In the heart of New York City, if you listen closely, you’ll hear a severe sucking sound, as
if some magical and invisible vortex is pulling in all that surrounds it. Amazingly, it
doesn’t swallow up your scarf, your briefcase, or muss you hair. It does, however, pluck
every last dollar and cent from your wallet. It is an insatiable behemoth whose hunger
can never be stilled. Shove hundreds of billions of dollars in the chasm and still it aches
for more.

Welcome to Wall Street, whose bankers, after nearly collapsing the global economy,
have learned nothing from their greed and who have become more voracious than ever.
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone coined last year’s most memorable journalistic phrase when
he described Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of
humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
But when it comes to screwing the American tax payer out of funds designed to alleviate
his mortgage burden, JP Morgan Chase emerges as the great celestial black hole,
sucking in every last particle of cash before it devours your very home into eternal
foreclosure darkness.

In 2008 JP Morgan Chase was given, according to CNN, $25 billion dollars in bailout
money which was, along with Citigroup and Wells Fargo, ‘the largest amount given to
any bank.’ In addition, the New York Times, in a story entitled, “Billions to Fight
Foreclosure, but Few New Loans,” reported that JP Morgan Chase also participated in an
Obama program begun ten months ago that distributed $75 billion in order to keep four
million Americans in their homes ‘by persuading the banks to renegotiate their
mortgages.’ But of one million applications filed, only 31,000 have thus far been
converted to new mortgages. In New York City, lenders have offered new or trial
mortgages to only three percent of those who sought relief.

That’s a lot of taxpayer cash that seems to have facilitated JP Morgan Chase and others
paying billions in bonuses its bankers while preventing even meager morsels from falling
to those most in need.

How badly does JP Morgan Chase fail at helping those whom the government’s money
was meant to assist? Take just one story, reported by the New York Times on January 2,
2010. JP Morgan Chase acquired Washington Mutual, who owned the mortgage of one
Jaime Smith of Lakeland, Florida. After giving her a trial adjustment that lowered her
mortgage by all of $200 per month, Smith made every payment on time and submitted
all required documents. She was therefore shocked to tears when she received a legal
notice a few weeks later telling her that Chase has foreclosed on her home and sold it at
auction for $100. The story gets only better. Who bought the house? Why, JP Morgan
Chase, of course.

Amid the appalling nature of JP Morgan Chase’s behavior toward her, Smith should at
least be happy she ever got through to a live person at the bank who actually agreed to
a modification. Most applicants are not nearly so lucky. As the Times wrote, “the lenders
toss up daunting hurdles. Homeowners say they send and resend thick piles of
documentation, only to be told that their papers have been misplaced, or that their pay
stubs are out of date. Housing counselors dial a dozen times just to get a servicer on the
phone… ‘It’s a constant Catch‐22: They never give you their name,’ said Gerald Carter, a
counselor with the Parodneck Foundation in New York City, which receives city and
state money to advise homeowners. ‘You call back and say, ‘No, I was talking to Bob last
time,’ but Bob wouldn’t give his last name — not even an employee ID number. So you
start over.’”

I have, unfortunately, had my own experience with JP Morgan Chase that mirrors this
exactly. I was born in Los Angeles and moved, as a boy, to Miami Beach in the wake of
my parents’ divorce because there my mother had the support of her parents and
brother. That’s where my siblings and I were raised and where my mother, brothers,
sisters, nephews and nieces all still live. My wife and I always spoke of making Miami our
permanent home where we could be close to family. Thus, in April 2006, while living in
our New Jersey home where my radio and media commitments necessitated I reside,
we realized our dream of purchasing a house in Miami Beach on the same block as my
brother. Our kids were in Jewish day schools and one was in a special educational
program, and we decided to delay our move until we could find a program that
matched. In the meantime, we rented out our new home, receiving in rent only half the
costs of the high mortgage but never defaulting on a single payment.

By the middle of June 2009, having lost our tenant and with the economic downturn
hitting especially hard, we sought a mortgage modification to make the home
affordable. The home had already lost half its value. But interest rates had shrunk
substantially to almost nothing, JP Morgan Chase had been given a massive bailout to
assist homeowners, and we assumed it would be relatively easy to refinance and that
the bank, which had received so much assistance from the American taxpayer, would
welcome making our lives a touch easier in these very difficult times. Surely JP Morgan
Chase would be happy to modify the loan since they were now borrowing money at
significantly lower rates than before and they could still make a hefty profit even after
the modification.
How wrong we were. We quickly discovered that it was impossible even to get through
to a living person or leave a message for them to call back. For five months we placed
phone call after phone call but could not reach one person who would help us. When
we did finally encounter a live human voice, we were told to send in reams of paper,
which we did on numerous occasions, only to be told a few weeks later that the
documents had been lost or never arrived. We finally hired a lawyer who sent the
documents in multiple times. Still, JP Morgan Chase told us that they did not find our
documents.

Let me be clear that I never believed in the bailouts, not for we regular people and
certainly not for billionaire bankers. Capitalism is going to have winners and losers and
the latter, however painful, must sometimes take lumps. But what is so grossly unjust is
that, having received billions of dollars to bail out regular taxpayers, banks like JP
Morgan Chase decided to use the money to bail out themselves, paid billions more in
bonuses, and are loath to help the very same taxpayers that rescued them. These banks
are also now borrowing money at miniscule rates but refuse to alter the mortgages of
those who are still stuck in very high payments. There is something cruel about a system
that bails out multi‐millionaires but not average citizens who struggle to make ends
meet.

As a way of illustrating the obstructive nature of the bank, I took notes on a single
December 2009 day of trying to get through to speak to someone at the bank.
First I called the number of a written notice sent to us about our mortgage and was put
on a long hold. I finally got through to Bob, who would not give his last name or
employee ID number. He only said he was in Texas and could not help me because I had
to speak to ‘The Imminent Default Department.’ He said he would transfer me and
immediately cut me off. He made no effort to call me back although the first thing I did
was give him my callback number. Having found the number for the department myself,
I called and was put on hold for one hour and forty minutes. Andrea H from Jacksonville,
Florida, who refused to give her last name and employee ID, immediately told me that I
had to call Bob’s department back because she could not help me and I had been
misinformed. I protested that I had just held on for the longest time and that Bob had
told me her department would help me. Without so much as a word, she promptly hung
up.

Calling Bob’s number back I got through to Melissa T, who finally, after much pressure,
gave her employee ID number. She agreed to look up my file. Predictably, a few minutes
later she told me my documents were incomplete and I had to submit them again. I told
her the name and number of my lawyer who could confirm that we had sent the
documents in multiple times. She promptly hung up.

Finally, in desperation I called the main number of JP Morgan Chase in NY and asked for
the CEO, Jamie Dimon. I was transferred to Rosa Alderete in Texas who told me there
was no direct number for the CEO’s office, which is curious since the bank is a public
corporation. What was he hiding from? Could it be the nearly $20 million he took in
total 2008 compensation (he smartly relinquished a monetary bonus, but more than
made up for it by taking $17 million in stock awards), the year Wall Street brought
America to its knees?

I began to describe the hellish experiences I had had with her bank and demanded to
speak to a supervisor. Refusing to take no for an answer, I was put through to Heather
McLendon, a customer care analyst with the executive office. Only this time, I
mentioned that I work in media and planned to write about my experiences. I was
immediately transferred to her supervisor, Emma Huggins, in Florence, North Carolina.

While on the phone my other office suddenly line rang with Michael Fusco of JP Morgan
Chase’s press office telling me he would help me get answers. Surprise! Mentioning the
media made me finally appear on the bank’s radar. Mr. Fusco, who has alone acted like
a gentleman, later sent me the following statement: “We apologize for the delay and
are continuing to add staff and invest in technology to better serve our customers. In
2009 alone, we hired 5,300 additional mortgage employees to handle the
unprecedented volume generated by the troubled economy and housing market. This
year, we offered more than 568,000 mortgage modifications to struggling homeowners,
including 83,000 modifications that have already become permanent.”

It sounded nice but was belied by my and so many others’ experience. I thought to
myself that if I, who work in media and could thereby at least publicly expose some of
their practices, could make absolutely no headway against a bank seemingly intent on
obstructing any and all refinancing attempts in their desire to take my home, what
chance does the average American, whose government has given this bank tens of
billions of dollars to assist them with easing their mortgages, have in getting any relief?
Apparently none. JP Morgan Chase is too busy paying their executives billions of dollars,
all of which were facilitated by assistance they received from the taxes of hard‐working
Americans who were going to lose their homes so that these guys could buy a new
Ferrari.

It amazes me that there’s so little public outrage. Sure, there is plenty of grumbling over
the water cooler, but few of these financial giants have been publicly challenged. In
addition to everything else mentioned, the government actually pays these banks $1000
for each loan modified. And still they refuse to extend relief, even as they give their
employees colossal bonuses.

This past June I published an article about why I was forced to file a lawsuit against Bear
Stearns, another JP Morgan Chase subsidiary, the investment bank that had looked after
my pension plan for many years as it rapidly deteriorated and as I was given barely any
time by its chairman and my portfolio manager, Ace Greenberg. When in the course of
2008, the investment dwindled by about 40 percent and I still was given barely any time
to discuss my dwindling investments with Greenberg, I decided I had to make a switch. I
soon discovered that my new portfolio manager at Bear did his utmost to squeeze every
last fee out of me, even as he handed the bulk of my investments over to mutual funds
who charged their own fees to manage what he claimed to be doing for me.

You might have thought that a bank whose gambling addiction and insatiable appetite
for money brought it to the brink of bankruptcy and ended up being sold for what was
initially $2 a share would have learned a lesson. But no.

Aside from everything I detailed above, I called the office of CEO Jamie Dimon on
multiple occasions and sent him a personal letter hoping to get just one of his
lieutenants or secretaries to call me back. Not until I mentioned that I had a media
platform was I deemed worthy of attention.

Don’t get me wrong. Capitalism works and Wall Street has many people of high integrity
and sterling reputations for honesty and philanthropy. But where, overall, is the
gratitude? At least George Soros was honest enough to say that the billions of dollars of
bank bonuses being paid out this year were all gifts from the government, without
which so many of these banks would not even be around. Is it too much to ask that
these millionaires share just a few of their government‐granted crumbs with the millions
of people fighting to keep their homes?

Wall Street needs a dramatic overhaul and it is for the Obama Administration, first and
foremost, to demand change and reform. Using the term ‘fat‐cats’ is not enough. We
don’t need name‐calling but real action. But a President who allows the heads of
Goldman Sacks, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley to disrespect him by missing a meeting
(they cited fog) to which they were summoned – when they could easily have gotten
into a car or train and shown the elected leader of the American people that they take
him seriously – is demonstrating a kids‐glove approach that is weak and ineffective.
President Obama may be the leader of the free world but he seems to be in awe of
these masters of the universe.

The toothlessness of the Obama approach is best captured in the quote Phillis Caldwell,
chief of the Treasury Department’s Home Ownership Preservation Office and who
oversees the Obama mortgage modification plan, gave to the New York Times after
being asked about a lender who refused to modify customers’ mortgages. “If it is
reported in The New York Times and someone chooses to audit it, that’s important,” she
said. So she punted responsibility for enforcing compliance to the media. It seems as
though even the Obama Administration concedes that only the shame of the press,
rather than the integrity of the process or the enforcement of government, will work to
bring change to the great vacuum in the heart of New York City.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a relationships counselor, writer, and broadcaster is the author
of many books, his most recent being, “The Blessing of Enough: Rejecting Material
Greed, Embracing Spiritual Hunger.” Find him on the web Shmuley.com and follow him
on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

Make a New Year’s resolution to move your money out of big banks? To that I say: Right on! Without question, financial consumers are angry at — and have lost their loyalty to — big banks. Late-night comics routinely make fun of the banks; there’s even a new iPhone app in which players try to stop “cash-hungry” bankers from wheedling more bailout money from the U.S. Treasury, according to a recent report in American Banker newspaper.

But if consumers do indeed move their money out of big banks, they would be well advised to look not only at community banks, but at the nation’s credit unions. In fact, consumers are already voting with their wallets in favor of credit unions. The data collected by my organization, (the Credit Union National Association — the industry’s trade group) shows that credit unions are on pace to post 2% membership growth in 2009. This is the fastest rate we have seen since 2001 and double the rate of U.S. population growth, bringing total credit union membership to nearly 93 million Americans. We think disenchantment with banks explains at least part — and probably a large part — of that growth in new members.

For consumers, the move makes perfect sense. Credit unions are not-for-profit cooperatives, and they’re owned by their members. They offer the same products and services banks do, but unlike banks, credit unions exist only to serve their members — not to generate profits for outside investors. Members typically experience that difference in the form of better rates and lower fees. In 2008 (the latest data we have available), consumers saved $9.2 billion by using credit unions rather than banks, or the equivalent of $104 per member and $198 per family. And that’s just on average. Loyal members — those who use credit unions extensively — often receive total financial benefits that are much greater than the average.

But the issue goes beyond dollars and cents. In this turbulent economy, credit unions’ cooperative business model has renewed relevance for American consumers. Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) of the House Financial Services Committee has said if other financial institutions behaved liked credit unions and small community banks, the mortgage meltdown would never have happened.

You can’t join just any credit union. Each credit union has its own specific field of membership centered primarily on where people work or live. But we’re quite confident everyone can find one or more credit unions he or she is eligible to join; the locator tool on CUNA’s consumer web site may help.

The time is right for consumers to resolve to move their money. We happen to think the best destination is a credit union — as millions who have already gone there will attest.

Following the Christmas Day near-disaster on an international flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, President Obama referred to a “systemic failure” of our nation’s intelligence sharing. He is right in referring to a systemic failure, but it is not just in intelligence sharing. From day one, the Obama Administration’s anti-terror policies have amounted to a systemic failure that have placed our country’s security in grave jeopardy. As one who has seen and experienced the consequences of prior failures up close, I am urging the Administration to drastically change its approach to defending America.

Virtually every decision this Administration has made has placed American security at greater risk, since refusing from the very beginning to even acknowledge the existence of a War on Terror, or to call enemy combatants terrorists.

It is time for the Administration to wake up and smell the explosives.

It is time for them to acknowledge their mistakes and change course. Let me outline five specific actions that the president should take:

First, the decision to return six terrorists to Yemen last month was a mistake that should not be repeated. The Pentagon reported this week that one in five terrorists released from Guantanamo are either suspected or confirmed to have returned to the battlefield in places like Afghanistan. The president should suspend his effort to shut Guantanamo until we are certain of a secure alternative facility to hold all detainees.

Second, end the wrong-headed investigation of our own CIA officials. Against the strong recommendation of CIA Director Leon Panetta, the Obama Administration has begun an investigation into CIA agents who interrogated terrorists, even though this action was rejected time and again by prior Justice Department officials. The September 11th attacks were largely the result of a weak intelligence apparatus, and this Christmas Day near-disaster again was again a failure to appropriately share intelligence. The decision to investigate those devoting their lives to protecting us is an example of left-leaning political correctness run amok and greatly hurts morale at that agency at a time when we need a strong CIA more than ever.

Third, treat our military with respect and honor, not as criminals. Yes, we need our military to be professional, respectful and honorable, and they are. But to court-martial Navy Seals — among the bravest of the brave, who are willing and prepared to die for our country — because a barbaric terrorist complains of a bruised lip is absurd and unconscionable. What’s next? Assault charges against the brave passenger who foiled the Christmas Day bomber? We count on our military professionals to protect us. They should be able to count on their government to support and stand with them against America’s enemies.

Fourth, reverse the decision to treat Khalid Sheik Mohammad as a criminal defendant instead of a terrorist. He was captured while continuing to fight a war against us that he acknowledges, even if the Obama Administration refuses to acknowledge the same. As the mastermind of the September 11th attacks, he does not belong in our civilian court system and should be prosecuted under the military tribunal system created for this purpose. To give this butcher and his followers a global media forum to act like victims and spew their hate defies logic. It will inflame anti-American actions across the globe. To show the world such a weak, politically correct response to terrorists makes America and Americans less safe. This is an unprecedented, dangerous mistake and I implore President Obama to reverse this horrible decision before it is too late.

Finally, fire Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and replace her with a competent professional. I have met Secretary Napolitano and found her to be a perfectly nice, reasonable person. But on homeland security, she like the rest of the Obama Administration has been consistently wrong. From confidently asserting “the system worked” in the wake of the Christmas Day near-disaster, to her previous assertion that returning American servicemen and women were prone to right-wing terrorism and presented possible threats to our safety, she has consistently proven that she does not get it and is not up to the challenge of protecting Americans from terror threats.

I could go on. Failure to let Army officials know of the potential dangers prior to the Fort Hood massacre; calling the Christmas day bomber an “isolated extremist” although he was associated with the same radical Yemeni Islamist cleric who instructed the murderer at Fort Hood; issuing a hard timeline for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan at the same time as we are implementing a limited surge… The point is clear. Every week adds more to the growing list of missteps and mistakes made by the Obama Administration that greatly weaken American security and undermine our ability to identify threats and prevent terrorist attacks.

By taking the five steps outlined above, the president would demonstrate to the American people and the world that he understands the threats to our security and is willing to do what it takes to defend and protect our country.

Thanks to donations from my readers, seven Guatemalan students will go to high school, three villages have school supplies, one has a new refrigeration system for soy milk, 60 villagers ate meat, and 140 kids got ice cream. I also think I have lice, but I couldn’t be happier!

Newly returned from one-week service vacation to the center of Guatemala, I urge you all to give this experience a try. I went through an Austin-based organization called Cultural Embrace, and came back more renewed than I ever would have had I spent a week sitting on a beach or skiing down a mountain.

So many moments playing like a movie in my head now, making me smile — like for example one of my last days, I went to visit the home of a little girl named Wesley because she wanted to show me “her tree.” When we got there, I watched her reach into her pocket and pull out a wad of cheese from the pizza we’d had earlier at the orphanage. She’d saved the best part to give her little brother!

Such generosity among these kids, such joy — and in that, so much hope for the future, despite so many challenges. While I was in El Hato, the village where we donated scholarships, I had an eye-opening moment. Early on in the visit, without even thinking about it – just making the kind of silly conversation adults make with kids – -I asked the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” None of the kids really had an answer. It was shyness around this strange American, in part. But it was also because no one had ever really asked them to create a vision for their future.

I was so floored that I actually led the kids through a kind of mini-seminar on the spot — what was essentially an extremely distilled version of some of the work I deliver to global corporations, I kid you not. They happily worked together on goals and ideas for the future in small groups, with an intermission half way through to raid the ice cream truck (which was actually a bike with a big ice chest strapped on and a boom box blaring the familiar jingle).

When we came back together, I was amazed at these kids’ new confidence as they spoke to an audience (with foreigners even) about their individual visions. You could sense the support and confidence from the parents that surrounded the children in the room. The experience was a moment of universality — true flow — where I felt my work moving into an entirely new dimension.

This year I plan to try to find a local service project each time I’m on a business trip, especially the international ones, like I did recently in Israel, where I worked with Israeli and Palestinian kids while there for a corporate engagement. I’ll also continue to spend vacation time doing service. Finally, I plan to make service even more core to our team cohesion work, inside FG and in our work with other companies.

I urge everyone to find a way to work service into your professional life — with your team, your clients, and your friends. If you want to improve your relationships, serve and serve deeply. Start wherever, but do it. You will learn vulnerability and intimacy, you will learn generosity, and it will drive a level of courage for accountability and candor that will enhance everything you do.

The most profound gift that’s coming back with me from Guatemala (besides the head lice!) is the reminder that serving others creates an accelerated learning path for personal growth. Pity — remote and passive and isolated — resolves to empathy. We learn so quickly that people are more similar than they are different, and that’s a lesson to bring home: simple human empathy through service.

To learn more about Guatemala or to donate, visit Keith’s Charity Page.

Follow Keith Ferrazzi on Twitter:

www.twitter.com/keithferrazzi

Arianna and Rob Johnson, director of the Economic Policy Initiative at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, urged Americans to move their money to community banks during an appearance on the Ed Show with Ed Schultz on Wednesday.

Just last week, Arianna and Rob unveiled Move Your Money, a challenge to Americans fed up with too-big-to-fail banks. The initiative encourages account holders to withdraw their money from big, mismanaged banks and move the funds to smaller, better-managed community banks–institutions that are still lending.

Arianna explained that community banks are more likely to lend, and to help fuel a recovery among America’s small businesses, “Community banks are much more likely to reinvest that money in the community and actually help create jobs…because… $1000 billion less money has been lent to communities from these four banks that we bailed out.”

Visit MoveYourMoney.info to find a community bank near you. Click here for answers to frequently asked questions about how to move your money.

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