New credit union data provided an occasion to discuss, with an A1 story, the differences between the two forms of banking — and the PR war that’s been fought since the Occupy movement started pushing credit unions last fall.

I also reported that the ubiquitous local bank, Security National, took a $100 million TARP bailout to compensate for losing money on sub-prime mortgage securities.

Credit unions are growing in members and deposits faster than they have in the past. While it doesn’t seem to be impacting banks much yet, the potential is there.

So the spokesman for the state association of bankers forwarded me a GAO study. It seems to indicate that banks do a better job serving people “of modest means” than banks do. Which undermines the reason for credit unions’ tax exemption. Are credit unions screwing society on the level of GE? I’m gonna look into this further.