Banks, as I understand the institution, serve the community by safeguarding deposits, and extend credit to individuals and businesses with the capital they hold. In many ways it has become unimaginable to conceive of participating in our economy without at the very least a checking account. Banks are supposed to make money with the interest paid on those loans, the interest rates are regulated by the federal reserve and FDiC fair lending guidelines.

I will examine the presupposition that banks are safeguards of our deposits, and then repudiate the claim that the bank uses fair lending practices, especially with the people who can least afford it and have no means of protection against it

Anybody who’s ever had trouble making ends meet knows that banks can be one of the most dangerous places to keep the money you need to live. Overdraft fees that can cost as much as $40 per transaction are nothing but obscene interest rates targeted at the group of people most likely to have fallen on hard times as a result of the current financial fiasco: The over 5 million people left unemployed since the Great Recession began, students that depend on credit as a means to acquiring an education, and people who work but who’s paycheck has remained at the same level and can’t keep up with the rising cost of living and health care. The interest rates represented by the misnomer “overdraft fee” are absurd, with interest rates in the thousands percent APY. The result can be that a depositor can very quickly get into a situation where the fees begin piling up and accumulating at a rate faster than they can be paid. The bank uses every dirty trick in the book to make sure this happens from running transactions in order from largest to smallest to ensure that more interest is charged for the same amount borrowed, to charging a fee for everyday a balance is negative. They justify these practices the same way loan sharks who might gouge the poor do. Even the much maligned payday lending businesses cannot charge that much in interest because it is illegal, it’s called predatory lending when they’re the ones doing it.

There is a name for it when you deposit your paycheck to find that it has been eaten down to the point that in order to eat or pay rent you must perpetuate the lending cycle so that you don’t end up on the street. I can’t decide which is more appropriate though, robbery or slavery? I guess with slavery you usually are left with a place to sleep and some food, but the bank sure does screw me over a lot more often than I get robbed on the street.

I argue that as a result of the necessity of a bank account, banks have become one of the biggest players in reinforcing and creating a vicious cycle of poverty based around transferring wealth from the people who have no money and poor credit to the Bank executives.

I have a rather interesting personal account I’d like to discuss.

Last week I was subject to almost $200 in “Overdraft Fees” for borrowing about $50 for about 4 days. The bank organized transactions in order from largest to smallest and made what would have been a single annoying $40 fee into a soul crushing $200, my money for rent and food.

“Boo Hoo, should’ve kept a ledger, shouldn’t have overextended yourself”

I can see the logic in this argument, but I’d hope that before you make it you could at least consider the ethical and moral issues surrounding charging thousands of percentage points APY by calling it a fee (but it walks like interest and talks like interest…). In addition to being just plain wrong, they are illegal. Also, consider the hypocrisy in getting a ledger lecture from an industry that overextended itself to the tune of a couple trillion dollars.

So back to my situation, what really made me start thinking and obsessing and ranting over this was the realization that I’m going to be working for this bank for a very long time for the privilege of being made miserable. Bear with me for a moment, this is weird.

The $200 that was taken out of my pocket essentially was money that the bank had lent me in the first place in the form of student loans so that I could do things like Eat and Sleep Indoors while I’m getting my education.

This is money that I will have to pay back again when I have graduated.

Let me put that another way this is money that I am obligated to pay back with interest that never left the bank’s pocket

My bank, US Bank received $6,599,000,000 in TARP money, of which the average American’s contribution is about $22 dollars. They didn’t even have to do their job competently to wring that out of us.

My point is, the system doesn’t work for us, it actively works against us. Right now with the government leverage on the banks and a public that is distrustful of and angry at financial institutions is a perfect time to take back our savings and credit system and turn it around so that it starts working for us instead of working us over.

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Oh well.

So, I’ve got terrible insomnia. It seems my entire life I’ve operated on  a rhythm that just doesn’t quite line up with everybody (or anybody) else’s. It’s been getting progessively worse since High School and I’m almost completely nocturnal now. I usually fall asleep right about when the sun comes up. You might imagine that such a lifestyle doesn’t lend itself very handily to being a very productive human being, and you’d be right if you did.

For me, it’s always late at night when I do my best thinking, and lots of it. Right about midnight the wheels start to turn and they don’t stop until sunrise. One can only practice piano so late at night in a tiny apartment, so my hope is that this will be a constructive outlet for my ceaseless rumination.

This journal will serve as a mechanism for me to analyze, and attempt to put into perspective current events and the media’s role in shaping public opinion surrounding them.

I am a young, unemployed, full time student at The University of Missouri-Kansas City, and I live in a one bedroom apartment with a room mate and 17 cats.

These are my stories.