Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, you are absolutely right. As we speak, Citi Corp and Wells Fargo are both battling and, in fact, some of the battles have gone into court over their respective bids to buy Wachovia. Now where this has all stemmed, of course, is that Wachovia, which is, as you said, is an institution, really, in North Carolina - founded in North Carolina - has grown to be one of the biggest national banks. But they made a decision a few years ago to buy a west coast company, a mortgage company that had a lot of mortgages. They thought it was a good move at the time. It turned out - of course, with the housing bust - to be a disastrous move. And those mortgages and the fact that they are not performing have weighed down on the value of Wachovia, pushed the stock value down to where now these out-of-state suitors are looking at Wachovia as a great buy. They are looking ahead and saying, 'Well, if we can buy Wachovia cheaply, we've got a great company, and we can make money with it in the future.' So we have had these two deals that were worked out, competing deals. Wachovia is trying to decide, the courts are involved, the federal government is involved. Why this is important, of course, to North Carolina is because banking is now our largest economic sector. So if something happens to Wachovia to perhaps diminish its role in the state economy that could have massive effects on not only Charlotte, but the wider North Carolina economy."