“All social entities or movements need dreams, which can be defined as an indispensable capacity to envision a future for themselves that considers both the practical means at hand and a higher ideal. Societies that do not dream are doomed to die.
“We have no knowledge of any human community where men do fail to dream,” writes Irving Kristol. “Which is to say, we know of no human community whose members do not have a vision of perfection—a vision in which the frustrations inherent in our human condition are annulled and transcended.”*
Source: *Kristol, Two Cheers for Capitalism, pg 153
JPMorgan’s $4 Trillion Balance Sheet Widens Lead Over Rivals – Firm has added the equivalent of one Wells Fargo since financial crisis
“As the spring bloodbath among regional banks began, nervous depositors with more than $50 billion began showing up at JPMorgan’s door. Bank executives went on to raise expectations for net interest income four times throughout the year, eventually pulling in so much cash that managers have taken to warning of “over-earning.”
“That’s put JPMorgan on track for the biggest annual profit in the history of American banking. Analysts predict that by the end of this month, its annual net income will be 36% higher than last year.
“By comparison, the combined earnings of the next five largest banks looks to be about 1%. For JPMorgan and its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, it was a year like no other.” (Source: Bloomberg, December 27, 2023)
As we turn the calendar’s page, which approach will be your credit union’s priority?
Just released and streaming on Netflix is a movie The Bank of Dave. Set in Burnley in the north of England, it is the story of a local van seller who sought the first new banking license to be issued in 150 years in the UK. It is a contemporary version of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.
Dave’s intent is “not about me making money” but creating jobs and the quality of life for the whole community. Profits will go to charity.
For the Financial Regulatory Board, the question is not can it succeed, but rather should it exist?
All the incumbents want to preserve the status quo where a few, large “financial supermarkets” dominate the economy. Dave’s local proposal is not the “right sized bank.”
Dave must overcome established bureaucratic opposition, a very high capital requirement (twelve million pounds) and entrenched scepticism that a new financial model is necessary.
You can read the status of his efforts today in this article about the movie, Dave Fishwick’s life and his ongoing campaign.
Although he faced resistance at every step, Dave eventually made good on his dream, opening Burnley Savings and Loans in 2011, and using “Bank on Dave!” as the company’s slogan.
The Message and Credit Unions
Dave in life and in the film is a pillar of the community. His dream is political, not just financial. Banking should not be reserved for the rich and powerful. Rather in a community, it is the ordinary people who define what that institution should be.
His goal is to have a bank that “looks after the community.” He wants a better way, than the current system, of helping each other where and how we can. That is Dave’s vision of what community is about.
The parallels with the credit union story are many. This includes the entrenched resistance to new charters and the ever present temptation to leave behind those that created the institutions which dominate markets today.
The Bank of Dave is a timeless story about money and who gets to control its use and distribution. It is a reminder that financial institutions are built first on trust in the people who lead them.
When that trust and connection is lacking, then others will move to fill the needs that are no longer served.
If you still need convincing about the Dave’s of this world, here is an interview with this real Dave.
I heard the bells on Christmas day Their old familiar carols play And mild and sweet their songs repeat Of peace on Earth, good will to men. . .
And in despair I bowed my head “There is no peace on Earth, ” I said For hate is strong and mocks the song Of peace on Earth, good will to men. . .
Ukrainian Christmas Scenes
This year Ukraine moved the celebration of Orthodox Christmas to December 25.
“The trident, or “tryzub,” remains one of Ukraine’s most iconic symbols. Shaped like a spear with three prongs, its history goes back centuries. Volodymyr the Great included the symbol on coins when he ruled Kyiv from 980 to 1015.” (wikipedia)
McDonald’s deliveries.
A tree of shell canisters.
A video report from the Kiev Independent that captures the spirit of hope.
Then rang the bells more loud and deep God is not dead, nor doth He sleep (Peace on Earth) (Peace on Earth) The wrong shall fail, the right prevail With peace on Earth, good will to men
Then ringing, singing on its way The world revolved from night to day A voice, a chime, a chant sublime Of peace on Earth, good will to men
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Norwood Parish, has sponsored an Opportunity Shop since the early 1950’s.
All the merchandise is donated by the public. The employees are volunteers. The entire net income is donated to local charities.
The shop attracts items that are unusual, in good shape and often found nowhere else. Most are inexpensive. Christmas items will be 50% off on Friday and 75% on Saturday.
A simple sign for a community resource
The shop offers all manner of gifts: CD’s, books, clothing/shoes, kitchen and tableware, jewelry, dozens of framed paintings/prints, electronics and lamps, and collector’s items such as carved wooden sculptures. The examples below are only for Christmas-themed items.
A collection of dolls
Three kings amid serving dishes
A holiday wall quilt
Rabbit and cat dolls
A clothes tree full of stockings
Cookie tins
A multi tiered creche–one of many different nativity creations
Father Christmas dressed for winter-in different garments
Small toys upon toys
Momma Claus
I’m off to shop now! And if you are sceptical as to whether commerce and Christmas can co-exist, here is an example from Germany.
Christmas is a time when we remember, honor and celebrate people whose life was the gift of service to others.
Credit unions attract and provide fertile ground for persons with this character. They create an ideal platform for assisting others at important junctures in their lives.
These individuals’ efforts are not measured solely by numbers; more important is the personal legacy of bringing “soul” to their work in the movement.
The following tribute to a long-serving credit union employee is by Jim Blaine.
James McArthur Williams (1943-2023)
Why do we so often become confused when taking the measure of greatness? Why are we so easily distracted – and dazzled – by the spectacle, the swank, and the swagger? Why do we so often miss who is truly important – and what really makes a difference in each of our lives?
Had the privilege of attending the funeral of a great man last week at St. Paul A.M.E. Church in downtown Raleigh. James Williams was a beloved husband, father, grandfather, brother, cousin, and friend. He married his high school sweetheart Ginger; he called her “Bread“. They had two children – JaSonne Yvette and James Eric.
James Williams was a veteran, 33rd degree Mason, Emeritus Board Steward in his church, graduate – and beyond ardent supporter – of his HBCU, “THE” North Carolina Central University – “Go War Eagles!“. James was a devoted family man at heart, loved traveling, and as an empty-nester, cruising with Ginger. A full life – important, meaningful.
James Williams came to work at the State Employees’ Credit Union in 1973. That was 50 years ago. That seems like a long, long time ago. Much has changed in that time, much hasn’t.
James McArthur Williams was the first Black employee to work at SECU. He faced some unusual challenges, not of his making. But he persevered, he persisted. James Williams was a senior lender at SECU for over a quarter of a century. No individual was more important in building the reputation for integrity and fairness at State Employees’ Credit Union than James McArthur Williams. With humor, grace, and kindness, James Williams navigated all the “historical difficulties”; he left a positive mark on all he touched; because he knew how you felt – he had walked in your shoes.
Thank you, James Williams, for helping me and many, many others to understand better.
Can an organization have a soul? As a faithful “soul man”, James McArthur Williams spent a lifetime showing us there is a path…
Can you measure greatness in people and in institutions? Here is what SECU members say:
“James will long be remembered as a person who showed many of us how to overcome obstacles in the world of finance. He demystified bank forms and protocols. And most importantly, he always encouraged patrons of SECU as we realized with God all things are possible!”
“James was our greatest ally at the State Employees’ Credit Union.”
“James and Ginger are two of the warmest people you’d ever want to meet. Many state employees knew James through the State Employees Credit Union in downtown Raleigh.”
This is a story of a credit union led by an extraordinary CEO. It is so heartening that the writer prepared two articles to describe fully her accomplishments.
The headline says it all: The Tiny Credit Union Powering Brooklyn’s Economy. The author’s writeup illustrates the power of passion and commitment in service to a community.
This account is a beautiful gift for all who believe credit unions can do something special. It demonstrates the good will created with a small amount of resources and dedicated leadership.
My summary is to encourage you to link to the full accounts.
“With just $50 million in assets, Brooklyn Cooperative Federal Credit Union is a rounding error compared to the nation’s largest brand-name banks. But in terms of impact on marginalized communities, this tiny institution punches well above its weight.”
In this first segment, the writer, Oscar Abello, describes how the current CEO Samira Rajan -a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government became involved.
She joined the startup in 2001 in a catch-all position as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer program. This paid her a stipend as the new credit union didn’t yet have enough income to offer her a salary. She became a loan officer. First loan she made, went bad.
In 2008 she became CEO.
The founding CEO Jack Lawson was a PhD student in economics at the New School in the late 1990s. He was looking for a part-time job related to his research. He received a grant from a local foundation to support his goal of organizing a credit union for the Ridgewood-Bushwick Senior Citizens Council. Over time this startup evolved to become Brooklyn Cooperative.
Until his departure in 2008 he focused on seeking grants from local sources and the CDFI Fund to underwrite the startup expenses and “build the runway” for sustainability.
This process continues. Since Rajan became CEO, the credit union has received eight grants from the CDFI Fund, totaling $11.3 million.
The credit union today can underwrite loans with little to no collateral, to members with an average credit score below 650, and to members without social security numbers.
Residential mortgages for one to four family homes are more than half of Brooklyn Cooperative’s current loan portfolio.
But its small business lending efforts are especially critical for the credit union’s local impact.
Counting by the number of federally-guaranteed the Brooklyn Cooperative is ranked fourth, behind only TD Bank, Chase and M&T Bank. The cooperative’s average 7(a) loan size is $24,000.
The writer’s description of the CEO’s relationship with NCUA is also enlightening. This is Rajan’s candid opening comment:
“Every three years, we have literally a new examiner come in and they’d be like, we’ve never seen this before. Yeah, I know you’ve never seen that before. New examiners have to get their whole head wrapped around the fact that you’re going to be doing lending which is non-conventional, that you’re deliberately going to be lending, knowing that your loss rates will be higher than the normal and you’re going to be lending to borrowers who on paper don’t qualify. … It flies in the face of what apparently you’re supposed to be doing, which is lending only when you definitely have a 700 credit score.”
For the full account of this remarkable institution, read both articles. At the close the author asks the following of his readers and those who work in the cooperative system:
Brooklyn Cooperative is proof that it’s possible to build a financially sustainable institution that provides credit for a variety of purposes to people and communities like those it serves — Black and Brown, immigrant, low-income. . .it raises the question: should there be more credit unions like this one across the borough? Or across New York? Or across the country?
Serving Strangers
During this season, the mail brings more requests for donations than Christmas cards. There are two broad categories of asks. One is the multiple nonprofits serving the arts or education-choral groups, museums, Chautauqua and public television.
More plentiful are the organizations serving human need: Hope Hospital in Seattle, Achungo Community Center (Kenya), World Kitchen and dozens of local efforts to assist others, often strangers, this time of year.
A carol that recognizes this ever present reality of human suffering is Christ in the Stranger’s Guise. This arrangement by Karen Marrolli is from a summer choral workshop in Montreat, NC, and includes the words. They portray for me, Rajan’s example of service to her community.
A thought for the season by English poet John Betjeman: Advent 1955
The Advent wind begins to stir With sea-like sounds in our Scotch fir, It’s dark at breakfast, dark at tea, And in between we only see Clouds hurrying across the sky And rain-wet roads the wind blows dry And branches bending to the gale Against great skies all silver pale The world seems travelling into space, And travelling at a faster pace Than in the leisured summer weather When we and it sit out together, For now we feel the world spin round On some momentous journey bound – Journey to what? to whom? to where? The Advent bells call out ‘Prepare, Your world is journeying to the birth Of God made Man for us on earth.’
And how, in fact, do we prepare The great day that waits us there – For the twenty-fifth day of December, The birth of Christ? For some it means An interchange of hunting scenes On coloured cards, And I remember Last year I sent out twenty yards, Laid end to end, of Christmas cards To people that I scarcely know – They’d sent a card to me, and so I had to send one back. Oh dear! Is this a form of Christmas cheer? Or is it, which is less surprising, My pride gone in for advertising? The only cards that really count Are that extremely small amount From real friends who keep in touch And are not rich but love us much Some ways indeed are very odd By which we hail the birth of God.
We raise the price of things in shops, We give plain boxes fancy tops And lines which traders cannot sell Thus parcell’d go extremely well We dole out bribes we call a present To those to whom we must be pleasant For business reasons. Our defence is These bribes are charged against expenses And bring relief in Income Tax Enough of these unworthy cracks! ‘The time draws near the birth of Christ’. A present that cannot be priced Given two thousand years ago Yet if God had not given so He still would be a distant stranger And not the Baby in the manger.
Sir John Betjeman, CBE, was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death in 1984. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture. He began his career as a journalist and ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate and a much-loved figure on British television.
Love’s Multiple Meanings
Craig Hella Johnson is an American choral conductor, composer, and arranger. He was born on June 15, 1962, in Crow Wing County, Minnesota
One unique aspect of Johnson’s programming is his signature “collage” style, or composed programs that marry music and poetry to seamlessly blend the sacred and secular as well as the classical and contemporary.
In an interview he notes: Music is a spiritual language of the freest kind. It doesn’t matter what your denomination or nonbelief or tradition is, because it’s about connecting with something larger than ourselves.
This work combines the well known Christmas carol Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming, with a poem, The Rose.
This was the final song of our Christmas concert yesterday. As you listen, it may bring a tear or two.
To understand today’s blog, I would ask the reader to first look at this TV news report on credit unions from KPBS. It is accompanied with a two-part written story by Scott Rodd, the station’s investigative report published on November 29, 2023.
The reporter has a good understanding of credit unions’ public image. His TV story opens with an interview from a member who states “they (credit unions) are not supposed to be in this for making the big bucks.”
The story counters the long asserted public image of credit unions as serving the “little guy.” The key data point is that credit unions are no different from banks when it comes to overdraft fees charged members, even though cooperatives routinely present themselves as “better than banks.”
He quotes the CEO’s statement in San Diego County Credit Union’s annual report that her goal is “putting people first and profits second.” This would be an interesting ranking for any coop leader.
The reporter reinforces this contrast of public image versus organizational behavior by pointing out the CEO’s total compensation has “increased seven-fold over the last decade to nearly $12 million dollars according to the according to SDCCU’s latest financial statements.”
The articles provide examples from other area credit unions of the role of overdraft fees along with six figure CEO salaries. His thesis is that credit unions are not actually what they claim to be, “community-based alternatives to big commercial banks.”
Lessons from This Reporting
The two-part story was triggered by the first disclosure of overdraft fees required by all state chartered financial institutions in California.
By focusing on this newly disclosed datapoint, the writer suggests that credit union rhetoric and practice do not align because “these fees are typically paid by “the most vulnerable” customers.”
Several observations. Compared with banks, credit unions are not as transparent in operational disclosures. Member-owners have significantly less public information than do bank owners. This is not just about OD fees but many other areas of operations including executive compensation. Only state charters, not federal credit unions, must file a IRS 990 which requires compensation data be disclosed.
Lack of transparency prevents members from having critical data about their credit union’s performance, in both ordinary and special circumstances such as merger or buying banks. Regular public information is also the best antidote to limit self-serving behavior.
Credit union leaders work in a capitalist economy. Often it is difficult for those in coop leadership roles to overcome the residual lures of capitalism. It is easier to adopt the priorities and practices of for-profit competitors than create the innovative options member-ownership offers.
The result of this investigative reporter’s story is “brand devaluation.” It presents credit union as no different from the alternatives cooperatives were meant to counter. It is a loss of real value in the both the public and political market place.
Talking to the Press
Repeatedly throughout his two part series, the reporter tells of his attempts to interview the leaders of the credit unions he is covering. These efforts for comment include the California Credit Union League.
By not participating, credit unions reinforce the idea that they do not have an explanation or response to the writer’s point of view.
One leader is an exception: Bill Birnie, CEO of Frontwave. He goes on camera to talk about the credit union’s courtesy pay product. He discusses his current salary openly with the reporter.
He apparently was the only credit union person willing to engage on this sensitive topic. The story was more than just OD fees and the members this affects. It goes personal by contrasting this practice with the compensation of those implementing the fees.
Leadership is more than trumpeting success. It also requires a willingness to address criticism and possibly poor judgments. This is especially so when done in public where the critic may have the last word or “already has the story written.”
Leadership when confronted with alternative points requires character, a willingness to listen, and the courage to sit down with one’s questioners.
In this case, apparently only one person was willing to stand up and be responsible. I don’t think it was an accident that it was Bill, who came to credit union leadership later in life. Here is a short synopsis of his career before coops:
Bill is a 25 year veteran of the US Marine Corps, retiring in 1997 at the rank of Sergeant Major with combat service in Operations Desert Storm in Kuwait and United Shield in Somalia.
Bill is an example of what it means when “we thank someone for their service” and what it brings to their subsequent civilian roles.
A Seasonal Song in a Time of Conflict
One of the most recognized Christmas songs is I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.
On Christmas day, 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—a 57-year-old widowed father of six children, the oldest of which had been nearly paralyzed as his country fought a war against itself—wrote a poem seeking to capture the dynamic and dissonance in his own heart and the world he observes around him.
The words go from despair (There is no peace on earth,” I said;”For hate is strong, And mocks the song”) to hope:
