It’s the lack of personal responsibility, stupid.
When I was a kid one of the earliest and best pieces of advice my dad ever gave me was about money.
He told me it doesn’t matter how much you make, it’s more important how much you save. The example he would use was that the guy who makes over a hundred thousand dollars but spends $125 thousand dollars a year is the loser compared to the guy who made $50,000 and saved $10,000.
Back when I was a kid we started out with Christmas Card accounts and passbook saving accounts and you earned interest. 7% interest in a savings account and you could see your money grow. He told me to always re-invest your dividends and keep separate accounts for your savings, one you use for your bills and one for your retirement and never ever tap that retirement account unless there was some crazy emergency.
People were rewarded for saving back then.
Now you have these Savings Rates taken today from The Bank of America Website-
- Growth Money Market Savings Rate .08-.30% APY
- Regular Savings Account Pays You .05%
- Custodial Savings For Youth .05%
Make note, that’s .30% as in point three percent as in three tenths of one percent
Meanwhile they will gladly lend money
For a thirty year fixed 4% or %2.75 for a variable rate mortgage.
Isn’t that akin to loansharking? Isn’t that something like they will gladly lend you money at 13 and a half times what they will pay you to keep your money in their bank in a savings account in their most generous of all accounts the .30% APY?????
They put dudes on the street in jail for charging that kinda vig.
So on top of not getting any significant return for keeping your money in their bank they decide last week to charge $5 a month to use a debit card.
Excuse me??? What are they doing now? Penalizing the folks that don’t want to use credit cards which charge exorbitant interest rates. Oh and thereby making it costly to use an instrument that would teach a novel idea by today’s standards- “Using money you already saved to pay for shit” -a debit card. Yeah let’s penalize the savers and folks that live within their means.
Using money you already have in your account it seems is wholly un-American damnit! We need youse guys to be banging your credit cards. Don’t worry, we’ll let you pay later at god-only knows what percentage rate. Oh and don’t worry if you can’t pay off your credit some time in the future. You can blame it all on us guilt free- it’s The American Way. What were they thinking, giving us access to free money?
Now the business channels scoff at the idea of savings. They tell you you are being a bad American if you are not doing your part to spend and keep the economy afloat. Seniors who were taught all along to save and then as they got older to move their money from risky stocks into more conservative investments like cash and bonds get zero return because the Government prints money like toilet paper making the dollar less and less valuable and seniors take bigger risks chasing returns in stocks only to get smoked when the markets swing violently instead of being able to get a decent rate in a CD (remember those) or in treasuries .
Picture yourself as a teenager right now.
What does a parent tell you? To keep saving in the bank? For the what, negative return you will get after they get done fucking you up the ass on every fee imaginable?
The investment magazines tell you to take out the largest loan you can afford so you can invest the money in the stock market and get a larger return on your investments than you will be paying in interest.
Trouble is that we’ve all gotten away from what we were supposed to be investing in stocks for in the first place. The idea behind investing in stocks was that you would participate in that companies’ profits in the form of dividends. Now hardly anyone pays attention to dividend paying stocks and these companies hardly even give the money back to the shareholders. They simply pay their executives ridiculous salaries and toss a few pennies or zero dividends back to their share holders. And why wouldn’t they? There is no outcry from their shareholders to pay more out, the board of directors of these huge companies are all populated with CEO’s of other huge companies who sit on each other’s boards and approve each other’s exorbitant salary increases and golden parachute exit plans when their corporate plans go to shit.
So again picture yourself as a teenager.
You see all the corruption, you see the banks not paying any interest, you hear about how there is absolutely no way they can get their social security money. You’re forced to work for a Fortune 500 company or a government job because every small employer can’t possibly afford to pay the insane costs to provide health insurance for you.
So you turn on the TV and what do you see? A commercial with a lawyer who is telling you not to pay your mortgage because you will make out way better to default on it. Then on the next channel you see that there is a massive protest going on in which people are angry because they took out loans they couldn’t possibly afford and the organizers are telling the people who are being foreclosed on to trash the places on the very last day before their eviction. Smash the plumbing, smear crap on the walls, break the sheetrock (yes this is what the protest organizers are tell people to do).
At what point did we stop taking personal responsibility. Did you not read the fucking loan that said you need to pay $2000 a month to support this mortgage and you only bring home $2000 a month? Or did you read it and because just like the banks that get bailed out, you figure that the government would bail you too out?
Every single step of the way what these kids see is a reinforcement that what you should do is to not take any personal responsibility. What’s the worst that can happen right? Things turn to shit and the government or the lawyer will bail us out.
When did taking responsibilty for our actions go out the window?
Did it all start with the broad that sued McDonalds for getting fat when she was stuffing down Big Macs like fucking tic tacs?
Or was the dude who sued Dunkies because he couldn’t read that the coffee he was about to drink on the WARNING LABEL SAID THE COFFEEE WOULD BE HOT but he drank it right away anyway. Who knew the Coffee labeled hot would actually be hot? 
Enough is enough- us working people who are trying to be responsible and have done the right things all along are fucking fed up supporting all this bull shit. We the working people who go to work early, leave work late and make sacrifices all along the way being responsible are tired of carrying all these idiots who want to blame everyone else but the person in the mirror for making shitty decisions.
No I don’t want my Government to sponsor hundreds of thousands of jobs for which there is no return in making our collective lives better. No I don’t want our government to give Multi million dollar tax credits to green technology companies who will erect a $2,000,000 windmill that will end up with energy savings of $200,000. No, I don’t want to bomb oil fields overseas with bombs our companies make so we can send our oil field repair companies to repair. You wanna “waste” money? “Waste” it on educating our children. “Waste” it on building bridges to get product from here to there more efficiently. “Waste” our money by paying lawyers to remove barriers to entry for small business instead of erecting them.
No I don’t want a government that will reward waste and irresponsible spending.
How bout looking out for us working folk, the middle class who you’re gonna need to carry us out of the mess you seem determined to drive people toward.
ENOUGH
Never mind bailing out these lousy bankers who make shitty loans, how bout instead you clean house and award the banks to existing banks that have demonstrated through strong balance sheets that they know how to asses risk. Sell off Bank of America for 2 cents on the dollar and if you’re gonna save it so it goes forward in any way shape or form let it go forth with management who have a godamn clue.
Good Morning Gloucester 
You have such a way with words.
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There is not much left to say! You have summed it up beautifly! World greed will send most of to the “poor house” if we aren’t there already. We,as the voting public, should demand that all “politicians” Federal, State, and local, take a pay cut of 75% with NO perks. Would bet the vast majority would run leaving only those that give a “damn”. Social Security: A simple cure, No ceiling on annual earnings and keep the governments “sticky fingers” out of it. They say there has been no inflation these past two years proven by no increase for those of us who worked so hard and rely on S.S. just to exist with a little dignity in our old age. Take a look at your average grocery, Fuel, Clothing, Electric and Gasoline increases in the past two years. Who is kidding who??. I’m not worried about myself but very concerned for the future of our children and grandchildren. Seriuosly wonder if there is a “light at the end of THIS tunnel”
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I wish I had said that….
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Thanks for saying what most people are thinking…
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After that, all I can say is…Joey C. for president!!!
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Go ahead joey, just open the window, stick your head out and scream “i’m as mad as hell and i’m not going to take it anymore” and then put your cash under your mattress.
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ask your parents/grandparents who lived through the depression what this looks like.. they’ll tell you ‘deja vu all over again’. except this time around the greed monkeys have computers to help them lie while they’re stealing. as mr. berra also famously said, ‘it ain’t over til it’s over’. hang on to your hats, buds, bumpy ride ahead.
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Great piece….I think I am switching from BoA ASAP before they sink themselves…
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I couldn’t agree more. We should all be down on Wall Street with the protesters. But I can’t take off the time from work …
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Well joe, I have a lot of issues with the way you portray those protestors, and those who have had that 2k mortgage, I had one myself, and made it easy, until the economy on a whole cut me down, and I worked every hour available to me. I have even pulled into your dock at 10 dollar an hour wage as a sternman to earn my childs dinner since my return home. Don’t you think for a minute that the game played out the way you think all the way across this country. I was raised on the same values as you, in the same town, but I met my financial demise on the west coast. I stuff my savings into my mattress now, it seems to be the safest place. And the banks are so full of shit, thats what they now give as interest. But, i do enjoy your site, and have from both coasts. Keep it up, I find it hilarious that a guy who reviews high end electronics and complains about his ira return percentage enjoys so much time on the docks. no offense, of course.
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Bank of America is one of the biggest reason’s the markets crashed in 2008 and we bailed them
out.
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An awesome rant. A property owner I know whose mortgage is under water — like approximately half the properties in America — was advised by a real estate agent to just forget trying to sell the place and default on the loan. Because if you can’t flip your property for a double digit profit anytime you feel like it, what’s the point of having a mortgage on your house?
And I was especially happy that you went after the green energy boondoggle in your rant. What a load of manure that is — massive multinational corporations moving in to take advantage of tax credits and then running off with taxpayer money while useless 500-foot wind “farms” clog up Middle America, promising to implement technology that is the equivalent of using clipper ships to move freight across the ocean. This is why we all abandoned wind power the second a replacement became available, people. We chose STEAM engines over sailing ships. Because the wind doesn’t blow on command. You want to turn on your wind-powered non-conventional oven so that you can make your supper? Too bad. The wind’s not blowing tonight. But go ahead, build those billion-dollar wind “farms” on agricultural land. Maybe it’s no big deal, really, because agribusiness de facto owns all that farmland anyway. And if you use it for crops instead of wind turbines, the small farmer/wage slave/welfare recipient will just stick more subsidized corn and soybeans on the land to create more processed food that the government will make so cheap, McDonald’s has no choice (think of the profit margin!) but to cram non-food laboratory-created corn products into $1 hamburgers. And the consumer gobbles piles of this pseudo food ($1 hamburgers! I can afford to eat three a day! Deeelicious! ) until they become so obese they can’t work. Then it’s either sue McDonald’s for making them fat or go on disability. We live in some crazy, crazy times. Whew! I’m exhausted and my rant was not nearly as complicated as yours. Hats off to you!
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Hooray, and thanks Joey……we’re all mad as hell and don’t know what to do about it.
Keep up the rants, we’re standing right next to you…..
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An excellent rant, and every word of it true. What has happened to accountability and responsibility in this country? And has anyone noticed the trend in recent years of banks making deposit slips harder to get. What is that about? I would think they would want you to deposit more money than you withdraw, but they give you many more checks than deposit slips, and then hide them so you have to beg some from the teller, which they grudingly give you, like you’re asking for free money or something. That baffles me completely. I use a debit card for all purchases (other than cash), and one of my banks (Cape Ann Savings Bank) does charge a $1.00 fee if I use it as a debit card instead of identifying it as a credit card (which it isn’t) so I never use it and use my other bank’s debit card (Eastern Bank) instead. But if they start charging me to use my debit card, I’m gone. Hear me Cape Ann Savings Bank – put out deposit slips or direct your tellers not to make customers feel like they are robbing you when they ask for deposit slips, and drop the charge for using my debit card, so I can use it – I’d love to be able to do all my business with a Gloucester bank. You’re a bank for Heaven’s sakes, not a credit card company! Otherwise you’re fine and I love you.
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Have had checking, savings, loans and mortgages with most of the “cape Ann” banks since 1960 and some of the major national banks as well. The old Gloucester Coop was one of the best in those days. When TD North took over the local on Rogers street I “Bailed” out immediately. Since those “glorious” days of “interest bearing” and :”interest free checking” Have narrowed it down to ONE bank that has certainly treated me fairly. Do not believe there is a better one to be found in the U.S. than ROCKPORT NATIONAL.
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Right on…bank of gloucester is open until 7pm on Thurs…i think this is it for my family. Closing the BofA account.
This depression will look a tad different, no bread lines…you get an EBT cad this time…you get to blend in with society. Everyone gets to be the same…
Take care of urself people…this is the start…this is what it looks like and your gov’t aint gunna be there for you in the end.
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Joey C. – Wow! You said it like it is…..wish I could send this to Obama….is there a little shorter version out there? Can I just pull some paragraphs out to send to the White House? I feel the pain you feel! Squeezed!@!!!! Thanks for the excellent piece! Lisa
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Go local banks.. love Bank Gloucester, always someone answers the phone and they will call me if something is looks wrong on both our business and personal account. The rant is so correct, why charge fees when they already have the money. The Go Local expression says it all. Thanks
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I saw this coming 20 years ago when banks started talking about “creative financing”. The double talk moved between the real estate business , insurance business and lenders .
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Oh, how true, how true. I bought my first home and took out my first mortgage at Cape Ann Savings Bank in 1959. Before I signed the papers, my banker at that time tried to talk me out of doing it until I had more saved. Somehow I can’t see any banker doing that today. It’s called greed!
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Just to focus on the local bank advantage: the customer service (what’s that you say??) at Rockport National can’t be beat as far as I am concerned. They have great hours, friendly tellers, and they always give my dog treats at the drive-thru window! It really feels personal, not like the the nationals where you electronically bank and never interact with a friendly face. During a very tight stretch for me about 10 years ago, Rockport National took a chance on me and refinanced my mortgage and I was able to pay it in person (imagine) every month until I had a more stable financial footing. They are the best in my book!
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Add Chase to the list.
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Love this rant Joey! I wish that it wasn’t all so true but this is the reality we live in unfortunately. I am with EJ. I have banked with Cape Ann Savings for so many years but latelyI notice that they have been very stingy with the deposit slips too. One teller told me that I could “order extras” next time I order checks…what? So, now I ask for them every time I go near there since I have been reduced to hoarding deposit slips from my own bank with my money in it. The absurdity of that is beyond the pale. I closed my Bank of America Visa account down yesterday. I don’t use it that often and pay it off in full when I do but that ends now too. Just a note to debit card users- Always use your card as a credit card. That will help until they all start charging for every little thing. Thanks for letting me rant a little bit too 🙂
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The cap on debit card interchange that is causing BofA to charge fees on debit cards does not apply to banks with less than $10B in assets. So, the best way to voice dissent (and avoid debit card fees) is to vote with your fee and move your money to a local back.
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I personally feel it’s better to deal with local banks as well. As for your rant; I totally agree!!!! The waste of money I see everywhere around me is shocking. I have to work very hard for every penny….sometimes it feels we are being punished for doing the right thing…
I wish we could go back to using just cash everywhere. Does anyone really realize how much the use of credit cards drive up the prices of goods? Reward programs…right…do you really think you don’t pay for that?????
Wake up America!!!!!!
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Haven’t had a credit card in years, have owned a local business for 10 years and don’t accept credit cards because I have always felt they are immoral. If you don’t have the money, you don’t need it. Period.
PEACE!
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Unfortunately, in my business there is no way to not accept credit cards.
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If something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Everyone’s parents told them that, too. Based on that standard alone, everyone should have seen the train wreck coming when people you knew were making small salaries were getting mortgages and buying $750,000.00 houses.
The mantra has got to be:
1. Strict term limits for ALL political office holders.
2, Abolish all lobbys in Washington and elsewhere
3. No “special perks” for law makers that aren’t also enjoyed by the general population.
4. Mandatory participation in Social Security and Medicare by elected officials – not their own plan.
5. Stop paying legislators after their term ends – it was never intended to be a lifetime job.
Maybe it’s too late. The economy has histoically bounced back from down times, but we’re really testing it this time…..
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Tim; you took the words right out of my mouth. I agree 100%
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Not just B of A. Chase is one of the leaders of this group too.
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A little info on debit vs credit, and why our banks want us to use our debit cards as credit cards (hint: it benefits them, but not ultimately us) http://banking.about.com/od/checkingaccounts/a/debitvscredit.htm
When you use a debit card, you can sometimes choose how the purchase is processed. It can either be an online transaction or an offline transaction. If you punch in your personal identification number (PIN), it’s an online transaction – it gets completed electronically and it’s done pretty quickly. If you don’t use your PIN and you sign a charge slip instead, it’s an offline transaction. Offline transactions are processed much like plain-vanilla credit card purchases.
Even though you use a debit card, offline transactions are very much like credit card transactions. Your debit card might have a Visa logo on it, for example, so it runs through the Visa network. It’s not a credit transaction, but it uses the same infrastructure.
In summary, when you’re using a debit card:
•Choosing “Credit” makes it an offline transaction
•Choosing “Debit” makes it an online transaction
Who Cares?
So far, you may be unimpressed. Who cares how each transaction is processed? You might not, but banks and retailers do. When you do an offline transaction and simply sign a charge slip, the retailer has to pay a small percentage of your total purchase – perhaps 2%. This fee goes to the bank that issued your debit (or credit) card as an interchange fee.
What about online transactions? Retailers can get those done for a lot less. They might only pay 10 cents or so per transaction.
As you might imagine, 2% of every purchase adds up to a lot of money. The banks and credit card companies would love for you to choose credit because they get 2% of every dollar you spend. Retailers, on the other hand, beg to differ. They’d prefer that you choose debit so that they don’t have to pay a hefty interchange fee.
In order to maximize revenue, banks give you an incentive to choose credit (or a penalty for choosing debit, depending on how you look at it). They may charge you a fee for online transactions – usually in the ballpark of one to two dollars. Once you discover these fees, you’re more likely to choose credit next time. In addition, they may offer rewards (such as airline miles or entry into a sweepstakes) each time you choose credit.
Of course, somebody has to pay the 2% interchange fee. Retailers don’t pass it on to you as a transaction cost. However, it has to come from somewhere – they have to build it into the price of the products and services you buy.
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E.J. is right of course. I am a retailer. You don’t want to see what taking credit cards is costing me every month. Everyone treats this as a ‘cost of goods sold’, which it is.
Now, as for the debit card transactions; I was told by my processor that I would need a new machine (mine is about one year old…..) to comply with the latest security requirements. No, they could not program my brand new machine I had bought, from them, but I had to get a new one. Oh, it ‘only’ costs about $500
ummmm, no, thank you. I don’t get enough debit card transactions to justify yet another expense, so at this moment, I run those debit cards as credit cards, and yes, I pay a higher percentage for that.
I wish I could get that 2%….it’s a lot more than that, especially with all the reward cards these days…..
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I think my favorite was a month ago when Bank of America notified me they were under the impression I had paid my entire mortgage loan, when in actuality my house has been in the foreclosure process for a year…ummm, right hand, meet left hand, and left hand, this is right hand…have you two EVER met? Stupid bank, but for the record, they weren`t the originators of the loan!
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Thanks for this post, I’m not the only crazy fed up one. I just got off the phone with BOA customer service and went a little ape shit with them. They kept reading from their scripts saying what they can’t do for me and not offering any solutions. Use your brains figure out a solution that works for the customer, to keep them a customer. I’ll be taking my business to a bank that values their customers.
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I’m thinking about doing a local bank comparison chart. Hmmmm
Possibly interview some local bankers from Rockport National, Cape Ann Savings and The Cooperative Bank to see what advantages they offer over the big National and Regional Chain Banks
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good idea. straightforward, no bullshit replies to your questions would tell us a lot. these people live where we live, they know lies will come back and bite em in the ass eventually. go for it.
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Fantastic idea Joey! Go national with the piece!! Perhaps those who have managed to save a few pennies, will start doing business with our local banks. Might not be a good idea though. It could create a situation where, with too much business, we will lose the friendly, “one on one” customer service we are so accustomed to and appreciate.
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I just got rid of BOA….they will end up shooting themselves in the foot very soon!!
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Remember when you KNEW your banker? I can remember, as a young kid, going into the Co-Operative Bank with my mother, and sitting down with Mr. Guitarr to open an account. In a smaller city like Gloucester, you probably knew personally people who sat on the Boards of Directors. My uncle was on the BoD of one of the local banks – forget which.
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Mr Guitarr? What a great name! His first name wasn’t ‘Johnny’ by any chance, was it?
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“vig”. New word! <3!
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Nah, they’ve been using that word around Vegas since Christ was a deck hand!
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I live in Springfield and bank at a small, local bank – Hampden Bank. No fees checking, interest-bearing savings accounts, no-fees debit transactions and they know my name! When I retire in 2 1/2 years and move to Cape Ann I’ll be banking at a local. I shop at small, locally-owned stores as much as possible, although it costs more, and I love the farmers’ market. If we all shopped and banked locally and stopped using credit we could tell the government and big banks that we are not going to put up with their shenanigans. We’re taking our lives back, dammit! We’re going back to neighborliness and caring about each other. We’re teaching our kids to be responsible citizens. How ’bout it?
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This rant is what happens when an economics major from Bentley who’s also a lobster dealer gets fired up. Thanks for the wisdom, Joe.
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Econ major from Bentley?! Does that make Joey an elite? 😉
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Not sure – probably justs adds a buck apiece to the lobsters LOL.
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Joey, I think you should be heading up the protest group in Boston!! They seem to need someone to bring together all of their collective ideas and give the group direction & focus. I nominate you!!
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Hi Joey,
If I didn’t already love you with the schweddy ball rant, I REALLY love you for telling it like it is here.
Did you see this one?
http://www.gloucestertimes.com/local/x1281105638/Register-targets-Bank-of-America-on-fees-CPA-funds
Grrr…..
and this:
http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/ron-paul-and-the-occupy-wall-street-protest/?source=patrick.net
People have got to cancel their accounts with B of A, Wells Fargo, Chase, etc– all those big banks and instead invest in the small banks. Harder because of the regulations, but that’s what will bring real change.
Reading from Arlington,
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