I just thought of something, what is this 7% number from
Basically pulled out of my ass as a conservative guesstimate of the average rate of return that a bank can pull from the money it invests.
0
Options
Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
I know it's technically true but the idea of banks as 'a business' kind of unnerves me. I can't quite explain it.
Perhaps it's cause when I think of banks I think of it as just a thing that is where you put your money so you don't have to have it stuffed under your mattress. I mean, I understand a cost when you store, let's say, physical items such as old furniture since the space at a storage place is limited to some degree. With money, it basically becomes a number on a piece of paper somewhere (or, well, digital now) so I'm not entirely sure where this massive cost of upkeep comes from.
Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
Also as someone who is partially disabled (and waiting.. months.. on a claim from the government, still) and has trouble finding any work at all, every single dollar I could potentially gain or lose is a big thing.
Would those 5 dollar fees cause an overdraft if you didn't HAVE the five dollars? Cause I'm sure I'd have been hit by that. A lot.
Sorry, I really meant to say "If you can get a credit card and pay it off every month" it's better than a debit card. I've got a checking account and I can at any time pay off the entire balance of my credit card with it. I've also got it set up to auto-pay the card from that account, which my employer direct deposits my paycheck. There's not much danger of paying any interest on the balance so it ends up just being free money for me.
Credit cards are a fantastic tool if you can answer "yes" to the question "can I pay off the entire balance of this card right now" every time you charge something to it.
Of course you can get screwed if you use a credit card to borrow money, no matter what you decide to put on there. That situation isn't really comparable because you can't even do that with a debit card.
Profile -> Signature Settings -> Hide signatures always. Then you don't have to read this worthless text anymore.
0
Options
Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
Yeah, credit cards as used to "launder" money (in a sense) between your bank account and what you buy is a good way to build credit and get shit (depending if the CC has bonuses of some sort). Problem is that most people use them as 'buy now, pay way later.. maybe' type ordeals.
You just listed a bunch of things they have to have whether or not poor people have accounts there. And I think you'll find that most bank managers are salaried, so the marginal cost of an hour of their time is zero. So, so far you've cited exactly $0.00 that it costs the bank to have that poor person's account.
The marginal cost of a salaried person's time might be zero...but they still still only work so many hours in a day or week. So if the workload becomes such that they can no longer complete it, then you have to either farm that work out or hire another manager (or open another branch). If their time isn't being fully utilized, there could be a potential to downsize (close branches, have a manager cover multiple branches, whatever).
I'm salaried, but I still bill my time (by the hour) to cost centers depending what I'm working on such that my time is treated as having a cost. In fact, it's billed at a rate much higher than my salary, to account for the overhead cost of employing me (everything from my benefits to the building I work in to the cost of my computer).
The more customers a bank has, the more customer contacts and issues they'll have to deal with. Any given customer may never darken the door of the bank after opening the account...but across X customers, you can pretty much count on Y contacts requiring Z man-hours (of various cost, from tellers to managers) to resolve. As X scales up, so do Y and Z.
So when we're talking about an account they may make significantly less than a hundred dollars on over the year...yeah, they might need to charge a couple bucks for their services.
Option B is to move to a strict per-interaction charge. I know some banks were working towards this, adding like a $2 charge every single time you so much as say "hello" to a teller. People flipped out about that, too. Now imagine you have an issue, and they tell you it'll be an additional $25 charge to speak to a manager. How well would that go over, do you think?
Wells Fargo is going to start charging you a fee for A) not having enough money ($4000 I think), $5 maintenance fee and a debt card fee.
I look forward to getting that letter from them, and writing the response to them where they will learn why they are losing all my business. Been banking with them for a very long time, and I have a substantial amount of money in my checking and savings, I know they make money off my money-far in excess of what I cost them. I will not pay them a penny for anything.
You just listed a bunch of things they have to have whether or not poor people have accounts there. And I think you'll find that most bank managers are salaried, so the marginal cost of an hour of their time is zero. So, so far you've cited exactly $0.00 that it costs the bank to have that poor person's account.
The marginal cost of a salaried person's time might be zero...but they still still only work so many hours in a day or week. So if the workload becomes such that they can no longer complete it, then you have to either farm that work out or hire another manager (or open another branch). If their time isn't being fully utilized, there could be a potential to downsize (close branches, have a manager cover multiple branches, whatever).
I'm salaried, but I still bill my time (by the hour) to cost centers depending what I'm working on such that my time is treated as having a cost. In fact, it's billed at a rate much higher than my salary, to account for the overhead cost of employing me (everything from my benefits to the building I work in to the cost of my computer).
The more customers a bank has, the more customer contacts and issues they'll have to deal with. Any given customer may never darken the door of the bank after opening the account...but across X customers, you can pretty much count on Y contacts requiring Z man-hours (of various cost, from tellers to managers) to resolve. As X scales up, so do Y and Z.
So when we're talking about an account they may make significantly less than a hundred dollars on over the year...yeah, they might need to charge a couple bucks for their services.
Option B is to move to a strict per-interaction charge. I know some banks were working towards this, adding like a $2 charge every single time you so much as say "hello" to a teller. People flipped out about that, too. Now imagine you have an issue, and they tell you it'll be an additional $25 charge to speak to a manager. How well would that go over, do you think?
And that is an extremely shitty business model.
Once they abandon goodwill, they will fail. No one would start an account with them that isn't already rich (and if so, there are fucking better options than a saving account ffs), and so they will not get customers who bank with them that grow in wealth as their careers take off.
This whole scheme will only work if the major banks successfully manipulate legislation such that credit unions and smaller banks become impossible.
@McDermott See the problem is, sure it's a small amount but the beauty of pooling that money and compounding means that my $500 means they may make an extra $100 out of it just because of the nature of bank investing. But the problem they see is they want $200.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
0
Options
Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
Once they abandon goodwill, they will fail. No one would start an account with them that isn't already rich (and if so, there are fucking better options than a saving account ffs), and so they will not get customers who bank with them that grow in wealth as their careers take off.
This whole scheme will only work if the major banks successfully manipulate legislation such that credit unions and smaller banks become impossible.
They really won't fail. Personal Banking just isn't a big chunk of what any of these "banks" do anymore. It's profitable, but it's really more marketing than a crucial line of business.
We really need to go back to regulating banks out of structured finance.
What kills me is the people claiming this is the fault of the financial regulations that were recently passed. Like if the banks weren't regulated then everything would be free. Seriously?
And now their website is down. I hope that means people are leaving in droves. Greedy jerks.
In a well ordered world any essential public service like banking or insurance would be non-profit.
In a well ordered world any essential public service like banking or insurance would be non-profit.
Banking has grown from a business to a utility for the millions of people in the country who cannot have a job without a bank account. Out of the last two jobs I've had, two of them refuse to pay wages in any form other than direct deposit, and the third badgered the shit out of any employee who wanted a paper check to switch every two weeks.
I always thought that free banking for poor people was subsidized by the ridiculous amount of money that banks made off of the accounts of the middle and upper class, but I guess I was wrong.
Once they abandon goodwill, they will fail. No one would start an account with them that isn't already rich (and if so, there are fucking better options than a saving account ffs), and so they will not get customers who bank with them that grow in wealth as their careers take off.
This whole scheme will only work if the major banks successfully manipulate legislation such that credit unions and smaller banks become impossible.
They really won't fail. Personal Banking just isn't a big chunk of what any of these "banks" do anymore. It's profitable, but it's really more marketing than a crucial line of business.
We really need to go back to regulating banks out of structured finance.
IT doesn't help that heres like 4 major banks left
For what it's worth, the regulatory response in the UK to the financial crisis was to forcibly break up the part-nationalised banks and incentivise new entrants to retail banking (I think there are four, but one might be whichever bought the branch network of Northern Rock, so I don't know if that counts) in order to encourage competition.
There are also stricter solvency requirements and legislation is being passed that will compel banks with retail banking and investment banking operations to ring fence them so that the investment bank side can fail without taking the retail bank with it. A side effect of this may or may not be that the retail operation cannot be supported by a parent group and be compliant.
Banks exist because it is generally profitable to take other peoples money under the guise of "holding onto it for them" and then invest that money in ways that generate income.
When year after year the economy is such a shitfest that you can't reliably make money that way, then you have to actually charge people for your services instead.
I'm willing to bet good money that if in a few years the economy takes a turn for the better and those profit margins become awesome again, the fees will remain.
I'm doubtful the banks will have a good run and be all "hey guys, here, no need for this anymore!" More like "awesome, back at some sweet profit margins AND they're still paying us $60 a year to use their card!"
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
0
Options
zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Banks exist because it is generally profitable to take other peoples money under the guise of "holding onto it for them" and then invest that money in ways that generate income.
When year after year the economy is such a shitfest that you can't reliably make money that way, then you have to actually charge people for your services instead.
To be fair 3 of the 4 largest US banks, also known as 3 of the banks adding fees have increased profitability over last year, and all 4 banks are profitable, and largely profitable.
Banks exist because it is generally profitable to take other peoples money under the guise of "holding onto it for them" and then invest that money in ways that generate income.
When year after year the economy is such a shitfest that you can't reliably make money that way, then you have to actually charge people for your services instead.
Isn't bank of America still pulling in like 5 or 6 billion a year in profits?
Banks exist because it is generally profitable to take other peoples money under the guise of "holding onto it for them" and then invest that money in ways that generate income.
When year after year the economy is such a shitfest that you can't reliably make money that way, then you have to actually charge people for your services instead.
Banks were charging the shit out of people to use their money back when the economy was going gangbusters. It's ridiculous to pretend that everything was fee-free until the economy crashed.
Three lines of plaintext:
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
0
Options
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I am amused by the "required direct deposit" thing, because last summer I worked at a job where I literally could not get direct deposit.
Banks exist because it is generally profitable to take other peoples money under the guise of "holding onto it for them" and then invest that money in ways that generate income.
When year after year the economy is such a shitfest that you can't reliably make money that way, then you have to actually charge people for your services instead.
Banks were charging the shit out of people to use their money back when the economy was going gangbusters. It's ridiculous to pretend that everything was fee-free until the economy crashed.
They've been cracking down on this type of bullshit in Australia recently in regards to stuff like exit fees for home loans and overdraft fees and the like. Needless to say, the banks are still hugely profitable.
The reality here is that the problem isn't "banks might need to charge fees" it's "banking fees are incredibly regressive, and inhibit competition". If the costs of opening an account for compartmentalized into a few consistent areas across the market, consumers would be able to shop around and the banks would be forced to try and bring those fees down via actual efficiency increases - rather then finding new and more bullshit ways to levy them at the fringes.
Banks exist because it is generally profitable to take other peoples money under the guise of "holding onto it for them" and then invest that money in ways that generate income.
When year after year the economy is such a shitfest that you can't reliably make money that way, then you have to actually charge people for your services instead.
Isn't bank of America still pulling in like 5 or 6 billion a year in profits?
BoA is in shit city right now, in good part because they bought up Merrill Lynch and especially Countrywide. Countrywide more or less was a criminal enterprise, so BoA is sitting on a bunch of crappy mortgages that are massive lawsuit bait due to their dubious origins, not to mention the straightforward loss due to real estate going down. And it looks like the settlement the banks were working for with the 50 states' attorney general's is falling through since California has backed out, so their downside legal liability is a huge unknown.
Their stock price has collapsed lately, and it's not a mistake that it has.
Banks exist because it is generally profitable to take other peoples money under the guise of "holding onto it for them" and then invest that money in ways that generate income.
When year after year the economy is such a shitfest that you can't reliably make money that way, then you have to actually charge people for your services instead.
Isn't bank of America still pulling in like 5 or 6 billion a year in profits?
BoA is in shit city right now, in good part because they bought up Merrill Lynch and especially Countrywide. Countrywide more or less was a criminal enterprise, so BoA is sitting on a bunch of crappy mortgages that are massive lawsuit bait due to their dubious origins, not to mention the straightforward loss due to real estate going down. And it looks like the settlement the banks were working for with the 50 states' attorney general's is falling through since California has backed out, so their downside legal liability is a huge unknown.
Their stock price has collapsed lately, and it's not a mistake that it has.
Well good
Wish it was Goldmann that was in the shit, but BOA is pretty fucking evil in their own right. Rather than what went down in 2008/2009 we should have immediately figured out how to completely destroy these companies and keep their leadership from ever touching finance again after bailing them out.
I'm sure the 3500 hundred people they laid off in August would disagree. And the 30,000 they announced as planned mid September(WSJ predicts it'll actual be closer to 40k). And all the mortgagees who are defaulting which is what caused a lot of the loss, I'm sure they're happy about it too.
As a bank why would you provide a service to non-customers that is risky as hell to the institution and basically requires predatory fees?
Do you understand a check *is*? It doesn't sound as if you do. A check is not a favor that a bank does for its customers. When you have a checking account, the bank is agreeing that you may direct it to pay money from that account to the bearer of the check. That's the fucking point of the account. If a bank doesn't wish to provide that service, or believes that cashing checks is too risky, then it should not offer checking accounts. What it can't do is allow people to have checking accounts and then refuse to cash those checks when they're presented for payment by someone who can prove they are the drawer indicated on the check.
The "risk" thing is bullshit. The bank can directly verify whether the person presenting the check for payment is the drawer, instead of outsourcing that to some other bank. It can, at the time of payment, immediately verify whether there are sufficient funds in the named account to pay; there is no question of a bounced or returned check from another institution, because the money's either there, or it's not.
By cashing checks, a bank is not providing service to non-customers. It is providing a service to customers. You know, the person who wrote the check. The only reason for refusing to cash checks from non-customers is that the bank can't skim any fees off the non-customer.
Three lines of plaintext:
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
What Bowen said was, he had a check from bank #1. He went to bank #2 with a check from his account from bank #1 written to himself. Bank #2 refused to cash a check from bank #1 for a non-customer.
What Bowen said was, he had a check from bank #1. He went to bank #2 with a check from his account from bank #1 written to himself. Bank #2 refused to cash a check from bank #1 for a non-customer.
Which is totally an okay thing for them to do.
Exactly. Unless your check is drawn on that bank, or you are a customer of that bank, the bank has zero incentive to cash a check for you. Even for customers, they'll rarely cash a check for more than you have in your account (to reduce their risk).
I'm sure the 3500 hundred people they laid off in August would disagree. And the 30,000 they announced as planned mid September(WSJ predicts it'll actual be closer to 40k). And all the mortgagees who are defaulting which is what caused a lot of the loss, I'm sure they're happy about it too.
Also, I'm confused. Wasn't the argument "lulz banks makes so much monies they don't need to charge, billions and billions in profits?"
But if they're losing money, then "good?"
So maybe it's clear now that banks (or at least BofA) do need to charge for the services they're providing?
So maybe it's clear now that banks (or at least BofA) do need to charge for the services they're providing?
I think, in this particular case, that the service that BofA needs to charge in order to provide is buying up a bunch of big liabilities disguised as other banks.
BofA is a terrible bank. Wells Fargo is also a terrible bank, but less terrible. It's (very slightly) like finding out that a defense contractor is going out of business - yes it is sad for the people who need that job but fuck that company and their shitty policies.
Also, I'm confused. Wasn't the argument "lulz banks makes so much monies they don't need to charge, billions and billions in profits?"
But if they're losing money, then "good?"
So maybe it's clear now that banks (or at least BofA) do need to charge for the services they're providing?
Indeed, you're confused. The argument was "when banks say they cannot profit unless they fee their customers to death, they are lying, because the fees are themselves a profit center and not an offset to the costs of services."
You also seem to be confused as to why BofA et al are losing money. They're not losing money because they are forced to provide free checking accounts to poor people. They're losing money because they used depositors' funds for dumbfuck things like buying Countrywide.
Three lines of plaintext:
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
What Bowen said was, he had a check from bank #1. He went to bank #2 with a check from his account from bank #1 written to himself. Bank #2 refused to cash a check from bank #1 for a non-customer.
Which is totally an okay thing for them to do.
Exactly. Unless your check is drawn on that bank, or you are a customer of that bank, the bank has zero incentive to cash a check for you. Even for customers, they'll rarely cash a check for more than you have in your account (to reduce their risk).
I'm sure the 3500 hundred people they laid off in August would disagree. And the 30,000 they announced as planned mid September(WSJ predicts it'll actual be closer to 40k). And all the mortgagees who are defaulting which is what caused a lot of the loss, I'm sure they're happy about it too.
Also, I'm confused. Wasn't the argument "lulz banks makes so much monies they don't need to charge, billions and billions in profits?"
But if they're losing money, then "good?"
So maybe it's clear now that banks (or at least BofA) do need to charge for the services they're providing?
I was wrong about bank of america, specifically, that doesn't invalidate what I said: that the majority of bank fees are designed to create profit and have nothing to do with expenses.
Fuck's sake they made $38,000,000,000 in profit from overdraft fees in 2008
Posts
Perhaps it's cause when I think of banks I think of it as just a thing that is where you put your money so you don't have to have it stuffed under your mattress. I mean, I understand a cost when you store, let's say, physical items such as old furniture since the space at a storage place is limited to some degree. With money, it basically becomes a number on a piece of paper somewhere (or, well, digital now) so I'm not entirely sure where this massive cost of upkeep comes from.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
Would those 5 dollar fees cause an overdraft if you didn't HAVE the five dollars? Cause I'm sure I'd have been hit by that. A lot.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
Credit cards are a fantastic tool if you can answer "yes" to the question "can I pay off the entire balance of this card right now" every time you charge something to it.
Of course you can get screwed if you use a credit card to borrow money, no matter what you decide to put on there. That situation isn't really comparable because you can't even do that with a debit card.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
The marginal cost of a salaried person's time might be zero...but they still still only work so many hours in a day or week. So if the workload becomes such that they can no longer complete it, then you have to either farm that work out or hire another manager (or open another branch). If their time isn't being fully utilized, there could be a potential to downsize (close branches, have a manager cover multiple branches, whatever).
I'm salaried, but I still bill my time (by the hour) to cost centers depending what I'm working on such that my time is treated as having a cost. In fact, it's billed at a rate much higher than my salary, to account for the overhead cost of employing me (everything from my benefits to the building I work in to the cost of my computer).
The more customers a bank has, the more customer contacts and issues they'll have to deal with. Any given customer may never darken the door of the bank after opening the account...but across X customers, you can pretty much count on Y contacts requiring Z man-hours (of various cost, from tellers to managers) to resolve. As X scales up, so do Y and Z.
So when we're talking about an account they may make significantly less than a hundred dollars on over the year...yeah, they might need to charge a couple bucks for their services.
Option B is to move to a strict per-interaction charge. I know some banks were working towards this, adding like a $2 charge every single time you so much as say "hello" to a teller. People flipped out about that, too. Now imagine you have an issue, and they tell you it'll be an additional $25 charge to speak to a manager. How well would that go over, do you think?
I look forward to getting that letter from them, and writing the response to them where they will learn why they are losing all my business. Been banking with them for a very long time, and I have a substantial amount of money in my checking and savings, I know they make money off my money-far in excess of what I cost them. I will not pay them a penny for anything.
Let's be clear- A credit card is just trading your mo
And that is an extremely shitty business model.
Once they abandon goodwill, they will fail. No one would start an account with them that isn't already rich (and if so, there are fucking better options than a saving account ffs), and so they will not get customers who bank with them that grow in wealth as their careers take off.
This whole scheme will only work if the major banks successfully manipulate legislation such that credit unions and smaller banks become impossible.
They really won't fail. Personal Banking just isn't a big chunk of what any of these "banks" do anymore. It's profitable, but it's really more marketing than a crucial line of business.
We really need to go back to regulating banks out of structured finance.
And now their website is down. I hope that means people are leaving in droves. Greedy jerks.
In a well ordered world any essential public service like banking or insurance would be non-profit.
Banking has grown from a business to a utility for the millions of people in the country who cannot have a job without a bank account. Out of the last two jobs I've had, two of them refuse to pay wages in any form other than direct deposit, and the third badgered the shit out of any employee who wanted a paper check to switch every two weeks.
I always thought that free banking for poor people was subsidized by the ridiculous amount of money that banks made off of the accounts of the middle and upper class, but I guess I was wrong.
IT doesn't help that heres like 4 major banks left
There are also stricter solvency requirements and legislation is being passed that will compel banks with retail banking and investment banking operations to ring fence them so that the investment bank side can fail without taking the retail bank with it. A side effect of this may or may not be that the retail operation cannot be supported by a parent group and be compliant.
When year after year the economy is such a shitfest that you can't reliably make money that way, then you have to actually charge people for your services instead.
I'm doubtful the banks will have a good run and be all "hey guys, here, no need for this anymore!" More like "awesome, back at some sweet profit margins AND they're still paying us $60 a year to use their card!"
Isn't bank of America still pulling in like 5 or 6 billion a year in profits?
Banks were charging the shit out of people to use their money back when the economy was going gangbusters. It's ridiculous to pretend that everything was fee-free until the economy crashed.
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
They've been cracking down on this type of bullshit in Australia recently in regards to stuff like exit fees for home loans and overdraft fees and the like. Needless to say, the banks are still hugely profitable.
The reality here is that the problem isn't "banks might need to charge fees" it's "banking fees are incredibly regressive, and inhibit competition". If the costs of opening an account for compartmentalized into a few consistent areas across the market, consumers would be able to shop around and the banks would be forced to try and bring those fees down via actual efficiency increases - rather then finding new and more bullshit ways to levy them at the fringes.
BoA is in shit city right now, in good part because they bought up Merrill Lynch and especially Countrywide. Countrywide more or less was a criminal enterprise, so BoA is sitting on a bunch of crappy mortgages that are massive lawsuit bait due to their dubious origins, not to mention the straightforward loss due to real estate going down. And it looks like the settlement the banks were working for with the 50 states' attorney general's is falling through since California has backed out, so their downside legal liability is a huge unknown.
Their stock price has collapsed lately, and it's not a mistake that it has.
We take cash deposits or magic cards.
The field of membership requires being a geek?
Write awful fanfiction? Membership considered.
Play Magic the Gathering? Membership granted.
Still play Pokémon? Platinum Membership.
Well good
Wish it was Goldmann that was in the shit, but BOA is pretty fucking evil in their own right. Rather than what went down in 2008/2009 we should have immediately figured out how to completely destroy these companies and keep their leadership from ever touching finance again after bailing them out.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/co?s=BAC+Competitors
Net Income (ttm):
BAC: -16.32B Bank of American Corp
C : 9.83B City Bank
JPM: 18.63B JPMorgan
WMF: 13.68B Wamu Financial
BoA has lost $16,320,000,000 in the past year...
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I'm sure the 3500 hundred people they laid off in August would disagree. And the 30,000 they announced as planned mid September(WSJ predicts it'll actual be closer to 40k). And all the mortgagees who are defaulting which is what caused a lot of the loss, I'm sure they're happy about it too.
Do you understand a check *is*? It doesn't sound as if you do. A check is not a favor that a bank does for its customers. When you have a checking account, the bank is agreeing that you may direct it to pay money from that account to the bearer of the check. That's the fucking point of the account. If a bank doesn't wish to provide that service, or believes that cashing checks is too risky, then it should not offer checking accounts. What it can't do is allow people to have checking accounts and then refuse to cash those checks when they're presented for payment by someone who can prove they are the drawer indicated on the check.
The "risk" thing is bullshit. The bank can directly verify whether the person presenting the check for payment is the drawer, instead of outsourcing that to some other bank. It can, at the time of payment, immediately verify whether there are sufficient funds in the named account to pay; there is no question of a bounced or returned check from another institution, because the money's either there, or it's not.
By cashing checks, a bank is not providing service to non-customers. It is providing a service to customers. You know, the person who wrote the check. The only reason for refusing to cash checks from non-customers is that the bank can't skim any fees off the non-customer.
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
Which is totally an okay thing for them to do.
Exactly. Unless your check is drawn on that bank, or you are a customer of that bank, the bank has zero incentive to cash a check for you. Even for customers, they'll rarely cash a check for more than you have in your account (to reduce their risk).
Also, I'm confused. Wasn't the argument "lulz banks makes so much monies they don't need to charge, billions and billions in profits?"
But if they're losing money, then "good?"
So maybe it's clear now that banks (or at least BofA) do need to charge for the services they're providing?
Yes, GOOD. That is what is supposed to happen.
The "too big to fail" thing just lets corruption fester.
Seriously, BofA has been a terrible company for DECADES. If only it had gone under in the 90s or sooner like it should have.
Would the early repayment of TARP count against net income?
This is the primary flaw in conservative logic in the modern age. At some point, laissez faire became confused with unassailable endurance.
The invisible hand of the market also selects failure. It's why you don't see too many horse-and-buggy operations outside of rural Pennsylvania.
Indeed, you're confused. The argument was "when banks say they cannot profit unless they fee their customers to death, they are lying, because the fees are themselves a profit center and not an offset to the costs of services."
You also seem to be confused as to why BofA et al are losing money. They're not losing money because they are forced to provide free checking accounts to poor people. They're losing money because they used depositors' funds for dumbfuck things like buying Countrywide.
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
I was wrong about bank of america, specifically, that doesn't invalidate what I said: that the majority of bank fees are designed to create profit and have nothing to do with expenses.
Fuck's sake they made $38,000,000,000 in profit from overdraft fees in 2008