(Thumbnail image: Consumer Money Saver Pro)

“I don’t have one single penny in any of your banks.  Not one.  Because I don’t want my money put into CDOs and credit default swaps and making humongous bonuses.” (Move Your Money campaign)
 
Liberal thinker, Arianna Huffington is spearheading a new campaign called Move Your Money.  The movement likens too-big-to-fail banks to the predatory Mr. Potter from "It’s a Wonderful Life" and calls on Americans to pull their money out of bailed out big banks.

We’re taking a look at the new money movement with perspectives from CNBC, Move Your Money, Business Insider, and Truth-Out.

The goal of Move your Money is twofold: put pressure on banking behemoths to stop risky practices and get credit flowing again to small businesses again.

On CNBC, Huffington sparred with anchor, Larry Kudlow, about the wisdom in a major money shift.   

Anchor: “Community banks have taken government money too.  Community banks have federally insured taxpayer deposits also, but community banks also make mistakes.  There’s good ones and there’s bad ones.”
Huffington: “One of the reasons community banks are faring so much worse than big banks is because of all the government guarantees that the big banks have.  The fact that they have the ability to go to the Fed window, as you know, and the kind of near-zero financing that other banks do not have access to.  That they can take that taxpayer money and use it to gamble in the banking casino that the economy has become.”

With more than 100 small banks going under in recent years, Move Your Money has some critics.  The Business Insider points out community savings and loans have a spotty history.

“Fair enough, but what Huffington's fans should bear in mind is that during the 1980s, nearly every S&L was engaged in gruesome, dumb practices.”

But not all reactions have been so dubious.  Stephanie Frost has gotten nearly 50,000 hits on her YouTube video about closing her Bank of America account.

“I am going to be moving my money to a community bank, away from Bank of America.  And I think if a lot of people did that, they might eventually get the message.  But I am not going to continue to fund risky behavior that got these banks into trouble in the first place.  It’s not going to be done with my money.”

On the blog, Truth-Out, Ellen Hodgson Brown, writes that while community banks are good—what they really need is capital to get credit flowing again.  For that, she proposes state run banks like in North Dakota that partner with community outfits.

“A state-owned bank has enormous advantages over smaller private institutions: states own huge amounts of capital (cash, investments, buildings, land, parks and other infrastructure), and they can think farther ahead than their quarterly profit statements, allowing them to take long-term risks.”

So who do you trust with your money?

Writer: Chance Seales