Alternatives to Big Banks

There are other alternatives to banking with the corporately owned big banks that screw over the little guy. Some of these alternatives are being used around the world and in a couple of places in the U.S. Alternative currency keeps local cash locally. Some foreign cities where this is being used is Basel, Switzerland, Nantes, France, and Bristol and Brixton, England. The Banque WIR, an alternative to the Swiss franc, has been using its own currency, the WIR, since 1934. Nantes created its own currency based on the WIR. Also, there are the Bristol pound and the Brixton pound used as alternative versions of the British pound. Here in the U.S., there is Ithaca, New York, called the Ithaca Convertible, one Ithaca dollar equals one U.S. 1 dollar. Then there is the Deli Dollars that arrived in 1989, started by Frank Tortoriello, a deli owner sold $10 for $8 to be used in his refurbished deli; followed by Massachusetts’ Berkshire Farm preserve notes or BerkShares in the early 1990s. San Fransisco’s Bay Bucks is a business-to-business barter system. The BerkShares and "Deli Dollars," are examples of funding the costs upfront for a business to make improvements or expansions with the public buy-in. The people need to have control over the money and the more control the better for the economy as a whole. The other thing the people should look at is the U.S. Postal Service taking on banking jobs, which would be a huge benefit to working people. We should also look very hard at state banks, like North Dakota has, which keeps money in the state for use for the North Dakotans, which is much like local types of money. The money stays local and supports local government in taxes and local investments and not Wall Street and big international banks. This is why North Dakota rebounded better after the great recession that most other states. There is also the is the bitcoin, a digital monetary and payment system started in the late-2008, and is referred to as “cryptocurrency.” The system operates on a peer-to-peer transaction without an intermediary bank and considered first decentralized digital currency, and has a total market value. Remember, the power is who controls the cash for they can buy the power and votes. If the people, the wage slaves, control the money, change can be made, like the fight for $15 an hour minimum wage, single-payer health care, pensions, unions, protecting the environment, just to name a few. Wall Street, big business, the 1 percent, corporate-owned media, big banks, and politicians,who’ve been bought by these entities, have dumbed the masses down with reality television, biased news and the big banks penalizing and essentially stealing people’s money with “fees” and squashed attempts by 20 states to form their own banks, which has left the masses feeling frustrated, hopeless, and overwhelmed. One way to take back your power is to bank with a local credit union or banking entity rather than with the major banks, like Bank of America, Chase-Manhattan, and Wells Fargo.