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| People's Direktor of Banking |
They’re Doing it for the Money!
I love it when liberals level this ridiculous charge. Of course “they” are doing it for the money. How many friends do you have who are working just for the pure joy of it? People invest their own money into a business in order to make more money. Nothing wrong with that. I go to work because I need money to support my family. It’s a bonus that I love my work, but money is a motivator, no doubt.
Congress also does it “for the money.” Your money. China's money. Corporate money. Old people's money. Lock box money. Damn the inevitable unintended consequences.
Dick Turban, Socialist Senator from the failed state of Illinois, championed a bill capping those nasty debit card transaction fees that banks charge businesses, and now comes the blowback, as bank of America announces a five dollar monthly fee for cardholders:
“Bank of America is actually being quite straightforward about its rationale for instituting this new fee: it blames the government. Bank of America has said it expects the caps, which the industry lobbied against for months, to erase $2 billion in revenue annually.” (Atlantic)
Issuing customers millions of free plastic cards and buying the telecommunications networks that allow you use them almost anywhere in the world has a cost, and banks pass those costs on to the consumer. What did you think, that they ate them? When you buy a car, you’re paying for all the parts and the labor that went into making it, with some extra tacked on. Is GM gouging you because they made you pay for the side mirrors? Carmakers must make a profit or they can’t stay in business. A bank is no different.
Still, people are outraged. Outraged! At this “gouging.”
Still, people are outraged. Outraged! At this “gouging.”
…one angry Bank of America customer, saying that she feels the bank is "gouging" her. That's not quite right: she paid this fee before -- she just didn't know it. It was incorporated into the prices of the goods and services that she purchased with her debit card. The fee was then paid to banks by the retailer where she shopped.
Now Bank of America is just cutting out the middle man to collect a portion of the fees. This move isn't meant to create new revenue for the bank, but to replace the revenue that Congress forbid them to collect through their old fee policies.
It's actually the retailers that are gouging us...
The stores no longer have to pay the debit card fees to banks, but they are not lowering their prices as a result. They're pocketing that money that used to go to paying the transaction fees.
The author makes an even more important point. This is actually a good thing because it brings a hidden fee that was buried in the price of goods and services out into the open. If only peculating socialist diddlers like Durban would bring the same transparency to government.
Thank Walmart for Your Bank Card Fee
The Durbin Fee
The stores no longer have to pay the debit card fees to banks, but they are not lowering their prices as a result. They're pocketing that money that used to go to paying the transaction fees.
The author makes an even more important point. This is actually a good thing because it brings a hidden fee that was buried in the price of goods and services out into the open. If only peculating socialist diddlers like Durban would bring the same transparency to government.
Thank Walmart for Your Bank Card Fee
The Durbin Fee
Your right about the retailers not lowering their price on goods, now that some of the fee the customers pay that is figured in to the retailers price is paid directly by the card holder. However, watch for retailers when they require you to spend a minimum to use your debt/cc card. It violates the terms of their agreement they have with Visa/Master Card/ etc. that the customer can use their card for any minimal amount.
ReplyDeleteConsidering Bufffet pumped $Billions into it, and they are laying off thousands, it is a great move for Turban to start a run on the bank. This is what we have elected to Congress.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how you look at it, the consumer gets screwed. It's a good point that you bring up, though, Silver, that we shouldn't necessarily blame the banks. They've got to make a living, too.
ReplyDeleteMore cost transferred to the consumer. Seems to be going according to plan.
ReplyDeleteWait. There are Socialists in Congress? I thought we were a Capitalist nation. Interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt seems akin to having KKK ideologues with memberships in the NAACP, doesn't it? Yep.
All costs of doing business are "hidden" in the price the consumer pays.
ReplyDeleteAs Dave Ramsey said a few days ago (paraphrased) "Anyone who does business with these large banks such as Citi, Chase, etc, needs their head examined." He's urged people for years to go to small local banks or credit unions.
I also do most of my purchasing with cash. Our household was one of the last on the planet to ever use a debit card. I have no problem not using one in the future.
I ain't got no love for Bank of America, they're as crooked as the day is long. They're the ones that forclose on paid of houses and stuff.
ReplyDeleteThey are highly suspected of being part of the Federal Reserve banking cartel.
What we have here is less competition in the banking world. The last 20 years have seen lots of mergers. What happens when they just merge into one big bank? We'll be living in the Marxist world everyone here dreads.
Our great nanny state education system has produced generations of Americans who don't have a clue about how the economy functions. As you so rightly pointed-out, the consumer has always paid this fee. They just didn't know it. People love to call for taxing the rich corporations without understanding that it is they themselves who pay the corporate taxes. And, nanny state elite like that the masses are ignorant and they want to keep them that way.
ReplyDelete"More cost transferred to the consumer."
ReplyDeleteSo who should be paying for using the service? The government? The business?
Didn't you pay for checks before debit cards? How much have you paid for checks since debit cards?
All cost is transferred to the consumer in one way or another under any system.
The business was paying for the service, and under the existing status quo that cost was incorporated into the price of goods and services.
The government stepped in (why?) and limited the amount the bank can charge the business (in what is ostensibly a private relationship under a contract). Of course the bank is going to adjust its business model to compensate.
If anything, the posts above are correct, you should be pissed at the merchants not the banks. The banks are still charging for a service provided, and the merchants are still charging for a service no longer provided.
Unfortunately, the majority of us are too stupid to realize that having been raised under the progresive model of "money for nothing and chicks for free"!
Oh wait...
Debit Cards are a Constitutional Right!
Lets Protest!!!
Big Retail is who wanted this - and the little retailers are happy too. The banks were charging them unreasonable, "hidden" fees (which is why, for example, you're local convenience store will not accept debit purchases under five dollars) for debit and credit swipes. With essentailly a powerful trust running the retail card-swipe business, retailers had little to no power to fight back. So, they went to congress and the administration, arguing the fees were hidden, monopolistic and abusive. They had a fair point. I was thinking of getting into the card swipe biz down here in FL some years ago, but when I saw what a sleazy scam it was, I decided against it.
ReplyDeleteSo anyway, the banks decided they were going to get this extra money that they do nothing to deserve one way or another by simply adding a plainly visible fee to the common depositors - pitting the regular working guy against good and fair banking rules set by our small-r republican, constitutional government.
Of course, conservatives can't tell a sleazy scam from a church food kitchen, so they are with the banks and swipe machine crooks on this on. Sur-prise, sur-prise!
JMJ
Remember when attendants pumped your gas for you, wiped your windshield, and checked the air pressure in your tires -- at no extra charge? Gas in those days cost 15 to 17 cents a gallon, and grew to 65 cents after the "Oil Crisis" of 1972.
ReplyDeleteRemember the penny postcard and the three-cent stamp?
Remember when you could buy a good house in a high class suburb for less than 25K?
I remember ALL of these things -- and more -- like five-course Sunday dinners at good restaurants for $2.75 per person.
If we live long enough, we will soon see a charge every time we access the internet and another for each email sent and received no doubt
Frankly, I've been astonished that the unholy alliance between government and big business we live with today hasn't already found a way to poison the atmosphere so they can sell us heavily taxed gas masks to enable us to continue breathing.
Most of us are only just beginning to wake up to an awareness that all of us live in vice that tightens relentlessly.
The two jaws of the vice are government and business. The games they play to get the better of one anther cause the tightening effect.
~ FreeThinke
bunkerville said...
ReplyDeleteConsidering Bufffet pumped $Billions into it, and they are laying off thousands, it is a great move for Turban to start a run on the bank. This is what we have elected to Congress.
On behalf of the sane section of Illinois, I would like to apologize for Dickie. The experiment was a failure and should have been terminated.
Jersey, Jersey, Jersey...
ReplyDeleteYour first sentence was on target, but you quickly descended into socialist propaganda from there.
We essentially had government step in and hammer down one crony crapitalist cartel (banks) in favor of another crony crapitalist cartel (retail merchants). This didn't solve anything; it just shifted stuff around.
The retailers had no power? Oh boo hoo! Those poor brave crapitalists! Run to daddy government because the banks are picking on them!
What do you expect? The banks to provide this service for free? How naive.
Everything has a cost. No free lunch.
Here's where the socialist rhetoric really kicks in:
So anyway, the banks decided they were going to get this extra money that they do nothing to deserve
Who says they don't deserve it? By what criteria?
Also, please describe these "good and fair" banking rules" you cite. As Finntann asked, is it wrong to charge you for your checks?
Is it wrong for one bank to not pay interest on your checking account when others do?
Is it "fair" when one bank pays you 1/16 of a percentage point less in interest on your balances?
All of these things are part of a bank's business model, and each bank has its own approach.
It's called capitalism. I find it hard to believe you know anything at all about business, Jersey.
Where do you do business, Venezuela?
Of course, conservatives can't tell a sleazy scam from a church food kitchen
ReplyDelete--------
Quote of the day. Freethinker's going to pop a vessel.
LOL! Thanks Ducky!
ReplyDeleteSilver,
No. Though big retailers certainly wanted this, small retailers are the beneficiaries here, and the gov't did the right thing for them and us - after all, the charges were passed along to us in the end anyway, and by economy of scale the big guys didn't have to raise prices nearly as much as the little guys.
Silver, do yourself a favor. Go to your local convenience store owner. Ask them about how the debit cartels abused them.
And haven't you ever done business by wire? It doesn't cost nearly as much as the fees they're charging! It's a trust scheme to rip off consumers, and you're just too ideologically prejudiced to see it!
JMJ
"Of course, conservatives can't tell a sleazy scam from a church food kitchen" Really?
ReplyDeletedo you have a problem telling them apart? REALLY?
Ducky boy, when did your parents start letting you use their computer?
ReplyDelete"which is why, for example, you're local convenience store will not accept debit purchases under five dollars) for debit and credit swipes." if any of you except that excuse at any retailer, you're being hosed. That is a violation of their agreement to have a terminal in their store. I know this first hand. They can not put a minimum on your purchase when using ANY card.
ReplyDelete@ Jersey: And haven't you ever done business by wire? It doesn't cost nearly as much as the fees they're charging! It's a trust scheme to rip off consumers
ReplyDeleteOK. Finally, you say something I agree with!
Visa and MasterCard currently charge 1 to 2 percent of the transaction amount – "far higher than the actual cost of processing," Senator Durbin says.
ReplyDeleteAre you people imbeciles?
Does the guy who cuts your grass charge you what it costs him to cut grass? No, he would be out of business in no time.
Your mechanic? doctor?
For that matter... is Walmart selling you goods at cost? How about your grocery store?
Processing debit/credit transactions is a service. Don't like the price, find another service. Can't find a service you like? You are more than welcome to do it yourself, buy the scanners, servers, pay for the data lines, etc. Certainly not beyond the capabilities of the big box stores that wanted this. (Walmart/Target
"Retailers are the ones paying debit card fees, but the idea is that if the costs were lowered, retailers might then pass some of the savings along to consumers."
WOW! You guys really are imbeciles.
All that has happened is that retailers now make more per transaction and the banks have started passing that cost onto you.
Don't like it?
Debit/Credit cards, and checks are a convenience, a convenience you pay for. Don't like it? Shag your lazy fat ass down to the bank, walk in, and withdraw cash. Last time I checked they still weren't charging for that.
And no, I am not a banker or involved in banking, yes, I used to own my own small business, and yes we accepted cash, checks, credit, or debit cards. We paid 2% per credit transaction and a flat 10 cent fee per debit transaction. For the cash and checks I had to shag my ass down to the bank and deposit.
We weren't abused, and honestly, I would have rather ran a strictly debit/credit business than cash/check. Would have save me many many trips to the bank.
You are not entitled to a debit or credit card, it is not a right it is a service. Saying you are entitled to use it for 24 cents is like saying you are entitled to buy prime rib at 24 cents a pount.
Bank charge too much? Find another bank.
Riddle me this Batman... if Visa/MC control 84% of the electronic transaction market... why regulate the cost per transaction, why not just go after them under monopoly laws and bust the bastards up?
Oh yeah, a Bank with 10,000 customers cant contribute nearly as much to your PAC as a bank with a million customers.
The problem isn't regulation or the lack thereof. The problem is that your elected representatives have been bought and paid for by Big Business and Big Banking.
And honestly... you're the @$$ that keeps electing them.
Cheers!
It is SOOO hilarious these morons are protesting this Bank, which is the first that catered to illegal aliens to their cheers about 4 years ago I blogged about back then and started calling them Bank Of Amigos as a result.
ReplyDeleteAnd now as you've noted they moan about fees that only came about from Suck My Dick Durbin's misguided legislation.
Banks aren't in business as charity organizations and most of these kids probably don't even have freaking checking accounts to boot!!
See you're doing great here still my friend, keep up the fine work!!
@Fintann - Processing debit/credit transactions is a service. Don't like the price, find another service.
ReplyDelete---------
Assuming monopoly pricing isn't in play.
Silverfiddle, you're attracting the hoi-polloi.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Ray can explain why a bank shouldn't issue cards to whomever will be profitable. Does it violate any law or just offend Ray the Bigot?
Hey Ducky suck on this...I was blogging long before my good friend here and quit because of faggots like yourself.
ReplyDeleteI don't like Illegal aliens being given banking cards to write checks and to be able to secure loans for homes when they (A) don't belong in the fucking country to begin with and (B) getting things Americans cant even get or do while doing it.
In case your empty alien humping head has been up your boyfriend's ass for the past 5 years, illegal aliens and ghettobro loans are what brought down the freaking banking system across the globe you dickwipe.
Take that class warfare shit and shove it up your ass and anytime you're in Chicago and can find 124 Autumn court come to my door so I can knock the snot outta you in person you fucking puzzzy.
Me and Chicago Ray go waaay back, Ducky. And I think you are supposed to be an American citizen or a visa-holding resident alien to legally open an account here. I tried for a relative who is a foreigner and they told us they couldn't do it.
ReplyDeleteProbably because banks couldn't then charge us exorbitant fees to wire money, as Jersey reminds us.
Hey Ray!
ReplyDeleteLong time no visit!
When are you makin' it out Colorado way? Gotta jam! Little Junior is tearin' up the bass.
For those who don't know, Ray is a highly talented graphics artist with an eye for the humorous.
Go here to peruse his handiwork
Thanks for stopping by, Ray!
Ducky, didn't I say if Visa/MC controls 84% of the market and is price fixing, go after them under the anti-monopoly laws?
ReplyDeleteIn 1909 when Standard Oil was a problem, congress did not pass a law setting the price of kerosene. Justice sued Standard under the Sherman Antitrust Act. Upheld by the Supreme Court in 1911, Standard Oil was broken up into 34 companies.
From Standard Oil came Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Amoco, Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), and Conoco among many other smaller companies.
What makes Visa/MC a sacred cow?
In the past 70 years government has done more to foster the growth of monopolies than restrain them.
This is the fault of progressive government, not a free market.
Cheers!
Chi Ray. Hows it going, neighbor!
ReplyDeleteGood to see the good old 'smack' back. :))
@Ray - (B) getting things Americans cant even get or do while doing it.
ReplyDelete-----
Can't get a home loan? Maybe if your credit score weren't 560. Don't blame illegals for not being abe to cut it.
Class warfare? Like I say, you've never seen it. When it happens, bankers get pulled out of their cars and beaten with tire irons.
Love it when you try to act butch cutie.
Class warfare: Yeah, sure worked out great for Cuba, China, North Korea, and Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteFor all your noble and idealistic ambitions all you have ever succeeded in doing is screwing the protelariat. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Progressive Socialism: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
My challenge remains perpetually unanswered.
Please, by all means, point out a successful example of your political philosophy that has actually worked anywhere it was attempted.
North Korea? You think that's the model of the left?
ReplyDeleteYou're an intelligent individual Finntann, why play the asshole?
As for Chin, they seem to be rolling along at a pace Ayn would admire.
Cuba, compared to what? Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guatemala? Lot worse hell holes in the region thanks to us. Cuba has done well to survive in a tough neighborhood.
Now go look at American history and study the dynamics between left and right. Successes? The New Deal. Study up on Norman Thomas.
The right has the robber barons in their quiver so don't start with this crap that the unregulated market is heaven.
@ Ducky: Lot worse hell holes in the region thanks to us. Cuba has done well to survive in a tough neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteYou've just revealed that you've never been to that region. You're talking out your ass. Stick to what you know and leave the rest to those of us who have actually lived in those places.
Talk isn't the only thing coming in and out of his Barney Frankland trolling ass Kurt ;)....
ReplyDeleteI am well aware of American history, I am also well aware that for every banker dragged from his car and beaten with a tire iron, ten of your beloved protelariat are shot and a hundred others die in squalor. Not at the hands of Bourqeoisie, but at the hands of the marxist overlords.
ReplyDeleteRobber Barons? That's original. The supposed robber barons left railroads, a steel industry, petroleum industry, libraries, hospitals, and many if not most of your beloved and currently leftist universities in their wake.
What have marxists left in theirs? The Gulag, the Stasi, the Killing Fields, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution!
China? You hold that up as an example? Yes, China is doing very well, not as a result of communism but as a result of pulling back from communism.
Cuba's done well? What planet do you live on?
Unregulated market? Please, point out to me an unregulated market. The problems of capitalism stem not from regulation, but from selectively applied regulation. From politicians manipulating regulations to favor one group over another. I'll be the first to admit our system has many problems, but I can assure you, it is not from want of regulation.
I've never advocated for a free-for all capitalist system but we don't need 10,000 pages of obscure and complicated regulations in one industry, we need 10 pages of basic rules in simple English applied rationally and impartially.
It shouldn't take a lawyer to tell you if you are doing something wrong, it should be plainly obvious. Complicated legislation benefits no one but politicians and lawyers.
If I'm an asshole for pointing out the obvious, well then hey, I guess I'm an asshole.
Cheers!
Ray, you got a big mouth. Maybe if you toned it down just a hair you'd wouldn't have given up blogging. I go back to the old Hannity forum days from when the wars first started, sparring with the Darths and Galts. You don't see me so thin-skinned as you to give up. All muscle, no skin.
ReplyDeleteI think the grown-ups in the room here know that the banks are getting away with murder with these fees. They have a corner on the market and are gouging the consumer and, until recently, the small biz guy too.
Any true capitalist here should applaud the Durbin rule.
Finntann, you obviously don't know anything whatsoever about the history of the labor movement or banks or business in America. Educate yourself. You sound like a teenager who just read Atlas Shrugged for the first time.
That insipid little dig at Ducky proves it. You're a kid. You're all over the place. You mix "American" history with things that happened all over the world, at different times, in different places, with different histories.
Focus man! Take your Adderall!
And just what industry has "10,000" pages of regulation? Ever run a business? Ever do business? You deal with the regulations you have. And no one aspect of your business is affected by every single regulation of your entire industry.
That's like the moron who says, "Oh, but tax RATES are this high!" Yet effective rates are far lower.
Regulations are not that big a deal. Only a moron would fall for that nonsense about "too much regulation."
It's just like "uncertainty." Ironically, that whole "uncertainty" bullshit-for-morons was the same shtick the big bankers like Morgan used to complain about regulations back during the turn of the 20th century! And then you turn around and say there's no comparison today. Amazing.
You just don't get it, do you? Man, have I got a bridge for you! LOL!
JMJ
Jersey: you are the one who cannot follow a thread. We have millions of pages of regulations.
ReplyDeleteDucky mentioned robber barons, and Finn rebutted.
Finn brings facts and examples, you bring hot air.
Jersey:
ReplyDeleteYou and the other liberals screaming for even more and bigger government in our lives are the ones who have bought the bridge.
Jersey, quit your friggin whining.
ReplyDeleteThe banks are getting away with murder with these fees?
Quit using your friggin card then.
Like I said, if you have a case against Visa/MC then bring it on, I have no problem with that. But I would suspect that if they could've they would've.
You friggin liberals want a law, rule, or regulation for everything. Don't like the price of popcorn at the movies? OMG we need government intervention. We need laws, we need bureaucratic oversight.
I've ran my own business, never had any problem with transaction fees.
I've also worked in government and industry, at one point I was even an environmental manager. Distilled, deionized water: Got an MSDS for that? It's water for christ sakes.
WARNING: Inhalation of large quantities may cause drowning. Ingestion of large quantities may cause excessive urination.
Not enough rules my ass.
Kiss off.
"Oy! Zutch langvitchniss vee haff heah! I'm zo glatt my deah Momma unt Poppa neffer liffed to heah vutt hass begum uff diss vunce beoodivull gundry!"
ReplyDelete~ Die Grantmudder of us All
" ... walk in, and withdraw cash. Last time I checked they still weren't charging for that."
Not to worry, Finntann, they will start levying charges for handing you your own cash across the counter just as soon as it becomes a trend.
As many pro-business people (I am one) have indicated that banks are in business to make money just like any other business. They are not public service organizations. When government squeezes them in one area, they must in turn squeeze customers in an order to compensate for the government-generated deficit.
As I said above, customers, clients, patrons, consumers -- whatever you want to call them -- suffer greatly from the continual struggle government and business indulge in trying to get the better of one another.
No matter how you slice it, the CITIZENS of any society are the ones who must pay the price for policies fostered by their leaders.
Government, however, ALWAYS wins in the end, because unlike businesses, who still must compete with one another to a certain extent, GOVERNMENT is a MONOPOLY.
Whenever things get particularly rough, GOVERNMENT almost invariably is at the bottom of it.
By the way, I've called the ignoble crypto-Marxist senator from the failed Land of Lincoln, Dick DIRTBIN for many years, and have always wondered why the singularly apt appellation has never caught on.
Keep fighting, y'all.
~ FreeThinke
A word to the wise:
ReplyDeleteWhen someone whose brand of thinking you don't admire is noisily demonstrating his ineptitude at drawing logical conclusions from data present, it might not be wise to interfere in the process.
~ FreeThinke
Typical wingut. Blame someone whose bill saved the public some money only to have the Banks screw us again with a loophole and call him a 'Socialist Senator from the failed state of Illinois,' Pretty stupid, dude.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Bd, Durban is pretty stupid. And those who believe in government schemes like this are pretty stupid as well.
ReplyDeleteThe those like you who support tax credits for the rich while your own family suffers.
ReplyDeleteSuffer or not, the difference BD is that we don't think we are entitled to other peoples money.
ReplyDeleteI am certainly not against drawing an imaginary line across income, below which people pay no taxes. But the line doesn't move simply because you choose to procreate more often, and more often irresponsibly as well.
Below the line, yeah poverty sucks, you pay no taxes. Above the line... everybody pays the same percentage of income in taxes.
The government has no more right to set the price of electronic transactions than it has to set the price of beef or beer.
Cheers!
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