Big Bank Backlash: From Coast to Coast People are Moving their Money

Friday, May 6, 2011 by PRWatch.org

by Mary Bottari

As the economy continues to stutter and new unemployment claims surge to an eight month high, it hasn't escaped the notice of people on Main Street that the folks on Wall Street are back in the black.

According to FORTUNE magazine, profits of the 500 largest U.S. corporations have surged 81 percent this past year. FORTUNE editors write, "We've rarely seen such a stark gulf between the fortunes of the 500 and those of ordinary Americans."

When FORTUNE is standing up for the workers, you know it's bad.

The Big Lie 

As the United States splinters further into two worlds, the American people have not forgotten who got us into this mess in the first place. They are refusing to buy the big lie peddled by new Republican Governors, like Scott Walker in Wisconsin or John Kasich in Ohio, that greedy public sector workers are to blame for our economic woes. They know who inflated the housing bubble and played both sides with credit default swaps, and it wasn't teachers, firefighters or snowplow drivers.

From San Francisco to Wall Street people are taking to the streets reminding governors and their friends on Wall Street and that they remember very well who tanked the global economy putting more than 11 million Americans out of work and creating a revenue crisis for many states.

Hundreds protested inside and outside the Wells Fargo shareholder's meeting in San Francisco this week, and the big bank backlash is gaining steam.

Cheeseheads Say Move Your Money from M&I Bank 

Wisconsin State AFL-CIO is the latest in a wave of businesses, organizations, and individuals who are closing their accounts with M&I Bank. Yesterday the federation closed out a $100,000 CD it held at M&I. Taxpayers bailed out M&I with $1.7 billion of TARP funds. Instead of repaying the money, M&I executives and employees gave $54,000 in political contributions to Governor Scott Walker. Plus, M&I is planning on paying its failed executives $71 millions in bonuses this year when the bank is sold to the Canadian-owned Harris Bank and will close its Milwaukee headquarters.

Mark Furlong the CEO of M&I is scheduled to receive $24 billion bonus package after the bank is sold. In a letter to Frulong, Stephanie Bloomingdale, Secretary-Treasurer, WI AFL-CIO puts it bluntly: "By contributing money to Scott Walker and other Republicans, you have taken part in the destruction of Wisconsin's middle class. As a company entirely dependent on American taxpayers for its survival, M&I owes its allegiance to those taxpayers... We care about our families and communities, while you care only about your bottom line. Here's our bottom line: We're moving our money."

The AFL-CIO joins the firefighters the teachers, church groups and hundreds of individual who have decided to chose a new bank. More actions are planned. If you are interested in moving your money, you can find a new bank or credit union at the Move Your Money site of the Huffington Post.

Buckeyes Tell JPMorgan Chase to Stop the Foreclosures 

Ohioans will greet Jamie Dimon, "the most dangerous banker in the world," at JPMorgan Chase's annual shareholder's meeting in Columbus, OH. After taking $25 billion in TARP bailout money and after acquiring Bear Sterns and Washington Mutual, Jamie Dimon thinks that the big banks aren't big enough and neither is his bonus. In 2010, his total compensation topped $28 million.

Hard to imagine what the spinmeisters were thinking when they advised Dimon to flee Wall Street for Ohio. Ohio is one of the states hardest hit by the epidemic of foreclosures and joblessness caused by Wall Street. It is a state where unions have been under attack, and where hard-won labor rights that built the middle class have been stripped away from public sector workers. This week National People's Action will release a study showing a projected one out of every ten homes in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus received a foreclosure filing since the start of the housing crisis.

Wall Street firms have long been big backers of Kasich. According to Ohio Citizen Action, Chase employees gave $29,000 to Kasich's gubernatorial campaign.

"Protesters will deliver a message to Wall Street – it is time for big banks like JPMorgan Chase to stop the foreclosures, pay their fair share, create jobs, and end the revenue crisis," says Adam Keck, Senior Organizer, Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative.

You are invited to join the Buckeyes in Columbus on May 17th and you can find more information at: Showdown in America.

7 Ways to Transform Banking

Each of us can help build a resilient financial system that will serve real people in real communities.
by Fran Korten
Friday, November 12, 2010 by YES! Magazine

Are you as outraged as I am by the Wall Street bankers with their fat bonuses, shoddy mortgages, and financial shenanigans? With the gridlock in Washington, I wanted to know what “we the people” can do to turn our fury into constructive action. So I turned to my friend Jared Gardner for advice. Jared comes from the financial industry and thinks hard and well about how to change the system.

Here are seven things I gleaned from my discussion with Jared about what we can each do to build a resilient financial system that will serve real people in real communities.

1. Move your money.

You may have heard about the Move Your Money campaign. The idea is to move your deposits from a Wall Street bank to a community bank or a local credit union. This is a terrific first step to keep the banksters from playing games with your money. Check out Green America's Community Investing website for ideas on what to do.

2. Move your debt.

Don’t stop with just moving your deposits. Move your debt. It’s in servicing debt that banks make the big money. So if you have a credit card, a car loan, or a mortgage, consider moving them. Find someone at your local bank or credit union who can help you review your debt and see what you could move to a local institution. Your interest payments can build your local economy instead of fattening those Wall Street bonuses.

3. Persuade your institutions.

Do you belong to a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple? How about the place where you work? Or a club or nonprofit where you are a member? All of these institutions likely have money and debt. Talk with the leadership about where they do their banking and encourage them to explore what they could move to a local bank. The First Unitarian Church in Portland, Oregon is considering moving its entire banking relationship from a Wall Street bank to a local bank. And the Responsible Endowments Coalition is urging colleges and universities to do the same. We need to follow these examples and make this a nation-wide movement.

4. Advocate a state-owned bank.

Sadly for the nation, North Dakota stands alone in having a state-owned bank. But that may change. Ellen Brown reports that five states now have pending legislation to create state-owned banks, and more are studying the possibility. The advantages are tremendous. The Bank of North Dakota has kept credit flowing throughout the financial crisis. More important, the state bank keeps community banks thriving. North Dakota has more community banks per capita than any other state in the union. Those community banks serve local businesses, which in turn generate local jobs—a winning strategy in a job-starved market. According to Brown, last year North Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate in the country.

5. Form or join a group.

Working with others keeps motivation high. One good option is a Common Security Club. Chapters are forming in communities across the country. Members find ways to help each other with financial difficulties, discuss the roots of the economic crisis, and advocate policies that will turn the system around.

6. Learn more.

The New Rules Project has a community banking initiative that’s a font of current information on breakthroughs for community banking. Ellen Brown provides regular insights into openings for transforming the banking system. Oregonians for a State Bank is developing allies across the political spectrum who want to strengthen their local economy. And the YES! Magazine website provides a steady stream of stories that spotlight the actions people are taking to build a new economy.

7. Share these ideas.

People of all political stripes are furious with the Wall Street banks. But they don’t know what to do. So tell everyone you know what you’re doing and why. And share this list. Together we can build a force strong enough to transform the banking system to one that will work for us all.

Bank Local: Indie Businesses Embrace Move Your Money

Small businesses and slices of the larger public have begun taking steps to move their money away from big banks.
By Stacy Mitchell, AlterNet
April 28, 2010

Across the country, independent business groups that have been urging people to "buy local" are now making "bank local" an increasingly prominent part of their message, bringing new grassroots visibility and organizational infrastructure to the Move Your Money movement.

"The message that big banks don't have our interest at heart and small, local banks do is really resonating," said Joe Grafton, executive director of Somerville Local First, a two-year-old coalition of independent businesses in Somerville, Massachusetts.

This year, Somerville Local First devoted the back cover of its widely-distributed local business guide to a message that urges people to move their money and makes the case that switching to a local bank or credit union is an important way to support hometown businesses and your local economy.

This message will also be featured in posters that the group's member businesses (there are more than 150 of them) will hang in their storefronts in the coming weeks, as well as postcards scattered at cash registers and other spots around town. At Somerville Local First's annual street festival in June, local bankers will be on hand to answer questions and help people open new accounts.

Somerville Local First is one of about 130 local business alliances that have sprung up over the last few years to counter the power of big corporations and urge people to choose locally made products and independent businesses more often. All together, these groups count more than 30,000 businesses as members, from farmers and retailers to builders and bankers, and there's growing evidence that their efforts are having a measurable impact on people's buying habits.

Although many of these groups have long encouraged people to ditch big banks in favor of community-rooted financial institutions, that message took on new urgency after the financial collapse.

Last year, a coalition of indie business groups in the Bay Area, including Oakland Grown, Buy Local Berkeley, and the Sustainable Business Alliance, partnered with the East Bay Express on a series of advertisements that highlighted the benefits of banking with a local credit union or bank, and produced a guide to making community-conscious financial choices.

Another early initiative came from the Sustainable Business Network of Portland (SBNP), which launched a Local Banking Campaign last May. A preliminary flyer helped people evaluate banks and credit unions based on several factors, including whether an institution is locally owned and whether its loans serve the community.

Now, a broader coalition, including labor and civic groups, have joined with SBNP to refine the ranking system and expand the visibility and reach of the campaign. "We are preparing a new wave of local bank campaigning here in Portland, as well as in our rural communities around the state," explained one of the initiative's leaders, Jared Gardner, who left his job in the financial industry two years ago and became a community organizer.

Yet another local business alliance that's urging people to ditch the big banks is Sonoma County Go Local in the Santa Rosa region of California. "Bank Local is one of our big campaigns this year," explained Derek Huntington, the group's president.

A few weeks ago, Go Local released a 6-minute bank-local video. Produced by a local television station, the video includes interviews with three local business owners, an arts organization and a hospital, all of whom describe how essential local banks have been in providing financing.

Go Local is now creating a section on its web site where people will be able to find information on all of the banks and credit unions operating in the region, including a measure of how local each institution is based on what portion of their total deposits comes from Sonoma County residents. Go Local is promoting the campaign through billboards and flyers distributed at local businesses.

These initiatives are not only reaching the public, but also beginning to catalyze a shift in the banking habits of independent business owners themselves.

Although independent businesses are more likely than the population at large to bank at a community bank (after all, they depend heavily on these local banks for loans), both Somerville Local First and Sonoma County Go Local estimate that roughly half of their business members have their primary checking account at a big bank.

"We have already started tracking and talking with our members about their banking relationships," said Joe Grafton of Somerville Local First. "For a small business, it can be a really challenging [to switch] because of cash flow. We want to learn what the barriers are and then go back to our financial partners to see what we can do to solve those challenges."

"Our banks are putting together switch kits for local businesses to make that transition easier," said Huntington of Sonoma County Go Local, which is holding meetings with its business members to encourage them to move their accounts.

Interest among local business groups in Move Your Money is so strong that the American Independent Business Alliance organized a panel (on which I participated) about developing local banking campaigns at its conference last week. Another national organization that many of these local business groups are affiliated with, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, is planning several sessions on local banking and investing at its conference next month.

Move your money

Wonder what would have happened if we all had moved our money before the stimulus..?




http://moveyourmoney.info/


Break Up With Your Abusive Big Bank -- Move Your Money

Colorado customers of the "Too Big To Fail" banks are sending a clear message that they've had enough of Wall Street excess, and they're hitting them where it hurts the most--right in their deep pockets.

That's right: A Colorado "Move Your Money" campaign is urging Coloradans to move their money out of Wall Street banks and into community banks and credit unions, which are typically more conservative about how they manage their money, more closely connected to the people and businesses who live near them, and more inclined to make loans they know will get paid back.

For too long the big banks and financial institutions have been the ones largely writing their own rules. They have been indiscriminately increasing credit card fees, offering mortgages that continually reset and creating new financial products like derivatives and credit swaps that allowed them to gamble with our hard-earned money.

Despite receiving trillions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer bailouts, the six largest banks - Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley - have planned to pay out between $140 and $150 billion in compensation, even though their greed and recklessness did so much to cause our current financial crisis. All of these banks have numerous offices across Colorado.

JP Morgan, for example, announced on January 15th that it is setting aside $26.9 billion in compensation this year. On a per employee basis that is a 38 percent increase from 2008 and a 20 percent increase from the 2007 pre-crisis numbers. Citigroup will pay $24.9 billion.

It's as if the whole economic meltdown never even happened. These executives are back to many of their old tricks, including charging big overdraft loan fees for small debits, implementing unfair credit card practices, dealing in opaque, high-risk derivatives and filling their consumer contracts with confusing fine print. Not to mention they have employed an army of high-priced lobbyists to derail common sense reform, spending $344 million on them in the first three quarters of 2009 alone.

But now Main Street is fighting back against Wall Street. Coloradans like Linda Mulligan are marching into banks like Wells Fargo and Chase to shut down their accounts and transfer them to local banks and credit unions that share their community values of fairness and consumer protection.
If you bank with one of the biggies, you know you're through with their reckless behavior and abusive practices. It's time to break up with your bank! You can start again, not with match.com, but with moveyourmoney.info/find-a-bank, where you can find a bank or credit union that is far more personally compatible.
Once free and empowered, you can start an abusive bank survivor network by convincing your friends and organizations in person and via online social networks to do the same. Then you all can contact U.S. Senator Bennet and tell him you expect him to stand with everyday Coloradans in favor of financial reform and a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to ensure the safety of basic financial consumer products.
It's time to choose Main Street over Wall Street. Join us and Move Your Money today.