OPINION: Let’s Take Our Money And Play Somewhere Else

The Pencil Warrior
By Dave Wheelock

“If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” The bumper sticker came into vogue during the reign of Baby Bush. Yet if anyone thought it would lose its relevance with the ascension of Barack and the Demos, he should have had his head examined.
If Obama has taught us anything it is that we must do our own heavy lifting. There remain more than enough outrages to go around, so many it sometimes seems impossible that citizens will ever be able to focus their combined energies enough to make a dent, let alone reverse institutionalized injustice.
Yet this Wall Street Thing may prove different, if only because it begs an elegantly simple response, an action that most everyone from wild-eyed enviros to tea baggers may equally embrace.
I’m talking about the Move Your Money concept, which advocates that people withdraw their money from the big banks that refuse to lend out the money the federal government and their own customers have given them and invest it instead in community banks, small savings and loans, or credit unions. In doing so, ordinary Americans can do to the six big gambling houses --Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, and Citigroup -- what Congress fears to do: hit ‘em where they live.
Move Your Money is the brainchild of the Roosevelt Institute, which according to Wikipedia is the first student-run policy research group or "think tank" in the United States. Since January, Move Your Money has exploded on the internet and this past weekend even broke into the closely guarded studios of broadcast television with a segment on CBS’s Sunday Morning. In Los Angeles, the city council is reportedly considering a measure that would move government money out of big banks that habitually foreclose on citizens and move it into local institutions that actually serve the lending needs of the city. New York City has similar ideas.
Right here in New Mexico, HB 66, the State Funds in Community Banks Bill giving decisive preference in holding state funds to community banks and credit unions narrowly missed becoming law after unanimous approval by the House.
Only a Senate filibuster on an unrelated matter on the legislature’s last day prevented the transfer of between two and five billion dollars in taxpayer money from casinos like Bank of America and Wells Fargo into in-state institutions that actually serve the communities in which they operate.
According to economist Robert Johnson at MoveYourMoney.info, the six big banks listed above – which received billions in bailout money due to their “too big to fail” status – continue to control approximately 97 percent of the derivative markets now acknowledged to be at the core of our economic woes. In order to prevent any kind of accountability for these “economic weapons of mass destruction” (Warren Buffet, 2003) big banks spent $30 million last year lobbying members of Congress.
According to Ed Mierzwinski, a lobbyist for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, "It seems like everybody is out of work except for bank lobbyists."
All this, while continuing to not lend money to small businesses, rightfully the primary engines of our economy.
Simon Johnson, economics professor at MIT and cofounder of BaselineScenario.com, a vital chronicler of the current financial crisis, points to the political leverage Move Your Money can have if citizens begin to ask candidates the right questions.
“How can politicians claim to be against Too Big To Fail banks when they actually have an account or a credit card or a mortgage at one such offender? Shouldn’t state officials be held accountable for where they park the taxpayers’ funds? Who got what kind of commission last time a government body issued bonds?”
But Move Your Money is about more than the punitive effect on the legal conspiracies that cheat our citizens. It’s also about the positive effect of supporting local businesses and nonprofits that actually serve our cities, towns, reservations, and rural areas.
Research by the New Rules Project’s Community Banking Initiative shows that community banks and credit unions charge lower fees and lend out more money locally than the big banks. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland revealed that smaller banks and credit unions pay higher interest on savings accounts. As I mentioned earlier, this movement is for everyone.
At the core, Move Your Money resonates with people who want their money to reflect their values, those intentions of goodwill toward others which are so often spoken in deceit by those who profit from the misery of others.
The ultimate power lies in simply refusing to play the game as it’s been laid out for us, in favor of choosing our own path. Gandhi and King knew this. Simplicity is what gives this idea the makings of a genuine movement.

Dave Wheelock keeps his liquid rupees in the local credit union and his massive retirement account is parked with a "socially conscious investor." Reach him at davewheelock@yahoo.com. Mr. Wheelock's views do not necessarily represent those of the Mountain Mail.

OPINION: Let’s Take Our Money And Play Somewhere Else