We have been members of a credit union for nine years and I would never go back to a commercial bank. The goal of a credit union is to serve its members. The goal of a bank is to make a profit. Don't get me wrong. I'm as capitalist as they come. But when socialist organization works, there's no way to argue against it. When a commercial mortgage broker bailed on us after approving our loan (not pre-approving but actually approving it) three weeks before our closing, our credit union jumped in and did something almost unheard of these days. They loaned us their OWN money! And they did it so fast that we didn't even have to change our closing date. From application to closing in 3 weeks! They were awesome. They also provided us with a credit card with an interest rate of 7%! And how many credit unions were bailed out by the federal government due to bad mortgages? None. Credit Unions are much more conservative than banks. And banks HATE credit unions and have been trying to make them illegal for years without success.

What we need are more types of businesses that work like credit unions. I've heard there are insurance companies that are set up like credit unions but I haven't investigated that.