Are Debit Card Fees Meant to Get Consumers to Use Credit Cards More? Why are Bank of America and other financial institutions charging new monthly fees for debit card usage? The move has predictably caused a backlash, and the net result may be that fewer customers will keep using debit cards at all. Could that be the point? At first glance, the purpose of debit card fees is pretty obvious: As Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told CNN Money, the company has “a right to make a profit,” and the new fees provide increased, regular monthly revenues.
In the past, debit cards have been enormously profitable for banks. More recently, it doesn’t look quite as easy for banks to make piles of cash via debit cards because reform measures have changed the rules regarding interchange fees and overdraft policies. To make up for the expected loss in revenues, some banks are passing along new monthly fees to customers who simply want to use their debit cards. (MORE: Three Easy Alternatives to Paying Big Bank Fees) There’s a simple way that these banks can lose, however. John Mack, aka Mack the Knife, steps down from Morgan Stanley after 30 years | Business. Mack the Knife is out. Morgan Stanley has announced that its hot-shot chairman, John Mack, will be retiring at the end of the year, ending a controversial reign at the top of one of Wall Street's most famous banks. Mack, 66, the sixth son of Lebanese immigrants, is a Wall Street legend who started his career at Morgan Stanley as a salesman in 1972 and became president in 1997.
He earned his nickname after a savage round of cost-cutting when he managed the fixed income division at Morgan Stanley. In 2001 he was forced out after a boardroom coup, and went on to become chief executive of Credit Suisse First Boston. Mack received a standing ovation when he returned to the bank. Last year he was asked by government officials investigating the financial collapse about the bank's investment in toxic assets. The bank came close to collapse after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Mack received a $40m stock bonus in 2006, then a record. Mack has been chairman since early 2010. Geithner Denies Insubordination on Citi Wind-Down Plan. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner forcefully denied the claim in a book by Ron Suskind that he ignored a request from the President to work up a plan to dissolve Citigroup. He further added that the entire theme of the book, about infighting in the White House over economic policy issues, bears “no resemblance to reality.”
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday dismissed a new book about the Obama administration’s handling of the economic crisis as an account full of “sad little stories.”Geithner said Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind’s Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President, written about backfighting in the administration, bears “no resemblance to the reality” of the situation, and fired back at its assertion he ignored an order from President Obama [...] “Absolutely not,” Geithner said. “I would never contemplate doing that.” “I haven’t read this book, but — to borrow a phrase — I lived the reality,” Geithner said. When you talk too much for Twitter. Bank of America's PR nightmare - Denver Business Journal. Bank of America must have had no idea how bad public reaction would be to its new $5-per-month debit-card fee, or I’d have to think they wouldn’t have implemented it.
But it does make you wonder how they couldn’t have known. A growing number of people are literally taking to the streets in protest over what they see as corporate greed destroying our country. And banks are at the top of the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters’ hit list. In fact, thousands of people protested in front of Bank of America offices in Boston over the weekend, and it was about the bank’s high-profile foreclosures, not the new fee. Many people already weren’t big fans of BoA, even before the fee announcement.
So timing-wise, the fee probably wasn’t a great public relations move for Charlotte, N.C. And the PR folks there must have cringed when the bank made Jay Leno’s monologue on Tuesday, especially after he led with, “Do you hate banks?” Check it out here. THE GAME THAT GOES ON AND ON: A SWISS BANK, A PRESIDENT, AND THE PERMANENT GOVERNMENT. By RUSS BAKER Published: April 21, 2010 Print This Article Page 1 2 3 Photo: © JASON REED/Reuters/Corbis President Obama on Martha’s Vineyard, summer 2009. UBS banker and Obama fundraiser Robert Wolf is driving the golf cart. Last August, the presidential press corps followed Barack Obama and his family to Martha's Vineyard for their brief vacation.
"The president has told friends that to truly relax he prefers golfing with young aides...But he departed from that pattern Monday when he invited a top campaign contributor, Robert Wolf, president of UBS Investment Bank, to join him for 18 holes. Wolf, however, is hardly—as the Times suggested— just another donor. But UBS stands alone in one rather formidable respect—it was the defendant in the largest offshore tax evasion case in U.S. history, accused of helping wealthy Americans hide their income in secret offshore accounts. UBS is very much a part of that permanent government. Some things are simple, though. Central banks expand dollar operations. Fed's Tarullo questions benefits of big banks.
Black money trail: 2nd list of Indian Swiss accounts to be shared - The Times of India. Bank of America Merrill Lynch to Finance Largest Residential Solar Project in U.S. History. It's Time to Break Up Bank of America - Business. The largest bank in the United States is going through a complexity crisis. Faced with the continued consequences of its bad behavior during the financial crisis, Bank of America is embarking on a massive effort to streamline the company after reporting an astounding $8.8 billion loss last quarter. Reports emerged Thursday morning that 600 branches would close, and earlier this week, CEO Brian Moynihan sent top executives Sallie Krawcheck and Joe Price packing as part of a process he described as "de-layering and simplifying. " The entire reorganization initiative is known as Project New BAC, and though the full details of the plan won't emerge until Moynihan addresses shareholders on Monday, we're starting to hear scattered cries to split the company up.
"At some point, it gets too big to manage," money manager Brian Wenzinger told The New York Times. "Smaller works better, and the less complicated it is, the better it can work. " Kick out the jams, Jamie Dimon! A charismatic rebel leader has emerged in recent weeks to challenge the way things work on Wall Street – and, boy, does he come from an unexpected place. You would expect to find such a firebrand these days in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, where young people have assembled to “occupy Wall Street” and fight against corporate greed.
However, this affair is turning into a bit of a snooze for anyone who remembers when political protests in this town featured the rhetoric of a Malcolm X or the street theatre of an Abbie Hoffman. I suspect the problem with the downtown demonstration has something to do with the tendencies of the Facebook generation. Roused by appeals on social media, idealistic Americans have taken to the streets so they can essentially do more social networking. Twice a day, the protesters schedule “general assemblies” in the hope that sustained dialogue will lead to a plan of action. To which, I say, like, you know, whatever. This capital-cushion question demands an answer. US banks offered deal over lawsuits. The 2 Billion UBS Incident: 'Rogue Trader' My Ass | Matt Taibbi. Lawsuit Alleges Nation’s Biggest Banks Defrauded Veterans. Free Larry Summers. On a typical day, Larry Summers, the top White House economic adviser, sits in his office overlooking the Rose Garden and receives a near-endless succession of aides working on a stunning variety of issues.
In a single, several-hour bloc, Summers might have meetings on housing, the auto industry, health care, technology policy, and the financial crisis, all of which he's exploring in subatomic detail. Summers is said to be fascinated with such off-the-beaten-path topics as the switch to digital television--he insists on understanding the physics behind the technology. This image of Summers weighing bit rates and digital compression was somewhat daunting as I prepared to visit him on a recent Monday afternoon. All the more because Summers is known not just for his intellect, but for a bluntness that was legendary in his years as a Harvard professor. It turns out I was hardly alone in this. As at Harvard, Summers functions on exceedingly little sleep.
Summers was a well-intentioned flop. Masters of the underworld. So traders don't care if the economy soars or crashes as long as they're profiting from it, Goldman Sachs rules the world and money has no conscience – is anyone really surprised by those claims? The token British trader who let the dealing room psychology out of the bag on the BBC - even if it was a hoax - was merely stating the reality of the traders' universe. OK, it's not a sure thing that Goldman Sachs actually rules the world, but they certainly come close to it.
It's not illegal. It might be amoral, but it's not immoral. It's just business Otherwise, the hard-edged attitude to markets rising or falling is a given, with money to be made in either direction. The attitude of indifference to the human suffering or joy that can result is hardly surprising – the graphs and numbers most traders immerse themselves in on their screens are impersonal. Advertisement Human-free The bigger issue touched on by the British trader was the claim that Goldman Sachs rules the world. Zombie Elites With Underwater Reputations. By Matthew Yglesias on September 12, 2011 at 1:44 pm "Zombie Elites With Underwater Reputations" Brad DeLong introduces the concept of “zombie” elites with underwater reputations who thereby refuse to adapt to changing circumstances. Thus his theory of Jean-Claude Tricket and the European Central Bank, though the application is clearly wider: The most likely scenario is this: they bet on mean-reversion in unemployment, on the magic full-employment equilibrium-restoring properties of the market, on their role as prudent stewards of financial rectitude, and on a take-no-prisoners commitment to price stability in all circumstances as the driving force behind the great moderation.They were wrong.
They now have a choice. This is, I think, the right way to think about the “success” of Bush administration Iraq policy in its second term. Matt Stoller: The Corrupt Establishment Begins Smearing Eric Schneiderman. By Matt Stoller, the former Senior Policy Advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can reach him at stoller (at) gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @matthewstoller Last month we had New York Fed Board Member Kathryn Wylde whining and meddling about Eric Schneiderman’s investigation into big banks. That seriously backfired. Two editorial boards are coming out and using innuendo to paint Schneiderman as a self-promoter looking to make a name for himself by unfairly tarnishing banks. The majority of the other attorneys general, led by Tom Miller of Iowa, have kicked Mr. Notice the lie (repeated below in the other editorial) – that the majority of Attorneys General threw Schneiderman off the 50 state task force.
So why is the Post lying about this situation? Mr. Oops. Next up is the New York Daily News, a paper which has now gone after Schneiderman twice for… being an elected official. 8 Things You Should Know About the New Lawsuit Against the Banks That Torpedoed the Economy. September 6, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. It was Friday afternoon, near market closing time, when the Federal Housing Finance Agency filed lawsuits against 17 big banks for their role in the subprime mortgage crisis that created, in turn, the financial crisis we're still struggling with today. The suits accuse the banks of fraud, of lying to the federal government and to investors about the quality of the securities they were making by cranking out more and more subprime loans.
The news was big, yet it was dropped in the Friday news-dump hole before a holiday weekend, probably to try to mitigate its impact on stock prices. The suits were filed in advance of a September 8 deadline—the statute of limitations on claims over subprime mortgage-backed securities sold to Fannie and Freddie. Representative Brad Miller, Democrat of North Carolina, said in a conference call, “I want our money back. 1.
Central banks give politicians 'breathing space' The Moral Hazard of Underwater Zombies. On a happier topic, I think Brad DeLong has come up with a brilliant hypothesis here. Regarding European policy makers, They now have a choice.They can admit that they were wrong. Then they will probably have to resign, and then be snubbed worldwide. Nobody likes a loser.Alternatively, they can double down. Their reputations right now are underwater. The thing is, this model has much wider applicability. John Quiggin had no idea how big a thing he was on to.
Friday Finds: Bankers to Blame for Boost in Gas Bills. Dalai Lama displeasure, nature’s sunscreen, lice treatment overkill Bankers on Wall Street may be driving up gas prices. Photo courtesy of epicharmus Wall Street speculation increases gas prices Subscribers to the “drill, baby, drill” mantra may want to set their sights on bankers rather than environmentalists as the culprits driving up gas prices, reports Mother Jones .
According to confidential regulatory data first leaked to Sen. Coral could be key to sunscreen pill In just a few years, sun worshippers tired of slathering sunscreen all over their pasty bodies before heading to the beach may be able instead to pop a pill that comes straight from the ocean, reports Mother Nature Network. Children’s lice-filled heads doused with banned agriculture pesticide As if being sent home for having bugs in your hair wasn’t bad enough, children infested with head lice are treated with pesticide-based shampoos that may be harmful to their health, reports iWatch News . Loose lips Twitter at Goldman Sachs - National entrepreneur.
Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street Bank and Federal Reserve partner, became a household name on Main Street in the fall of 2008 with its participation in the global financial meltdown. And while the firm had been largely categorized a behemoth monolith, GSElevator on Twitter is giving the global bank a bit more color with tweeted glimpses of corporate culture via conversations of workers who don't take the stairs.
The account, which has been up and running since August, is reportedly run by an anonymous middle or above-level banker who has " long been cynical of the industry and the people that build their entire sense of self around it," according to a New York Times story. By looks of tweets on the account, GSElevator's cynicism is well founded as hubris, misogyny, and middle- and working-class contempt are common themes. Analyst #1: She lives in Harlem. A#1 (on protesters): I was going to make a sign... Banks Successfully Lobbied For Weaker Bailout Repayment Rules So They Could Pay Bonuses.
International Monetary Fund. Mr. Banker, Can You Spare a Dime?