Gentle Reminder from the Walmart Waltons

 

by Pa Rock

Member of the Proletariat

I received a chatty epistle from the Walton family of northwest Arkansas, they who own what little of America that Jeff Bezos does not.  The Waltons were writing to remind me that they are closing the bank in my hometown of Noel, Missouri, on June 30th and that I need to clear out my safety deposit box before they lock the doors of the bank for good.

I say "the bank" because it is indeed the only bank in Noel, Missouri.  

And. the letter wasn't really "chatty."  It was headed with *********"FINAL NOTICE"********* (all caps and underlined and framed with a set of asterisks!)  When the Walton's tell you to do something, they BY God mean it!

For years Noel's bank was a locally owned enterprise known as 'The State Bank of Noel," but then a few years back a regional chain of banks called "Arvest" bought it out.  Arvest is wholly owned by members of the Walmart Walton family.  There are no public shareholders, it is strictly a family cash cow.    Arvest gobbled up many small town banks in the Midwest for several years, but then, during the pandemic, the company apparently figured out that people can bank without physically going into a bank, and a decision was made to close some of the less profitable ones.

(Could it be a plot to force people to bank inside of their local Walmarts?)

And so Noel, Missouri, will lose its only bank on June 30th, and if Louis DeJoy is not soon fired from heading the US Postal Service, many local post offices may begin closing as well.  There may soon come a day when we have no options but email, electronic banking, and ATMs.

There are some radicals in Congress who are proposing that the nation's postal service be given a banking mission as well, something that would provide a bigger income stream to post offices and perhaps pull some income away from American banks that are too-big-to-care.  I believe that I could support that plan - enthusiastically!

But until that happens we must all continue to huddle in fear and degradation as Bezos and the Waltons and the McConnells rig a society and an economic system that will benefit them and leave the rest of us fighting over the most meager of scraps.

Hopefully the Walton family will quit trying to piss me off, because if there ever was a good time to change banks, this would be it!