banks 
Wed Apr 14, 2010 at 18:10:20 PM EDT
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Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate committee holding hearings on the financial crisis (they started yesterday, including testimony from Kerry Killinger, former Washington Mutual CEO), didn’t pussy-foot around his feelings for Washington Mutual, the bank’s practices and role in the banking crisis, and the need for increased government oversight. From the office of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations:
“Washington Mutual built a conveyor belt that dumped toxic mortgage assets into the financial system like a polluter dumping poison into a river,” said Levin.
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Wed Mar 17, 2010 at 16:05:44 PM EDT
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In the spring of 2009, certain politicians, pundits, and others lacking knowledge blamed ongoing foreclosure crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). A year later, I wondered if things had calmed down a bit (I don't know why I would think that, given the other rhetoric currently bandied about, but I guess I was trying to be optimistic.) Nope. People are still blaming a policy that tried to bring about some economic justice - and actually prevented the housing financial metldown from being worse than what is was - for today's woes. Not only is this tactic a smokescreen for the real problems that we face, but it is also patently false. Even if the CRA is not the hot topic these days, I think it is important to understand what it is. CRA requires banks with branches in disadvantaged communities to stop discriminatory practices called redlining. Redlining means that no matter what the credit worthiness of a borrow is, if he or she lives within certain boundaries, banks summarily dismiss their loan applications. While redlining is technically illegal, banks continued to practice it anyway. CRA said that if you want to do business in a community, you need to find ways to responsibly invest in it. One way to do so is to find credit-worthy borrowers and provide them with mortgages. This worked very well for over 30 years.
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Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 09:28:55 AM EST
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( - promoted by Philip Bump)
It's possible that you have an I'd-never-miss-one commitment to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s quarterly report. But if not, here's the lowdown -- also known as bad news: Last year, US banks posted their sharpest decline in lending since 1942.
Among the other grim statistics in the FDIC report: 702 banks are in danger of failing, a 16-year high; more than 5 percent of loans are past due, the worst performance since officials began tracking data 26 years ago; and, according to FDIC chair Sheila Bair, the number of bank failures in 2010 is expected to exceed the 140 in 2009.
So where can consumers turn for reliable loans?
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Thu Feb 25, 2010 at 17:07:08 PM EST
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( - promoted by Sheila Webb-Halpern)
Despite the economy, things are looking up for community development financial institutions (CDFIs), nonprofit financial institutions that finance affordable housing, small business development, and other types of community development in low-income communities typically underserved by traditional banks. This recent article from Business Week points to the recent uptick in investments in CDFIs by both investment banks and the US Dept. of Treasury’s CDFI Fund.
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Mon Feb 01, 2010 at 12:13:47 PM EST
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There’s this new website which is encouraging people to move their money out of large banks and into community banks or credit unions. I heard about it on NPR this weekend and decided that I’m going to do it. Yes, my giant bank is convinent, but it's also evil. A smaller one that is close to my job would be convenient too and I already go to whatever random ATM I see anyway, incurring fees. I don’t really do too much else at the bank. And sorry to be crude, but F banks being “too big to fail.” If they’re too big to fail, they’re too big to manage.
Here’s what Move Your Money’s saying: “Community banks are typically more conservative about how they manage their money, they’re more closely connected to the people and businesses that live near them, and they’re more inclined to make loans they know will get paid back. In other words, they have the values that more people would want banks to have.”
On their website they have way to search the closest community, which oddly named my closet bank as Woori Bank, a bank headquartered in Korea. Eh...that makes no sense, but I guess I’ll figure it out.
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Thu Sep 25, 2008 at 14:01:50 PM EDT
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Hannah, Thanks so much for bringing up the global financial crisis. Global capitalism's enormous effect on billions of people stands in stark contrast to the small amount of information available to regular folks. And, as my years of knocking on doors at PIRG demonstrated, many Americans believe that the winners in the financial system and the government have it mostly under control. I have two key points for readers: - One drives home an important radical (meaning, "at the source") critique of the financial mess
- The other point I'll make offers hope for both activists and believers in the benefical aspects of markets in general
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