Why I’m Writing a $924 Check to Chase Bank
It all started because I was young, visionary, and progressive-minded.
(Perhaps your story starts like this as well.)
Over the five years since I graduated college, I’ve spent a shocking amount of time working in my dream job. This has been possible primarily because I’ve given myself the permission to go into debt when the projects and work that matter most to me don’t come with a paycheck.
On several occasions I’ve volunteered for months to support a visionary project, land a position in a bold (and of course, risky) new start-up, or launch that start-up myself. Always these projects were immediate, exciting, and leveraged the things I cared most about – pushing back on climate change, booting the bad guys out of office, incubating young social entrepreneurs. I’ve learned a ton, and done some cool stuff.
But of course, these values-driven ‘freedom-stints’ of mine have added up to considerable debt.
Now, in theory, this debt isn’t bad.
Friends of mine have taken out school loans and I’ve taken out (far smaller) loans to invest in myself and my own off-roading approach to making a difference. (No, you can’t take out education loans to apprentice with a philosopher. But you sure CAN try.)
The difference, however, is that my friends owe money to the government at approximately 3%, and I owe money to my credit card – at approximately 14%.
So here I am, living my values as best I know how, and sometimes I feel extra generous and powerful when I cut out some cash to send to charities and game-changing political campaigns. Over the last year, these modest but heart-felt offerings have added up approximately $600. (Mmm…being a donor gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.) And of course that doesn’t include the small businesses I go out of my way to frequent and the artists I support by buying (like, paying for) their albums.
But then, after the careful allotment of these meager cash resources and dutiful embodiment of my deeply progressive values, each year I write one very special check to cover the 14% interest on my loans. I write it to the tune of $924* – roughly 1.5x my annual donations to progressive causes – and make it out to Chase Bank.
I’m sorry. CHASE bank?
That’s right. THE Chase Bank. The one that last year took twenty-FIVE billion dollars of OUR American money and has just announced that it will deliver an astonishing twenty-NINE billion dollars in BONUSES to its CEOs. (Translation: We got hooooodwinked and I’m paying the villain). $25,000,000,000 of our common money is no longer available for the climate fight, or economic independence for the poor, or any of the other causes I care about…because it’s locked up in some fat cat’s 3rd residence or H2.
$25 Billion?!! That’s mind-boggling. I can’t even IMAGINE what $25 Billion is.
But I can tell you what that $924 is.
$924 is a serious chunk of my friend Oliver’s mustache during his Mustache for Kids Campaign at DonorsChoose. $924 is 92 Gaggles of geese (I still don’t know what a gaggle is, but Heifer says I could by 92 of them with my Chase Check.) $924 is my VIP seat on a local candidate’s victorious election night, or half way to my contribution limit on Obama’s campaign.
In short, this particular $924 is my ticket to Shmuck-Dom.
And for me and my – what did I call it again? “young, visionary, progressive-mindedness?” – that’s just embarrassing. And it’s particularly embarrassing because (sneak attack!) this is Microfinance Week at Re-Vison Labs. In preparation for tonight’s big Greendrinks event with Oikocredit USA, we’ve been talking a lot about the power banks and creditors.
But, luckily, so has the rest of the country.
The Move your Money Campaign is raging across social media sites, building momentum off a fantastic video that Gabriel posted earlier this week.
And watching those clips of George Bailey the ethical banker made me think right away of another hero of good finance. Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank and Nobel Prize winner, pioneered the concept of microcredit by financing loans to poor people with his own money. (Check out this short video for the story.) I originally learned about Yunnus while working (in between ‘freedom stints’) at another great financial institution – ShoreBank – which is a well-loved Chicago-based bank that uses many of the lessons of community-based credit that Yunnus pioneered.
So, with all this background in good money practices, what was I THINKING, letting this $924 slide?
I guess I just WASN’T thinking. I wasn’t, frankly, adding it up.
So this is it, Chase, it’s over. You and me? We’re done. I’m moving all my uber-expensive debt elsewhere because I can’t stand the idea of sending you another dime. I don’t know how I’ll do this just yet, but I’ll figure it out.
And in the meantime, this is my challenge to all my values-driven friends: Add up the power of your money – whether it’s in the black or in the red. And if you don’t like what you see, move it. Because the good guys are out there.
And we can’t afford the rest of this stuff.
*Technically, it’s 12 little checks and I’ve already subtracted the principal to make my point. The $924 is just the interest.
