http://snltranscripts.jt.org/88/88achangebank1.phtml

“We have been in this business a long time. With our experience, we’re gonna have ideas for change combinations that probably haven’t occurred to you. If you have a fifty-dollar bill, we can give you fifty singles. We can give you forty-nine singles and ten dimes. We can give you twenty-five twos. Come talk to us. We are not going to give you change that you don’t want. If you come to us with a hundred-dollar bill, we’re not going to give you two-thousand nickels.. – unless that meets your particular change needs. We will give you.. the change.. equal to.. the amount of money.. that you want change for!”

Anyway, this whole idea of “preserving” small banks is dependent on the idea that acquiring banks, even those like United, are sharks. Often times people start up small banks for the sole purpose of selling out and realizing liquidity.

I would also like to understand his definition of “small business.” This term is thrown around politically and is never described. I work in business lending (for a large bank) and small can mean anywhere from $100k in revenue to $50 million maybe even beyond. Many of the small banks like Burke and Herbert, etc do not have the capital or risk appetite to take on larger “small businesses” that typically do B2B sales.

I completely agree with an earlier poster’s insight that large banks are very restrictive on their lending practices. The knock is we can lend money to people who don’t need it. That’s not far from the truth.

Bottom line is shop and bank locally keeps things local.

Local services are dependent on money being spent and kept local.

You must work at a comercial bank that issues credit cards with 19% interest rates….

The U.S. Treasury in recent weeks provided 48 credit unions with $69.91 million
The CBO says that the total disbursment of tarp funds as of oct 2012 is $431 billion.

as to loans:

“I would say, generally, given what we’ve just gone through (credit unions) are in very good shape,” Schenk says. “Asset quality isn’t stellar, it’s deteriorated a lot but compared to what the banking sector is dealing with — we’re one-third of what they are in delinquencies and half in net charge-offs.”
Schenk says credit union membership grew by nearly 2 percent the past year in part because people are finding it difficult to get loans elsewhere. CUNA statistics show credit union loan balances growing by approximately 4.5 percent in the 12 months ending June 2009 versus loan balances at banks shrinking by that same percentage during the same time period.

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/savings/credit-unions-faring-well-in-crisis.aspx#ixzz2JV04gGRJ

As to Credit unions not paying taxes, they do not retain earnings and have no tax liablity. Their 501.c status requires them to return all profits to their depositors who are liabal for any tax obligations.

RE: PhD:

Please see the link below for good overview of the history of the comercial lending cap for Credit unions:

http://www.icba.org/files/ICBASites/PDFs/Legislative%20History%20of%20Credit%20Union%20Member%20Business%20Lending%20Cap.pdf