Happy Inter-Dependence Day: How credit unions make us more free
Profits aren’t un-American, but empowering economic freedom is the difference-maker in the credit union brand of patriotism.
A State of the Union speech 75 years ago provides some perspective on today’s state of the credit union as we celebrate this week the first-born of our patriotic holidays.
In January 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his four freedoms speech to define what America stood for: freedom of speech, freedom from want, freedom to worship as each person sees fit, and freedom from fear.
FDR was rallying the country away from complacency about the gathering storm clouds across the Atlantic and Pacific. Credit unions need to shed complacency, too, when it comes to making sure every congressman and consumer, legislator and layman, knows about the credit union difference.
That difference isn’t because not-for-profit credit unions are somehow more “moral” than for-profit banks. Profit is hardly un-American. No, the credit union difference lies in making members more free.
continue reading »