Michael wrote, in part:
> it's just easier for them to do business in cash, use check cashing > businesses and money orders, and avoid the bank altogether. Lots of folks > don't use banks, credit cards or ATMs, instead relying on cash and money > orders and barter to pay monthly bills. It's a diverse economy out there! > Chris responds: I wouldn't exactly tout check cashing stations as an option - granted, people use them, but most of the folks who rely on them are forced to because they have no other options, can't get checking accounts, etc. They wind up paying 10% (last I heard) of their check sum to the cashing station as a fee. It's legalized usury, plain and simple. It's expensive to be poor. For many banks, NSF fees have now become their primary profit centers. They used to claim it was a processing fee of some sort - that the fee represented the labor required to amend the account, etc. Now, of course, they don't even bother making that excuse - they simply lay a guilt trip on you (You spent money you didn't have!), so now it's a punitive fee. Only nobody ever explained how exactly banks determined it should cost a customer 30 - 40 dollars for bouncing a check, or for that matter why the NSF rates should continue to go up year after year like clockwork. (What, there's a demand? ) Guilt and punishment, in my estimation, was never an acceptable explanation for what's becoming blatant profiteering in fee determinations. Easily, before the decade's out, it'll probably cost an individual 50.00 or more to bounce a check. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are growing fee abuses across the spectrum of financial industry services, and they're becoming so routine we pretend we don't even notice anymore because it's useless to fight them. That thinking needs to change very quickly because things are getting out of hand. We're are really going to be paying through our noses if we don't start talking about as an issue, locally and nationally. When Wellstone campaigns this fall here in town, I plan on giving him hell about the power of the financial industry lobby. Everybody knows they're riding roughshod over the public, particularly low income folk, and nobody is doing anything to reign them in and set limits. Of course, they're major campaign contributors (need we say more?) and politicians fear them. And the newspapers certainly don't talk about financial industry abuses from the consumer point of view. But it's time to start speaking up. Otherwise, it will only get worse. Beckwith Ward 6 _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
