Instead of charging you a $35 overdraft fee for every time you dip a penny below $0.00, any day that ends with an overdraft of $5 or less will only net you a $10 charge. That being said, whereas you could only incur five $35 overdraft fees in one day, they've now upped their own personal limit to ten. So: miss one note on your checking account, that's $350 your in the hole for after one day's worth of small-ish purchases.

Now, we all know that overdrawing your bank account is irresponsible, and that there should be a consequence for screwing up. Some banks even have a "mercy" program that allows you one of these transgressions every few months. But the wonderful MSNBC article this item's culled from does some interesting math regarding overdraft fees:

Consumers who overdraw by $5.01 will still pay at least $35 for the mistake, the equivalent of a short-term loan at 25,000 percent annual interest (assuming the money is repaid in 10 days)...Last year, the Center for Responsible Lending said that fees generated from overdrafts — $17.5 billion – actually exceeded the total amount of money banks extended to cover overdrafts, which totaled around $16 billion.

Bank Of America's almost comical in how much they hate their customers: they recently went out of their way to secure their right to pull overdraft fees from retirees' social security benefits. So they're robbing people (literally) blind who're (sometimes) too senile to always do the right math. The problem's gotten so bad, congress is leaning towards creating legislation reforming overdraft fees. Until then, banks are still royally screwing you for your punishment in an eye-for-a-pound-of-flesh kind of way. Furthermore, they're letting you overdraft, encouraging you to let them hit you where it hurts. The lesson: don't overdraw, bank with a bank that doesn't allow you to overdraw, and if there's some kind of tragic, extenuating circumstance forcing you to overdraw, borrow the money from anyone but your bank. Because they will absolutely, without reluctance, take every chance they can to totally rob you silly.

A kinder, gentler overdraft policy? [MSNBC]

My wife and I recently became obsessed with a Web site where you plug in the amount of money you made in a year and find out where you stand. If your salary equaled the amount of money my wife and I gave Planned Parenthood one year, you'd be in the richest 1 percent in the world, which is pretty great. Still, there would be 60 million people richer than you, and that's a lot. They wouldn't fit in your home, for example, even though you'd have the sort of home that only the top 1 percent of people in the world can afford.

We can sympathize; as frequent self-Googlers, we can only imagine the joy of constantly being reaffirmed that you're extremely loaded. Must temper the sting of knowing that some other people have more. Still, Handler isn't an easy touch: When a San Francisco philanthropist asked him to donate $5 million toward the preservation of a local historic building, Handler winced.

This is why, maybe, there are so many noble causes and so few of them are well financed: we all want other people to write the checks — they're richer than we are. I wrote the guy a check anyway, of course, and it was for a lot of money. At least, I think it was a lot of money. You'd have to ask those other people, the hundred thousand who make more than I do and the 60 million who make more than I gave to restore the historic building: isn't this a lot of money? Then why does it feel as if I bought him a beer?

Adjusted Income [NYT]