Which One Is Golden?
Sometimes telling the truth is, well, telling the truth. Ed Speed lays it on the line in this CUDaily opinion piece [link].
😎 Are we going to the dogs?
As the bankers would say, if it walks like a DCUC, talks like a DCUC, and acts like a DCUC; then it probably is a...
Are we going to the dogs? No, and who is "we"? This is a decidedly cynical take, and we get it, a couple of y'all don't like mergers. He hijacks the other editorial and pivots to his disdain for mergers. His problem is in his whole premise... we're not united but it's because of the sellouts. But like I asked, who is "we"? If we mean all 4000+ credit unions, we don't need to be united. No two CUs are alike, they each have their own strategy, mission and member base - some community, some seg, some more affluent, some not so much. Boards and CU leaders have a superior duty to their member-base than all the other members in the system - which in fact they have no duty at all. Our actions at SECU neither help nor harm other CU's just because we're big. Sure, some CU buys naming rights, a bank, or pays an exec too much in a merger, and the bank lobby wines about it for a while and nothing happens. CU's can whine about the actions of other CU's jeopardizing their existence all they want, but they should focus on serving their members. Ed should write about unity even means, and why we even need it as an industry. And yes, an industry not a movement. We have to respect the uniqueness of each credit union. CU's literally have only two key things in common, a cooperative ownership structure and non-profit tax status. Boards have a duty to serve and represent their members, not the industry and we're kidding ourselves if "we" think those interests are aligned. A 5 billion or 55 billion CU, as from the structure and tax status, don't have the same interests as a $500 million CU. Never have, never will. Unity is not needed among them. So Ed 's apparently figured out who's to blame for the lack of unity, but he makes no good case why we need unity in the first place.
ReplyDelete3:45pm Appears to be a "ridiculous" rant!
DeleteIf you came in late on the reference, see yesterday's comments beginning 8:25pm.
No more of rant than Speed’s dimented hack job.
Delete6:24pm "Dimemted"? Rediculous!
Deleteinfantilization - WTF?
ReplyDelete"Infantilization" defined? see 10:05 pm absurd "cooing" below
DeleteThis is the never anaymous, aed Spped. Let’s be absolutely clear, because the critique argues at length against a position I have never held. I do not preach unity. I declare it dead. I did not mourn its loss, call for its restoration, or scold anyone for failing to achieve it. I said plainly that whatever once passed for unity in this industry no longer exists and has not for some time. To accuse me of undermining unity is to misread the argument so completely that one wonders whether the reading was ever done in good faith and if the writing was ndestood at all.
ReplyDeleteWhat I attacked was not disunity. It was hypocrisy. Specifically, the hypocrisy of those who insist there is no collective “we” when accountability is raised, yet suddenly rediscover a unified movement the moment tax exemption is threatened. In those moments, small credit unions are dragged back onto the stage, polished up, and presented to legislators as living proof of cooperative virtue. They are treated less like independent institutions with agency and more like bright children placed in front of a wealthy aunt, smiling earnestly, meant to soften the room so the adults can keep the inheritance flowing.
This is not cooperation. It is manipulation. And it has become so normalized that calling it out now gets recast as an attack on mergers, or an appeal for unity, or some nostalgic longing for a movement that no longer exists. That rhetorical pivot is the tell. It avoids the charge by inventing a different argument altogether and then congratulates itself for knocking it down.
The question “who is ‘we’?” is not a rebuttal. It is the question my article forces into the open. When leaders insist there is no collective responsibility, no shared moral obligation, and no duty beyond one’s own member base, that is a defensible position. But it collapses the moment those same leaders invoke the smallest, poorest, most mission-driven credit unions to justify privileges enjoyed by the largest and wealthiest. You cannot deny the existence of a collective and then exploit it. You cannot claim radical independence and then borrow communal virtue on demand.
I never argued that credit unions should be united. I argued that pretending they are united, only when it is politically useful, is dishonest. I never claimed that large credit unions owe fiduciary duties to smaller ones. I claimed that using small credit unions as moral cover while dismissing their concerns is bad faith. That distinction matters, and blurring it is not accidental.
If unity is dead, then let it stay buried. But stop resurrecting its corpse every time Congress comes calling. Stop speaking in the language of movement when the reality is industry. Stop wrapping power in sentiment and calling it principle. My criticism was not that credit unions are different from one another. It was that some insist on those differences only when scrutiny appears, while erasing them when protection is needed.
So no, I did not call for unity. I called out a lie. And the anger this seems to provoke suggests the lie is still doing important work for those who benefit from it.
Good clarity in calling this out, including a misread of your point in parts. Glad you acknowledge that unity and the movement is dead, because it should be, and belabored talk of it only discredits the industry.
DeleteWhere you remain off-base. I can assure you that leaders of large CU's do not wake up thinking about small credit unions, and they don't exploit them or use them for air cover when they want a feel-good story when they wan to try to protect the very thing you accuse them of destroying. You seem to think that being purpose and mission driven, and adhering to the coop principles, while being a large CU are mutually exclusive. Is SECU not mission driven because they are large? Navy Fed? Not mission driven? You see a different industry. Smaller credit unions don't get sole claim on living the CU principles. And, in reality, I challenge you to show how the large one's come calling on the small ones when it's time to you unite around the tax exemption, large and small. Newsflash: every CU, large and small, has the worn out old example of how they gave a personal loan so someone could adopt a kid, which all ends up in the brochure left with the 25 year staffer when we hike the hill. Tell us a real example or how it actually happens that big CU's live this lie you speak of, and then rely on small CU's when they need to. Easy to dramatize your view. Make it real and then maybe you'll advance the discussion.
Well reasoned but where and when is this “communal virtue” invoked? When a large CU buys a ticket to GAC? They get the privilege of funding the association but then get crucified for it, while small credit unions own exclusively the moral high ground of the industry? Your CU, with its cute little asset size, was considered a large CU, and you did mergers. Are we to believe you had your own high ground as an exception among those CU’s just like you? Self-professed unicorn, like Blaine perhaps?
ReplyDeleteModern day reality from leaders in the seat, not Monday-morning QB’s, realize that smaller and less progressive CU’s aren’t the saviors of the ivdustry, they are the driver it’s increasing irrelevancy in the financial services space. Low ROA, low or negative growth in assets, deposits and membership, and high NW ratios, which reflects both the hoarding of members money and the inability to deploy it effectively for the benefit of the coop. The quicker that inefficiency stage out through M&A, the better off the industry will be, And when we do, there won’t be fewer member testimonies about how the movement makes a difference and deserves the tax exemption. The big ones have carried the industry on that narrative for a long time now. Pretty powerful message when you can tell a Senator 1.5 million of her constituents are members of one credit union. The issue in the is the smaller CU’s that ride those coat tails all the while they complain about and accuse large cu’s of being bank-lije entities. That’s the real hypocrisy.
Wow. Better that they fie and decrease the surplus population. You dare speak the truth of how large CUs see the smalls. You wrote “smaller and less progressive CU’s aren’t the saviors of the ivdustry, they are the driver it’s increasing irrelevancy in the financial services space. Low ROA, low or negative growth in assets, deposits and membership, and high NW ratios, which reflects both the hoarding of members money and the inability to deploy it effectively for the benefit of the coop. The quicker that inefficiency stage out through M&A, the better off the industry will be”
DeleteI am not arguing that small credit unions are saviors, nor that efficiency is unimportant. I am arguing that the industry cannot speak in two moral languages at once.
DeleteCommunal virtue is invoked whenever tax exemption is defended on the basis that credit unions are fundamentally different from banks because they are cooperatives rooted in member ownership, history, and mission. That argument is not made CU by CU. It is made collectively. And it relies, whether acknowledged or not, on the continued existence of thousands of small, local institutions as evidence that this is still a cooperative ecosystem rather than a consolidated financial sector with a different charter.
If the case for exemption is now scale, efficiency, and constituent counts, then say that plainly and defend it on those grounds. That is a power argument, not a cooperative one. It may be effective, but it is different.
My experience running a multi-billin $ credit union does not exempt me from this critique. It informs it. I have watched cooperative language shift from describing how we operate to justifying why certain outcomes should not be questioned.
I never called for unity. I said unity is gone. What I object to is invoking unity, movement, or cooperative virtue when it is politically useful, while dismissing smaller institutions as disposable inefficiencies the rest of the time.
That inconsistency, not mergers or size, is the hypocrisy I named.
9:59am This comment is from Ed Speed
Delete@9:59, understand your point but disagree that that the effective advocacy is done collectively. The industry can’t even get aligned and down to one national trade group. Sure, there is an annual conference and at the local level, larger cu’s are relying less and less on their association in their advocacy work. And just don’t see the two messages and where and how these larger CU’s who apparently putting everything at risk invoke this unity so the small credit unions can’t tell the story for us - as if they’re the only ones that live the coop principles and they’re the keepers of the mission for all. They are not manipulated. We agree we shouldn’t strive for some kinda of notion of unity, but we shouldn’t have purposeful division, either, The CU’s that want to serve their members broadly, understand we’re in a scale business, and embrace the new competitive environment we’re in are not pariahs, they are leaders. The industry isn’t consolidating out of greed, it’s out of necessity. Extinction awaits the CU leaders choose to cause division because they don’t like the strategy of the bigger CU down the street, and blame them for their lot in life, while evidently thinking they have exclusive rights on the broader CU mission.
DeleteIf these trolls truly work for Credit Unions and aren't just pushing buttons, credit unions are doomed. God forbid they are on any ELT or board. I pity any bank that takes them on. The bankers here in North Carolina have much more integrity than these "credit union industry" jokers do.
ReplyDeleteTrades are growing embarrassment, ACU way past irrelevance, league prezzes stuffing their snouts at our trough. Without packing and pandering their boards with small cu ceos who suck up the trips and perks, then rubber stamp their salaries, those ceo's would beworking the window at McDs
ReplyDeleteCaptain Money !
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkthXYlYjG8
Rather have Captain "Money" than "Homer" Simpson.
DeleteGym's on the DCUC board along with Cap Money
DeleteRational comments only, please.
Deletehttps://www.dcuc.org/board.html Gym ex-Marine?
DeletePersonally, I really appreciate some of the very thoughtful conversation stimulated by this blog. I disagree with many of the recent decisions by SECU, and am shocked to see how CIVIC/LGFCU has been so severely impacted. Beyond this, though, I think that credit unions - as an industry - is speeding headlong into major harm. I don’t say this with any pleasure as I am a huge fan of cooperatives in general and credit unions in specific. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, it’s almost akin to watching in slow motion as the Titanic sailed right into those icebergs. High living, with lots of fine dining, great music, and really nice accommodations. I’m very hopeful that we’ll turn around before it’s too late.
ReplyDeleteREad up on the Savings and Loans debacle in the 80s and you will see clearly where this is all headed.
DeleteHuh? You expecting widespread fraud and 20% interest rates?
DeleteHave same feelings as expressed by poster 12:51, but not sure if for same reasons. For me, the original mission of credit unions was to help people struggling financially. The wealthy can go anywhere and many will shop for their best deal. Shifting to the high life as poster likened to the Titantic is a dramatic change of the credit union path. I want to tell those who chose to alter the course, I wish you had chosen a for-profit organization to takeover. No empathy needed when it is all about making the rich richer. - c
ReplyDeleteI love all members, and it’s never to see them struggle, but have seen several young teachers who turned into principals, even a superintendent, who no longer struggle and buitl weatlh. Dane goes for members who own small businesses. CU’s can create wealth. Why is serving “wealthy” members a bad thing? Why shouldn’t we want to offer products and services that meeet all their financial needs, instead of just a few of them? Like it or not, when you’re a large CU with 2.9 million members and only 1/5th of them are state employees, you have a cross-section of economic classes, and that includes the “wealthy” too. But sure- let’s make them go somewhere other than their coop to be we ed, and then lament the leaders that want to serve them.
DeleteThe problem is that in order to give preferred rates and rewards to drawn in more money, somebody has to pay more or the credit union would lose money. Who would be paying more - the person/family that struggles to get by from paycheck to paycheck and pays a higher interest rate. For the teachers who are promoted, how many more teachers are not getting decent pay/raises and have to work additional jobs. With the high costs today, it is already difficult for many to get by. How does charging a higher loan rate assure that a loan is paid in full. It doesn't. So why do it....so preferred rates can be given to others. - c
DeleteState employees get a discount on fixed rate loans. The rest of the membership doesn’t. Your logic does not hold up.
DeleteCharging a higher rate doesn’t assure a loan is paid in full. How did charging the struggling teacher with good credit a higher rate than the market meet their needs and our mission. Ever think of the hypocrisy of “send us your mama” vs,’. “Go somewhere else to get a better rate”? We should strive to serve all of our members. Everyone has a financial need and financial health matters to all - it just takes a different form depending each members circumstances. Subsidizing a small group of members at the expense of serving all isn’t right.
DeleteSeems to the same point - who pays for others to get preferred rates.
DeleteNice thing about RBL is everyone pays the rate they should pay, based on risk, no one has to pay for someone else’s preferred rate. No one has to pay for others losses, either.
Delete9:37 based on race not risk
Delete9:56. Get a new line, has nothing to do with race.
Deletenobody believes that not even yoy
Delete@9:56 is making a racist assumption here :/
DeleteCapt money and homer see 11;22 got relevancy problems
ReplyDeletehttps://thecudaily.com/what-if-the-cu-trade-associations-had-to-run-for-re-election/
Very interesting comments on this post. My biggest concern is that what changed? There is a lot of discussion about Mission and Values. This is the problem. Somehow credit union evolved to become very complex operations. They demanded and got a lot of considerations and accommodations that may lead to success and eventual collapse of credit unions. I wonder how many credit unions adopt the cooperative values of credit unions in their values statement. I have seen a lot of flowery hog wash, but truly, the core value of Navy FCU should be the same as the small church credit union. I am not familiar with State Chartered credit unions, I spent my career on the Federal area, but the mission of Federal Credit Unions is listed in the Federal Credit Union Act. All the flowery nonsense in modern credit unions mission statements only confuse Volunteers who are making decisions for their credit union that are as confused as their mission statements. I am at a loss to see who changed the Act to provide for the BS mission statements now adopted by in name only credit unions?
ReplyDeleteTruly, credit unions were created by non-MBA consultants who organized and developed the system based on a simple mission and core values. The first thing you do to transition any organization that has lost its way is to get back to basics! B
7am poster, could you please offer a little more info to further explain what you feel is flowery hogwash/bs? You also expressed that NFCU should be the same as small church credit union, and in your opinion, are they in your opinion. Thanks - c
DeleteOops! Question regarding NFCU, are they same as small church credit union in your opinion. - c
Deleteis Navyfed a member of DCUC?
ReplyDelete