By Ed Speed
Based on the article on this site last week, the new CUNA CEO thinks that “bold leadership” is working with bankers on certain issues of common interest. The only things CUNA has worked on with banks are the common interests of bank and credit union executives. The common interest issues up until now have certainly not been in the interest of members.
Ever since the glorious, cash-rich days of the HR 1151 fight, the CU trade associations have been desperate to latch onto emotional issues that will keep the associations’ phones ringing, the coffers full, and the staff salaries high.
Taxation and issues related to NCUA are the gifts that keep on giving. During quiet times the tax-exemption can always be dragged out to keep the populist engine warmed up. There is no more lively sport at trade gatherings than NCUA bashing, which was rabid during the start of the most recent financial crises. I can’t help but notice that there is deafening silence from the trades now that we can see the NCUA was an enlightened and even-handed regulatory agency that got things right.
Now, with the new CEO of CUNA, we can look forward to pursuing common interests with banks? Let’s look at our track record doing just that.
History reflects that such cooperation with banks brought our members the “reforms” of draconian credit card collection and bankruptcy laws. Our trades marched us lockstep as we wrote passionate letters and hiked many a hill to convince legislators to shield us from our own members.
As long as the trades could keep the true believers of the movement in emotional heat, it was not important that the majority of personal bankruptcies were filed by single women with children who became financially insecure through divorce. As long as the trades could “advocate” and whip up the rank-and-file it didn’t matter that the second most frequent driver of bankruptcy was crushing medical expenses.
The credit card reform campaign by our CU trades was probably the most egregious. Working with the banks’ media machines our trades subjected us to anecdotal tales of that singular horror of horrors – a member who gamed the system. Stories were dredged up about some dastardly schemer who piled up mountains of credit card and unsecured debt, lived in a mansion and then declared bankruptcy.
The harsh reality our trades never disclosed is that the credit card debt of most personal bankruptcies was not for vacations, jewelry, designer clothes or electronics. Instead, the credit card of a single mother or debt-burdened senior citizen reflected food, rent, doctor visits and the necessities to live. Our trades never disclosed that many times the reformed bankruptcy laws result in what can be rightfully called indentured servitude.
'Dupes' For The Banking Industry
We were dupes for the banking industry. For the banks it was all about the bottom line, but they got us to make it personal and emotional. We wanted to punish those deadbeat bankrupts. We wanted vengeance. How dare credit card abusers steal the money of their hard-working fellow members!
The reality is that the banks work us over by playing to our self-righteousness. Our trades deliver us to them. In every case, the banks make nice with us to get our votes on the Hill, then immediately resume fighting us on every regulatory relief we want. Every time the banks want something of “common interest” with credit unions, we become what Josef Stalin called “useful idiots.”
Common interests with the banks? Let’s see, just one time, if they will lobby the hill for what we need to enhance credit union growth.
Edward Speed retired in 2012 as the CEO of a $2 Billion credit union. Mr. Speed can be reached Edwardspeed1948@yahoo.com