Re: Occupy America They are sure sticking it to the evil 1% by causing dock workers to be out of work for a day. And the police they attack? I'm sure theyre millionaires bankers on the side or just corporate puppets otherwise. So OWS is now almost at day 50. What has been achieved besides an accumulation of potential criminal records?
Re: Occupy America -BoA has completely abandoned their idea for debit card fees. -Banks are terrified of a mass migration to credit unions and community banks -Mitt Romney's perfectly lubed weathervane has aligned with the movement's sentiments -The media conversation has changed from whatever Republican obstructionism was that week's flavor of the week, to OWS's issues. Yes the media sucks total balls and is mangling as they are wont to do, but it is now recognized that employment and economic inequality are priority issues. And that's just in the first two months. When you think of the scale of the issues being brought up, the 2012 elections are the absolute earliest I'd expect any significant change.
Re: Occupy America Why hasn't this happened already? Credit Unions and local banks have since the advent of online banking, pretty much always been significantly better than big banks for the average person. For example my bank (Liberty Bank for CT people) has a checking account that doesn't charge me when I use other banks' ATMs, and they reimburse me the other banks' fees whenever I use someone else's ATM anywhere in the world, and there's no limit on this. There are no fees for any type of transactions I perform, checks cost less than a quarter of what BOA charges. And I didn't need $25,000 to open the account, just (if I remember correctly) $25 to open and no minimum to maintain. Really anyone complaining about fees who hasn't made the switch yet is probably too fucking stupid to pull the plug now and deserves to be ass raped with fees. Edit: Wow, this whole lack of power thing has really made me cranky.
Re: Occupy America Inertia mostly. When I was a wee lad, my parents banked with a local bank called BayBank, and as a result I had an account with them as well (consisting mostly of Christmas monies). BayBank merged with Bank of Boston to create BankBoston, which then got bought by FleetBank, which themselves were finally bought by Bank of America. So now I am by default a Bank of America customer, and despite the fact that I started with a small local bank, all of my "customer loyalty" credit that has been built up between my parents and myself for more than two decades, is with Bank of America.
Re: Occupy America I work for a regional bank in New England (others in the area can probably figure out which one) and mergers and acquisitions is exactly why I don't bank with a credit union or hell, even my own bank. I figured it was easier to build up a rapport with a large one than one that could get absorbed with a large one that had no relationship with me.
Re: Occupy America Basically. I do online banking, get all my ATM fees reimbursed, etc. It helps that my dad is pretty good with money and set the whole thing up for me.
Re: Occupy America Is there such a thing as "bank loyalty" anymore? I had a checking/savings account & car loan through a credit union for quite a few years. My credit took a little hit from accumulating more debt from a divorce and they denied me a new car loan even though I never missed a single car payment or had a bounced check with them. (all current on my other CC's and mortgage too)
Re: Occupy America Speaking for myself, my wife and I bank at Chase. Thus far, it is totally about convenience. Our primary credit card and our car account is through Chase, so it is much easier to keep track of everything through them. In addition, they have ATMs everywhere. We never struggle to find an ATM, and ATM fees can be stupidly high. Everyone I know who banks with the local bank complains about their fees just as much as Chase, with the difference being that Chase ATMs are everywhere. If you leave this area, finding an ATM from the local bank is literally impossible. My wife and I have been very seriously discussing switching to our local bank. We got our mortgage through the local bank, because quite frankly, we didn't trust Chase with our Mortgage. The main things holding us back are simple: Their online banking is complete shit (this is according to my sister-in-law, who WORKS for the local bank), they're literally very local and it is impossible to find branches or ATMs outside of this area, and god forbid we need to get money on a vacation (or even an hour drive south) without wanting to pay fees. The online banking is the biggest issue, because I pay literally all of my bills online. The hassle would be multiplied when you take into account that both my wife and I have direct deposit to our Chase accounts, and we have bills set up to automatically come out of our Chase account. Changing all of that around would be a giant pain in the ass. Personally, I am pushing to switch, but my wife is still fighting me a bit.
Re: Occupy America The BOA backlash was due to an online petition. I don't know how many people had online connections while they camped in a park. If they had a smartphone, maybe they were a bit better off than they made out. You could argue the sentiment was in response to the occupiers, but everything I've read with BOA had little to do with the occupiers. The girl that started the online petition had a specific agenda and worked the system to achieve results. She didn't camp out with no specific demands and hope someone else figured out the details. I agree with their general message, but they can camp out there all winter if they don't have the intellect to organize. As much as I hate Sarah Palin, she made a fair statement when she said the occupiers were essentially asking for a bailout. No consesus on demands or leadership is wasting everyone's time. Refusing to speak with politicians is equally stupid. Don't like that official? Work with the system to change it from the inside. You don't have the organization or intellect to revamp the system via your current actions so far.
Re: Occupy America You don't think the people associated with and sympathetic to OWS had anything to do with stirring up a minor customer rebellion amongst BOA customers faced with the new fees?
Re: Occupy America Nope. Like scotch said, it was a separate protest combined with bad press and overwhelmingly negative VotC (Voice of the Customer) surveys at BofA. I know OWS wants to claim any victory they can to make themselves legitimate and separate from their violent fringe, but this isn't theirs to claim.
Re: Occupy America No. I think the fee was fucking stupid and everyone knew it. BOA backed down because they're not suicidal and once the story got out there was no chance of it sticking.
Re: Occupy America Honestly, I don't think BOA or the other banks really planned on keeping those fees around long term in the first place (see Seeker's post). I think they were trying to create awareness that they were getting fucked by congress and imposed what they were calling the "Durban Fee" to get people on their side and try to repeal the law. Few things speak louder than charging people more money, ask Netflix.
Re: Occupy America If you're saying this, it shows that you have absolutely no familiarity with the website that they used for the online petition, Change.org. It's overwhelmingly progressive social justice based. It's the MoveOn.org of social organizing. Demographically speaking, these are the EXACT same people. Moreover, the petition was largely circulated by email. Unless you assume that a) the people in various parks have literally been static the entire time (no one has came and left), and b) no one in the park had access to the Internet at any time (none of them own a smartphone?), your reasoning that these are two non-overlapping groups of people seems ridiculous. Hell, even the person behind the petition threw her lot in w/ OWS and attributed the success of said petition in part to the protests: Insisting that these things are unrelated requiring a silly assumption that Occupy Wall Street is a discreet entity unconnected from the public at large, rather than the most extreme end of a much larger public sentiment. Saying things are attributable to OWS or not attributable to OWS is an inexact and pointless task. It's like asking if, say, the Tea Party was responsible for the debt ceiling controversy this summer. Did Official Tea Party Representatives march into Congress and pound the table? Of course not. But were they the vanguard of a substantial public sentiment that fueled the debate? Of course.
Re: Occupy America It's a waste of time to attribute results to the correct movement? Demographics and poltical movements aren't mutually exclusive so to make the assumption that they're incahoots due to their age/race/income is a hell of a generalization. If we're going to lump demographics and poltical parties together, someone forgot to tell Herman Cain.
Re: Occupy America Exactly. If memory serves, a few other major banks like Chase had planned for similar fees earlier in the year in response to Congress passing a law that limited how much money the banks could charge stores for debit card transactions. As was the case with BoA, once the customers caught wind of the fees they raised hell and the banks scrapped the plans. I do believe that most, if not all, of these banks had already cancelled the proposed charges before the OWS movement started. Not to say that the people sitting in Zuccotti park didn't sign petitions against BoA/Chase/etc but people were arguing against these fees before they started camping out.
Re: Occupy America <a class="postlink" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/04/us-protests-oakland-veteran-idUSTRE7A37A820111104" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/ ... A820111104</a> Another day, another vet put in the hospital by Oakland PD. The details in the article are sketchy, and this smells a little fishier than what happened to Olsen (this dude caught a beating and was put in jail afterwards), but still...beating down veterans is hardly a way to get Oakland to become a calmer place. Too bad the 5th of November is on a Saturday and all the banks are closed...