[conspire] OT: One way to feel cleaner

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Darlene Wallach (freepalestin at dslextreme.com):

> So no credit cards - cash and checks?

I just wanted to make sure everyone knows there's more than one bank in
this world.  ;->

Back in the Pleistocene, when I was a young man, I sought to keep my
money in local financial institutions, and settled on several savings &
loans.  Back then, individual demand deposits with Depression-derived
Federal deposit insurance could be kept in any of three types of
institutions: credit unions, savings & loans, or banks.  S&Ls were then
the chief way local communities financed themselves.  I found one near
where I lived.

In the 1980s -- this may start sounding familiar -- S&Ls were
deliberately _deregulated_ to fuel a slowdown is residential real estate. 
Most made risky, bad investments.  FSLIC became insolvent.  My S&L 
was shotgun-married into another S&L, which became a 'bank' when all
S&Ls' insurance scheme was shotgun-married into FDIC.  The deregulation
rot continued, however, and my ex-S&L 'bank' also failed and was
shotgun-married into another bank, one that was no longer local
(Minneapolis-based) and that I'd never chosen.  

Since the whole idea was to think local, in late 2011 I moved my money
to a local credit union that I know well and consider reputable.

The recent (2008+) financial crisis was also triggered largely by
ill-advised deregulation, where controls and monitors were removed from
both depository banks and investment banks, and -- surprise! -- they 
started making risky, bad investments, and then demanding to be saved by
the taxpayer (shades of FDLIC) when the consequences came home to roost.

Anyway, getting back to the fact that there's more than one bank in this
world:  Anyone can confirm objectively that a small number of banks --
there no longer being a real distinction between depository banks and
investment banks, thanks to the aforementioned disasterous banking
deregulation -- have been criminally culpable on a massive scale for 
(unlawful) misdeeds leading into and during the crisis.  The names 
are not difficult to find.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidity_crisis_of_September_2008

Bank of America (ex-Nationsbank) is one, but there are several others.
If like me you have a policy of not doing business with crooks, act in
accordance with your conscience.

No bank is perfect (pick your metric), but it's not difficult to find
one essentially blameless in the recent shameful deeds, and (if you care
about such things) that is a force in the local economy.