Bookworm on Oct 05 2011 at 11:56 am | Filed under: Open Threads
My brain is so jumbled (more so than usual), that I haven’t reached the point of coherence that enables me to write things down. I bet you guys can do better. Open Thread away!
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Ymarsakar on Saying the unsayable about Hispanics
Yesteryear:
Anyone remember when banks offered toasters to televisions just by opening an account and the depositor actually earned interest, too.
This year:
Starting in December, customers who hold its mid-level Citibank Account will be charged $20 a month if they fail to maintain a minimum balance of $15,000 in their combined accounts. Previously, account holders had to carry a minimum balance of $6,000.
At the same time, customers who have the bank’s EZ Checking account will start being charged $15 a month if they don’t carry a minimum balance of $6,000. Citi (C) says it is phasing out the EZ Checking package, which currently carries no monthly fee, and is instead offering customers either the Citibank Account or its Basic Banking account, which also carries a fee.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Citi-announces-new-fees-on-cnnm-215283525.html?x=0
Tomorrow:
Money orders will be making a come back.
If they converted that 15k into gold and silver and stored it in Zurich’s vault, it would accrue much better value compared to the monetary inflation Obama has intentionally generated.
On Sadie #1,
I’m all for companies being allowed to do whatever they wish to make a profit… but I have never been able to find a logical rationale behind these limits and the charges based on these limits.
Can anyone reading this offer a logical reason why you would charge such a fee (eg, $15/month for not carrying a $15,000 minimum limit as opposed to a $6,000 limit?) Nearly all the activity is electronic transmission of bits and bytes – and it doesn’t MATTER what your balances are in the electronic world. No physical human employee is having to count dollar bills by hand here, costing time and money… so what is the rationale?
It’s similar to that other issue of a $5/month fee for debit cards. Debit cards were introduced to reduce the risks associated with credit card defaults. You can’t default on a debit card, of course; all you can do is bring its balance down to zero. Now they want to charge $60/year (at $5/month) for the “privilege” of running a debit card with their institution?
I think most of this is unintended consequences of Dickie Durbin’s financial amendment to a recent law restricting various other charges by such institutions that Dickie considered predatory or usurious.
I’d shop around.
Mike Devx
The law of unintended consequences? Maybe. Possibly. I doubt it. They knew it would happen.
Mike, I’m sure it’s another dastardy Democrat-Leftist plan to cause engineered crisis, which will blow up sooner or later in some’s faces while the Left takes credit and gains ever more power from it.
http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/weapons-of-war-human-universal-weapon-system/
For those interested in my analysis of the above, I tried to give as complete a summary as I could of all the potential fundamental systems around.
The only thing I left out were psychological weapons of mass destruction.
Mike – why stop with banks? Bought or sold a house recently? What the hell are “closing costs” these days? Back in the old days when there was a room full of cranky old bastards in green eye-shades somewhere who had to physically move paperwork from one set of files to another, stopping to stamp them along the way, recording documents – okay. It was still a rip-off, charging thousands of dollars for that service, but somebody was actually doing something. Nowadays? Nowadays you have a nineteen-year-old assistant, blowing bubbles and going ‘doink’ on a couple of computer keys with a forefinger while listening to their i-pod – and the whole thing takes about eight seconds. Somehow or other, though, it still costs buyers thousands of dollars! How the hell does that get justified?
You can thank Barney Frank and Chris Dodd for that. Banks had been gouging retailers. They’ll now have to fall back on gouging customers.
“The changes include the elimination of free checking and debit rewards programs, higher required minimum balances in checking accounts, higher interest rates and lower credit lines for credit cards, higher ATM fees and monthly fees to use debit cards. Wells Fargo announced this week that it will test a $3 monthly fee for debit card users starting Oct. 14 in Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington and Oregon, following a similar test under way by JPMorgan Chase in Wisconsin.
The tests follow a cap the Federal Reserve placed on interchange fees that banks charge retailers every time a customer swipes a debit card. the rule is the result of the Durbin amendment to the Dodd-Frank financial reform act passed in July 2010. Starting Oct. 1, bank charges are limited to about 24 cents per transaction, down from 44 cents.”
http://www.creditmachines.com/credit-cards/banks-raising-fees-to-compensate-for-lost-revenue-due-to-federal-financial-reform-frank-dodd-act/
This is a lengthy article, but it might be worth a read. I haven’t made up my mind. Some of what he says definitely rings true – but I guess I’m used to the way it is…or has been, for the last few decades. Still, with financial disaster staring us in the face, it’s definitely something to consider.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=195434
Started to make several comments. Decided they were better left unsaid.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/nearly-half-million-send-michelle-africa
In de newz today:
—–
Georgette Mosbacher, RNC Finance Co-Chair and huge GOP fundraiser [...] went on to say:
Fellow bundler and sideline-sitter John Catsimatidis added, “I’m going to go with Mitt Romney.
—–
Isn’t that nice? They’re picking our nominee for us. ”All you little people, yes you, you over there, and you too… please shut up and go home. We have chosen the nominee for you. Now shut up, put a little smile on your face, go do whatever it is you little people do, and be happy.”
Well, Georgette baby, there’s a leeetle problem here. Yes, you have the money and can inundate the airwaves with the best of them (Obama). But that doesn’t guarantee you anything.
At the convention, the nominee must gather 50%-plus of the delegates. Romney is simply going to have trouble getting above 40%. He might not be above 35% going into the convention.
Some of the candidates will bow out before the convention. They’ll either release their delegates to vote their consciences, or they’ll throw their support to another candidate. It’s pretty much RINO-Romney against a slate of mostly-conservative others, and their conservative delegates. Are those delegates going to go with Romney?
And then the wheeling and dealing at the convention begins. What if Romney is on top at 35% and the others are grouped behind? What a convention THAT would be! How do end up with a nominee? What kinds of backroom discussions go on? You get high-ranking members of the Perry, Cain and Gingrich teams together in a room; maybe a representative of Sarah-PAC joins them with a proposal and a promise of whole-hearted support, IF…
It could be one wild convention.
Georgette Mosbacher at the GOP convention, in the Romney Romper Room: “Where are the rest of my delegates?”
Aide: “They’re off in the RINO room, Your Highness. Oh Great Queen of All Magnificence. They’re trying to figure out how to back out of all those weird conservative promises Romney had to make to survive the primaries.”
Georgette: “Well get them in here. And where are the rest of the delegates, who are supposed to Come To Me?”
Aide: “The Cain, Perry, and Gingrich delegates? They’re in the Reagan room. They’ve been there for hours. I hear it’s very confrontation but they’re close to a deal.”
Georgette stomps her foot and screams. “I will NOT have this! I won’t have it, I tell you! You go in there and you tell them, *I* have the money, *I* have the power, and if they know what’s good for them, they will get their little asses over here and kiss my ring right now.”
Aide: “I… I… Your Highness, I don’t see how…”
Georgette: “Five minutes! I will give them five minutes! You go tell them. Now!”
Aide bows, leaves. After three minutes he returns.
Georgette is standing there, tapping her foot impatiently. ”Well? Where are they?”
Aide shrugs. ”They’re not coming. But they did give you this.” He unfolds a T-shirt, yellow gold, with a coiled snake across the front and the saying, “Live Free Or Die”
99 er’s
Not like 49er’s
what do you all think? I just read this at PJ media.
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/10/05/an-open-letter-to-the-self-proclaimed-99/?singlepage=true
Pretty sad. Living in a dream world. I guess they didn’t get their first job when they were 10 years like moi.
this got me thinking: what would the depression of the ’30′s sounded like if we had the same social media we have today? guys in soup lines using twitter off free WiFi…
suek,
It woulda been worth it if they’d stayed.
0>;~}
If a Republican doesn’t have the guts to try to break the back of the Left, he’s a non-entity to me.
Michel…
Some of those signs are interesting…
“Knowledge should be free”
Guess this person doesn’t know about public libraries. Knowledge isn’t the problem – the problem is the system that makes your knowledge irrelevant unless you have the blessing of those power mongers who give out degrees – if you’re willing to pay for them.
Mike Dev re: 10 & 11
The money/donor issue can be overcome if everyone goes the their preferred candidate’s website and donates $5, $10, or a $100. If 2 or 3 million people donate 100 bucks it adds up quick. One of the things I have heard the most while following the candidates up here in NH is that no donation is too small. I remember working as a bartender. My first day on the job I was upset with people leaving me a couple of quarters until the end of the shift and I counted up all the quarters.
That said there are a few of the candidates running who can’t win even if they have the money for campaigning and advertising. That would be the ones running as Republicans anyway as they don’t use the money to stuff ballot boxes by hiring winos to vote.
And in regard to the lunacy down at Wall Street, they are the “useful idiots” that the socialists need to cause a revolution. Too bad with all their education they weren’t taught how the same “useful idiots” of a generation ago liked what they helped create in Cuba or Two generations ago what was created in Russia.
Even when we get a Republican in office it is going to be an uphill battle to get things back to order. Fortunately we have (so far anyway) an alternative to the main stream media. Don’t you just love that these people on Wall Street who are sharing their stories via I Phones on the internet. We shall overcome the oppressors. Last I knew Apple and Google were pretty big corporations and the best I can tell neither of them went into business to lose money.
bizcor,
I don’t think any of the candidates can get 50% of the delegate count IF they simply went through the nominating process. The question for me is which candidates are going to take it all the way to the convention.
I went on my Georgette riff because she said: it’ll be easier, because now we know who it is who will be our nominee.
That’s two or three months before anyone casts a vote of any sort! She’s decided on Romney, and she’s telling all the rest of us, that’s the way it’s simply going to be. Oh, really? He’s getting only 23% of the vote in polls, and all has been decided?
So, which candidates will take it all the way to the convention? And for those who don’t, who bow out between now and the convention, they’ll have accumulated delegates. Which way will those delegates go?
Fundraising and money won’t tell the whole story. As you said (bizcor) a little bit from each of many supporters can go a long way – it can get you through to the convention. And if no one is at 50% – which will happen if at least four candidates stay in the race – then it gets FUN.
Wild new Zogby poll out today: National GOP primary voters:
Herman Cain: 38%
Mitt Romney: 18%
Rick Perry: 12%
Ron Paul: 12%
Newt Gingrich: 4%
Jon Huntsman: 4%
Michele Bachmann: 3%
…
If GOP Nominee Vs Obama:
Cain 46% vs Obama 44%
Romney 40% vs Obama 41%
Perry 40% vs Obama 45%
From:
http://www.zogby.com/news/2011/10/06/ibope-zogby-poll-cain-expands-lead-over-gop-field-leads-obama-46-44/