Love and Kisses, Your Soon-to-Be Former Customers

 

More than thirty years ago, a friend of mine declared that our legislators were making a concerted effort to abolish the middle class.  With conviction, she stated that the U.S. government would ensure the existence of but two divisions of citizenry: the filthy rich (i.e., governmental officials and Big Business, who happened to be in bed together) and the very poor (i.e. taxpayers).  Such a shift in our social strata, she postulated, would give the filthy rich what they’d always wanted: total power.

I told her that this was America, that she’d done too much peyote in college, and to get real, for that day would never come. 

I do so hate to be proven wrong.  Today saw yet another nail hammered into the coffin of the middle class which, like the great herds of bison that once roamed our fruited plains, is vanishing before our very eyes.

Bank of America announced today that it is obliterating free checking in favor of a monthly charge of $8.95.  This fee, which carries certain conditions (none of them justifiable) equates to roughly $108 annually from the pockets of each bank customer of this huge, nationwide institution.

Why was this latest screw put to hard-working taxpayers?  The bank has announced that this move was necessary because our present administration has halted the bank’s usury of charging $35 in overdraft fees per transaction even when the actual transactions are mere fractions of those charges.  It turns out that all those now-illegal overdraft fees represented a whopping 12% of Bank of America’s revenue stream!  The bank’s spokesperson, Anne Pace, had the gall to issue the following statement, as if it would mitigate anything:

“Customers never had free checking accounts. They always paid for it in other ways, sometimes with penalty fees.”  Was this inspired bit of public relations designed to make bank customers feel any better, when clearly, they’ve been used all along?  Ms. Pace’s admission can easily be translated as, “If we can’t screw our customers one way, we’ll find another way.” 

I guess Bank of America didn’t get a big enough piece of the pie known as the $710 billion bailout in taxpayer money.  Hey, I know.  The $710 bailout was but a culmination of the beating the American public has received now for decades at the hands of those soul mates, government and Big Business.  Many factors contributed to the creation of this rotten economy; most of them are traceable back to government and Big Business skipping merrily round the mulberry bush, instituting wars for which we must pay and creating healthier economies overseas.

Euphemistically, The Powers That Be refer to our current economy as “a recession.”  Civil war would erupt and blood would run in our streets if they’d called it what it really is.  There are more Americans living now, at or below the poverty line, than there have been in more than 50 years, and the unemployment rate is perilously close to what it was at the onset of the Great Depression.  So what would you call this “recession?”

Economists can cite chapter and verse as to how this bog we’re in differs from a depression.  But quite frankly, I’m done with their blatherings, even if they’re not paid off by the government or the banks to help stave off a genuine revolution.

But why revolt when you can get even in a much more satisfactory and expeditious manner?  I made some calls this afternoon and successfully located a few smaller banks that charge zip for the privilege of playing with customers’ hard-earned cash.   If you patronize Bank of America and feel raped by this latest $108 annual levy against your business, I strongly suggest that you take your business elsewhere.