Subscribe to Dollars & Sense magazine. Recent articles related to the financial crisis. Break Up With Your Big Bank (Bankster)Here, from Bankster, is another example of anti-big-bank activism, albeit of the PC consumerist sort, that *might* be able to send the biggest banks the message that We Don't Like Them. Here are the details:FOR VALENTINE'S DAY - BREAK UP WITH YOUR BIG BANK! I got into a bit of trouble the last time I posted this kind of thing—about the Move Your Money campaign, which was co-sponsored by Arianna Huffington. First of all, blog visitor Michael E. responded thusly: "Doug Henwood, the intrepid, articulate, and clear-headed editor of the Left Business Observer, asserts that "Move Your Money" is a delusional waste of time and effort based on false assumptions about the banking system. His argument is very convincing. Check out his article in the current issue." Once I'd read the LBO article, which I liked quite a bit, I posted the bulk of the argument from it, with a link urging people to subscribe to LBO. I guess no good deed goes unpunished—within an hour or so we got an email from Doug saying he was annoyed that we had posted "the entirety" of the piece (which we had not), even though he intended to post the full text of the article on his own site that very day. Sigh. Of course I trimmed down the re-post immediately. We again urge you to subscribe to LBO (it's Doug's livelihood!), and listen to Doug's excellent radio program. (Subscribe to D&S while you're at it—it's our livelihood! E-subscriptions are now available—a full-color pdf delivered to your Inbox six times a year.) And if you still have money in one of the big banks, put it in a credit union! But needless to say, don't expect that to bring down capitalism or even to make it appreciably less nasty, except maybe with respect to your own overdraft fees. —Chris Sturr, D&S co-editor. Labels: Bankster, big banks, Doug Henwood, Move Your Money, Valentines Day Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Move Your Money? (Doug Henwood)Hat-tip to reader Michael E. for pointing us to the lead story in the January issue of Left Business Observer (which I hadn't gotten around to reading yet), where Doug Henwood skewers the "Move Your Money" campaign that we posted on yesterday. Our introductory note to that post expressed some mild skepticism by observing that you have to *have* some savings to participate in the campaign. And we certainly should have gone on to criticize the individualism of the campaign, the limits of PC consumerism, etc.Doug usefully points out that the strategy behind the campaign is flawed because of the fungibility and mobility of money. You can't ensure that your money will be put to good, local uses by picking a local bank; at any rate, the banks that the campaign's zip-code-based locator suggests are not necessarily good ones or insulated from big banks and global capital. I did check my zip code in humble East Boston and found East Boston Savings Bank and some credit unions—maybe Doug's Brooklyn neighborhood is tonier than mine and has not only more banks, but slimier ones. I wouldn't want to face trying to be a PC financial consumer in New York City, even if I had any money to park. Doug's crack about HuffPo is on the money, but it's even worse than he says. HuffPo thrives on the paid labor of interns, in the sense that the interns pay for the privilege of interning at HuffPo, as widely reported last spring. Anyway, here's part of Doug's take; I strongly encourage everyone to subscribe to LBO and/or purchase the January issue go get the full article: The latest populist spasm is Arianna Huffington's "Move Your Money" campaign, which would have those of us with money in large banks move it to small ones. This touches on another foundational populist fantasy: that virtue and size are inversely related. Her website, which thrives on the unpaid labor of hundreds of eager contributors, even provides a helpful list of convenient local banks if you enter your zip code. Read the whole article. Subscribe to LBO. Labels: Arianna Huffington, Doug Henwood, Huffington Post, Move Your Money Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Move Your MoneyThis is from the Feb. 1st issue of The Nation; here's the link to the Move Your Money campaign, which Arianna Huffington and Rob Johnson of the Roosevelt Institute started. It sounds like a worthy campaign; if I had any savings I would move them (except I have never given the big banks my business, at least when I've been able to avoid it).Are you angry about Wall Street's reckless excesses? Are you disappointed with President Obama's limp approach to reform? You can change this, acting individually and collectively. Withdraw your deposit and savings accounts from the large banks that brought the system to ruin and were subsequently rescued with billions in government bailouts. Put your money instead in smaller, safer banks or credit unions closer to home--the thousands of community institutions that do not harvest their profits from greed and recklessness. "Move Your Money" is an electrifying slogan that's lighting up the Internet because it shows people how they can push back against the big dogs of banking. The concept is simple, but this is a big idea that could alter the timid direction of financial reform. This campaign is potentially more than a feel-good gesture. If coordinated with institutional reform efforts, it could lead to a broad rebellion against the financial system, with citizens reclaiming the power to act directly when politicians are too intimidated by moneyed interests to act in the public interest. Economist Jane D'Arista put it crisply: "We are not a nation of widows and orphans. We have quite a lot of money, and people control some of it. They might ask why they don't control more of it." The campaign was launched just before New Year's Eve by Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post and Rob Johnson of the Roosevelt Institute. An influential bank-rating firm, Institutional Risk Analytics, donated a website window (moveyourmoney.info/find-a-bank), where citizens can find banks in their ZIP code that IRA certifies as safe and sound. In the first forty-eight hours more than 100,000 responded with inquiries. Within a week, people had searched for good banks in 16,631 ZIP codes--nearly 40 percent of the nation. The search tool is now getting 45,000 users a day. Naturally, the corporate media promptly assured readers that "ordinary Americans lack the power to hurt the big banks," as a Washington Post headline put it. Wrong. The cynics either do not understand banking or misunderstand the widespread public anger. Dennis Santiago, IRA's CEO and managing director, explained that banks compete fiercely for the "core deposits" provided by individual and small business accounts--this stable money is their preferred base for profitable lending. Take away core deposits, and bankers feel immediate balance-sheet stress. Expand the account base for community banks, and they gain greater stability and greater lending power. "Will moving your money have an effect?" Santiago asked. "And by effect, I don't mean making a momentary political statement. I mean making a structural difference to the country's financial system. The answer is yes." Structural change ought to be the primary goal of financial reform--breaking up the concentrated power held by mega-banks and creating a balanced system of smaller, more diverse lending institutions that thrive by serving local credit needs. Alas, the Obama administration and Congress are pursuing the opposite goal--rescuing the behemoths that failed and encouraging even greater financial concentration. This will lead to more reckless adventures, more "too big to fail" bailouts. "Move Your Money" is an important model for teaching people how to change a dysfunctional system. The same principle of taking control of your own money is at work in related reform movements. A campaign launched by faith-based community organizations associated with the Industrial Areas Foundation identifies sky-high interest rates on credit cards and other lending as the ancient sin of usury. IAF groups are asking churches, foundations and local governments to withdraw funds from the usurious banks that profit by destroying borrowers. Organized labor, likewise, has launched an aggressive movement to insist on responsible investing values for the pension-fund wealth of working people, urging state treasurers and fund managers to invest for society's interests as well as good returns. Changing the nature of finance capitalism is a long road, to be sure, and the industry will resist change every step of the way. But the fight begins in earnest when people decide to move their money. Labels: Arianna Huffington, Bank of America, banking industry, banking system, Move Your Money, Too Big to Fail Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). |
