One positive outcome from the financial meltdown has been a new appreciation for community banks. News and opinion goddess Ariana Huffington and others have encouraged people to move their money from megabanks and find instead some local version of George Bailey, the savings-and-loan operator portrayed by Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life. Kansas City is full of financial institutions run by people who live in the community and who didn't spend the decade chasing collateralized debt obligations and indulging in other Wall Street hocus-pocus. Even better, many community banks and credit unions offer more attractive deals than the conglomos. First State Bank pays a high rate of interest on checking accounts, provided that customers agree to go paperless and meet other reasonable conditions. The oldest bank in Kansas City, Kansas, First State (which has a Johnson County branch as well) also offers the pleasure of banking in a modernist building with an interior that feels like a set from Mad Men. Don Draper in Armourdale? It could happen.
