Why Do We Hate Banks?

Over the last few years with more visibility of corruption in the corporate world, markets collapse, housing bubbles burst, sub prime fiasco, Madoff’s multi-year fraud and so on and so on. It’s troubling times.

In every spectrum of the media we see and hear how “those Bankers” caused one of the biggest market collapse in our nation’s history. The government blames them, Wall Street blames them, corporations blames them and the consumer blames them. Let’s face it, we all hate ‘em these days. We certainly don’t trust them further than we can throw them.

But, I can remember a time not that long ago when the banking industry wasn’t a bad thing. B-A-N-K wasn’t a bad four letter word. In fact, it was a well respected place to work. It was not only an acceptable place to take your money for safe keeping and earn money on your money, it was ludicrous not to. I mean these banks even guarantee the safe keeping of your monies (well, up to $100K). Pretty much your money is safe, tracked and usable while in the bank.

Let’s say a team of a bank robbers come in one day and rob the bank where your money is deposited. They steal everything in the drawers, the vaults, etc. Are you worried? No. We don’t even blink an eye when we read or hear about banks being robbed. Even if it’s the bank where you bank. It’s a nuisance. Thank goodness we weren’t in the banking centers when it was being robbed and no one was hurt, but that’s the extent of our worries. We know the banks are going to great lengths to prevent theft and they have a pretty good track record of catching bank robbers. It’s almost a sure thing you won’t get away with robbing a bank. Our money is safe. It’s insured with the FDIC. And, our money is still available to spend as we need.

Have we lost faith in banks? Then, why not take our hard earned money out of the banks and keep it close at hand? We all know if you’re not going to use a bank, you either dig a hole somewhere in your back yard for long term safe keeping or you place under your mattress or a cookie jar for ready cash. Your money is now guaranteed with S&W or a baseball bat.

But, what if those same bank robbers break into your house and steal all your money (that’s no longer in the bank….that we no longer trust). Guess what? That money is gone. Ba-bye. It might as well never existed.

Remind me again why we hate banks? Are we mad at them because they’ve gotten so big and so complex that we’re not really sure what they’re doing anymore? Perhaps. But, in all fairness, they still provide the basic services and protections that frankly we don’t have if we’re not using them.

Are we mad at them because they charge us fees for some of their services? Doesn’t every business? Are we mad because they make us pay a fee when we spend more money than we have? And hey, if you do want to spend more money than you have…..they’ll cover you. It’s an added cost, but it has its benefits, right?

These banks will also allow you to borrow money based on your “potential” so you can buy cars, houses and other things. That’s right, you don’t have to have money now to have the house, the car, the whatnot. Seems like a win/win to me.

Of course, I’m oversimplifying, but somewhere along the way our sense of entitlement and perhaps our misguided “needs” that are really “wants” have warped our value system. The corporate engine, banks included are about making money. It’s a give and take system. For everything they give, there is a take.

If you have bad spending habits, that’ll come at a price. If you quit making payments for something you promised to pay for, then you can’t keep it. This isn’t a rule just in the banking industry. This is any industry….

There are plenty of wrongs in the banking world, across Wall Sreet and sadly across humanity. But, for every wrong…there are a lot of rights that are worth remembering. To each our own, payback will come. Not always in our time frame. But, it will come. Count on it.

For those of you who work for a bank, remember the little people. You may want to spend a little more time to help us remember why we used to like and trust you.


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