Bringing Banks to the Pickens Plan

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Comment by Cheryl Shuman on May 12, 2009 at 3:12pm

Thank you so much for inviting me to join your group! I'm looking forward to making a difference and getting to know all of you.

Kindest Personal Regards,
Cheryl Shuman
Beverly Hills, CA

Comment by Mike Anthony Fernald Sr. on April 2, 2009 at 3:57am

By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real
Posted on April 1, 2009, Printed on April 1, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/134392/I

I voted for Barack Obama, and I continue to wish him nothing but success. But I have to admit his and Tim Geithner's solution to the banking crisis is exactly the wrong solution. The administration seems to believe the best thing to do is to throw the drunken "money center" bankers into detox, hose them off and put them back in the game.

It's a bit like asking ExxonMobil to run the Environmental Protection Agency, or appointing Charles Keating to head the General Accounting Office.

The strange thing is that others in the administration, particularly those tasked with straightening out the auto industry, are taking the opposite -- and correct -- tact. They fired the head of GM and cleaned out GM's board of directors for good measure.

That's how you begin fixing stuff that's broke -- first you get rid of the folks who broke it. What you don't do is hand them billions of free bucks, a hearty slap on the back and a rousing "Now, go get 'em tiger!" (Because they will.)

But that's precisely what the administration is doing for America's failed money center banks. The nation's largest banks are often referred to as money market banks or money center banks.

In addition to the traditional markets, to be a money center bank today means to have a global presence as well as heavy involvement in wholesale banking with clients including many retail banks and large corporations. Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America fit this description. Here's a list of America's leading money center banks.

So, it appears we will have to take matters into our own hands. By "we" I mean anyone with a checking account, savings account or certificates of deposit. That, my friends, would be you. You are up at bat, and we're counting on you.

What we need to do is force the administration to do to these tumorlike institutions -- currently hiding behind the myth they are "too big to fail" -- what they just did to GM. Tell them that, since taxpayers are now major stakeholders, they must fire their senior management and either clean up the mess they made or face immediate seizure and liquidation.

And just how are you going to force such a change? It's just this simple:


1) If you bank with any of these money center banks, withdraw your funds immediately

2) Go to this site and find an independent community bank in your area and deposit your funds there instead. (Credit unions are another excellent and safe alternative to banking a money center bank.)


That's it. That's the whole enchilada. The outflow of what bankers call "retail funds," if large enough, will become the final straw that breaks the backs of these bulls in our fiscal china shop.

But, you ask, will my money be safe in a small, community bank?

Of course it will be safe, just as safe, maybe safer, than it was at Citibank or BofA. First, community banks are covered by exactly the same deposit insurance as money center banks. But beyond that, community bankers are community bankers. They live in the communities they serve. They know their towns. And, most importantly, they know their borrowers.

Community banks are, for the most part, the last remaining healthy sector of American banking. If they are hurting at all, it's because their customers are losing their jobs, not because they lent a godzillion dollars to some fly-by-night schemer or invested in anything with an AIG logo on it.

A good community banker's definition of a toxic asset is more along the lines of Farmer Jones' wrecked pickup on which the bank holds the paper.

So, if you are customer of one of those money center banks, institutions currently hoarding hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout funds, walk right in, sit right down and tell them you want the dough that still has your name on it, and you want it now.

Otherwise these tumor-banks will survive Geithner's weak-kneed chemo treatments to emerge intact to pillage another day.

I don't know if what I am suggesting is legal or not. I remember back in 1983, when I wrote my first story about how a savings and loan was using deregulation to put taxpayers at risk. The thrift's lawyers contacted me at the paper and warned me that they were going monitor withdrawals and, if there were a lot of customers withdrawing their money, they ask that I be arrested and charge with breaking a federal law -- still on the books -- that made it illegal to spark a run on a bank.

I took my chances then, and was proved right. I'll take my chances again. So, run baby. Run.

Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans, which was nominated for a Pulitzer.

© 2009 News for Real All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/134392

Comment by Mike Anthony Fernald Sr. on March 2, 2009 at 3:44am

Dear Friends

I have a Plan

Im going to get a little personal about me with you.
I Just finished a Drywall & Paint Job and realized the awesome earning potential I have within my grasp If I had 10 or more people just like me we could increase profits 10 fold maybe more. Im not saying this to soloist anyone or sell anything this is just a possible solution to raise capital to advance our projects like Energy Bonds Green Jobs and promote the best of our best Ideas. For 30 years I have been meeting all my family needs within my means with just the help of my wife.
My thought is this lets all network with one another our jobs what we do best refering one another for work and taking 10% or what ever of the job refered and put 5% into a We the People Account & the other 5% to the one who refered the job.
Mr. Pickens has spent over 50 Million of his own Money, Tell me why we all can't pull together and do this. I think most of us here part of the 77 Million Baby Boomers, I have 10-15 years left in me to sucure our Grandkids Furture.

So what do you think ?
Am I Dreaming :o} Or can we or are we willing. The only Power the Government has over us is what We the people Give them.
I'm really afraid of what I'm seeing where they are going.

Comment by Mike Anthony Fernald Sr. on February 17, 2009 at 1:27am

Wise words from a Friend.
This says it all.

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy
out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another
person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to
anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody
else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to
work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the
other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody
else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friends, is about
the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

Mike

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Comment by Mike Anthony Fernald Sr. on February 15, 2009 at 3:44am

Dan
I think Bank of America and the other two going out of business, I don't trust the big banks they are part of what got us in this mess. It might be better if we where to use a small local bank that was not part of the Bail outs.

As far as Chuck goes I have only met him once, I have no influence with him or Mr Pickens or his people, No one listens, now our district Leader Judy is droping out of the PP.

Lets face it we need about 2000 like minded honest folks and a membership board but first we need Funds to get the ball rolling.

A trust account, is that like an escrow account where all can see the account but all involed has to ok any funds spent. We need a good honest Organizer where can we find one ?

Comment by W. Dan Chance on February 13, 2009 at 2:24pm

I have $50 for the effort. Let's select a big national bank so everybody can walk into a local branch an make a deposit, Bank of America or Wells-Fargo/Wachovia. The account needs to be a trust account and we need to get them to manage it for free as a public service effort. The trust needs to have some rules about how to spend the money, Again, we need Boone's organization to provide some help here. Can you get your friend Walker "Texas Ranger" to put us in touch with him? Tell him we need a funding trust. We will contribute.

Comment by Mike Anthony Fernald Sr. on February 13, 2009 at 2:21am

HI Dan

I know what you mean I have some great Ideas also but like you said they fall on deaf ears. Funding is the Key but if folks in here don't want to band togrther and start a We The People Account or so it seems I have $500 to start the account.

Comment by W. Dan Chance on February 12, 2009 at 9:15pm

Does anyone in PP actually have personal contact with someone in power in the banking industry? Walter or someone here said it well. People with money are too well insulated from the real world to hear the pain, the hopes, the great ideas and the passion of people to really evaluate the merit of ideas for fixing the mess were in and to feel the strength of the resolution to make them work. I have several ideas that fallen on deaf ears for lack of funds to develop them. I may publish them in a blog on my page for any and all to take a swing at soon.

Comment by Mike Anthony Fernald Sr. on February 5, 2009 at 1:46am

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