President Obama is depending more than ever on the insurance companies that five years ago he accused of padding profits and canceling coverage for the sick.

Those same insurers have long viewed government as an unreliable business partner that imposed taxes, fees and countless regulations and had the power to cut payment rates and cap profit margins.

But since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, the relationship between the Obama administration and insurers has evolved into a powerful, mutually beneficial partnership that has been a boon to the nation’s largest private health plans and led to a profitable surge in their Medicaid enrollment.

The insurers in turn have provided crucial support to Mr. Obama in court battles over the health care law, including a case now before the Supreme Court challenging the federal subsidies paid to insurance companies on behalf of low- and moderate-income consumers. Last fall, a unit of one of the nation’s largest insurers, UnitedHealth Group, helped the administration repair the HealthCare.gov website after it crashed in the opening days of enrollment.

Again, this story never would have appeared BEFORE the mid-term election, but now it's time to move POTUS off the center stage of this three-ring circus.

On a side note, investors are going to do very, very well.