Why don't all major unions own banks?

via firedoglake.com:

Seeing that large banks are the most powerful political entity in America and one of the only institutions members of Congress will practically trip over each other in their rush to save from their own mistakes, I’m left wondering why all the major labor unions don’t get in on the action by starting their own banks.

With control of big financial reserves and large numbers of members, the larger unions already have basically all the most important things they need to start successful banks.

Amalgamated Bank, one of the few union banks from the 1920s to survive the great depression, shows that a union-owned bank can be run successfully and not behave like a bastard to their customers.

Most of the big national banks have basically turned into vampires. They have handled the mortgage crisis in a manner that is often outright fraudulent, and a big part of their business model is to bleed their customers dry with fees. If all the new union banks did was run at cost, so as to give their members accounts free of predatory fees and practices, while reducing the size of the big national banks, it would be a sufficient improvement to make the task worth it.



It's a good read. Check it out. :)

Which gives them tremendous leverage in Wall Street too.

Witness the Teamsters which stole money from the pension fund and gave to gangsters for "loans". Many teamsters were fired by the union right before they became eligible for a pension. The government finally took over the union and the pension fund. Longshoreman union has had the same problems.

Defined benefit pensions are going away as is the concept of working one place for 30 years and then retiring. Most people think it is either defined contribution or nothing in the future.

One way around that would be a union run defined benefit plan, run honestly.

that progressives should make up their own little communities.

do that or buy/start their own businesses, so why not?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORmQ8zaL1c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpdoNzXGmxM&feature=related


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


http://www.mondragon-corporation.com/language/en-US/ENG.aspx

The Mondragón Cooperative Corporation, or MCC, is often considered the most successful example of worker-owned enterprise in the world. Taking its name from the small town in the Basque Country of Spain where it was founded, the MCC’s reach now extends across Spain, Europe and the globe. Its highly integrated network of cooperative businesses competes successfully with conventional corporate rivals both locally and worldwide.

...always talked up Mondragon in his presidential campaigns. I believe he found out about Mondragon cooperatives when he was a Jesuit Novice....

...modeled on the Quebecois Caisses Populaires were, at least in the NE, the same thing.

I went through college thanks to loans made by the Boston Teachers' Union Credit Union.

Several AFM locals also run credit unions.

:)

But here's the part that sucks;

I can't.

(and won't)

I know them. They are real and I know them. Here's the rub;

- I am delusionaly to think that thise things are reali. If ene1 knowz 2 thet I'em rihte, I getze end-of-life cheezeburger.

(that's code for something!)

I've distributed the models, but only a handful of people have a chance of making them work. Chances are, I'm mostly delusional. Obviously, no solution could address the issues we currently have, unless it was, well, brilliant.

So, we and I are resigned to just keep forging ahead under ever shittier circumstances.

Too bad too... I thought I might have had something there in a drunken haze.

:toast:

:toast:

Each of those pieces has 3 keys.

You're one of them! You know too much! We can haz cheezburger!

I steel am uh vegi terry AN

:beer:

:toast:

OMG what a novel idea! (Credit unions almost universally survived the banking and housing crisis; yes there were a few hundred that got hit but there are tens of thousands of them in the USA).

I don't know the details, but regulations used to fairly tightly stipulate who can own banks. For example, in Al Franken's book "Why not me?", the fictitious account of an extremely corrupt campaign to elect Franken president, Al starts his campaign off with the keystone position being a promise to ban ATM fees. After Y2K wipes out everyone's savings, a pissed off Iowa Caucuses sweeps Franken to the 2000 nomination over Al Gore, who is painted by the Franken campaign as "the bankers' whore". Not far into his rising campaign, Franken becomes the favorite candidate of the insurance industry, which according to a speech by Franken has been denied a "level playing field" by Glass-Steagle's regulations that ban insurance companies from engaging in commercial banking. After winning the election, the Franken-Lieberman ticket rolls back such regulations which leads to an 8 year economic boom followed by a total financial collapse.

I guess I'm kind of digressing there. Read the book, lots of laughs. The point I'm poorly driving at because I don't have time to look this shit up, is that there is a lot of red tape and it doesn't get moved for you unless you have serious clout. The most immediate thing I can think of is that being responsible for pension obligations would be considered a conflict of interest for an organization that is running a bank because they would have reason to put the money into their bank, even if that isn't in the best interests of the pension recipients. Of course the world is a strange place, for example the auto bailouts that forced wage concessions on the UAW while providing them with stock also puts them in a position of conflicting interests with respect to stock holding and as wage negotiator. So maybe it could fly.

or be a bank holding company.

The exception is a creature known as a industrial bank which were grandfathered in. A couple of states grant new charters for industrial banks (Utah and Nevada and maybe a couple of others) but there is a three year moratorium from granting any new industrial bank charters under the new financial regulation bill passed by congress. There was a huge row a few years back when WalMart applied to for an industrial bank charter. Congress didn't want to grant it and few charters have been granted since.

The thinking is, if you are a company like WalMart and times get tough for your business, you will rob your bank to keep your doors open. Hence, you have to be a bank to own a bank.

So, no union could do it right now. maybe in a couple of years but as others have said, seems credit unions meet some of the needs.