FedUpUSA

Archive for October 10th, 2011

The protest that started nearly a month ago in the Battery now has a name – Occupy Wall Street — and we’re sorry we didn’t think of it first, since the catchy title – “Occupy (fill-in-the-location)” — seems destined to go viral worldwide. We’re not sure whether the demonstrators’ demands will eventually skew right or left politically, or perhaps in neither direction, but Mr. Obama and Rep. Pelosi have not wasted any time getting the jump on the Tea Party and GOP frontrunner-by-default Mitt Romney by presenting the demonstrators with verbal fruit baskets and bouquets – everything but the key to the city, which as of this writing was still in the safekeeping of Mayor Bloomberg.  

To her credit, Ms. Pelosi zeroed in an actual reason for the demonstrations, even if the protestors themselves haven’t quite figured it out. It’s about jobs, she told ABC News in an interview — and that is undoubtedly on many of the protestors’ minds. But it seems predictable that the movement will come to be “about” many more things as the months roll by. What is not so predictable is who will assume leadership, or perhaps try to co-opt the movement from outside, as it spreads to every city, town and village in the Western world. But if protests should turn violent – a possibility that we’d rate an even-odds bet at this point, it’ll be interesting to see whether the Establishment that has rushed to embrace the demonstrators will start cracking heads.

 Whatever happens, the protestors have nearly a year to build up steam ahead of the national political conventions.  Charlotte, North Carolina, will play host to the Democrats in early September, and although the event, with 35,000 delegates reportedly planning to attend, is expected to generate $150 million in business for the city, Charlotte may come to regret having been selected over finalists Cleveland, Minneapolis and St. Louis. For, much as Arlo Guthrie, Country Joe McDonald, Santana and the Grateful Dead were big draws at Woodstock, Charlotte boasts a superstar protest-magnet of its own – Bank of America — that could conceivably attract more activists than the convention attracts delegates.  You can bet the whole world will be watching – and one can only hope that the demonstrators by then have Woodstock in mind as a behavioral template rather than Chicago, circa August 1968. Republicans are set to convene in Tampa, Florida a week earlier, but we suspect that the extra miles between Northeast population centers and southwest Florida, not to mention the sweltering mid-summer heat, will inhibit the crowds. It’s possible, however, that if a huge throng shows up in Tampa nonetheless, that the city’s unique’y pleasurable waterfront scene will help keep demonstrators from growing surly.

 Time for Honest Capitalism?

 But even if the mobs are peaceful, they’re not going to be easily satisfied with hollow political promises to create more jobs.  The best way to do that is of course to provide tax incentives for small businesses to expand. However, it’s hard to imagine that this will be on their agenda. Or will it?  The possibility exists, but only if those who assume leadership of the “Occupy” movement understand that, unlike the big banks, not all businesses are parasitic and in bed with the ringleaders of our incurably corrupt political system. Perhaps those rooting for a revival of honest capitalism should take as a hopeful sign the moment of silence observed for Steve Jobs last week by Wall Street protestors.

 Rick Akerman for ZeroHedge

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Millions of Americans are about to get stabbed in the back by their banks.  Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank and several other large banks are either already implementing outrageous new bank fees or are currently testing them.  So are these ridiculous new bank fees going to be enough to get millions of Americans to finally boycott the big banks?  When millions of Americans start paying a $5 fee every month to use their debit cards and when millions of Americans start paying a $20 fee every single month just to have a checking account hopefully that will be enough to wake them up.  These fees are certainly not going to cause an “economic collapse”, but they are incredibly annoying.  The truth is that the big banks are trying to take advantage of us.  It shouldn’t cost $60 a year just to use a debit card.  It shouldn’t cost $240 a year just to have a checking account.  What we need to do is to send an unequivocal message to the big banks: we don’t want your stinking bank fees and we are switching banks.

When I was growing up, I remember how banks would bend over backwards to get your business.  The customer service was generally very good and banks were not gouging us with ridiculous fees.

But now thousands of smaller banks have been gobbled up by the banking giants and things have dramatically changed.  The big banks don’t value us anymore.  They seem to believe that they have a “captive audience” and that they can treat us however they want to.

Well, it is time for us to draw a line in the sand.

We didn’t mind so much that they were paying us next to nothing on our savings accounts.

We didn’t say too much when ATM fees soared into the stratosphere.  For example, the average cost of using an “out of network” ATM in America today is approximately $3.81.

We didn’t even object too much when they started charging us fees for things such as getting paper statements, receiving wire transfers, or closing our accounts.

But now they have really crossed the line.

On October 1st, new federal regulations went into effect that capped what banks can charge merchants for debit card transactions.

The average fee on a debit card transaction used to be about 44 cents.

The new federal regulations cap the fee on merchants at 21 cents.

So will banks be unable to make money under these new regulations?

Well, according to U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, each debit card transaction costs the banks somewhere between 4 and 12 cents.

So a cap of 21 cents is not going to kill the banks.

However, it is going to hurt the profits that they have been making.  The new rules are expected to reduce total bank revenue by a whopping $6.6 billion a year.

Ouch.

So what are the big banks doing about it?

Well, they have decided to recoup that revenue by sticking it to us.

For example, Bank of America recently announced that it is about to start charging a $5 per month debit card fee.

This has sparked a firestorm of criticism.

Even members of Congress are getting involved.

According to ABC News, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate this week holding up a plastic debit card and launched into a tirade about Bank of America….

“Bank of America customers, vote with your feet, get the heck out of that bank,” Durbin said on the Senate floor. “Find yourself a bank or credit union that won’t gouge you for $5 a month and still will give you a debit card that you can use every single day. What Bank of America has done is an outrage.”

But that is not the only outrageous fee that you will be hit with at Bank of America.

If you want to get a basic checking account at Bank of America you will be slapped with a $12 monthly fee unless you maintain an average balance of at least $1,500.

Other large banks are instituting debit card fees as well.

Starting in November, SunTrust will be hitting account holders with a $5 per month debit card fee.

Last February, J.P. Morgan began testing a $3 per month debit card fee in Wisconsin.

Wells Fargo has also been testing a $3 per month debit card fee in certain markets.

But it is not just new debit card fees that are getting people upset.

For example, according to CNN large numbers of Citibank account holders will soon be paying a 15 or 20 dollar monthly fee if they do not maintain very high balances in their accounts….

Starting in December, customers who hold its mid-level Citibank Account will be charged $20 a month if they fail to maintain a minimum balance of $15,000 in their combined accounts. Previously, account holders had to carry a minimum balance of $6,000.

At the same time, customers who have the bank’s EZ Checking account will start being charged $15 a month if they don’t carry a minimum balance of $6,000.

They know that the vast majority of American families cannot afford to keep $6,000 sitting around.

It almost seems like the big banks are trying to eliminate as many small accounts as they can.

In the old days, virtually anyone could get a free checking account, but now all that has changed.

Sadly, the era of the free checking account seems to be ending.  According to a recent survey by bankrate.com, only 45 percent of all checking accounts in the United States that don’t pay interest are still free.  Two years ago that figure was sitting at 76 percent.

All over the nation, monthly fees on checking accounts are absolutely soaring.  In 2010, the average monthly fee on non-interest checking accounts was $2.49.  Today, the average monthly fee on non-interest checking accounts is $4.37.

It is almost as if the banks don’t even care about our money anymore.  They don’t want to give us free checking, they don’t want to send us paper statements, they don’t want us to use tellers and they don’t even want to treat us with common decency.

The truth is that we are the ones that deserve some compensation for all of the lousy service that we have been receiving.  For example, the Bank of America online banking system has been down for five days in a row.

The average American family is barely scraping by right now and cannot afford all of these outrageous fees.  Right now, economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating and millions more Americans are falling into poverty every year.  It is absolutely disgusting that these big banks are trying to drain hundreds of extra dollars a year out of each of us.

Well, perhaps we need to start voting with our feet.  We need to tell the banksters that we don’t want their stinking bank fees and that we are switching banks.

There are lots of credit unions and small community banks that would be more than happy to have us as customers.  Yes, banking with them might not be quite as “convenient”, but the big banks have pushed us way too far this time.

These new bank fees are beyond outrageous.

We cannot allow them to do this to us.

The Economic Collapse

Interesting presentation with slides and video can be viewed here…

Related educational information:

1. Robosigners and Other Servicing Failures: Protecting the Rights of RMBS Investors
2. Association of Mortgage Investors Letter To JPMorgan Trust Administration RE: Notification of and Request to Address Pervasive Issues in RMBS Trusts
3. Ocwen Scoops Up Saxon Servicing Rights
4. Invitation: County Sheriffs’ Role in Protecting Individual Liberties
5. Live Webcast Wed May 4th 9AM EDT | Presentation to Michigan House of Rep on Mortgage Fraud by Bill Bullard and Curtis Hertel, Jr.

You want to know why everyone in this country hates you and wants you dead, you big stupid f*%’ing bank?

Here’s why, pay attention:

(Reuters) – Bank of America Corp will pay $11 million to ousted executives Joe Price and Sallie Krawcheck, a large payout at a time when banks face protests over pay but smaller than the eight-figure packages some executives received before the financial crisis.

Krawcheck — a former Citigroup Inc executive who came to Bank of America in 2009 and was one of the top-ranking women on Wall Street — will receive a one-time payment of $5.15 million, according to separation agreements filed by the bank on Friday.

Price, a Bank of America veteran, gets $4.15 million. Each will also receive $850,000 over a one-year period.

Price was head of consumer banking and Krawcheck led wealth and investment operations.

Elevenmilliondollars?  What the hell world are you inhabiting?  Eleven million dollars for two departing executives because things didn’t work out?  I’m sorry, but were these two executives of Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez-level importance for your organization?  Is that why there are severance deals like this in place?  Or are you just completely psychotic?

It’s not that this isn’t your prerogative as a private company – it is.  But seriously, numbers like these at a time when you’re instituting added fees on customer accounts just sound farcical, almost like you’re making these payments to get a reaction out people.

You look completely ridiculous with news like this at a time when thousands of people are massing in every major city in the country to make the case that you don’t deserve to exist.  At a time when you’re being investigated for employing robo-signers just to maintain a certain level of foreclosures processed per month. At a time when you’re laying off rank-and-file employees not by the hundreds, not by the thousands – but in the tens of thousands.  At a time when retired seniors, desperately seeking income, have been pushed into annuities, life settlements, commodities and junk bonds because of the zero percent interest rate policy that was meant to nurse you and your balance sheet back to health – and this is what you do with the money?  With OUR money?

Are you crazy?

You pay fired executives more in severance than the average American worker will earn in a lifetime. For most people on the outside looking in, this seems like it’s from outer space, another world entirely. These numbers just do not exist to regular human beings, they cannot be fathomed. The ordinary American is not a class warrior or a woe-is-me whiner coveting the rewards of others – the ordinary American simply believes that extraordinary rewards should go to those who do extraordinary things, not to paper-pushing failures at parasite banks.

So let me give you a hint that will save you countless hours and millions of dollars spent on consultants and the public relations morons you keep on staff:  This is why they hate you.  This very type of thing, while just a single example, epitomizes the piggish mentality that has set you apart from everyone else.  This is why they’re marching against you and calling for boycotts and writing their politicians.  And this is why your whole model and way of life is on its way to being dead.  Forever.

You want to roll your eyes and make snide remarks about “dumb college kids” and “socialists”?  Go ahead but you’re be missing the point.  Because it is the small business owner who’s really been wronged here, not the fringe elements you mockingly dismiss.  The business owner whose losses are not socialized like yours, the business owner without the government in his pocket, the business owner who is forced to play by the rules that you have paid to have written.  He’s not a hippie, he’s not a Marxist…but he’s waking up, dummy.

You blew the second chance you got with TARP to re-enter society as a productive component of commerce.  You went back to bonus-swilling, full-retard mode as though nothing ever happened and 13 million people weren’t sitting around in their post credit-bubble joblessness for three years now.  Your tone-deafness and utter disconnection from the rest of the country has produced something extraordinary – You’ve managed to awaken one of the most indolent, lethargic and apathetic populaces in the history of the world.  You’ve now stirred a slumbering nation of 300 million from it’s Entennman’s and Zoloft-induced stupor.  America is awake now and it’s pissed.

Good luck with that.

 Joshua M. Brown – The Reformed Broker