Saturday, January 02, 2010

Populist Bank Reform

Since April, the Big Four banks -- JP Morgan/Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo -- all of which took billions in taxpayer money, have cut lending to businesses by $100 billion.

These big, bailed-out banks then spent millions of dollars on lobbying to gut or kill financial reform -- including "too big to fail" legislation and the regulation of the derivatives that played such a huge part in the meltdown.

The five largest US banks control roughly half of the industry's $13.3 trillion in assets. The 8,176 community banks control just 15%.

But local banks often have a positive impact on their communities. So, why not move your money out of one of the big banks and put it into a community bank?

If enough people who have money in one of the Big Four banks move it into smaller, more local, more traditional community banks, then collectively we, the people, will have taken a big step toward re-rigging the financial system so it once again becomes the productive, stable engine for growth it's meant to be.

The FDIC deposit insurance is just as good at small banks as the behemoths.

Watch Eugene Jarecki's amazing video at www.moveyourmoney.info to learn more about how easy it is to move your money. And pass the idea on to your friends (help make this video – and this idea – go viral!).

JP Morgan/Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America may be "too big to fail" -- but they are not too big to feel the impact of hundreds of thousands of people taking action to change a broken financial and political system.

Let them gamble with their own money, not yours. Let's turn big banks into smaller banks. We'll all be better off – and safer – as a result.

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