A couple of months ago, I penned a letter to the CEO of the credit union to which I belong. In it, I outlined some concerns about some of the bank's fee practices and offered some suggestions on how they might be more equitable. What I know about banking can be safely fit in a pen cap, but like most people, I'd noticed an alarming “fee creep” over the past decade from every corner of the financial sector. To take just one example: U.S. banks raked in an estimated $38.5 billion in overdraft fees alone in 2009. If one makes the logical assumption that the customers overdrawing their account are not in the best financial shape to start with, that colossal figure is tantamount to a regressive tax on folks already struggling. Sure, I know most banks are for-profit enterprises, but come on! What was next, I wondered, an extra fee for using blue ink instead of black on your checks?

My letter resulted in a sit-down over coffee in Frisco with Credit Union of the Rockies CEO Michael Kerr. Turns out he appreciates getting this kind of feedback and talked me through some of the hows and whys, then gave me an update on some of the ways the bank is trying to adjust its fees to better serve its customers. At the same time, he noted that his bank, even as a nonprofit, has to be in the black. The recession has created a lot of bad accounts for all banks, and fees are one way to make up for that.

I was thinking of this encounter when I started reading about the “Move Your Money” campaign. The idea is simple: Since the mega, “too big to fail” banks played fast and loose with our money and had to take government bailouts to stay afloat, we can, at the very least, express our displeasure by moving our money — or not patronizing them in the first place. After all, these banks are already back handing out big bonuses, are being stingy with lending and, so far as most of us can tell, have done little to prevent a similar meltdown in the future.

It's hard to imagine the average schmo moving his pitful holdings would have much effect on institutions like Bank of America or Citigroup, but there's certainly a psychological benefit to holding one's money out of the hands of the Big Six. These banks control an enormous percentage of the financial market — too big to fail, indeed, and it would seem like a good thing to help even things out a bit, even in a small way.

Politics get involved here, but there's little doubt that the deregulation that started in the Reagan years (and continued through Bush, Clinton and Bush) had much to do with the increasingly reckless and arrogant behavior of the big banks. The Obama administration is on the right track trying to put some of those checks and balances back in place; if anything it's simply moving too slowly. In advance of the Credit Card Act going into effect later this month, card companies were tripping over themselves to raise fees and interest rates. Meanwhile, the big Wall Street banks seem to be thumbing their noses at us once again, dispensing those huge bonuses and fighting further regulation while much of middle America continues to suffer.

All of this is not to say that those big banks don't have their pluses; they do. But if your banking needs are relatively local and simple, it's worth a look at Summit County's many community banks. As for regulation, the sweet spot is somewhere between protecting consumers and leaving banks free enough to operate in a competitive marketplace. No one wants to reduce investment risk to zero, but when the sky's the limit, well, we're still suffering through the latest round of what that looks like.

Summit Daily editor Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@summitdaily.com or (970) 668-4618.