Saving Credit Unions from Evil Banks

The big banks are pushing for a repeal of credit unions' federal tax exemption (Los Angeles Times, July 2013) and are using their lobbying might to kill off credit unions, attempting to destroy a crucial tax exemption that credit unions need to survive.

Big Banks sucked up over a trillion dollars in the bailouts, but now they’re claiming that credit unions are a threat to the national deficit. Banks say that credit unions cost the government $1.5 billion in lost tax revenue, but if the banks get their way, it will end up costing us over ten billion dollars each year in higher fees and rates.

Congress gets back from recess this week, and banks are about to kick off a big lobbying push for the fall. The banks are trying to kill consumer-friendly credit unions so that they can raise rates with impunity. Credit unions are fighting back against the tax repeal efforts (Miami Herald, September 2013)

Anytime "regulation" is mentioned, bankers like to cry out about "free-market principles", but banks use an army of lobbyists to shape legislation as they see fit --- and now are trying to take out the competition.

The Robin Hood Tax

The Robin Hood Tax is a proposed minuscule taxation on Wall Street transactions that can generate hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Like Robin Hood, the tax targets financial injustice, repurposing money that is being hoarded by a small sector of Wall Street and bringing it back into the service of the common good.

The Robin Hood Tax takes .05% from all Wall Street transactions --- not the daily transactions of regular people --- but those done by Wall Street banks, hedge funds, and the like. This tax specifically targets the short-term casino style trades that threw us into a financial abyss.

The $350 billion that would be annually acquired by this tax could then be applied to the health and well-being of the country: providing universal health care, abolishing student loans, paying for jobs and to rejuvenate our decaying infrastructure by renovating our crumbling bridges and dysfunctional hospitals.

Of course we would prefer to jail the bankers and break up the banks --- but at the very least, let’s shame our politicians into compelling the banksters who stole our money to give it back! A small tax like The Robin Hood Tax is more than fair.

"Five Years After Lehman Brothers Fall, Big Banks Even Larger" -- Part 1 and Part 2

"Revealed: Potential Fed Chair Larry Summers At Heart Of Global Economic Crisis" -- Real News