Category: Observations

On October 15, Callahans offered a free webinar that analyzed the macro trends of all credit unions with less than $500 million in total assets.

The link to the recording and the slides can be found here.  The significance of this macro-micro analysis is two-fold.

As shown below, this segment makes up over 84% of active charters.   Secondly, as you listen to the analysis and comparisons with all credit union trends, the differences are not as dramatic as one might assume. On a number of indicators, this segment outperforms all credit unions since 2019 (eg. delinquency and charge offs).

The all-industry five-year trends reflect the performance of credit unions over $500 millions as these account for 85% of industry assets. However the differences are small (eg. ROA).   In some cases the differences have nothing to do with scale, but rather business strategy.  An example in the webinar was the higher apparent member increase in larger cu’s; however, the analyst attributed this to third party loan originations, not organic growth.

Listen to the presentation. If one were to view these 84% of charters as the movement’s seed corn,  the opportunities for the future would seem promising.  Especially in the 4,000 or more groups and communities they serve.  What will be critical is that existing institutions and approaches support the feeding and tending of these institutions.  And not their acquisition by performance-challenged larger institutions.

This is the webinar’s initial data slide showing the segments by percentage of institutions  and asset size as of June 2024.

(Note:  See current article in CU Today, Small Credit Unions Beating Big Credit Unions in Key Performance Area for latest confirmation of the webinar’s thesis)

The top 100 US-based Coops by 2023 Annual Revenue

From the Report’s Introduction:  Since 1991, the National Cooperative Bank (NCB) has published its annual NCB Co-op 100®, highlighting America’s top 100 cooperatives. In 2023, these member-owned, member-controlled businesses generated revenues of $325 billion, a slight increase from 2022. Many of these cooperatives that appear on the list are household names and are known throughout the world.

The full listing begins on page 10.   Credit unions hold 4 of the top 50 positions as follows:  Navy FCU  # 9; State Employees NC  # 28; PenFed # 33; and BECU # 44.

Nine credit unions are in the second 50. I will let you look them up here.

I found interesting that while credit unions account for 13 of the 18 institutions in the finance category, there are five other financial cooperative charters  serving specific sectors of the economy such as agriculture.

The NCB Report provides an overview of the role of major coops, many familiar to consumers: REI, Ocean Spray, Land ‘O Lakes and ACE Hardware.   This summary is a quick and useful introduction to  areas of the US economy which have coop options.

A Brief History of Women and Credit in the US

Fifty years ago, it was legal to deny credit to a woman without a male co-signer.

Read how this situation was changed by Congressional legislation.  Since women such as Louise Herring played a vital role in the creation of the cooperative alternative, one might assume that  “free market” innovation or competition can be relied upon to rectify prior shortcomings.  That is not always the case. Until finally corrected by rule, generations can be denied lifetimes of equal opportunity.

Sometimes the market is only “free” for those who already occupy positions of power and advantage.

What is your “Plan B” If Your Presidential Preference Finishes Second?

This question was asked at a recent conference in which the current campaign was a primary topic. The one answer I heard was by a person who would invest his time and effort into local organizations and issues.   He believed this provided a better opportunity for compromise and creating shared solutions versus the ideological divides at the national level.  He also believed that this is where democratic practice is learned and  becomes a foundation for change at higher levels of political leadership.

Supporting  this thesis is a movie just released on Netflix called Join or Die.  The film chronicles what it calls the “unraveling” of the country’s social fabric and seeks to answer the question: “What makes a democracy work and what can I do to help?”

David Brancaccio interviews the film’s co-producers in this brief article.   I  will be seeing the movie this Sunday at a local church. One of the film’s messages is on the importance of community connections. I will be looking to see if credit unions are one of those local organizations mentioned.

Enough reading for one weekend!  Get ready for Halloween.

Fall, the time for harvest from the land.  Future Farmers of America’s (FFA) greenhouse in Rensselaer Central High School, Indiana.

“Growers for Life.” Fall mums for sale,  $10 each at the local Saturday farm market.

Pumpkins, the uniquely American fruit. Anything that starts from a flower is botanically a fruit.

Corn, all colors.

Gourds, technically fruits, but realistically fall table decoration.

An enormous sunflower head-a seed bank.

To Autumn by John Keats (1795-1821)

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
    For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

In my 62^nd Rensselaer high school reunion last week,  I saw again some of the benefits of living in a small, rural community.

The concept of duty to others. one’s community and the country is often experienced early in life.  While there are many organizational and institutional practices that present this concept, I believe personal example is often the most powerful teacher.

Duty to country in times of war is one of our most hallowed civic commitments.  Growing up, the draft made this a potential obligation for all.  Military service was widely recognized.  In the Jasper County historical record from 1900-1985 there is a brief description of the First Presbyterian Church. The article points out that the first post WW II minister called was a former Navy Chaplain.  One of his initial acts was to make a  list of the forty-three members who had served in WW II.

That seemed like a large number.  However the local library found the Jasper County Veteran’s office had a list of 1,295  men for WWII that had the DD214 (discharge from active duty) form on file. The Service Record Book of Men and Women of Rensselaer, Indiana and Community maintained by the local American Legion Auxiliary Dewey Biggs Unit, shows a total of 1,814 who were on active duty.

Jasper County’s last Survivor of the Civil War

I believe that personal example whether a family member, mentor or public individual has a great influence for how one considers duty to country especially in times of conflict.

An example of this service calling is the life of George Morgan, who died on April 16, 1945.  His obituary called him the Last Survivor of the Civil War.  According to records 935 men from Jasper County enlisted for the Union, from a population of 5,000.

And when comparing the proportions of men able to fight, Indiana contributed more soldiers than any other state to the Union.^[14]

Following are excerpts from Morgan’s obituary by Lefty Clark the editor of the local daily, the Rensselaer Republican and republished in Vintage Views.

George Morgan, who left Rensselaer that sunny August 11, 1862, as a lad of 14 and one half years to lend his bit toward the preservation of a nation torn by internal strife died at the home of his daughter at an early hour Sunday April 15. . .

One day little George, not yet possessed of the beard that distinguishes the man, made his way to a recruiting office  and by a little hedging and evasion of questions, and self-admitted fibbing managed to make the recruiting officer believe that he was ready and well able to assume the burdens of a soldier.  George Morgan at the skimpy age of 14  and one half years was now a man and a soldier at that.  He had a uniform to prove it to his parents when he returned from hi stealthy visit to the “recruiting man.” It is not chronicled that any gret storm of disapproval came from the parents. . . 

Time’s haze prevents a complete description of his military career, but the unit was not too long in Laporte.  It was sent into the Tennessee Campaign wafter some duty in Kentucky.  “Grandpa” was a participant in the Battle of Chickamauga where the Union toll was heavy but its ranks victorious.  Following that there came many minor skirmishes for Little George Morgan and his comrades nd weeks of guerilla warfare with the sniping breaking out sporadically. 

And so it went through the years of 862, 1863 and 1864 andinto the final months of the war.  The kid of fourteen and one half years not approaching 17 was keeping right up with the rest of the veteran trooper as the triumphant 87^th regiment joined Sherman’s March to the sea.  It was at a military center near Washington D.C. that Mr. Morgan received his discharge papers on June 10 following the cessation of hostilities. . .”Grandpa legged it for home via a box car assigned for the transportation of troops.  He finallyed arrived in Indianapolis after a laborious journey and from there rode the “covered cars” to Bradford after which he staged-coached to Rensselaer. 

The first thing he did after reaching Rensselaer he would say, “I struck right out for home across the fields, at a dog trot, and did not stop till I reached the house.”  He said he started shouting when within range of the house, but his booming call brought no answer.  The house was empty so he started for the field.  He discovered his mother picking strawberries.  “I got me a great big bowl of freshly picked berries, stopped at the milk house and got a pitcher of cream, helped myself out of one of the containers of the sugar bag and went to work.”

The county’s last Civil War Veteran now came to town to find himself a job of work.  In those formative industrial years, he was a blacksmith’s apprentice and then a full-fledged blacksmith.  However, his is bet known fas an artisan who worked at wood working, carriage making and carpentry.  And there was a long period that he was a millwright at what ws the Babcock Hopkins elevator in Rensselaer. . .

Mr. Morgan married Mary J. Morris of Rensselaer on July 27, 1870. . .

It is interesting to note that Mr. Morgan once saw the immortal Abraham Lincoln wen the troops were reviewed by President Lincoln near Washington D.C.  it is also interesting to note that Mr. Morgan died on the day that Franklin D. Roosevelt was being buried.    He participated in all presidential elections from 1872 on.  He cast his first such ballotin 1872 for Ulysses S. Grant, his commander during the Civil War.

Mr. Morgan was the sort of the personal property of every RensselaerIan.  He became known as “Grandpa.”  All loved him.  . . A kind man, a courageous man, s msn colored with the romantic days of the wilderness and with the present day.  He was idolized and cherished as the last representative of the treasured race of man-the Civil War soldiery. . .

One Person’s Life of Duty

So honored was “Grandpa” Morgan that the local newspaper would publish periodic updates on events in his life.  A July 1, 1890 a front page article reported that he had been granted a pension.   The story noted that he was the youngest of the three Morgan brothers to volunteer and concludes with this statement: “Although so young he was a thoroughly good soldier and never shirked his full sized share of the hardships and fighting.  He well deserves the pension he gets, and a good deal more.”

On February 14, 1945, the Rensselaer Republican’s  front page story was headlined, Time Marches On, So Does Grandpa.   It was Morgan’s 97th birthday.

Morgan’s life of duty: A person of 14 who volunteered for war, raised a family. worked in the community and voted in every presidential election from Grant to FDR.

In Rensselaer we saw and experienced first hand, daily, persons who lived responsively for their families, community and country.  It is these examples we all knew and helped shape who we would become—with our own personal sense of duty.