Bank Transfer

[Alex Auriema]

For those that have not switched Banks yet, I am doing some research into the Harvard University Credit Union. It seems to be the most convenient for student benefits. Please check it out: https://www.huecu.org/

If anyone has a info why one should not use this particular credit union, or has found another convenient for cambridge/somerville residents please share?

In solidarity,

aa

[Shari Bence]

After a long talk with one of the managers and sorting through the information, I came to agree.

Students, alum, employees and their families are welcome.    Apparently, many alum who live far way keep accounts open because their money market accounts offer some of the most competitive rates available; how they offer those rates remains unclear to me, i.e., don't what what they've invested in to offer such great rates.  

But for basic  checking and savings, seems to be the best local choice for conscious banking.

[Bradford Adams]

I recently switched to usaa and recommend it. The banking services are available to the public.  It is not a credit union and it isnt local.  But it is member-owned and it is not a publicly traded corporation. If you are concerned about leaving the area of a local bank, or if you need the services of a large financial institution, usaa is good option for conscious banking. B

[Nicholas Hayes]

Hey all,

Glad to see this conversation happening. I'm a Div School student and
one of the Protest Chaplains (Hannah Hofheinz, Marisa Egerstrom, Dave
Woessner are all friends). I'll cut to the chase: a few other Div
School students and I would like to organize a "Harvard Divestment
Day" on campus, to mobilize students to move their money out of BofA,
Citi, and other usual suspects en masse; likely focus on BofA since
they have a central H Sq location and are used by the most students. A
la "Bank Transfer Day" which happened on Sat, 11/5, but just at
Harvard (--alas, haven't seen much press; was there any action at
Harvard?) Current date set for Nov. 19 (Sat); have a team ready to get
to work on it, a Facebook group and URL about to go public, etc.

It makes sense to do this in conjunction with Occupy on campus. We'd
like to reach out to as many schools at Harvard as possible;
currently, most of our contacts are at the Div School, but we have a
few at HKS, GSAS, and the College. I also started a conversation at
MIT, in the hopes folks there might join. Would Occupy Harvard be game
to partner on this? Any specific individuals I should talk to? And
could we advertise over OH networks?

Final question: we've got someone ready to go on making a flier, and
would like to get them up by Weds, probably. She'd like to know who
made the poster for the Harvard-MIT student march back on Columbus
Day, and whether we could use that background; we thought it was
great!

Thanks!

Peace,
Nicholas
517.610.8007

On Nov 6, 12:35 pm, Bradford Adams <bradfordtad...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I recently switched to usaa and recommend it. The banking services are available to the public.  It is not a credit union and it isnt local.  But it is member-owned and it is not a publicly traded corporation. If you are concerned about leaving the area of a local bank, or if you need the services of a large financial institution, usaa is good option for conscious banking. B
>

[Neal Meyer]

If anyone is interested in doing some reading on bank transfer day, particularly from a critical perspective, I've attached a few articles. They're easy enough to understand, and provide a sobering reminder that the big banks don't much care what responsible consumers decide to do with their money.

"Why the big banks aren't sweating Bank Transfer Day" notes that big banks don't really want small bank accounts anymore:

"And the big banks don’t particularly want all those retail-deposit funds — they’re getting precious little interest on them, and they come with all manner of expensive obligations to mail out statements and provide smiling service at teller windows and generally do the whole customer-service thing, which as we all know big banks are very bad at. Historically, they’ve done what they have to do on that front because they’ve been able to extract all manner of overdraft fees and interchange fees and the like, but that fee income is shrinking now, thanks to Dodd-Frank, and the fact is that millions of small bank accounts are actually unprofitable now for the big banks, and those banks won’t shed many tears if those customers go off to a credit union instead."

And here, left-wing economist Doug Henwood notes that most small financial institutions end up sending the money deposited with them off into the wide financial world, and it ends back up in the hands of Chase Bank or funding the gentrification of local neighborhoods and vicious private equity firms.

[Alex Auriema]

Dear Neal,

There is a medieval fable that goes somethings like this:

Once upon a time there was a walled city that prospered on its own resources. The city was enclosed by a moat of water and a large stone fortification. Inside the city several hundred people lived their lives as comfortably as the mid 12th century could afford. They farmed, prayed and socialized within these confines. It was a feudal society by todays standards, a king and queen of reasonable ilk, and a nobility that rarely hesitated to spread their wealth. The cities people were for the most part happy, and peaceful.  

This is why it came as a surprise when one day over the horizon the walled city's watchman spotted an army approaching. It did not take long for the army to grow and completely surround the walled city. When word got out the townspeople panicked. It was clear  that the were outnumbered at least 10 to 1 and their army was weak and under supplied.

Meanwhile the surrounding army's commander sat atop his horse in full armor - coat of arms recently polished and glimmering in sunlight. The commander was not aware that the town was under supplied or outnumbered -  with the large fortification he knew only that he could wait and was prepared to battle the towns army on any terms. 

The townspeople deliberated for hours. Every suggestion short of mass suicide was considered. Frustration ensued, until a quiet proposal was put forth by the queen to amass all the towns resources; its crops, livestock, weaponry, even the blacksmiths tools, and dump them over the walls of the city. The idea seemed preposterous, but the people agreed in desperation and trust for their good queen.

So after hours of collecting, the city brought everything they subsisted on to the edge of the fortification. In unison they dumped it all over the edge of the wall.  The scene was brilliant, and sad. Cows mooed and hissed, chickens screeched as they fell the long distance to the ground outside.

The surrounding army watched in utter dismay. The commander and his high ranking officials were all speechless. They thought, as if all sharing the same brain: "How prosperous this town must be that they can afford to rid of all this bounty" The commander saw his troops faces expressing the same doubt in the whole operation. 

The army collectively withdrew.

--
Alex Auriema

www.alexauriema.com

[Neal Meyer]

0_o

I don't understand.

[Shari Bence]

In a more pedestrian fable (and, given that I've been cast by some critical perspectives as a radicalized populist with little understanding of what the economic pathogens are, seems an appropriate gesture):

George Bailey was onto something with his little Building and Loan association that created an affordable housing project, low interest loans, and built a community that held back the proverbial Gates of Economic Hell, even if at the day's end it still deposited its equity in Potter's bank.

I think many simple folk understand the depth and breadth of the issues, however ill formed and roughly hewn, critical perspectives notwithstanding.  

Transferring my bank account to a credit union will probably have as much effect as .....

putting a tent in Zucotti Park.

File under "Fables for the Twentyfirst century," or, "Don't Let An Entrenched Narrative Get The Better Of You."  

[Camille Morvan]

Hi All,

Big banks don't necessarily care about keeping us (although then why do they always try to keep you when you leave??).

But what about the small banks? May be for them having our money is a plus. It might give them more room for action and to invest in the local community. Provided that they can handle the large number of new customers.

[Neal Meyer]

Hi Camille,

That's why I sent out the second link as well. There is no guarantee that the money you put in a small bank goes anywhere good either. The three examples Henwood cites (a real estate firm which exploits poor tenants, a wave of gentrification in New York City, and Chase Bank) are sobering.

There is nothing inherently virtuous about small banking institutions. Some of them are run by nice people with smiles. Others by nice people with smiles who can't pay their workers much and who send your deposits off to fund despicable new investments.

I see very little difference between the small banking institution which might use your money to fund some local community projects (which in themselves are not necessarily great ventures - many of the worst bosses run small businesses) and the charity ventures of most big banks and businesses.

I just want to encourage some critical thinking about this whole Move Your Money fad.

Neal

[Alex Auriema]

How about critical action. There is no shortage of critical thinking.

--
Alex Auriema

www.alexauriema.com

[Neal Meyer]

My point is that on this issue there is a shortage of critical thinking. Moving your money is not a meaningful action.

[Hannah Hofheinz]

Hi all,

I can't help but jump in here.

Yes, critical action. And, yes to the power of bodies in motion. The goods that occur through a readjustment of actions (for instance, a large number of people switching banks) may or may not manifest in apparent ends. Indeed, critical thinking demands that we open ourselves up to recognizing the more complex interplays here. We need to see the ways in which these actions - such as moving our money - do dramatically effect and re-align our societal possibilities and imagination. They open up alternatives performatively, not necessarily consequentially (although this can happen and is a good thing when it does); this is the great power of these actions, not chains of visible or anticipatable cause and effect.

I hope you are having a good day!

~Hannah

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Hannah Hofheinz | hhof...@mail.harvard.edu

Teaching Fellow Advisor | Harvard Divinity School

Departmental Teaching Fellow | The Study of Religion, Harvard University

Doctoral Candidate in Theology | Harvard Divinity School

[Alex Auriema]

exactly!

--
Alex Auriema

www.alexauriema.com

[Neal Meyer]

Last time I checked this whole occupy phenomenon was a protest against an economic system which has left 16% of the labor force under- or unemployed, denies healthcare to millions of families, is rapidly foreclosing and stealing the homes of tenants and working-class homeowners, and saddles students with enormous debt.

Frankly Hannah, I am insulted by your suggestion that the importance of these protests lies in performatively opening imaginary alternatives. It separates these social protests from the real material suffering of millions during this crisis. If your point is really that these protests and actions are the first step towards winning real material concessions from "the 1%" to improve the lives of working-class people, then I will forgive you. But I will point out that your strategy in that case is poorly chosen - winning material concessions from the ruling class demands strategy and actions which make sense. Performance and purposeless actions do not serve that interest.

I am not having a good day because I am afraid that my generation is more interested in pomo dilletantism than fighting, but thank you for wishing me well.

On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Hannah Hofheinz <hlh...@mail.harvard.edu> wrote:

[Camille Morvan]

Neal, you said "My point is that on this issue there is a shortage of critical thinking. Moving your money is not a meaningful action."
What alternative(s) do you have in mind?

[Neal Meyer]

I think that this is something that a general assembly could really discuss (if Ron Paul people weren't allowed to block discussion).

Certainly regulating the financial system is a start. I'm currently reading through Doug Henwood's Wall Street if others are interested in this issue - he has a lot of great points to make about the financial system in that book and towards the end he offers some ideas for reform.

My broad point is that we should be looking in the long term to radical political action in order to make meaningful economic changes - and that in the short term our actions should be directed towards building the road to left politics again, which means laying the ground work for a real coalition of students, the blue-collar working class, and the white-collar working class. Part of setting up this foundation for a new left politics requires fostering critical thinking about economic problems and possible solutions, putting aside superficial reforms which make no real changes and only encourage spending time on consumer activism, and developing healthy and constructive procedures for decision making which encourage participation, are efficient, and do not infantilize participants.

[Shari Bence]

There are a lot of narratives floating around the Occupy movement, as well its critics, many of them under the guise of "critical thinking."  

The narratives of "bodies in motion" opposing the status quo, and, over time, creating change, is much older and more empowering than the narratives generated by economists (or statistics geeks) working under a skewed paradigm of knowledge, one I'd argue that helps drive the narratives that are currently running the status quo, and that are so deeply entrenched that few see beyond them.  (Although that discussion is beyond this list.)

It's no accident that Gandhi's become a resurrected icon of empowerment against an oppressive economic system.  It's a powerful story, one grounded in multiple traditions, as well as a successful strategy.  

A march to make salt?  How silly is that?  I get the impression that the critical perspective articles sent previously, and spawning this conversation, would have urged that making salt wasn't enough to topple the empire, that Gandhi's approach was woefully misguided, naive, and :::: snicker, snicker:::: another form of populist ignorance.

It eventually liberated the nation.   One movement among many, but they added up over time.

I find nothing dilettantish in such actions.  

Unless, Neal, you want to argue that setting up tents (an equally silly idea, it seems to me), is too facile and self-serving for your tastes.

To be honest, I was insulted by your critical perspective articles, which seemed to me more of the same old skepticism that continually dogs social reform movement (not just the Occupation), and found them the very antithesis of much of what the Occupation emerged from, though that assumes I understand it, so excuse my hubris.   I chose not to jump in, to avoid my usual overly acerbic reaction, but now I'm compelled given the many subtexts that have emerged, and to post my original reaction to your articles.

In short, your writer's said, "These folks are ignorant, simple minds and don't know what the fuck they are doing."  In very nice prose, of course, buttressed in the language of intellectual authority, and with an appeal to history, which is about as dilettantish a bait as one can hope to take.  I do find a peculiar irony in your offense, Neal.  

That was my reading.  

I'm having a fine day, all things considered.   

Be well.