Well, I finally did it: I closed my accounts at Wells Fargo Bank on Monday morning. It feels great! Of course, a lot of people have been getting out of the too-big-to-fail banks; I knew they were right, and I should do it too. And I thought about it—on and off—for over a year before I was able to make it happen. The biggest thing in my way was inertia, which a friend loves to say is the most powerful force in the universe.
Wells Fargo was a very different bank when I opened my first account there in 1978. I’m originally from the East Coast, and when I moved to California and saw the bank with the name out of the Old West, it seemed so quaint. Over the years and after a few mergers and acquisitions, the bank had morphed into the country's second-largest bank by deposits, mortgage servicing and debit cards; and then the 2008 financial crisis brought the issue of over-empowered financial institutions to the forefront.
When Bernie Sanders announced that any bank that's too big to fail is too big to exist, I knew I shouldn't be supporting one of those very banks, even with my modest accounts… but my local branch is friendly; and I'd gotten pretty locked in, what with direct deposit, linked accounts, auto-payments and such. It was all so convenient; and deconstructing the whole setup seemed so daunting that I found myself utterly unable to take action, even when last November 5 was designated as Bank Transfer Day. It was pretty pathetic—but then Life gave me a nudge that was too big to ignore.
Remember Marvin Borg? He posted a diary here on November 2 with a great story about his one-man campaign to encourage people to move their money. It was pretty inspirational; and when I saw that he lives nearby, I boldly (for me, since I'm a wimp) volunteered to help him out. Two days later, a couple of us from dKos joined him for a second “action" in San Francisco’s Castro District (I was the photographer).
It was fun and gratifying to get involved in the move-your-money movement; but I felt pretty guilt-ridden about it afterward because due to my paralysis, I was in no position to move my own money on Bank Transfer Day, which was the very next day. But then I realized that I could do the next-best thing that day: I could start the process. And now I'm all done! What better occasion to write my first diary (I've only been hanging around here since the Howard Dean days—but as I said, I'm a wimp)?
If you, too, find yourself overwhelmed by the enormous undertaking of digging out of your TBTF bank, don’t give up. If I can do it, anyone can! The key is just to get some momentum going. Follow me over the cloud with a silver lining for a few links and ideas to get you started on the road to your new life at a smaller bank.
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