Not Fearless Enough?

© whotv.com

I am disappointed in Fearless Girl, that bronze figure in front of the iconic Charging Bull sculpture on Wall Street. Ok, it is my fault, actually. I took her symbolism in an entirely different direction than the artist who created her intended. Still, I find myself angry at the artist responsible for the bull wanting to evict the innocent child standing in defiance before his angry bovine. I wonder if this is just the beginning of art depicting culture wars.

When I first saw images of the pony-tailed pixie, I was delighted. My assumption, a naive one it turns out, was that she was a literal stand-in for the proverbial little guy. You know, those of us whose investment portfolios consist of a PayPal donate button on our blog, and two to four lottery tickets when the pot gets big enough to remind us there is a lottery. Those who in no way, shape, or form can participate in the stock market. That is who I thought our heroine was standing for.

Come to find out, the point of the diminutive Miss was to draw attention to the lack of women on corporate boards, let alone the near absence of females running those boards. Oh, boy. Oh, girl! While I am no sympathizer for male privilege, I could still feel my heart sink at this revelation. Not only that, but the statue was commissioned by one of the world's largest financial firms: State Street Global Investors, based in Boston. What I had thought might be more of a monument to the Occupy Wall Street protests turned out to be not the slightest bit sympathetic to the working class. She was installed on March 7 of this year, on the eve of International Women's Day, so I probably should have made the connection.

A circular plaque at her feet proclaims "Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference." Conveniently, the "SHE" is not only gender-relevant, it is the acronym for State Street's fund's NASDAQ ticker symbol. I see, so she is an advertisement as well as (instead of?) art. To its credit the fund itself tracks the stocks of more than a hundred companies that State Street sees as exemplary leaders in promoting women in the corporate sector. The pure artist in me still views this as a sell-out.

Meanwhile, the creator of Charging Bull is snorting at having his creation upstaged by the kid. The original intent of his statue was to provide an uplifting symbol in the wake of the 1987 stock market crash. He donated the 3-ton work, and friends helped him install it in the middle of a cold winter's night, right in front of the New York Stock Exchange. It was almost removed by city officials who deemed it a traffic hazard and "nuisance," but public pressure resulted in the statue being relocated to its current place in Bowling Green Park, two blocks away.

© USweekly.com

The Sicilian artist, Arturo Di Modica, worries now that the meaning of his sculpture has been corrupted by the little squirt-in-a-skirt, saying that the bull now symbolizes male chauvinism. Hey, if the hoof fits....The bull will always symbolize to me how the ultra-wealthy throw their weight around. The china shop is the local economy, your neighborhood grocer, mechanic, hardware store owner, and every other business you used to be able to rely on before they got swallowed up by big box stores, and even bigger agriculture, banks, and fossil fuel barons. There is a wasteland in the wake of that bull, and we all know it. We still fear it, save for the few that occupied Wall Street for awhile, and maybe Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren; but they still think the stock market can be regulated. One could argue it should be slayed.

Fearless Girl currently has a permit from the city to stay put another year. I do like that outcome, but when her time has come, if it comes, perhaps we should replace her with a matador sticking a few blades into that son-of-a-beast. When I win the lottery, or get enough blog donations, maybe I'll commission that statue. Heck, I'm even willing to make the bullfighter a woman.

Why You Should Leave Your Bank...Now

© Makeyourmoneymatter.org

There may be nothing better you can do to empower yourself in today's economy and political structure (for lack of a better term) than to choose where your hard-earned dollars go. No, you don't have much of a choice in taxation, but you have a marketplace full of financial institutions. Some of those are better than others. Some of them have demonstrated time and again an absolute contempt for conventional middle-class consumers. Here are some reasons why you should choose wisely, and maybe opt for a credit union instead of a bank.

Fees. Many traditional banks nickel and dime your accounts to death. You need a minimum balance or you get a "maintenance fee." You bounce a check, you get a fee. Ok, you might deserve a fee if you are fiscally irresponsible, but too often you do not have to do anything to incur a fee.

Maximums and minimums. We already mentioned minimum balance requirements for traditional banks. They usually have a maximum withdrawal amount, and/or number of withdrawals, too, which means you are being punished for emergency situations in which you may need more than the usual amount. The most you should suffer is an interest penalty for a low balance.

Socially and environmentally irresponsible investments. This may be the overriding reason you should leave a commercial bank. Are you opposed to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL)? It may interest you to know that Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley have all extended credit to Energy Transfer Partners, the company constructing the DAPL. Don't believe me? Check out the Snopes.com article. We can collectively make a statement by taking our own personal business elsewhere.

Lack of interest. Literally! Can you remember the last time your bank account earned interest? Neither can I. Savings accounts are essentially worthless. Certificates of deposit (CDs) lock your money away for at least several months or more at a time and still pay next to no interest. Banks have no interest in paying you to save, or creating products that reflect the need of the average person to keep assets liquid for emergencies yet still earn a little interest in the meantime. Sure, the Federal Reserve chairman is responsible for setting interest rates, but banks still have more flexibility they choose not to exercise.

Lack of interest in you. Unless you are wealthy enough for private banking services, you are probably of little interest as a customer to the average bank. Priorities at least appear to be: Shareholders, CEO, customer and/or employee. Banks are profit-driven institutions that profit off of customers, not for them. They push loan and credit services like....I'll resist comparisons to nefarious enterprises. We are encouraged to live beyond our means, and to think first of ourselves instead of our communities. It's what banks do.

I have been with a credit union for the communicating arts for decades, and finally divorced myself from conventional banks....at least five years ago. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Customer service is outstanding, no matter how much is in my account, or how many products I have. This excellence has persisted even after a merger with another credit union. When was the last time an event like turned out for the better?

Because credit unions are not publicly traded, the customer is the priority. Because credit unions are usually local, or at least regional, and/or tied to a particular profession or military service, responsiveness to members vastly exceeds that of a traditional bank. Further, they are often sponsors of local charities and charitable events, from which we all prosper as a more healthy community.

I no longer live in the same city (not even the same state) as my credit union, but no worries. Many credit unions do what is called "shared branch" transactions. I can go to a totally different credit union to do my banking. How cool is that?

I urge my readers to give serious consideration to switching from a big bank to a credit union, for all of the reasons mentioned above. At least take stock of your current bank and make sure it is doing right by you, and right for our world at large. This is how you become empowered. You deserve it, and so do the rest of us.

Bernie Sanders and the Debt Class

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has made the central issue of his campaign the idea that our government has abandoned its responsibilities to the middle class. I would go a step farther and argue that we don't have a "middle class" at all. What we have is a "debt class" masquerading as a middle class. Debt has become an acceptable concept for politicians and ordinary citizens alike, and actively encouraged by financial institutions that reap huge profits at our collective expense. We're propped up as local, state, and federal governments, and family budgets. We are not solvent in the least.

Not only are we encouraged to borrow, we are punished for saving money by horrendously low interest rates. I still cannot understand why there cannot be separate interest rates for borrowing and saving, but that is the current situation and it is intolerable. One should earn more than (less than) pennies on the dollar for their personal or family emergency fund.

How do we accomplish changes to the status quo? Goals must be set in both legislation and personal consumer choices. We need to resist the temptation to borrow, to "keep up with the Jones'" lifestyle. Service, sharing, and generosity should be our personal governing concepts, not the accumulation of material wealth. We can do that without a government mandate. Those admirable ideals can, however, be enhanced by policies that reward those behaviors, and reward work rather than inherited wealth and corporate excess.

One of the quickest roads to bankruptcy in the U.S.A. is a health catastrophe. When even one hospital visit can put your bank account in arrears, and/or force you to beg on GoFundMe, we have a societal issue. So, addressing healthcare is paramount to turning around the personal debt crisis. A single-payer system ("Medicare for All"), as Sanders advocates, would be a great next step for the Affordable Care Act.

Student loans are another source of debt, and if we could at least make an effort at reducing college costs, if not making higher education free as many other developed nations have, then that would put many people on a more level playing field. When you consider the current minimum wage against cost of living and student debt, it is a wonder any young person can afford housing and a car, let alone a family.

Raising the minimum wage to at least fifteen dollars an hour is doable, with tax credits for small businesses. We should be actively encouraging more small businesses, so reward them as employers and entrepreneurs, and do not demand them to play by the same rules as multinational corporations.

Collect taxes from corporations currently avoiding taxation. End bailouts, subsidies, and other forms of corporate welfare. The revenue from this alone would likely reduce some individual tax rates, as well as reducing the federal deficit.

Meanwhile, we have to take some personal responsibility. We should start saving in spite of the poor returns at the present time. Cut up the credit cards. Flee big banks and put our money in accounts at credit unions where customers come first and there are no shareholders. Stop patronizing payday loan and rent-to-own enterprises that prey on our desire for instant cash or merchandise. Live frugally for ourselves, generously for others. Demand that the media stop obsessing over the wealthy.

What was it Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said? Something about "the content of their character." He was denouncing racism, but I suspect that today he would add that we shouldn't be judging the self-worth of others by the content of their bank accounts, either. That should most definitely not be the measure of any man (or woman) today.

Ok, so maybe we can do some of this. What would be the result? Were I a gambling man, I would bet that you would see some or all of the following result from increased wages, reduced debt, and overall fiscal responsibility: Alcoholism and drug abuse would decrease because of decreased stress from debt and poverty. Theft, illegal gambling, and related crimes would decrease with rising income. Frivolous litigation would decrease because currently lawsuits are viewed in part as a way to make up for low wage income. Employment would increase because one person wouldn't need three jobs to make ends meet. Dependence on welfare programs would begin declining. Volunteerism would increase because people would have more time free from wage-earning.

Bernie Sanders has, unfortunately, failed to articulate these connections between wealth disparity and the negative behaviors that result from it, let alone the potential benefits of reforming income inequality. Still, he is endorsed by virtually every economist in the land. We have at hand an unprecedented opportunity to begin reversing trends that, left to continue, will be the ruin of our society. I urge you only to think very carefully about both your vote at the booth, and how you vote with your hard-earned dollars in the marketplace.