After the collapse of banks too big to fail and the horror of the Great Recession of 2008, my general opinion of banks plummeted. I noticed a couple of things, one disturbing, the other fascinating as a result.
The disturbing one appeared on a January 2009 TV program of Bill Moyers, in which he quoted Wayland High School graduate Arthur C. Johnson, CEO of United Bank and then president of the American Bankers’ Association, as vigorously opposing any efforts that would be made to reform the U.S. banking system.
Yes, I found that disturbing because too many big banks played major roles in the stock market crash of ’08 and they weren’t being held accountable because the government was going to bail them out. At the very least, I wanted President George W. Bush and Congress to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act that had been repealed in 1999 by Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress.
Of course, no reforms were enacted at 
all, and it pained me to learn that a local banker who made good was part of successfully defending the status quo.
Then came news of a woman in California who launched a “Move Your Money” campaign, in which common everyday folks were encouraged to take all their money out of their banks and instead put it into credit unions that were not engaging in the risky casino capitalism that caused the crisis. I concluded that this idea was revolutionary, not the customary “blood in the streets” B.S., but a real challenge to the powers that be to make changes.
I reasoned that the rich and powerful understand money very well, and the common folks collectively taking it away and putting it elsewhere would be nothing short of a bloodless revolution.
I decided to make a token move in that direction. My wife and I moved not all, but a significant amount of money, out of United Bank and into a special checking account at Lake Michigan Credit Union, earning 3% interest to boot. We didn’t move all of our money because we still like our hometown bank and it is convenient, so we decided to continue to do business, despite the horrible realization it was on the wrong side of the issue of the recession and bailout.
The Move Your Money campaign turned out to be less than a modest success and since has fizzled into obscurity. I still believe deep in my heart that those who feel powerless can turn the tables if a solid number of us switch from banks to credit unions.
When I did an enterprise story for the Kalamazoo Gazette in 2009, I learned that virtually all credit unions in West Michigan suffered no ill effects from the Great Recession because they didn’t engage in risky behavior with mortgage derivatives. This solidified my thinking.
A few friends said I shouldn’t desert my local bank. I didn’t, but worried that United Bank might someday be the victim of a buyout, just like Byron Bank was swallowed up by Chemical Bank. Mr. Johnson to this day swears that won’t happen.
So I compromised. United Bank has been good to us over our 30-year relationship, but I’ve come to wonder just what banks do in general. Too many of them just move money around, they give us common folks only 0.25% interest in savings accounts and they make big bucks by lending people dough at far higher interest rates. Then some invest profits in risky schemes.
So I remain a customer of United Bank, but I still believe that if we, the people, really want to take back our country, we need to do it economically, not by force.
If just 25% of us moved out money out of banks and into credit unions, it really would be a revolutionary event without spilling a drop of blood.
