By DAVID REILLY
The economy is in an awful jam. Consumers and businesses need access to credit. Many banks, starved of capital, aren't up to the task. Nor is the shadow banking system, which offered an alternative source of credit from money-market, bond and hedge funds, but has now dried up.
One suggested out: Create new banks that wouldn't be saddled with the soured loans and toxic assets constraining other lenders.
That's easier said than done. Even with government funds, most start-ups couldn't muster the technology, infrastructure and management expertise to form the kind of big, national bank that could quickly have an impact.
Most, that is, except for Wal-Mart. The retailing giant could probably get a big bank up and running pretty easily. If, that is, its opponents put the economy's needs ahead of their own interests.
Two years ago next week, Wal-Mart withdrew its application to create an industrial loan company, a kind of banking operation, in the face of opposition from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., rival banks and the wider anti-Wal-Mart lobby.
Much of the protest was rooted in fears that Wal-Mart's application was a first step toward creating a real bank, as opposed to an entity meant to process payments from customers and suppliers. From there, opponents argued, Wal-Mart would soon crush competitors, especially community banks.
Times have changed. The economic crisis demands radical solutions. Giving Wal-Mart a banking license may be one.
