^^ both my checking accounts are free. Also, the article was talking about more than $1. They referenced a smaller bank who right now already set it up where they said no overdraft fees but an account is $19.95 a month there. They simply listed that as an example of a bank and what they decided to charge when they decided to get rid of their overdraft charges to give an idea of what banks might do if their hands were forced to get rid of them.

7/2/2009 4:49:08 PM

that seems like a case where competition would force the fees to be less.

i don't think that overdraft fees should be eliminated. something just needs to be done about banks who use overdraft fees as a main revenue source (seemed to be the case at wachovia when i used to bank there).

7/2/2009 4:53:52 PM

i agree it would force them to be less, just aggravating to never overdraft and possibly in the future have to start paying because people who couldn't manage their finances complained about overdraft fees.

7/2/2009 4:59:23 PM

Quote :

"What? No really, what? Are you essentially saying that because the economy is in the shitter, EVERYONES credit score should be automatically lowered by some fixed percentage because they are all inherently more risky? Because that is certainly what it seems like you are saying."

I never said that. But you seem to enjoy pretending I say things I don't, so you go ahead and keep thinking that if it makes you feel better about yourself.

Quote :

"I haven't been arguing that point and never claimed anything like that. Thanks for failing. "

What can I say, I learned from the best and you've been a wonderful teacher.

7/2/2009 8:45:01 PM

Quote :

"what would you suggest? the market will work it out? of course. that's the answer to everything."

How about we start with consumer education, given that this lies at the root of the problem? It's not as if we lack for consumer advocates.

Oh gnoes, there we go again with the trying to solve problems without immediately resorting to the government. It's clearly unpossible.

7/2/2009 10:52:00 PM

would this consumer education be somehow mandated or supplied by the gov't?

7/2/2009 11:06:57 PM

Exactly why now is it necessary for it to be supplied by the government? Is the government the only one capable of providing it, now? Is the government the only one with an interest in seeing it happen?

I find it telling that you even need to ask this question.

7/3/2009 8:31:59 AM

it's not "telling", it's rhetorical.

But it's also legitimate - he said, should the government mandate or provide financial education. If you don't think the gov't should provide it, then they would certainly have to mandate it, because financial institutions are not going to start providing it on their own. No mortgage company is going to say "you must go through this week-long training course before we lend you money!"

"Is the government the only one with an interest in seeing it happen?" well, probably not the only one interested in seeing it happen, but the lenders certainly aren't interested. It's been documented over and over again that the financial industry preys on consumer ignorance, and it works very much to their advantage (people rack up late fees, they don't understand how compound interest works, they don't understand the legalese in the contracts, people are bad, inherently, at thinking about big numbers and long amounts of time, etc). Without gov't mandates, the banking industry would gladly maintain the status quo of the last few years, as their own lobbyists on Capitol Hill have recently proved.

7/3/2009 9:22:31 AM

Because there's no such thing as activists and volunteers. Unless they're working on the government's payroll.

Your collective failure of imagination is astounding at times.

7/3/2009 9:48:12 AM

i'm not saying there aren't people/groups who could do the educating, and some people who would voluntarily be educated. But unless it was mandated by the banks that their borrowers receive said education, which would only happen if the gov't mandated it of the banks, then the education service would go largely unused. Hell, you can already become educated through community colleges, seminars, or just by finding the right websites to read, but obviously that isn't enough to create an informed public (assuming that's an ultimate goal).

7/3/2009 9:58:52 AM

There are some people who will never educate themselves whether the information is free or not. We for sure need to teach personal finance in our public schools. That would go a long way to solving the education problem.

There will always be kids who dont take advantage of their education, and thats their problem. The only thing the government should be doing is giving them the opportunity to be educated. You cant force it on them.

To stop these remaining stupid people from getting loans, you can remove the backstop of Freddie/Fannie and the guarantee of bailouts. Banks will naturally be warry of risky lending if they are no longer 100% sure the fed will bail them out.

These are, of course, long term solutions. We need to get them into place now and use temporary legislation to prevent stupid people from getting credit in the short term.

7/3/2009 10:34:19 AM

^You are mistaken. Asset price bubbles happen regardless of whether there is a perceived government guarantee of a bailout or not. That's what has happened throughout history in many different countries. If there is an asset that is hot, people will try to ride it an rely on greater fool theory.

7/3/2009 11:49:09 AM

^ you are a fool if you don't think the gov't backing of Freddie and Fannie helped fuel this mess. Was it the only reason? No. But it sure as hell helped

7/3/2009 10:57:27 PM

i'm not sure he said or implied that in those two short sentences.

oh, right - if someone spends more than 10 words trying to describe in part of what got us into this mess without mentioning your whipping boys, Fannie and Freddie, you can accuse them of being a partisan hack.

7/3/2009 11:16:05 PM

^^ and you are a fool because you can't read or comprehend simple english sentences

^ what he said

Before fannie and freddie, kooks like this dumbass^^ were talking about the fed/illuminati/jews being responsible for people recklessly trying to make an easy buck. Same shit different decade.

[Edited on July 4, 2009 at 12:13 AM. Reason : .]

7/4/2009 12:08:03 AM

I think a government mandate dictating required education by bankers would be a great idea (if implemented correctly*). A more educated customer base would obviously force lenders to change their business models. There is probably more money to be made off of interest on business loans (which would be more readily available), rather than perpetuating the poverty of a poor person's subpar planning.







*Which it wouldn't be.

7/4/2009 1:37:27 AM

Quote :

"would this consumer education be somehow mandated or supplied by the gov't? "

And others asking how we would mandate or implement this. Last I looked, there is a mandatory ~12 year government education system already in place for americans. Perhaps we could make personal finance a part of your normal schooling. I realize that some people don't go to school anyway and some people drop out and all, but you can't force someone to learn, and it doesn't matter if you make it illegal for banks to have high interest and make it mandatory that borrowers sit through a 5 hour finance course and have regulators go over your bills every month, some people are determined to be screwed, and there is nothing you can do for them.

Quote :

" Asset price bubbles happen regardless of whether there is a perceived government guarantee of a bailout or not. That's what has happened throughout history in many different countries. If there is an asset that is hot, people will try to ride it an rely on greater fool theory."

Which makes me wonder why we bother trying to make stuff illegal instead of promoting better consumer education. I mean, does anyone have an example of government regulators and laws catching a developing bubble and stopping it before it got out of hand?

7/4/2009 1:09:22 PM

Quote :

"Last I looked, there is a mandatory ~12 year government education system already in place for americans."

no there isn't.

Quote :

"I realize that some people don't go to school anyway and some people drop out and all, but you can't force someone to learn, and it doesn't matter if you make it illegal for banks to have high interest and make it mandatory that borrowers sit through a 5 hour finance course and have regulators go over your bills every month, some people are determined to be screwed, and there is nothing you can do for them."

the point isn't to give the people the opportunity to learn about finances. most already have that and don't take advantage of it. the point is to require a basic education in personal finance (or whatever) perhaps when someone gets a first loan or whenever.

7/6/2009 2:10:16 AM

Quote :

"some people are determined to be screwed"

"most financial companies are determined to screw as many people as possible"

7/6/2009 8:28:23 AM

Quote :

"most financial companies are determined to make as much for shareholders and themselves as possible"

screwing people is just one way they do it

7/6/2009 8:51:27 AM

Quote :

"Perhaps we could make personal finance a part of your normal schooling."

Well this takes time out of teaching to the standardized test duh! That every local city rep, school board attendant, and congressman count on to make their districts look better or "improving". Time taken to teach mundance common sense real world knowledge like personnal finance is time could be used to practice more arithmitic or read novels by authors 100 years dead. Afterall every student is going to college and needs to take lots of bubble sheet tests to prove thier aptitude! [/sarcasm]

7/6/2009 11:56:21 AM

Quote :

""most financial companies are determined to screw as many people as possible""

What non-anecdotal evidence do you have for this sweeping claim?

7/6/2009 6:50:13 PM

Oh great, Hunt in here again being the defender of all things capitalism.

7/6/2009 8:08:25 PM

The law of unintended consequences...

Quote :

" Mr. Zywicki is a professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law and a senior scholar of the University's Mercatus Center. Imagine a man in California who speculated in real estate at the height of the housing bubble. He bought a house with no money down and an adjustable-rate mortgage. But before he could flip that house for a profit, the market collapsed. He then owed more than his house was worth, but he knew that under his state's laws it would be impossible for his bank to sue him for the balance of his loan if he abandoned the house to foreclosure. What is this man likely to do? Several hundred thousand people have found themselves in a similar situation in recent years, and they have walked away from their real estate investments. Nothing down, interest-only mortgages taken out by speculators in states with default-friendly laws have fueled the foreclosure crisis and have come to be seen as a major threat to the American financial system. They have also led the Obama administration to propose creating a consumer financial product safety commission to protect homeowners from dangerous loans. The premise of this proposal is that the financial crisis was created by predatory lenders taking advantage of hapless borrowers. But do consumers really need such protection? Or would such a commission make it harder and more expensive for consumers to find the loans they need? The idea of a financial product safety commission comes from Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law professor and the chairwoman of Congress's oversight panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. She says that such a commission is necessary because consumers cannot buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of exploding, but they can get a subprime mortgage that has a one-in-five chance of ending in foreclosure. But this simple-minded analogy misses the point. An unsafe toaster is a hazard to anyone who buys it. That's not true for loans. Virtually every credit product is valuable to some consumers. Low-documentation loans are a boon for homeowners with a lot of equity who want to refinance their mortgages (even as they are a dangerous thing to offer speculators). And unlike toasters, borrowers have substantial say over whether their loan "explodes." Foreclosures have risen throughout the country, but an epidemic exists only in a handful of areas -- Las Vegas, Phoenix, Miami and the Inland Empire region of California are all places where foreclosure rates are five to 10 times higher than the national average. These areas saw price bubbles that have now popped, giving many homeowners who owe more than their house is worth strong incentives to walk away from their loans. Treating all consumers as hapless victims rather than recognizing that many consumers rationally respond to incentives is a recipe for unintended consequences. It can lead to counterproductive regulation that makes loans more expensive and harder to get. Consider, for example, prepayment penalties in subprime mortgages. Banks charge such penalties because prepaying a mortgage makes it less profitable and subprime loans are already less profitable than prime loans. Empirical studies show that there is no link between penalizing borrowers for paying off their loans ahead of schedule and increased foreclosures. Yet, consumer advocates say these penalties are one reason why subprime borrowers find themselves underwater. If we listened to consumer advocates, prepayment penalties would be banned. But if we did that, lenders would likely charge riskier borrowers higher interest rates. These higher interest rates would, ironically, make it more likely that subprime borrowers would default on their loans. Moreover, the absence of prepayment penalties in prime mortgages has exacerbated the foreclosure problem. Millions of Americans have stripped equity out of their homes by refinancing (essentially paying off their old mortgages with new larger loans). This has made it more likely that these homeowners would be underwater once home prices plunged. European home values have also fallen. But foreclosure rates are lower in Europe partly because homeowners there haven't stripped their homes of equity to the same extent. Similarly, adjustable-rate mortgages are standard in Europe and have been very common at times in the United States. It was the Federal Reserve's erratic monetary policy that made adjustable-rate mortgages here "explode," not the loans themselves. As these examples indicate, there is nothing sacred about 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages with an absolute right to prepay. Yet as the Associated Press has reported, the proponents of a consumer financial products safety commission seem to believe that the 30-year fixed should be the gold standard by which all other mortgages should be considered "exotic" or "risky." This obsession with simplicity threatens innovation as well as competition. Thirty years ago credit cards were exceedingly simple. They charged high annual fees just to own them (often $40-$50), high fixed interest rates (approaching 20%), and offered no cash rebates. Today credit cards are more complex, but they are also better. They offer no annual fees for no-frills cards, flexible interest rates, and more benefits. Competition is fierce and consumers have a wide range of choices. One wonders whether the credit card revolution would have been possible under a consumer financial product safety commission. A final concern about the Obama administration's proposed new commission is that governmental agencies tend to expand their jurisdiction. Eventually, the commission will nudge up against the authority of the Federal Reserve. If the safety commission is given enforcement authority, including the ability to impose massive fines, it could one day undermine the soundness of financial institutions and therefore come into conflict with the Fed. Such a regulatory conflict would create the kind of policy inconsistencies and turf battles that the Obama administration says it wants to eliminate. Instead of a new consumer financial products safety commission, Washington should revise the disclosures it mandates for mortgages, its tax and other incentives that encourage overinvestment in housing, and the incentives for homeowners to walk away from their homes. Our current problems are caused by misaligned incentives and the rational response of consumers and lenders to those incentives. It's not a crisis of consumer protection. A new agency premised on the erroneous belief what consumers need is to be protected from themselves is likely to do more harm than good. "

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124701284222009065.html#mod=todays_us_opinion

7/8/2009 4:56:09 PM

Thats about as half baked as I have ever seen the WSJ get. They must really be struggling for quality content these days.

7/8/2009 5:23:57 PM

^ Which part of article do you not agree with?

7/8/2009 6:32:55 PM