The banksters blinked. Bank of America, along with most other large banking corporations, has dropped a $5 fee for debit cards that was supposed to be imposed this fall. It's not much to celebrate, though. Like Netflix and its dopey and dead Qwikster spinoff for DVD rentals, this is only good news because the biggest banks won't be taking a planned course of action that promised to add to customers' 3-year-recession blues while padding the banksters' bottom line with virtually no effort.
You'll still be better off if you get your money out of places like BOA, Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and the like. BTW, this Saturday is Bank Transfer Day. Organizers suggest you put whatever savings you have left at this point into credit unions and community banks instead of the big bankster systems. They're still offering virtually no interest on savings deposits, anyway, and there are plenty of better alternatives in our local markets.
Don't think you're breaking the banksters' hearts by leaving, though. Our deposits in banks today are worthless to banksters. Listen to what Don Sturm, the owner of American National Bank, was quoted as saying in Sunday's NY Times when asked about checking and savings deposits: "We just don't need it anymore. If you had more money than you knew what to do with, would you want more?"
FDIC-insured accounts are being overrun with cash taken out of risky investments, and there's still no stomach for lending among banksters since the 2008 recession. So we sit in a standoff of declining demand and confidence. It's going to be years before we can get back to some kind of normal business picture after the Bush-era mortgage-lending defaults, deregulation, socialism for the rich in Republican tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%, investment fraud at the highest levels of finance, and a decade of anemic job creation and shrinking paychecks for the rest of us 99%.
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