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Another Day, Another Bank Getting Rich Off Your Money
New York, 1:23 PM
Sun Dec 6
14 posts in the last 24 hours
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Another Day, Another Bank Getting Rich Off Your Money |
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07/17/09
A week later, two separate mailings detailed their meticulous reasoning. The first card's limit was cut due to having one or more cards active for less than 24 months solid (one of course being SAID CARD they gave me right in the bank branch). Then a mailing dated 4 days later stated the other two accounts had their limits cut because of an account being too close to its stated limit. This of course happened because that card had been reduced in half two days earlier, bringing my outstanding balance close to the limit. My good credit rating is now affected, I have less credit to speak of and once again Chase leaves me holding my dick in space.
Did I mention I haven't been anywhere near delinquent on payments in years, or that I consistently pay at least twice the monthly minimum? Color me bedazzled with a sprinkling of jihadist-rage orange and flesh-whipped pink.
07/17/09
07/17/09
Ugh. How about it. I have but one credit card (really) and two months ago my interest rate jumped up 5 percent. I called to ask for it to be lowered to its previous extortion-level rate, and the CSR ACTUALLY SAID "Well, if we don't raise your rate, the bank doesn't make any money." WTF?! Do I look like I give a shit about whether Bank of America makes money?!
AND THEN I got laid off, so my rate is going to go even higher. FML.
07/17/09
Even AIG, who is paying something like 14%, is meeting those obligations. After their devastating losses, because they're still an insurance company that pulls in billions in real revenue from insurance products.
The reason banks got bailed out isn't to confiscate money from taxpayers, though it seems that way in the short run. The banks have business models that can pay back taxpayers once the short-run pain of the junk assets can be overcome. The whole point of this is that taxpayers are better served in the long-run by maintaining the function of the companies that pay their paychecks, most of whom rely on the very banking industries you decry. They're receiving dividends, interest, and their capital back. How is that confiscation?
All dynamics you understand and ignore, John, so you have your little Huey Long hissyfit. Or do you not think TARP is going to be repaid and the Fed will never close the discount window?
Want to worry about theft? Ask why our government is building powerplants in Afghanistan and Iraq instead of our own fucking country.
07/17/09
07/17/09
Does the Federal Government have the capability to loan to you directly, though? Part of the problem here is that the Government has an interest in creating the appearance of an independent banking system. 4% spreads are seen as a small price to pay to staunch the hue and cry over "socialism." I agree that the spreads should be far, far smaller.
As for the traders, though, that's a function of TARP that I hate. It's preventing the function of a labor market that shouldn't be paying ANYONE in finance 6 mil a year to act as storefronts for printed money. TARP shouldn't have been passed.
07/17/09
Yup. Because all we've done with TARP is fed the oligarchy monster and starved the working class in the process.
Is it too late to nationalize?
07/17/09
By "nationalize" you mean 'burn it to the fucking ground," right?
07/17/09
07/17/09
Would we be happier if we threw trillions of dollars at these banks and they failed anyway?
07/17/09
I think, however, that people are angry because the banks have done so little to get the credit flowing for small businesses and individuals. That was also the purpose of the bailout.
07/17/09
Credit demand is falling amongst small businesses and individuals. The supply side has been refinancing mortgages like fucking crazy for people who actually want it, to the point where they literally are hiring people off the street to handle the volume.
07/17/09
More importantly, we sustained the businesses that depend on those banks to exist. MOST companies use commercial paper and other forms of short-term financing to normalize their cash flows. This has bought them time to deleverage and build up internal reserves to handle the functions banks once had.
07/17/09
I heard (on Marketplace on NPR) yesterday that, while forecasters predicted that home foreclosures would peak around right now, they're now projecting we won't reach a peak until next summer. If these banks are starting to make profits, there HAS to be something we can do about that looming peak, and if not, then the TARP funds are really useless in the real world.
07/17/09
The banks are kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't at this point. I understand where this sense of injustice is coming from, but I'm uncomfortable reviling an institution based mostly on the fact that they happened to make a lot of money.
07/17/09
Money they literally CAN'T WAIT to use to pay back TARP. Not one of these banks wants the scrutiny or the stigma of being government-backed. This analysis is bargain-basement and belongs on a yellow page.
07/17/09
What about slashing credit lines of existing small business customers with no bad credit history? Banks have been doing this right and left to make their numbers look better, and it’s fucking up a lot of small businesses that would be having no problems otherwise.
07/17/09
07/17/09
07/17/09
Applications for line of credit and usage of existing lines. Consumer indebtedness is something like 130% of income still, even as the savings rate rises. For the most part, consumer borrowers have stopped using credit.
In terms of the reduction of lines, that's a real phenomenon. But at the same time, companies with the earnings power have been building and using reserves instead of using credit to smooth out cashflows.
Utilization of government programs and the like are leading the research.
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/07/07/july_demand_dips_for_govt_cons.../
As are the G19 reports from the Fed
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/current/
All forms of revolving and non-revolving credit have been decreasing since Q4 of 2008 as a result of both supply and demand concerns.
07/17/09
07/17/09
A friend had a 5$ overdraft in her checking account (BoA charged her $35); at the same time she had an overdue DVD from Blockbuster, that automatically charged $1/day more for the movie.
For each additional dollar, BoA happily charged another $35. She ended up with -$700 and they didn't removed a single overdraft charge. Is this the way you make money in America?
07/17/09
07/17/09
07/17/09
In 1927, I couldn't sell alcohol. In 1934, I could make a lot of money selling alcohol. Being angry at businesspeople for making money under America's laws is asinine. There is a Democratic supermajority dropping the ball on bank regulation, and the banks are to blame? Direct the criticism where it makes sense - your government. Barack Obama, Congress, and the regulatory authorities sitting on their hands. Being angry at banks for making money at the government's behest is a stupid waste of time.
07/17/09
OK, you see that's the problem. You are defining anger over the financial meltdown and ensuing bailout as "being angry at businesspeople." Mike Feld or any of those 337 shmucks who worked for AIGFP do not any more represent all "businesspeople" than pirates represent all seafaring people.
Also, comparing a long march toward eviscerating banking rules (starting with deregulation under Reagan that led to the S&L crisis, to 2000's Gramm-Leach-Bliley, to the insane 2004 SEC ruling) to the end of prohibition is ridiculous.
My guess is you have a stake in this game somehow.