On Tuesday, Bank of America ditched its plans to begin charging customers a monthly fee to use their debit cards. The decision to abandon the fee comes in response to consumer complaints to the proposal. Among those complaints is a movement called Bank Transfer Day, which urges consumers to move their money from banks to credit unions. Host Frank Stasio talks with experts in personal finance and banking about the role of big banks, small banks and credit unions in our lives and in the emerging economy. Guests include Randy Chambers, president of the Durham-based Self-Help Credit Union; Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher with the New Rules Project, a program of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance; Rick Rothacker, financial reporter for Reuters and author of “Banktown: The Rise and Struggles of Charlotte’s Big Banks” (John F. Blair Publishing/2010); and Saule Omarova, assistant professor of law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Listener call-in.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
Amber Nimocks came to The State of Things in January 2009. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a survivor of 15 years in the newspaper business. As a reporter and editor, her posts have included such exotic locales as her hometown of Fayetteville, Robeson County, Wilmington, Raleigh and Fort Worth, Texas.