First, let me disclaim that I got this from the As A Mom site and will everyone, whether or not they have the prerequist uterus, please join and support them?
Now, for the scary facts:
Posted by Doug~puts Slinky's on Escalators on August 13, 2010 at 9:39am in The Water Cooler
The FDIC is launching a Pilot Program called Model Safe Accounts, designed to bring bank accounts to people the FDIC calls “unbanked”, “underbanked” and “underserved”.
The program proposal contains a few Liberal-ese terms like ‘economic inclusion’, ‘sustainability’ and ‘roadmap’.
Our culture used to refer to ‘underbanked’ people as ‘poor’ people. Obviously the more limited a persons income is, the less frequently they utilize a bank account.
In 2009, the FDIC sponsored a supplement to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey with the focus of collecting data on U.S. households that are ‘unbanked’ or ‘underbanked’.
(source)
This survey was incredibly predictable. It basically said that poor people don’t have the same banking activity as the middle class, or the rich.
In a stunning ‘I could have told you that’ conclusion, the report said, “The study, which is the most comprehensive survey to date of the unbanked and underbanked, reveals that more than one quarter (25.6 percent) of all households in the United States are unbanked or underbanked and that those households are disproportionately low-income and/or minority.”
I wonder if ‘minority’ actually means ‘immigrant’?
(I’m only asking a question...)
The study went on to say, “The proportion of U.S. households that are unbanked varies considerably across racial and ethnic groups with certain racial and ethnic groups being more likely to be unbanked than the population as a whole. Minorities more likely to be unbanked include blacks (21.7 percent of black households), Hispanics (19.3 percent), and American Indian/Alaskans (15.6 percent). Racial groups less likely to be unbanked are Asians (3.5 percent) and whites (3.3 percent).”
(source)
The above excerpt is interesting to me, because the ethnic groups listed are all capitalized like proper names...
...except ‘blacks’ and ‘whites’.
(I printed the quote as-is. I don’t know what’s important about that observation, it just seems interesting to me)
The FDIC’s analysis of this ‘problem’ states that, “Minorities and lower-income households are much more likely to be underserved. In particular, one in five households earning under $30,000 are unbanked, and these households comprise over 70 percent of the unbanked total.”
The focus of the FDIC is to make a bank account, “...available to all consumers, but would be particularly responsive to the needs of underserved and LMI [low to moderate income] consumers; pilot banks [participating in this new program] are strongly encouraged to market the products to those groups.”
Another oddly worded comment says the goal is to include, “...transactional accounts, savings, affordable credit, financial literacy, and incentives.”
What do they mean by “affordable credit”? Why is the government going to determine what is ‘affordable’ for a business? What does ‘financial literacy’ have to do with any of this? And what kind of incentives does the government have in mind, exactly? I thought an incentive was for Bank ‘A’ to give me a better rate than Bank ‘B’, and so I – the consumer – decide which Bank to be a customer at, by shopping around.
(It’s called the Free Market system)
Liberals think a bank is a charity organization. A bank is a business just like a gas station or a supermarket, except the products being dealt with are financial services.
A bank – in essence – either ‘sells’ money to customers, or ‘rents space’ to customers for them to keep their money in.
When a person ‘buys’ money, we call that a Loan (which is payed for through interest), and when a person keeps money in a bank, a customer pays for ‘rental space’ via fees on a checking account.
(There’s my contribution to financial literacy)
So when did having a bank account become a civil right?
(Which is precisely where I think this is headed!)
We know that every time the Government puts its ridiculous fingers all over an industry, that industry goes to heck in a handbasket.
In a report by the FDIC, they said they published the Templates for comment on May 7, 2010, and received 46 comments from banks, other financial institutions, state banking agencies, financial industry trade groups, and private citizens by deadline on June 6, 2010.
May 7th was a Friday (right before the weekend), and June 6th was a Sunday, which provided 30 calendar days to respond.
And respond, people did!!!
Yes.
A whopping 46 comments.
It was published on that well-read news site, the FDIC’s own web page, which has all the excitement
of an overdraft fee schedule.
Their follow-up report stated the obvious by saying, “Banks and their trade associations often stated that they already offer accounts similar to the draft templates. However, when described, the transactional accounts in particular sometimes differed in significant ways from the draft template, for example by featuring fee-based overdraft programs.”
In other words, banks normally charge customers for writing bounced checks. The bank offers overdraft protection as one of its products, which involves covering the transaction with its own money until the account receives a deposit from the customer to cover the transaction and – surprise – banks apparently feel that this is a temporary loan, so they charge a flat fee for that.
But naturally a Liberal government would think that a bank account is a civil right, not a privilege, and so the FDIC wants banks to cover the cost of a bounced check, for free.
Banks are a business. This is no different than an automobile repair shop which repairs engines, but then the government steps in and says, “You need to fix flat tires for free”.
Did you hear about any of this anywhere on the Internet, or FOX News, or Glenn Beck? I heard about it a couple of days ago on the Phil Valentine Radio Show, and he only included this among the other stories he was covering.
I pounced on it. This thing is huge, as far as I’m concerned, because the government loves to monkey around with things and drive them into the ground, such as tinkering with the nuts and bolts of the Sub-Prime market so that it crashes.
This gives the government a problem to solve, since the government needs something to do.
The Government has done wonders for Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae (latest estimates put bailouts at $1 Trillion), and now they want to be just as helpful with all the banks in America?
(source)
So why is this story important?
Because of the stated purpose of the pilot program: “The FDIC Model Safe Accounts Template is a roadmap for accounts that would be available to all consumers.”
I thought bank accounts were already available to all consumers...
...unless wealth is being redistributed, which is what this sounds like.
Here’s a scary sentence in the report: “Regarding overdafts, consumer groups and nonprofits were firm that a prohibition on fee-based overdrafts was an essential feature to a safe transactional account.”
Translation: ‘All of us Liberal groups want banks not to charge for a service because a bank account is a right, not a privilege’.
The FDIC proposal uses ‘between the lines’ polite arm-twisting terminology such as “participation will be encouraged”, and this little gem, “The FDIC will approach a number of insured institutions prior to the application process to encourage participation by large insured institutions and interested community institutions.”
At the risk of using a cliche, this is wrong on so many levels.
The focus on the entire program is to make banking more accessible to LMI (low to moderate income) consumers.
So that means...
...the rest of us have to pay full price? (or pay even more to make up for the banks losses?)
The program also allows for “...alternative forms of customer identification”.
(What is that? An illegal alien ID card?)
First, I think that the FDIC (the government) is planning a redistribution of wealth scheme. How else can you give a bank account (a financial product) to someone who can’t afford one?
Second, I think that the ‘Safe Account’ template has much to do with an effort to more seemlessly assimilate illegal immigrants into this country. Remember, the FDIC survey stated that Hispanics made up 19.3 percent of the ‘unbanked’, making that demographic minority group second only to Blacks at 21.7 percent.
Third, none of us are seriously thinking that a Liberal administration is just going to try and be helpful to minorities so they can have bank accounts.
A Liberal (socialist!) government cannot help but turn this into a sort of ‘Financial Obamacare’ with the public being forced to have some kind of government controlled bank account.
This is just now starting out as some sort of pilot program, but I believe it’s just a first step into the government taking control of our financial lives the same way they did with Healthcare, and taking control of private companies like General Motors.
How ironic that the FDIC is using counterfeit kindness to sell us a defective bill of goods.
=========
(sources)
Phil Valentine Radio Show
http://www.philvalentine.com/
Memo to FDIC from Ellen Lazar, a member of the Corporation for Enterprise Development
http://www.fdic.gov/news/board/10AugPilot.pdf
Wikipedia page on Corporation for Enterprise Development, which sounds like a Liberal Think Tank
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Enterprise_Development
FDIC Website announcing Safe Account Pilot Program
http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/template/
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac bailout $1 Trillion
http://247wallst.com/2010/06/14/fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac-bailouts-could-cost-1-trillion/
FDIC Blog(?) Economic Inclusion survey results
http://www.economicinclusion.gov/press_room.html
FDIC survey via Census Bureau results
http://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/
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