If enough people who have money in one of the Big Six banks (the four we mentioned earlier, plus Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) move it into smaller, more local, more traditional community banks, then collectively we, the people, will have taken a big step toward re-rigging the financial system so it becomes again the productive, stable engine for growth it’s meant to be.

Martha White concludes “This is a great example of populist indignation made practical” and Yvette Kantrow feels that Huffington is “turning the decision on where to bank into a moral choice, like being green or buying organic.” She further adds “Banks make their money in a lot of ways, such as by collecting fees. For instance, banks are projected to collect $38.5 billion in overdraft fees this year, some 90 percent of which is paid by only 10 percent of the customer base.”

Mike Konczal shows us mathematically how a few poorer customers subsidize the costs of the non-revolving ‘prime’ customers in credit cards, and the same can generally be said for deposit and savings account as the “non-revolving ‘prime’ customers” also antidotal pay fewer overdraft fees.

Assume three things for a moment: (1) that you are a subsidized customer, (2) you feel the need to support a non-“Too Big to Fail” institution, and (3) like organic foods you are only willing to ‘pay’ 20% more (or receive 20% less) than the generic product. What is the moral, financially savvy customer to do? Is it wrong to continue to benefit from a system you believe is morally bankrupt?

If you are legitimately a subsidized customer paying less than fifty dollars in fees and interest, keeping low cash balances and paying your credit card in full every month, moving to a smaller institution may have a negative net benefit for that institution as the costs to service your account outweigh the benefit to the institution. But if you remain at a “Too Big to Fail” institution you are enabling a way of business that you don’t morally agree with.

I only see one strategy for dealing with this scenario; stop viewing it as a zero sum game. Here’s how:

1. Move your profitable (for the bank) accounts to the smaller institutions – generally your CDs, your term loans and your business accounts. Long term money such as CDs give the smaller institution money to make good loans to the local community. Term loans are typically profitable – it is the other side of the equation for how banks make money. Business accounts are also typically more profitable for the institution and you are more likely to be willing to pay fees for essential services on these accounts and not receive interest.
   • This also saves you the big hassle of “changing banks” for your most frequently used accounts, which is arguably the biggest hurdle
   • Also, don’t use brokered deposits (i.e. CDs you would buy through your stock broker) as they are unhealthy for the system and promote inorganic growth and/or bubbles.
2. Support legislation that levels the playing field between large and small institutions. Right now “Too Big To Fail” institutions enjoy a significantly lower cost of funds that smaller institutions, even adjusting for risk of failure, because of the implicit government guarantee. There isn’t any up for a vote now, and any movement for reform is quickly losing steam, but Megan McArdle and I agree how it should be done.

What is your view?

The “Boiling It Down” posts are a series of executive summaries of popular ideas in strategy. Their objective is to briefly introduce you to the concept and provide you authoritative resources to read further.

Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero philosophy is great and why can best be summed up when he says, “It feels great to suck less.”  Think about all of those old email messages that you never dealt with; you will eventually delete them, but until you do they really weigh you down. Waiting longer makes the problem even worse because

Step 1: Create a DMZ [link]

Put every message that you received before today into a DMZ (demilitarized zone) folder. Don’t argue, just do it. You can’t

Step 2: Classify new incoming mail

The following classification are what Merlin recommends, and I have found quite useful in practice:

• Act – These are items that require you to act. If it will only take a minute or so, you should do them right now! You should have dealt with all of the messages in this category by the end of the day.
• Respond – These are items that will take 5 minutes or less to respond to. You should have dealt with all of these messages by the end of the day.
• Hold – These are items that require your attention, but will take some time to complete.. Do not abuse this tag!
• Waiting – These are items that I am waiting on a response for. If it does not matter if the other person responds or not, just delete the email and do not classify as waiting.
• Archive – Completed items that you need to retain. For example they include important attachments that you need to refer to later. Do not archive when you can delete.

Note: it is not necessary to classify messages in your DMZ. You will either respond, archive or delete them in an independent process (see Step 4).

Step 3: Schedule email dashes [link]

Do not sit in your inbox all day and do not use your inbox as a to-do list. Closing your email application will free up your attention to focus on substantive work. The following timings are suggested by Merlin, but not required. The important thing is that you do close your email to focus on real work, and don’t get bogged down with less important

1. New email check + scanning + super-fast responses: 2 minutes every 20 minutes
2. Non-critical responses: 10 minutes or 5 emails every 90 minutes
3. Processing “the pile”: 2 minutes every hour + 15 minutes at the end of the day
4. Metawork: 15 minutes twice a week
5. Further culling, responding, and clearing “the pile”: Through the day, as available, in 5-8 minute dashes

Step 4: Work down your Email DMZ.

It took me about two weeks worth of free time in the evenings to clear out my 8,000 email messages across four accounts. I did not declare “email bankruptcy”, but I did delete most of the messages in the DMZ.

Good Inbox Zero Links:

Merlin Mann’s Tech Talk at Google – In terms of researching this topic, this is one of the best 60 minutes you can spend

The Official Inbox Zero page on 43Folders

Writing Sensible Email Messages