I hate to say I told you so, but I did. When the news broke ofWings Financial FCU attempting to engineer a hostile takeover ofContinental FCU, there was a lot of hysteria.

Specifically CUNA and NAFCU were pounding on NCUA's door to dropeverything and stop the merger in its tracks. Rule that it was nota “cooperative” merger and thus should be killed, or that it didnot have the regulations on the books to handle hostile takeovers,they said.

What struck me and many credit union leaders I am sure as thereal opening was the $200 payout. After all, $200? What did thatnumber mean? Could a credit union really promise an arbitrarypayout? How did it come up with that number? Was that fair to thefolks with lots of money in the credit union who would besubsidizing the payouts of the members with a $5 balance? How couldone credit union offer a payout to members of another credit unionof which it has no control of their finances? Why could one CUassume the 16% capital of another CU was their's for thetaking?