The recent actions of Bank of America to charge its debit card customers a monthly $5.00 fee has come into the light from the dark of banking practices. Bank of America reported a record 6.2 billion dollar profit while thousands of its customers struggle to keep their checking statements in the black. Drivers purchasing gas from BP, Exxon and other oil companies empty their change jars to pay for fuel to get to work while BP, Mobil, Exxon and other oil companies lavishly entertain themselves with dollars from their swollen profit sheets. Americans must stop and smell the stink of greed on Wall Street and in the corporate offices of oil refineries.
We have become too lazy and spoiled to consider our options for taking back the value of our dollar so that we can live more stress free and comfortable economic lives. We hold the power to change how the banking industry treats us; we hold the power to say how much we will pay for their gas; we must use that power and use it now. We must send the banking and gas industries strong and clear messages.
Many of us blame President Obama for everything wrong in our lives. The blame Obama game started with the banking industry for they have the most to lose with his consideration of the needs of everyday men and women over corporate greed. The banking industry does not like President Obama for several reasons. Because of legislation he signed into law, they can no longer rape our bank accounts with overdraft fees for debit and credit card accounts. Imagine the billions of dollars they lost when that bill was signed into law. So what did the greedy bankers do? They followed the lead of the airline industry and found other ways to rip us off for services. They had a meeting of their un-intelligent and borderline criminal minds and said to themselves, “If we can’t go through the front door to rip them off, let us find ways to get them through the back door”.
Banks already dictate how we spend our money. The Automatic Teller Machines (ATM’s) tell us how much we can withdraw; most of them demand that we withdraw a minimum amount of the bank’s choosing; they force us to take $10.00 even if we want or need only $5.00. They dictate where we can withdraw our money; if we use ATM’s that do not belong to our bank they charge us a fee and an additional fee for dispensing our money. Let’s think about that we pay two banks to get our own money. Our money, that we give them to hold for us that they loan to others and reap financial benefit from interest charges they charge to those that borrow it.
When my grandfather died, my grandmother, aunts and uncles looked under mattresses, in radios, car glove compartments and yes even cans planted in the ground to recover my grandfather’s cash. He neither liked nor trusted banks and I think he was very wise in that decision.
You have the power to take control, take your money and put it in a credit union account and with the low interest paid by banks today, you could keep it in the coffee can (not really encouraging that). One of our country’s biggest banks with the most American name is the most criminal of the bunch. Bank of America is the most wanted banking criminal, at the top of the charge list; housing market decline, Making Home Affordable Modification mis-mangement scandal and more. Instead of strategizing to cheat us they should be leading the effort to restore consumer faith in the banking industry. Bank of America I will not allow you to keep the choke hold on me, I will punch you hard in your financial gut until you beg for mercy and the return of my hard earned green paper that you will no longer have in your vault. Bank of America you are not America’s bank, you are its banking nightmare!