Banks were originally created as a secure place to keep our savings from harms way.
Banks made their money, by using our money, to finance other peoples borrowings. In return for having the use of our money, banks paid us a small interest. This system worked perfectly for several hundred years.
Some thirty odd years ago, bank regulations were relaxed, and not long after that, the whole process had been completely reversed. Today's banks do not pay us to use our money, we pay them for the privilege of having our money used by them. Obviously, a change like that didn't happen overnight.
It started with the introduction of what was called paid bank services. In return we were offered better terms of interest. It seemed like a fair trade, at the time. The thing about bank services is no one really explained what they were, or why they were good for us, they simply called them services.
Today we call such 'services', value added fees and charges. They come about when you add value to an action which has no value to begin with. Then you create a charge for it. It can be something as simple as the click of a mouse, or as complicated as a few steps to and from the copy machine. So, like most things under the control of accountants, the fees and charges grew at a great pace. It was not long before the interest rate we were paid, barely covered the charges.
Obviously, banks do not want us to call their conduct the 21st century version of Piracy. Well, some of them don't seem to mind that. But essentially they are regular folk, who would like our sympathy: All they really want, is to be rich, powerful and free from government and customer scrutiny. Who can blame them for hiding in the back offices? Naked greed is very unattractive.
To justify all their charges, banks had to come up with something tangible. So they created The Credit Card. A stroke of genius, which enabled every person on the planet to go into really serious debt. This product became so popular that the banks felt it deserved something special, a super high interest rate - and so it was!
Staff of course, was always a great burden to the banks. Again the big brains went to work and came up with the universal ATM machine. Free to customers they said. And it was, for a little while, till most of us had learned to accept this new technology. It was not long before the number of bank tellers shrunk and the queues inside the banks got longer. Bank teller transactions soon became subject to charges. So, like well trained seals, we finally got ourselves a transaction card, so we could queue at a free ATM outside, just in time to start to get charged for it.
Did the banks anger us? Absolutely, but mostly we got over it it. We did not want our new found conveniences to be disturbed, or delayed. Not then, when we had just gotten used to them. But how do we feel about the banks now?
They have pushed us into a recession. They cry poor while they choke on a big feed of tax payer dollars. They will cost the nations hundreds of thousands of jobs. They have brutally evicted people from their homes to recover property, against money they well knew, should never have been loaned out in the first place.
Governments say they have no choice. They have to keep these parasites on a drip feed, because it seems, we have become so addicted to banks we cannot live without them. They say our society would crumble overnight if we lost a few Banks.
Does that make sense? Not to me. Banks do nothing during a recession except to tighten their rules, apply fees and charges to customers accounts and repossess properties as soon as owners default. None of that is going to help the economy. Is it?
Maybe, instead of bailing out the banks, the government could bail out their customers. They could salvage, or replace all the cash and assets, belonging to customers, and lost by the banks. It would put money back in the pockets of people who will actually keep it in circulation. Something those toxic bankers have no desire to do till the economy is back on its feet.
People are perfectly capable of transferring themselves to a solvent bank. They just don't want to lose their hard earned money in the process. People will tolerate a lot, but no matter what the intentions, they will rarely tolerate wasteful incompetence and untruthful explanations.
Ask yourself this question: What lessons will the directors, who sit on the boards of those toxic banks, learn from their experience? A renewed respect for government regulation - or - a social conscious? I don't think so! Let's not forget, these are the people who have been both the cause and effect of the current economic crises. Yet, they brazenly continue to pay themselves for their "work".
It would not be the first time large banks have gone under. Britain did not go into recession when one of their Largest and best know banks lost billions and toppled. Similar failures have happened in other countries without causing a financial upheaval. And, let us not forget, despite all the bailout money, to prop up the banks, we're now in a worldwide recession. Does that not tell us anything?
Lets get real. Where there are people with money to save, there will be solvent banks ready to grab it. We can only hope they will show more prudence than the last lot. A little humanity would not hurt either.
Kirsten Plotkin is an expert writer and author. Her writing is focused heavily on the experience she has gained, both good and bad in the course of running her internet business. She believes she can help many new marketers avoid those costly pitfalls they are otherwise likely to fall into. Kirsten can be contacted at her blog, where she is happy to answer questions.
http://www.worldwide-home-business-opportunity.com/
Or email: kirstenplotkin@gmail.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kirsten_Plotkin
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