THE LATEST PATRIOT ACT

Temecula, CA – Good people all over the country are being sold out. Regular folks are paying for three wars now. There are still no jobs for their kids unless the kids are going to college; then there is no job waiting for them afterwards. And the taxpayers are keeping the rich, richer. Want a wonderful life? Let George Bailey show you the way to a protest that Martin Luther King, Jr. would bless.

The big banks on Wall Street, propped up by taxpayer money and government guarantees, have had a record year, making record profits while returning to the highly leveraged activities that brought our economy to the brink of disaster. In a slap in the face to taxpayers, they have also cut back on the money they are lending, even though the need to get credit flowing again was one of the main points used in selling the public the bank bailout. But since April, the Big Four banks -- JP Morgan/Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo -- all of which took billions in taxpayer money, have cut lending to businesses by $100 billion.

Meanwhile, America's Main Street community banks -- the vast majority of which avoided the banquet of greed and corruption that created the toxic economic swamp we are still fighting to get ourselves out of -- are struggling. Many of them have closed down (or been taken over by the FDIC) over the last 12 months. The government policy of protecting the Too Big and Politically Connected to Fail is badly hurting the small banks, which are having a much harder time competing in the financial marketplace. As a result, a system which was already dangerously concentrated at the top has only become more so.

The idea for this patriot act is simple: If enough people who have money in one of the big four banks move it into smaller, more local, more traditional community banks and credit unions, then collectively we, the people, will have taken a big step toward re-rigging the financial system so it becomes again the productive, stable engine for growth it's meant to be. It's neither Left nor Right -- it's populism at its best. Consider it a withdrawal tax on the big banks for the negative service they provide by consistently ignoring the public interest. It's time for Americans to move their money out of these reckless behemoths. And you don't have to worry, there is zero risk: deposit insurance is just as good at small banks and credit unions-- and unlike the big banks they don't provide the toxic dividend of derivatives trading in a heads-they-win, tails-we-lose fashion. But since a picture is worth a thousand words, we will give you the full value, something it’s costing more to get in the marketplace.

JP Morgan/Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America may be "too big to fail" -- but they are not too big to feel the impact of hundreds of thousands of people taking action to change a broken financial and political system. Let them gamble with their own money, not yours. Let's turn big banks into smaller banks. We'll all be better off -- and safer -- as a result.

Make it your New Year's resolution to move your money. We can't think of a better way to start 2010 off towards a wonderful life. Remember, each dollar you re-invest means a small bank or credit union gets its wings. Happy New Year from all of us at the Full Value Review! (Source - Eugene Jarecki, Frank Capra, Huffington Post)