TIAA's Nooks and Crannies

Financial Services companies like to cultivate an air of invincibility, because they want their customers to feel confident about the safety of their money. I doubt that TIAA is any better or worse than other such companies today. But before 1987, they were a sort of warm, paternalistic (if strait-jacketing) "Ma Bell" type of company. Yes, that nickname implies a benign monopoly!