Bank of America

Bank of America was my bank (but only because I was with Fleet and Bank of America bought Fleet several years ago) After the economic debacle I decided to move to another bank. Only a few banks account for the majority of credit default swaps, and Bank of America is one of them. Not that I'm an economist (and maybe the whole system would have fallen apart), but personally, I think all five of these "too-big-for-their-britches" banks should have been allowed to fail or forced to break into smaller entities:

• JP Morgan
• Bank of America
• Goldman-Sachs
• Citigroup
• HSBC

First, I had to find another bank. How do you determine a "good" bank? We are awash in information, but where is a list of "good" honest banks that don't try to sell half-million dollar houses to families making the median wage of $40,000 through an adjustable-rate-mortgage that's essentially designed to "lure" people in and trap them? I think the most efficient way to pick a good bank would be to post pictures of the houses that the bank CEO's own.

I finally chose a semi-local bank and set up an account. Later I find that this bank accepted TARP money, so maybe I chose the wrong one, but it's closer to where I live, so I justified my choice by saying it makes more sense with respect to transportation sustainability. Interestingly enough, the bank personnel I talked to seemed to have no idea that their bank accepted any TARP money, so that's probably not a good sign either, but frankly I was tired of moving accounts around.

I filled out a new direct-deposit form. The person who took my form said I wasn't the only person opting out of Bank of America. So I'm hoping that millions of us are "quietly" voting by deciding to take our accounts elsewhere.