And BoA listened.
Bank of America earned over $6 Billion in the 3rd Quarter but a hidden revenue stream has been stiffled by the Dodd-Frank Act so they had to go out in the open and announce that they were going to whack debit cards users with a $5 monthly fee to make up for it. Customers resisted and the bank has backed down. I said in an earlier post that the $5 fee was a good thing because the big banks would have to put their fee schedules up front instead of hiding them.
That doesn't mean that they won't try to squeeze their cusomers in other ways.
Consumers should prepare for even higher checking and overdraft charges, analysts said. If they use another bank’s automatic teller machine, they may well get hit with higher ATM fees. And if they want to receive paper statements in the mail, they may end up paying for that, too.
The Occupy Wall Street movement started getting media attention right after Bank of America announced the $5 fee. Most people don't know the in's and out's of financial policy but they know when they know when they are getting screwed. The TARP program was probably necessary but we don't have to like it. In my mind to big to fail should mean to big to exsist. The anti-trust laws seem to be a thing of the past.
If regulators were doing their jobs properly, banks would not be allowed to engage in massive speculation through derivatives trading. The near meltdown of the financial system in 2008 has resulted in thousands of pages of new regulations but has done nothing to reign in “too big to fail banks” or reduce systemic risk in the financial system.
Smaller financial institutions were promoting "Bank Transfer Day" on Nov. 5
"massive speculation through derivatives"
ReplyDeleteThere actually is a place for trading in derivatives in the financial markets, but I'm thinking that trading shouldn't have anything to do with funding mortgages.
Students,
ReplyDeletePlease pay close attention as I know your little minds cannot take in very much at one time. What I have to say in this lecture is one of the most important pieces of information you shall ever be priveliged to hear from my lectern: Unless we as a society want to go back to living in the trees, we had better keep the paws of the federal government out of the banking industry.
If not for banks your parents would not own a home, that brand new car that Mommy and Daddy purchased for your graduation would not exist, along with so many other luxuries we now enjoy. By giving the common man the ability to borrow, the banks have given him the experience of a quality of life much higher than if they were not in existence.
I know that it is now fashionable for the communists to protest Wall Street and its evil ways, but in fact, these students are no more than layabouts who want to join in on the latest parties.
A very good friend of mine who happens to be a Manhattan banker filled me in on the goings on at this rally:
"You walk across them and detect the smell of excrement and alcohol. I like to have lunch in Washington Square park but not any longer. THese vagabonds are all over the place---one of them tried to sell me heroin. Another couple was copulating right in front of an innocent tourist family with a young child. I just don't know why the press is covering up what these lazy perverted clowns are really doing down here."
Such is the Occupy Wall STreet movement.
I guess, judging by the behavior in this classroom, I should not be surprised.
If there is anything good to come out of this it is that by November next these slackers will be so stoned and out of it that they won't show up at the polls to vote for their hero again.
Need I say more??????
Class Dismissed!!!!!!!!!
I can't believe we bailed these bastards out. I say Occupy their offices! We should be Occupying the ballot box! The laws are set up to benefit them over us, and that's not how America is supposed to work. Well, the best thing about a democratic system is that we each get one vote that's equal to anyone else, but the problem is that with the Citizens United ruling that stupidly and ridiculously claims that corporations are people and money is free speech (they arent and it isnt) that corporations can now shadily fund lies and misinformation... I urge people to look past all of the BS and look at your own sources of information. Turn off Fox, turn off MSNBC, and start turning on C-Span. Get the pros and cons of every issue, policy and bill. Judge for yourself, and don't let the Bill O'Reillys and the Ed Schultzs of the world tell you what your opinion should be.
ReplyDeleteI know where I stand, and I stand with the protesters. Greed isn't anything to be proud of, and it's time that the people get what we're owed... after all, we paid for them to get bailed out! I'm voting out the GOP and sending Wall St. a bill from the citizens next november.