Danny Westneat of The Seattle Times wrote an interesting column in yesterday's paper about a local business owner, Stephan Mollmann, who has perfect credit and was trying to refinance his home loan to a lower rate yet facing various roadblocks. Mollman doesn't have clout, but he's got a direct line to food at his gastropub and a great story angle. Read on: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2012384300_danny18.html

Here in Seattle, as I learned from my brother who I'm visiting (hence all this time to blog, normally I'm writing about my neighborhood) there is a lot of backlash against Chase due to Washington Mutual's strong footprint in the community and Chase having acquired Washington Mutual. What I found really interesting about Westneat's piece was not Mollman's story in itself, but a comment Mollman made about had he of had bad credit and been facing foreclosure, the opportunity to refinance would have been made much easier because Chase has a program for that consumer segment. It also reminded me of a friend in Chicago- another good little guy- who told me he is not eligible for a student loan to go back to school, but if he were a recovering drug addict or coming out of prison he'd be eligible for student financial aid in the State of Indiana.

African American people use a term called 'the black tax' which means that they have to work twice as hard as a white person to get recognition or to be noticed for their talents, and that is true on many levels, especially in pre Civil rights era and in the early days of professional sports when a black athlete had to have a batting average well above the best white player to even get on the team. 

In today's financial arena, it seems like 'the good guys' are being looked over for refinancing due to the fact it's possibly in a bank's best 'interest'- no pun intended- to keep the good guys on pre-established higher interest loans rather than refinance their hom loans because banks know it's a sure bet that the good guys will find a way to keep paying that monthly payment.

Though there are now more rewards and perks for being 'a good guy' in the credit card arena on smaller purchases, i.e. those with good credit and who pay balances each month are being courted with new perks, bigger credit lines, more cash back rewards etc., it seems like this concept has yet to translate to bigger things like home loans.

Is there a real or perceived Good Guy tax, and if so, what can bigger banks and lenders do to keep their good guys on the team and apprecatied for their fiscal responsibility and loyalty?