New Math
Say you wake up one morning and discover a $100 bill in your pants pockets. Now, if you’re like me, you’ll start furiously searching your brain to discover what you might have been up to the night before. But, upon realizing that I’d done nothing illicit, I might head to my bank to deposit said money. And, having found that money, and done a bit of working out, I might treat myself to a nice breakfast. Let’s say it’s a really nice breakfast. Like $90 worth of good. And, just for fun’s sake: the Benjamin stuck in the bank brought my balance up from $0.
So then: In normal human terms: $0 + $100 – $90= $10. But in bank terms it’s -$22. Surely there must be a mistake. Nope. See a bank is going to do a day’s withdrawals _first_, and _then_ do that day’s deposits. So: $0 -$90= -$90. So the bank tacks on an overdraft fee. So your -$90 – $32 = -$122. Once they’ve hit you with that overdraft fee, they feel pretty comfortable adding your deposit into their system.
In 2009, overdraft fees account for $39 billion in banking revenue. Who gets that money?
These guys.
And who is paying that $37 billion? Here’s a hit: the rich have more in the bank than nothing. It’s damned near impossible to opt out of this system. Banks don’t give you the choice to _not_ let them “extend you the loan”. More than that: if you earn money, you’ll need a bank to cash that check. If you’re not a member of a bank, you’re going to get charged– if they do it at all.
Thirty Seven Billion Dollars. By way of contrast, the Federal government is spending $47 billion on extra unemployment benefits this year. Basically, if congress were to stop letting banks redistribute wealth from your pockets into their own, it would be almost as effective at propping up our economy as what congress is willing to do.
$37 billion in unasked for loans. And the banks are still unprofitable. Why do their senior managers still have jobs?
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