56:38 Right, but I will tell you I find it's a similar bank down there No But I like them and I call them up and they know me by name. They'll do anything over the phone for me It's like oh You know they call me up say hey your daughter because of course my daughter I open account for her There she's overdrawn yeah But but they're really nice you can they call you up about stuff? They just that they give us shit about me And they didn't have any tarp money And they brag about not taking TARP money. The funny thing is, one of the things I like about them is that I can use my ATM card anywhere and when it says at the end of... I go to Wells Fargo put the card in take out a couple hundred dollars and says for this process you have to pay $3. Do you accept the fee? Yes! We're using so much energy on this transaction
57:27 And by the way, they should be giving you $3 because the whole idea of ATMs was to save them money on tellers. Those guys, anyone who charges you. If your bank is charging you 10 cents or anybody else 10 cents to do one of these transactions with a teller and you're getting ripped off anyway so the bank we use which I'm gonna tell you who they are because they are in San Francisco Bay Area and I recommend them it's The Mechanics Bank. They've been around since the 20s. Yeah basically the bootleggers used him Well, somebody did we don't know that for sure one of the yeah there actually where they're looking it's possible But anyway, they give you the today. They the mechanics bank as a you know that I guess all these banks They don't have to you know accept the charges so they pull those charges off Yeah, they don't pay two three dollars like say yes sure here's your $3 and then never
58:19 they never get paid the $3. So anyway, so community banks good idea which I think it is a good idea you know because It makes sense to have a small bank in your community who you can go by the way they're always saying if you need alone we really can give you alone yeah If you guys need a business loan for no agenda? I'm like I don't think so Not a good idea We're not very creditworthy But they'll give us yours if we wanted it We probably could get a business loan. Now, so let's play the community bank one long which is the... You don't have to play the whole thing or break it up a little bit but they're doing this story on this bank out in the middle of us in the East Coast someplace I can't think of the name off hand but they mention over and over again and then he tried to... And the guy who was doing the report is incredulous that these this bank is so involved in the community that they know who their customers are
59:13 and that they have all these goods and services, so the guy to counterbalance the report talks to the head of Mellon Bank in New York who is a big bank. And then the big bank guy who's just a stooge goes on and on about how much more you get from the big bank, and how better the services. By the way, the big banks screw you! They screw the customer their services are no good they charge for every little thing they can The prices aren't right, there overpriced it's a rip-off but listen to this character Most of our employees work in live here in the community so their families can take part use this as well
59:53 It was getting a little sweet for a jaded journalist, but fortunately I'm- Wait! Hold on a second. This is the PBS McNeil... What is it? McGlare News Hour? It's just the news hour. It used to be the McNeill-Larry Report Okay now its just the news hour And he says that it's getting sweet in other words there are so many people complimenting this guy and his bank He's throwing up Yeah, I'm so sick of this. I am supposed to be shilling! What's wrong? ...in various circles So I asked a really big banker why shouldn't I move my money If you think you can get other products and services that are superior to a large bank then go for it Robert Kelley CEO at Bank of New York Mellon who suggests thinking back just 25 years We had 20 thousand banks in this country
1:00:40 Now we have 8,000 banks and my guess is 10 years from now we'll have 5,000 banks or 4,000 banks. It's good to have lots of competition but the reality also is that bigger bank offer generally better products and services at generally really competitive prices." I just got a stop for second because what happened 25 year ago was there was regulation change where banks, these small banks you had a bank everywhere were allowed to do interstate commerce. And this was before the internet really before it was prevalent and if you needed to send your kids some money in college it was very difficult and the reason why people jumped on board of these banks or these big national bank is so you could do that. It was like the interstate commerce aspect because now we take for granted how easy it is to PayPal someone some money etc., or just get them some cash
1:01:31 This was probably right now. Western Union was all you had no the big the big Big Bang felt here's a Real that wasn't the reason they did this of course because that's an example That's the reason why I big banks became popular for the common man, I believe Well, it's possible but I don't know. But the thing is that big big banks City Bank and all these bank of America in particular a couple of big whoppers They were kicking ass all over the world but they foresaw the day when the big giant like the National Bank Of Germany and all these big giant huge banks that were bigger than they were We're gonna you know beat them in international commerce and their economic hitmen
1:02:09 So they said, we got this bull that we can only have branches in California. Said the Bank of America which was a California based bank. We run branches why can't we have a branch in Nevada? It's right next door and so they passed this law saying okay you get it This is one of the things that caused this recent depression by the way They said, okay you guys can have banks. You can do whatever you want so instead of actually opening branches elsewhere they just started buying up these little banks like crazy with offers they couldn't refuse and it got too big to fail and now that's the reason things consolidated. It wouldn't have obviously if government hadn't changed these regulations and there was a good reason. And the reason is what you just saw with the economy collapsing for not having banks all over the place, national banks competing with each other because it's going to be just like AT&T once you let them
1:02:59 to sell out like everybody else. They say they never will, but they can be squeezed out and that's what happens when these other banks get really big but the fact that this guy is just lying to through his teeth about the better goods and services and competitive prices it's just enough to make your system take all your money out of these big banks back to them in the longer term trend will be
1:03:41 fewer smaller banks in the nation for that reason. And as Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman reminded us recently, small is not necessarily beautiful It's possible to have a banking crisis even without too big to fail you know there was lots of small banks that collapsed the financial system in 1930s Indeed 140 banks failed in the past year with another 702 just added to the FDIC's problem list Moreover, says Robert Kelly... We also have a gigantic economy which you can't run with a lot of really small banks. You need big successful sophisticated profitable banks But the Village Bank is profitable? What?!
1:04:24 Profitable. Where's that part of it? Profitable! I do want to mention that the FDIC now is trying to convince pension funds, right so the people who hold your pension money to invest in new financial products that will be made available to the government to bail out banks that fail. Just so you know, screw your pension! You ain't ever gonna get it. It's gone. Kisses goodbye." But you don't need to be a large institution in order to be successful. This is the head of the community bank. Oh, okay good As a financial institution today How often do use your ATM? Are you local ATM user? Do you travel alot? Yeah I use my ATM alot and i travel alot No problem says The Village Bank's Claire Messina Yes but how about new technology
1:05:22 At my big bank, I can deposit a check and it takes a picture of the check and then gives me the deposits with the picture. So i feel as if... I get the same thing from Mechanics Bank! They got pictures on their website Yeah, well I mean apparently Village Bank doesn't so he's got leverage on it but who cares? I don't need a picture of my check anyway. We can stop playing this clip and go to the kicker which is his wrap up of the whole idea of taking your money out of a big bank and giving it to a little bank where you get customer service and better services and all the rest of it. And the way he does it,
1:06:02 Yeah! And you guys do too as well? Yes. For over 40 years This is beginning to seem like a complete put-up job No, I mean really it's this is like ridiculous You know nobody's gonna believe this watching us on camera What you don't believe wait no one's gonna believe this that people love their community bank apparently
1:06:42 Okay. No, I believe it's my eye but literally everywhere we go isn't there? Are these ringers what have you done here? No no no ringers these are just our customers and so that's the case for moving your money to a community bank The case against that is a futile if feel-good effort to turn back the clock Okay, okay So he is saying that this community banks are a futile effort, it's all nostalgia you just want to turn back the clock. You're not participating in progress! Progress moving forward at America is that what I'm hearing? Exactly Okay let's continue We'll see Well we'll see...we'll see slaves For the record one of the banks Paul mentioned in his report Bank Of America Is A News Hour Underwriter
1:07:33 At least they're honest about it. Yeah, you know they felt they had to do with the report was just that they couldn't Do it without saying that oh my god called out if that's all right so called out anyways bogus there You go there you go So Bank of America underwrites this show and they do a show where they can't believe that this is This backwards, this completely antiquated nostalgic idea of community banks. Oh that's so wrong! You need to go with Bank of America because they're our underwriter." You're right John I'm so happy you brought this up This is exactly why we don't have commercials now. We do believe in value for value and we need to get paid for doing the show, we spend a lot of time doing it and quite honestly I'm not really you know...I think we've gotten to a point where