I watched John Stewart's recent Rally to Restore Sanity. One thing he said made me think of the NCUA and our trade groups. Stewart said, "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing."

I know he was talking about politics, but if you think about it, this can be applied to the NCUA and its response to the corporate credit union meltdown. We had five corporate credit unions that the NCUA allowed to go outside of Reg 704 and load up on private mortgage investments. Then, the NCUA re-writes 704 and amps it up on everything. All five corporates had boards made up of CEOs, so the rule is changed to make sure no volunteers serve on the boards. Does that make sense? You know this is the case now at the natural person credit unions if you have already gone through your examination this year because the amplification has rolled over to us. It's like the NCUA is a 24-hour cable news network.

The trade groups are not helping; they also are adding more noise. It seems like they are making the issues more confusing. CUNA and NAFCU both have "tell us about your examination" sites. Why? What is the purpose of these competing sites?