How to Recognize Biased Blogs

This post started with the idea that I would track down documentation on the cause of ING Groep's severe losses in 2008 and 2009. I thought I had seen somewhere that most of the Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) ING had bought in the U.S. were required by U.S. law because of ING's deposit base. Well, aside from the important idea that a bank should make money on money that it borrows, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was established to encourage banks and thrifts to make loans in disadvantaged areas. I'm still researching that, but I discovered an interesting blog along the way.

Here is the blog:
http://www.bankinnovation.net/profiles/blogs/kill-ing-direct

The ambiguous title "Kill ING Direct?" is the first clue that the blog may have an opinion mixed in with its commentary. Is it seeking permission? A clarification of a command? A quick read through the article shows a bias. The magic phrase?

"That it deserves to exist is."

Right at the top of the article is the implied normative question: Whether or not the bank deserves to exist. In my usage of English, "deserve" implies something other than "earned." Certainly, if a bank fails to make earnings, it will soon be gone. But that isn't how Americans use the word. It implies a moral judgment, something more than a simple weighing the business value of the enterprise.

Hornblass, were you offended by ING Direct? What is the problem here, earnings aside? ING savings accounts suck money from low-service checking accounts at major banks, but what is wrong with that? Savers get more control, more interest, better visibility into their earnings, and the ING user interface is a leader the industry. Banks with slow Javascript, bad and ugly page layout, limited features, and limitations on the number of accounts deserve to lose the business.

It does make me wonder who will wind up with ING Direct after ING Groep sells it before the 2013 deadline. Also, since the Dutch government ordered that only ING Direct USA be sold, is that payback for the losses imposed by U.S. policy on ING Groep and its shareholders?