[FRIAM] (not) leaving Twitter

Thu Nov 17 17:28:25 EST 2022

Hmm, credit unions were designed to not be in competition with banks, and
so they don't get very big,h and don't have access to deeper pockets of
funding, and don't get gobbled up by bigger banks, and don't get closed
because their service areas underperform.

So when big banks look at their branch performance, they could run all the
branches head to head against each other, but the branches should really be
tiered into comparable peer groups.  A branch should score according to its
performance against branches in similar locations, and according to its
contributions to improving the economy around its location.  Otherwise the
big bank is just strip mall mining and leaving finance deserts behind.

-- rec --

On Thu, Nov 17, 2022 at 4:27 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

> Eric/Roger -
>
> I appreciate your personal anecdotes re:LANB.   I think it was a shining
> star in it's own way.  I have known people who worked there over the
> decades and have known a few of the families of the principles including
> a couple who acted as personal assistant/caretakers for the Cowan's in
> their last years.   I am acutely impressed with George's (and other
> peers) role in the establishment and maintenance of the institution over
> the decades.   Most of my other anecdotal experiences are less
> one-sided, but it is the nature of small town pettiness/politics/gossip
> as much as anything in particular.
>
> It *was* in many ways a "no brainer" to have a payroll the size of
> LASL/LANL on deposit and a captive audience of the bulk of the employees
> and local businesses as customers, so it isn't surprising that they
> thrived.  They held 4 different mortgages over my decades and they did
> well by them, though they did sell 2 of them (as was the agreement) to a
> third party which was at least moderately inconvenient (lapses/overlaps
> in direct-deposit payments, escrows etc) but it all worked out.   I know
> of people (re: EricS experiences) who received impressive personal
> treatment... my daughter worked in the Mortgage dept for several years
> and holds a number of great positive anecdotes from that era.
>
> When some trust-busting rules came along (maybe it was when UC lost the
> contract?) LANB no longer held the contract's payroll and it seems like
> it was soon after (<6 years) that the parent company took a large
> outside investment which I *think* was the prelude to a full sale to
> Enterprise Bank and Trust.
>
> Meanwhile Del Norte (formerly Los Alamos) Credit Union and Zia Credit
> Union and a couple of other trades CUs (Schools, ???) bop along as
> second class players to the big banks (LANB/Enterprise included).
> There are two major bank branches (buildings) evident in Los Alamos,
> though I couldn't name them).   Credit Unions are now offering
> Mortgages, they did not last time I took one out (16 years ago).
>
> - Steve
>
>
> On 11/17/22 10:46 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
> > On Nov 17, 2022, at 12:23 PM, Roger Critchlow <rec at elf.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> The old Los Alamos National Bank, LANB, was founded by a LANL
> >> scientist as an antidote to big-bank homogenization.  There are still
> >> hints of that origin in
> >> https://www.linkedin.com/company/los-alamos-national-bank/, but LANB
> >> sold itself out to a big bank several years ago.
> >
> > Yeah, btw, that really sucked.
> >
> > I got to know LANB when I had first moved to Los Alamos, was getting
> > around only on foot, and was there sitting on their curb on a morning
> > before work waiting for them to open.
> >
> > Some guy in a suit came by and asked if he could help me, and I said
> > something snotty and completely uncalled-for about bankers working
> > bankers hours.  So he let me in and started the opening of an account
> > for me.  That was Bill Enloe.
> >
> > A few years later I needed a mortgage loan for a house, had just lost
> > something like 100k in two days on a Pharma that didn’t get a good
> > outcome on a clinical trial, which I had wanted to have for
> > collateral, and could not sell a house in Austin that I was in because
> > I had a renter who had just lost his job in the market downturn, and I
> > wasn’t willing to throw him out, even as the house lost about 1k in
> > market value per week as the whole market there was falling apart too.
> >  Then got Salmonella or something from an egg sandwich in the ABQ
> > airport flying back from somewhere (Austin?) to make the loan.  People
> > who knew me said they had never seen anyone as white as I apparently
> > was for several days after the first 24 hours of violent illness.  I
> > went to the loan officer’s office, and after about a minute sitting
> > there talking to her, asked if I could lie on my back on her floor
> > while we spoke so I wouldn’t pass out.  Finished the loan negotiations
> > in that form.  When my realtor asked to look through the various
> > papers as part of negotiating the closure, he commented “man, you got
> > a really good loan”.  I will protect the loan officer's name for her
> > own privacy, but remember it instantly in any context.
> >
> > In the decades after that, I spent increasing time with George Cowan
> > at work and sometimes off-line, and got to learn a little more about
> > the history of that effort, along with some of his others.  What an
> > extraordinary guy he was, and it showed in the things he built.  He
> > richly deserved the Baldridge award, and much more.
> >
> > The bank that acquired them does not have that kind of history, I think.
> >
> > Those kinds of proud relations have always been rare, and they seem to
> > be damned near extinct any more.
> >
> > Eric
> >
> >
> >
> >
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