Re: the Oct. 11 story on CUJournal.com, "What bothers bankers..." is not the tax-exempt status of credit unions. If that was truly the case, banks would convert to credit unions, pay themselves less, charge their customers less, forego the availability of secondary capital, and maintain higher reserves. In other words, they would have to do some hard work for a change, and that's a bit daunting for a group grown accustomed to silk stockings and soft hands.
No, what really irks the bankers is the financial success of credit unions and the prosperity of our members. It is the temerity of the financially "underserved" to once again invade the bankers' financial preserve, being so presumptuous to think we can successfully invest in not only ourselves, but the business communities in which we live.
For more than 100 years, American bankers have scoffed at the financial naivete of ordinary Americans thinking they could create their own financial institutions and succeed; that the sophistication of financial marketplace competition would crush the slim threads of financial cooperation that credit unions intended to wrap themselves in.
Today, however, bankers have a greater appreciation for the power of financial co-operatives to grow and succeed, particularly in a free and democratic society. And they have seen that once this thread takes root among the greater body politic, it cannot and will not be uprooted. The bankers' only saving grace at the moment is our movement's inability to tap the full measure of our total capacity.
Even in a relatively long-standing, free and democratic society like ours, co-operation has not become the art it should be, especially among cooperatives. It seems we would rather get in "big dog" fights, scrapping over bones for the benefit of a few credit unions instead of getting our collective act together. And it seems we would rather run out the same stale arguments about how good it would be for the economy if a few of us could do more business lending, as if we were bank executives.
Our argument has always been and remains the right of Americans to forge their own futures. And 100 years of successfully doing that on an inter-personal level, credit union Members now have the opportunity and financial ability to cooperatively invest directly in their communities. And if we were to do that to the full extent of our current 12.5% cap, and do it as successfully as we have all that has proceeded these last 100 years, then we would not have to ask for more. It would be ours for the taking. That is truly "what bothers bankers."
Michael Dillon,
South Division Credit Union
Evergreen, Ill.
