BOB:I would also-- Can I do a commercial for credit unions?
LIZ: Sure. BOB: I mean, one of the
things that is very important is that credit unions-- We were talking about values before
and I've spent a lot of time covering on a stint at CBS Money Watch, which is a very straight
movement of money and and wall street oriented, but it was a great education because my job was
to study what was happening in capital markets and commodity markets overnight
and then write about what was going to happen the next day. And one of the things that I've
had a real appreciation for [is credit unions]. I'm a member of a credit union,
and credit unions are non-profit cooperative organizations where they're democratically run.
You can be on the board, you can be involved with the decision making, and the profits
that are generated actually go towards keeping the cost down of banking, and also of making
sure that that money stays local as invested in small businesses, and in communities mortgages.
That's not like your-- I'll give you an example. The municipal credit union in New York which just
was founded in 1916, has five billion dollars under management, 500,000 members, went through a
little spate of trouble but recently it's back up and being run locally. It had been taken over by
the national credit union administration. But one of the things that's fascinating is it's a place
where if you're starting out as a firefighter or a police officer and you're not for money, there's
a certain amount of money you have to spend to get your equipment, right. It's one of the few
places you can go and just show that you have a promise of employment and they will give you
the money in advance to buy the equipment you need to be able to do your civil service job.
So that's the kind of thing-- And I think that that's the kind of thing when we talk about
restructuring society-- I'm also a big proponent of postal banking because one of the things I
found out researching-- My brother Christopher is involved with doing non-profit accounting work,
community-based work, as a storefront, helps folks out. And one of the things that he finds
is that the impediment to getting that money we talked about (that billions of billions of
dollars [in covid relief]) is something as simple as people don't have online banking.
And so one of the key things you can do there is once you plug people into some kind
of financial situation where they can manage their affairs, and in a cooperative fashion,
you begin to help them actualize. And so there is a model. Like, we don't have to be alienated from
money, but it's the capitalist value system of individuation not acting in collective
community concern that we have to avoid. LIZ: Yeah, all great points. And thank you
for sharing all this information about the credit unions too. It's really important to think about
how to better place, put our money. I remember I was very proud and loud when I withdrew all my
money from Wells Fargo. I was very loud. BOB: Excellent.
LIZ: They were like "why do you want to close your account?" And I was like "Well..."
BOB: "Do you have an hour?" LIZ: Yeah, Exactly. Let me
speak in a louder tone of voice. But the post office being used for banking is one of those
ideas that just excites me too. You know, Italy has a post office that does so much more than send
and ship packages. And you can not only hold your bank account, you can pay your bills through them,
you can even, yes, get loans etc through them. And it's a thriving organization. I mean--
BOB: Well, we had a postal bank. The thing that's crazy is that, like the assault weapon ban,
it existed. It was happening. It was also a place where people, it was all over the place so there's
easy access. I was, a lot of immigrants used it, and it's also something where when you have-- When
you look at the conventional commercial banking we have like banking deserts, supermarket deserts,
I mean, this is this is the model of capitalism. So reconstruction is going to be
by plugging into abundance and collectives are about abundance. Capitalism is about scarcity.
LIZ: Well, scarcity for most and abundance for others. I'm gonna turn this this banking
question a little bit. I mean, we're on such a nice positive note which would be great to end.
But we are talking about Stuck Nation. BOB: Right.
LIZ: We are still stuck. We have to remember also what we're up against.
BOB: Right. LIZ: I have a comment
here from James from YouTube. "Can Bob speak to BlackRock and Vanguard and their influence,
and what we can do to contest the one 1%?" BOB: So it's funny because BlackRock is at the top
of my mind because I was covering this horrendous battle in Alabama related to a coal miner strike
that's gone on forever. It was a case where it was a bankrupt coal mine. The workers in good faith
took major concessions in wages to help them get back on their feet. They did, and then
the company has been reneging on its part of the deal, and BlackRock holds a big piece of that. So
this is what i was saying before that these funds now have to be held accountable. I know
that there are some old school folks who say the only way to do this is, for transformation,
is to strike, and that's certainly an important tool in the tool chest, and organize. But there
is this sense that particularly with congress stuck like it is and incapable of doing anything
for working people really, uh that-- I'll give you an example. We had Brad Lander, the comptroller of
New York City elected office and Tom DiNapoli, the New York state comptroller. Between them
they managed a couple hundred billions of dollars of public pension money. They enlisted a group of
other like-minded pension managers of public pensions. Between New York state and New York
city alone they had five billion dollars of Amazon stock. And so when Amazon had its annual
shareholder meeting and they were going to just rubber stamp the board directors (who, by the
way said it was okay for the top five executives to realize 400 million dollars in compensation),
they actually got a shareholder resolution and 27 percent of the outside stock
voted against these people being reappointed. That is a toe hole in the door. I have seen
other situations where diversity is now being challenged and sometimes what's happening is the
board of directors is agreeing to the concession or compromising because they don't want the fight.
But we have to fight in all fronts now. So, it includes like-- I'm working on something about
Chipotle. That's another place that's been abusing its workforce. It's a place that's
made all kinds of money. It's a place that's very reliant on its brand and on customer loyalty. So
one of the things that the organizers are doing in 32BJ [Chipotle Workers Union], which i think
is creative, is having consumers who are part of the loyalty (you know how all those places
like to incentivize you to be one of their consumers) using that platform as a way for
consumers to tell Chipotle it matters how their workers are treated. So we have to work on all
fronts. The other thing I like to do, whenever I go and get some kind of service somewhere,
get some help loading something up, we do a lot of projects around here, gardening and carpentry,
I always give some money to the people helping me. I mean, I'm on social security but--
I always had this conversation where I say to the kid, usually a kid, "Here's some money. hope you
guys get a union. It was good to me." And iI do that all the time. Because those conversations
build intergenerational trust and you'd be surprised how much you learned from it. And for
a couple of bucks you get a great conversation. BOB: This is amazing. I love learning how you do
your [work]. We hear the phrase "on the ground reporting." What does that look like? And so,
this is exactly it. I mean, this is all the ways that Bob starts a conversation with people.