This is going to be a tough week

For those of you that aren't aware, I work for a small bank in North Carolina. I used to be the Marketing Director. In July they asked me to manage the Retail Bank as well. Last week I had the pleasure of terminating a bank employee that had been with us for 28 years for structuring some of her personal transactions to avoid government notification. What made it worse is that she is in the middle of a divorce and she lost over 200 hours of PTO. So, let's do the math. No more job income. She lost her husband's income and she is out 200 hours of paid time off. That was a hard thing to do. On the bright side, I avoided terminating a 61 year-old employee by getting he to avoid a lesser role within the company.

This week we are dealing with budgeting. As of Friday the price of FDIC insurance we need to pay the government was up 2.5 times. The government is also requiring us to pay for the FDIC insurance investment companies are using to guarantee cash in their money market funds. This adds about $700,000 to our expenses. Then we get to find money to cover losses in our pension plan. In 2006, companies were required to keep 80% of a pension program's assets in the fund. Due to some nefarious activities, the government changed the law to require 92% funding starting in 2009.

To make matters worse, the increased funding levels are based on the balances as of January 2008 -- not Dec. 31, 2008 (if you have any money in mutual funds, IRAs, stocks, etc., you know where this is going). We lost about $3 million in our pension plan. So we need to find another $4 million by January 1, 2009 if congress doesn't change their mandate. If they don't hundreds, if not thousands of companies are going to be brought to their financial knees (even companies like AT&T and Verizon will be affected). The good news is congress is considering it.

I typically use this "space" for stupidity. Today I want to share with you my concerns regarding the economy. I work at a very fiscally sound, conservative bank. We didn't get involved in any of the poor lending practices that drove other banks to the government nipple for help. We carry three times the capital required by the government, so we haven't done stupid things to raise cash.

And yet, we find ourselves having to make some very difficult decisions about who the bank is and what it will be in the future because of the acts of the bad apples. To make matters worse, the government is taking our tax dollars to fund the very banks that made these mistakes and make the good guys compete against them.

I need to cut this short as I am running out of time...

If you haven't heard heard of Marriner S. Eccles, it's about time.