This morning I received yet another petition-signature request from the good folks at the Campaign for America's Future. This one asked Eric Holder to step back from his statement of last week that the "Too Big To Fail" banks are also too big to PROSECUTE. We're talking about the people whose negligence and bad-faith actions we all know caused the financial mess we find ourselves in, and who, with our help, are NO LONGER in this mess, even though most of us still are. Holder says that now that we've pulled their butts out of the fire, if we try to take legal action against them, our fragile recovery may be damaged. With all due respect, Mr. Holder ... POPPYCOCK! The REAL reason you don't want to take them to court is patently obvious - their lawyers are better than yours, because THEY HAVE ALL THE MONEY!
Now, signing online petitions is all fine & well - it's a feel-good thing one can do, and then say "Hey, I'm pitchin' in for the cause," but in this case it really doesn't amount to a fart in a tornado. Holder will see the petition, and say "So? ... I STILL can't beat them in court, because they're just TOO big and (say it with me again, children) THEY HAVE ALL THE MONEY!" So, how can REALLY help? What can average citizens do to help make the "Big Banks" smaller? Well, the answer to that one is so freakishly obvious, I'm almost embarrassed to write it down -
STOP GIVING THEM OUR MONEY! IF THEY HAVE ANY OF YOUR MONEY ... TAKE IT AWAY, AND DON'T GIVE THEM ANY MORE!!
Yes - it's THAT simple. If you have an account at Chase, HSBC, Wells Fargo, Bank of America or SaudiBank - excuse me, CitiBank (seems I always make that "mistake"), clear it and close it. You're better off in SO MANY ways doing business with a community bank or a credit union. If you have a credit or debit card through any of these banks, cancel the account and deprive them of your fees. Take a look at your "Store-Specific" credit cards to see who administers them - I cancelled my Sears account the minute I found out that it was through Saudi - oops, Citi - bank. Amazon cards are handled by Chase. Lose these cards and stop feeding the beasts!
If you've bothered to read this far, and any of those banks are holding so much as a dollar of yours, you can rest assured that that dollar is actively working AGAINST your best interests, by advancing the interests of the "Too Big To Fail". The only reason they're as big as they are is that WE made them that way! One of the reasons that (one more time) THEY HAVE ALL THE MONEY, is that, one way or another, WE GIVE MOST OF OURS TO THEM - but we can take it away, too!
Let's all put them on a bit of a diet, slim them down, "undernourish" them a little, and maybe someday, we will have trimmed them sufficiently that perhaps some future Attorney General might not quake in his boots at the prospect of bringing one of them to court. A future AG with GUTS! (Are you listening, Congressman Grayson?)