By now all of America has heard about BoA's $5 dollar a month fee to use a debit card, or $60 dollars a year just to use a standard feature of any checking account in the digital age.
The question becomes, why would anyone keep their money with Bank of America? Switch! It's easy! There are all sorts of online banks, credit unions which offer free checking, assuredly free debit card use, free ATMs and even offer interest on low balance checking.
America, vote with your consumer power and leave BoA, Wells Fargo or any other financial institution nickel and diming you to death. All these banks care about is keeping their executive bonuses rolling in.
Today we've heard from the 2008 TARP bank bail out inspector general, SIGTARP, that banks left TARP early, not because they wanted to pay back the taxpayer, or because they were financially stable....they left the bank bail out early in order to increase executive pay. The terms of TARP limited executive pay so banks were hell bent on getting out of it, despite their flimsy financial footing.
Guess who was at the top of that list? Bank of America.
Q2 GDP 2011 3rd revision is in at 1.3%. This is a +0.3% revision from the Q2 2nd revision report, which reported a 1.0% Q2 GDP. Here is the original BEA GDP report. Q1 2011 GDP was 0.4%. The BEA reports real GDP by one decimal place of accuracy. Not rounded, real Q2 GDP was 1.34%.
New Orders in Durable Goods decreased -0.1% for August 2011. New Orders has declined the last three months out of five. July durable goods new orders were revised from +4.0% to +4.1% increase.
The S&P Case Shiller home price index shows a -4.1% decline from a year ago over 20 metropolitan housing markets and a -3.7% decline for the top 10 housing markets from July 2010.
Remember those time bombs called derivatives which threatened to economically blow up the world in 2008? Not only were they never really regulated, they are back with a vengeance. A new report, by the Comptroller of the Currency, on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities, Q2 2011, shows derivatives have increased 11.6% from one year ago to a U.S. holdings of $249 trillion dollars.
Five large commercial banks represent 96% of the total banking industry notional amounts and 86% of industry net current credit exposure.
According to DealBook, those banks are, pretty much the same banks who were given massive bail outs via TARP. BoA especially is already in trouble due to their Countrywide holdings. 99% of all derivatives are held by just 25 banks.
The nation’s four biggest banks — JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs — are the biggest players, holding roughly 95 percent of the industry’s total exposure to derivatives. JPMorgan, which holds the most among commercial banks, carries some $78 trillion worth of derivatives on its books, according to the report. Citi is next on the list, with $56 trillion, up from $54 trillion in the first quarter.
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
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