That's absolutely fair, and I admit, I wouldn't be fundamentally opposed to it. The little magic 8-ball in my mind I use to gauge the plausibility of a particular political direction of development simply sees far too many endemic issues with American institutional philosophy to see something like this gain traction. Mind, I've worked in that space. It's a ridiculously profitable industry for those that operate in the space (usually with customer hostile profit generating models, and demographic engineering to ensure you're hitting the most vulnerable folks for revenue extraction; part of the reason I ended up getting out and refuse to look back).

As it turns out, the profitability per employee person in the company can be extremely high, which means there is a lot of lobbying potential to keep a cohesive National government maintained/specified banking infrastructure from coming into existence.

I'm not just trying to take cheap shots or be dismissive of the idea. It's just experience tells me this is well within "everyone stops being a dick" territory in terms of probability of realization through organic development short of some higher being deciding I need a lesson in being more humble today. There is some synergy or likelihood of an indirect development in that direction with the whole Stimulus boondoggle going on in Washington, but the resulting implementation will almost guaranteed be challenged as soon as any hint of the present crisis having resolved comes around. Private industry in the U.S. as a rule will raise hell to destroy a public alternative as unfair competition on free market principles, notwithstanding the self-referential inconsistency the private actors demonstrate at the first chance they get. This is why there are only really 3 public trust quasi-Corps I'm aware of. Post-Office (Constitutionally guaranteed), Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae. Okay, technically the Federal Reserve, but to be frank, their track record is so spotty, it feels more like the most elaborate financial shell game ever perpetrated than an institution to consider seriously effective.

It hurts frankly. I hate that the sector is as big as it is because we can't just all agree that maybe this thing is pervasive enough to warrant folding into the basic Public Trust toolkit. That's just the reality on this side of the pond though. We measure the trustworthiness of Government as a repository for broad sweeping social power based on the least virtuous operator in living memory. Unfortunately, we just haven't had a long enough run where people could be trusted not to abuse anything more functional than what we have. Quite the opposite. Gives me a headache just dwelling on it most days.

But we avoided the Holocaust so far, so we've got that going for us.