The big banks have all backed off their plan to further gouge the people with their $5 debit card fees. If you think the Occupy Wall Street movement will have no effect, well, this is it. Getting people to move their money out of the big banks has been one of their main aims. And the big banks are starting to feel the pain.
Originally posted by rwingett http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/01/pf/bank_of_america_debit_fee/index.htm?hpt=hp_t1
The big banks have all backed off their plan to further gouge the people with their $5 debit card fees. If you think the Occupy Wall Street movement will have no effect, well, this is it. Getting people to move their money out of the big banks has been one of their main aims. And the big banks are starting to feel the pain.
Well, to start with, people have every right to protest BOA's plan and to not use BOA if they don't like the fee.
But I don't see this as any kind of moral issue. When I was a kid, monthly fees for maintaining checking accounts were standard. Now they're not. But if some bank wants to start charging monthly for a checking account that's their decision to risk the market's wrath. The government sure as heck shouldn't be involved in that decision one way or the other.
Oh, and by the way, what was it that spurred banks to offer free checking accounts in the first place? Was it the government? Nope. The free market did that and the free market is what stopped BOA in its tracks. What would the OWS protests have to do with this?
Originally posted by sh76 Well, to start with, people have every right to protest BOA's plan and to not use BOA if they don't like the fee.
But I don't see this as any kind of moral issue. When I was a kid, monthly fees for maintaining checking accounts were standard. Now they're not. But if some bank wants to start charging monthly for a checking account that's their decision to ri ...[text shortened]... rket is what stopped BOA in its tracks. What would the OWS protests have to do with this?
You can try to reframe every populist victory over corporate tyranny into being just another manifestation of the "invisible hand of the free market" in action, but I ain't buying it.
Originally posted by sh76 Well, to start with, people have every right to protest BOA's plan and to not use BOA if they don't like the fee.
But I don't see this as any kind of moral issue. When I was a kid, monthly fees for maintaining checking accounts were standard. Now they're not. But if some bank wants to start charging monthly for a checking account that's their decision to ri ...[text shortened]... rket is what stopped BOA in its tracks. What would the OWS protests have to do with this?
The free market per se didn't do anything. They would have had to impose their fee and have lost customers in order for the free market to have worked its so-called "magic". What happened is that they announced a policy they were going to impose in the future and there was a lot of public outcry about it, much of it coming from OWS. To deny that the movement had anything to do with BOA's reversal is naive.
BOA is hardly one to complain about the government; if it wasn't for the taxpayers they'd have been out of business. You supported that interference in the "free market" but now cry foul if the government wants to regulate the fees that the banking oligopoly wants to charge. This is hypocrisy to the nth degree.
Originally posted by no1marauder The free market per se didn't do anything. They would have had to impose their fee and have lost customers in order for the free market to have worked its so-called "magic". What happened is that they announced a policy they were going to impose in the future and there was a lot of public outcry about it, much of it coming from OWS. To deny that the move ...[text shortened]... he fees that the banking oligopoly wants to charge. This is hypocrisy to the nth degree.
😴
This was entirely a free market decision, even if OWS protests did help make BOA's decision. OWS is part of the free market, in case you hadn't noticed. The government wasn't involved at all in it. Moreover, I was not crying "foul" at all as there was not foul in this case to cry over.
If you think the government needs to be dictating which banks charge which monthly fees, you're just plain clueless. The free market has cut banking fees to almost nothing in most cases and the free market is what's going to keep them there. Compare going into a bank to going into the DMV.
Frankly, your obsessive need to turn every comment I make into an ad hominem discussion about my "hypocrisy" or some other negative trait is getting tiresome.
Originally posted by rwingett You can try to reframe every populist victory over corporate tyranny into being just another manifestation of the "invisible hand of the free market" in action, but I ain't buying it.
Originally posted by sh76 Is OWS part of the free market?
Only in the sense that it takes place within the confines of what currently passes for a "free market." It does not represent a confirmation of your "free market" ideology, despite however much you may wish to construe it that way.
Originally posted by rwingett Only in the sense that it takes place within the confines of what currently passes for a "free market." It does not represent a confirmation of your "free market" ideology, despite however much you may wish to construe it that way.
I'm sorry, but I disagree with you here. I think boa deciding to cancel their debit card fees does represent the free market at work. They came out with a plan and their customers told them how unpopular it was so they retracted it. You realize that the planned rate hike was a response to government regulations, right?
This was entirely a free market decision, even if OWS protests did help make BOA's decision. OWS is part of the free market, in case you hadn't noticed. The government wasn't involved at all in it. Moreover, I was not crying "foul" at all as there was not foul in this case to cry over.
If you think the government needs to be dictating which banks charg minem discussion about my "hypocrisy" or some other negative trait is getting tiresome.
There is little "free market" in banking (it's an oligopoly in the US) and banking has been heavily regulated for 80 years (just not enough). Crowing about the "free market" in banking gets a LMAO!
Stop taking hypocritical positions and I'll stop pointing out your hypocrisy.
Originally posted by dryhump I'm sorry, but I disagree with you here. I think boa deciding to cancel their debit card fees does represent the free market at work. They came out with a plan and their customers told them how unpopular it was so they retracted it. You realize that the planned rate hike was a response to government regulations, right?
No, it wasn't.
You do realize that BOA would have been bankrupt without the intervention of the US government?
Originally posted by dryhump I'm sorry, but I disagree with you here. I think boa deciding to cancel their debit card fees does represent the free market at work. They came out with a plan and their customers told them how unpopular it was so they retracted it. You realize that the planned rate hike was a response to government regulations, right?
If the people storm the banks with pitchforks and torches and send the bankers to the guillotine, would that be part of the "free market" as well?
I don't care what the rate hikes were in response to. The people united in winning a great victory over the corporate vampires and all you seem to be interested in doing is belittling it as just being a part of your grand "free market" theory. It transcends your petty theories in ways you just don't seem to be able to grasp.
You do realize that BOA would have been bankrupt without the intervention of the US government?
Oh, I see. If I bail my son out of jail, then I get to dictate the further course of his life, right? The regulations passed earlier this year which limited how much boa (and any other bank) could charge retailers for each transaction caused this proposal. Dad, I'd like to write poetry for a living. Absolutely not, I bailed you out of jail that time.
Originally posted by dryhump Oh, I see. If I bail my son out of jail, then I get to dictate the further course of his life, right? The regulations passed earlier this year which limited how much boa (and any other bank) could charge retailers for each transaction caused this proposal. Dad, I'd like to write poetry for a living. Absolutely not, I bailed you out of jail that time.
The US has a poet laureate, you know. That's one job that can't be outsourced.
Originally posted by rwingett If the people storm the banks with pitchforks and torches and send the bankers to the guillotine, would that be part of the "free market" as well?
I don't care what the rate hikes were in response to. The people united in winning a great victory over the corporate vampires and all you seem to be interested in doing is belittling it as just being a part ...[text shortened]... theory. It transcends your petty theories in ways you just don't seem to be able to grasp.
I think you're missing the point. Even if the protests accomplished this feat, the free market is what enabled the protests. The free market is about more than just the free exchange of goods. It's also about the free exchange of ideas.
Originally posted by dryhump Oh, I see. If I bail my son out of jail, then I get to dictate the further course of his life, right? The regulations passed earlier this year which limited how much boa (and any other bank) could charge retailers for each transaction caused this proposal. Dad, I'd like to write poetry for a living. Absolutely not, I bailed you out of jail that time.
They caused nothing. The banks had been gouging retailers for years with fees that had no relation to costs. These were reduced by law. So the banks decided to gouge customers instead with fees that had no relation to costs and hope the government wouldn't do anything about it. Because of OWS and popular protests they had to back down. This had very little to do with the non-existent "free market" that banks in the US don't operate in.
As to the poor banks being forever in the thrall of government merely because they took a few hundred billion in taxpayer money to avoid going out of business due to their own incompetency and greed:
Bank of America defeated
01 Nov '11 21:58
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