http://www.autoblog.com/2009/03/25/california-to-reduce-carbon-emissions-by-banning-black-cars/
Friday, March 27, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
God Bless America and the Nanny State
Consumers Vent on Overdraft Fees
Fed Weighs Change as Banks Take Heat: Costly Waffles, Valentine Woes
By KELLY EVANS (Wall Street Journal)
In recent years, overdraft fees made billions of dollars for banks, but only worsened the hangover for a debt-addicted nation. Now, amid an overhaul of financial institutions and their services, consumers are seizing their moment to cry foul.
The Fed is debating whether reign in pesky overdraft banking fees. WSJ's Kelsey Hubbard speaks to WSJ reporter Kelly Evans about whether consumers will really benefit.
The Federal Reserve ends a public comment period this month to determine whether banks' current handling of overdraft fees needs to be changed. In the process, its Web site has become a sounding board for Americans' frustration with all things banking, from billion-dollar bailouts to the average $27 fine for overdrawing on an account.
For example, Brian Shriver in Atlanta, Ga., writes: "Such fees are obscene and immoral. The lesson I learned is that I can't trust my bank to avoid the temptation to rip me off royally."
Overdraft fees usually work like this: A customer makes a purchase -- in Mr. Shriver's case, say, $12.21 at Waffle House -- but doesn't realize his account doesn't have enough for the transaction. Rather than decline his card or alert him, the bank allows the transaction to proceed, so Mr. Shriver isn't aware that his account is negative -- or that he has incurred a $35 overdraft fee -- until he checks his balance online.
"It's deeply unfair," said Mr. Shriver, 43 years old, when reached by telephone. He wrote to the Fed in exasperation after a series of small purchases he made last month racked up $525 in overdraft fees. "I'm mad at my bank but I'm also mad at the system," he said. "There needs to be more oversight so these fees aren't so extortionary."(Blogger note - or we can state that you bounced 15 checks)
Most banks and credit unions automatically sign customers up for what they call overdraft "protection," that allows -- rather than blocks -- purchases and ATM withdrawals that overdraw their bank accounts. For this service, the institutions charge customers fees ranging from $10 to $38 per overdraft, according to a study released last November by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Some 86% of banks the FDIC surveyed had overdraft programs in place in 2006, and three-quarters automatically enrolled customers in such programs. The survey also found overdraft fees were most common among young adults, ages 18 to 25, and low-income accounts. A separate analysis from Mike Moebs, who runs Lake Bluff, Ill.-based Moebs Services, a research and consulting firm, shows banks and credit unions earned $36.7 billion in consumer overdraft revenue last year, about three-quarters of their total service charge income.
Several factors contribute to banks' success with such fees, namely the ubiquity of debit cards and the fact that fewer Americans pull out -- let alone balance -- checkbooks anymore, favoring the cards and online banking. The number of debit-card transactions in the U.S. surpassed credit cards for the first time in 2004, according to data from the Nilson Report, and debit usage has grown nearly 50% since then to about 33 billion transactions last year, versus 24.6 billion for credit cards.
Last year, Jennimaria Palomaki, a scholarship student at the University of Georgia who works part-time to support herself, unwittingly racked up nearly $200 in overdraft fees on a series of small purchases she made without realizing her balance was negative. "I live paycheck to paycheck and I always check my balance online," she said, "but sometimes you don't realize a charge has gone through and every one of these little purchases is overdrawing your account." Paying off those charges meant she couldn't afford to buy her boyfriend a gift for Valentine's Day. (Blogger note - The HORROR)
"I understand the banks have to protect their own interest. I get that," she said. "But it feels like I'm being stolen from when I get this huge fee for a small purchase."
People like Mr. Shriver and Ms. Palomaki say this isn't fair. They want the option either to opt out of the service altogether or to be told when they're about to make a purchase that will overdraw their accounts and incur a fee. "There's no alert system," Ms. Palomaki said. "That's the biggest problem." (Blogger note - yes, it is called addition and subtraction). She and others also object that when several purchases happen simultaneously, banks process the largest ones first, so that each subsequent smaller charge incurs a fee.
The Fed is considering a number of different approaches, ranging from no change in current practices to requiring banks to give notification on every purchase that would result in an overdraft, but many institutions say the latter isn't realistic. "People think when they're making a purchase it's like a direct line into their account but it's not; it's a third-party processor making the transaction," said Judy Rigwood, compliance director at the TLC Federal Credit Union in Oregon, with five branches and about $90 million in assets. "We don't have the technology to do that."
She and others say the only real option is to allow customers to opt entirely in or entirely out of overdraft service. Those who opt out would see their cards declined on those purchases exceeding the amount available in their checking accounts. "Frankly we offer overdraft service as a way to help our members," Ms. Rigwood said. "Some people rely on it almost like they would a payday loan. It allows them to make vital purchases."
The Fed's 60-day comment period will end March 30, but it will likely take several weeks or months for officials to comb through the 80-plus pages of outcry posted so far on their Web site, under "Regulation E," and issue a ruling.
Mr. Moebs said he wouldn't be surprised to see the Fed require banks and credit unions to break down transactions into four broad types -- ATM withdrawals, automated payments, debit-card purchases, and check purchases -- and allow customers to pick which types they'd like to carry overdraft protection, starting perhaps on Jan. 1, 2010.
"I think that's great, but who's going to pay for it?" he said, estimating the cost of banks' updating their programming and technology to comply in the $25 million to $40 million range. "Since the Fed is saving everyone these days, are they willing to cough up?"
He and others in the industry say it isn't clear how much ramped-up regulation would benefit consumers, especially if it prompts banks to cover the cost of new regulation and make up for the lost fee income by restricting debit-card usage or imposing fees elsewhere, such as on free checking accounts.
"Somewhere or another these costs have to be covered," said William Cooper, chief executive of Wayzata, Minn.-based TCF Bank, an $18 billion company with some 450 branches and 1.8 million checking accounts. He said it could mean the end of free checking, which his bank pioneered over 20 years ago. "Instead of that monthly charge we get debit-card fees, ATM fees and so on that make up the difference. If you take those away it's pretty clear what will happen; we'll have to go back to $10 a month," for checking accounts, he said. "Then everyone will end up paying for it."
Fed Weighs Change as Banks Take Heat: Costly Waffles, Valentine Woes
By KELLY EVANS (Wall Street Journal)
In recent years, overdraft fees made billions of dollars for banks, but only worsened the hangover for a debt-addicted nation. Now, amid an overhaul of financial institutions and their services, consumers are seizing their moment to cry foul.
The Fed is debating whether reign in pesky overdraft banking fees. WSJ's Kelsey Hubbard speaks to WSJ reporter Kelly Evans about whether consumers will really benefit.
The Federal Reserve ends a public comment period this month to determine whether banks' current handling of overdraft fees needs to be changed. In the process, its Web site has become a sounding board for Americans' frustration with all things banking, from billion-dollar bailouts to the average $27 fine for overdrawing on an account.
For example, Brian Shriver in Atlanta, Ga., writes: "Such fees are obscene and immoral. The lesson I learned is that I can't trust my bank to avoid the temptation to rip me off royally."
Overdraft fees usually work like this: A customer makes a purchase -- in Mr. Shriver's case, say, $12.21 at Waffle House -- but doesn't realize his account doesn't have enough for the transaction. Rather than decline his card or alert him, the bank allows the transaction to proceed, so Mr. Shriver isn't aware that his account is negative -- or that he has incurred a $35 overdraft fee -- until he checks his balance online.
"It's deeply unfair," said Mr. Shriver, 43 years old, when reached by telephone. He wrote to the Fed in exasperation after a series of small purchases he made last month racked up $525 in overdraft fees. "I'm mad at my bank but I'm also mad at the system," he said. "There needs to be more oversight so these fees aren't so extortionary."(Blogger note - or we can state that you bounced 15 checks)
Most banks and credit unions automatically sign customers up for what they call overdraft "protection," that allows -- rather than blocks -- purchases and ATM withdrawals that overdraw their bank accounts. For this service, the institutions charge customers fees ranging from $10 to $38 per overdraft, according to a study released last November by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Some 86% of banks the FDIC surveyed had overdraft programs in place in 2006, and three-quarters automatically enrolled customers in such programs. The survey also found overdraft fees were most common among young adults, ages 18 to 25, and low-income accounts. A separate analysis from Mike Moebs, who runs Lake Bluff, Ill.-based Moebs Services, a research and consulting firm, shows banks and credit unions earned $36.7 billion in consumer overdraft revenue last year, about three-quarters of their total service charge income.
Several factors contribute to banks' success with such fees, namely the ubiquity of debit cards and the fact that fewer Americans pull out -- let alone balance -- checkbooks anymore, favoring the cards and online banking. The number of debit-card transactions in the U.S. surpassed credit cards for the first time in 2004, according to data from the Nilson Report, and debit usage has grown nearly 50% since then to about 33 billion transactions last year, versus 24.6 billion for credit cards.
Last year, Jennimaria Palomaki, a scholarship student at the University of Georgia who works part-time to support herself, unwittingly racked up nearly $200 in overdraft fees on a series of small purchases she made without realizing her balance was negative. "I live paycheck to paycheck and I always check my balance online," she said, "but sometimes you don't realize a charge has gone through and every one of these little purchases is overdrawing your account." Paying off those charges meant she couldn't afford to buy her boyfriend a gift for Valentine's Day. (Blogger note - The HORROR)
"I understand the banks have to protect their own interest. I get that," she said. "But it feels like I'm being stolen from when I get this huge fee for a small purchase."
People like Mr. Shriver and Ms. Palomaki say this isn't fair. They want the option either to opt out of the service altogether or to be told when they're about to make a purchase that will overdraw their accounts and incur a fee. "There's no alert system," Ms. Palomaki said. "That's the biggest problem." (Blogger note - yes, it is called addition and subtraction). She and others also object that when several purchases happen simultaneously, banks process the largest ones first, so that each subsequent smaller charge incurs a fee.
The Fed is considering a number of different approaches, ranging from no change in current practices to requiring banks to give notification on every purchase that would result in an overdraft, but many institutions say the latter isn't realistic. "People think when they're making a purchase it's like a direct line into their account but it's not; it's a third-party processor making the transaction," said Judy Rigwood, compliance director at the TLC Federal Credit Union in Oregon, with five branches and about $90 million in assets. "We don't have the technology to do that."
She and others say the only real option is to allow customers to opt entirely in or entirely out of overdraft service. Those who opt out would see their cards declined on those purchases exceeding the amount available in their checking accounts. "Frankly we offer overdraft service as a way to help our members," Ms. Rigwood said. "Some people rely on it almost like they would a payday loan. It allows them to make vital purchases."
The Fed's 60-day comment period will end March 30, but it will likely take several weeks or months for officials to comb through the 80-plus pages of outcry posted so far on their Web site, under "Regulation E," and issue a ruling.
Mr. Moebs said he wouldn't be surprised to see the Fed require banks and credit unions to break down transactions into four broad types -- ATM withdrawals, automated payments, debit-card purchases, and check purchases -- and allow customers to pick which types they'd like to carry overdraft protection, starting perhaps on Jan. 1, 2010.
"I think that's great, but who's going to pay for it?" he said, estimating the cost of banks' updating their programming and technology to comply in the $25 million to $40 million range. "Since the Fed is saving everyone these days, are they willing to cough up?"
He and others in the industry say it isn't clear how much ramped-up regulation would benefit consumers, especially if it prompts banks to cover the cost of new regulation and make up for the lost fee income by restricting debit-card usage or imposing fees elsewhere, such as on free checking accounts.
"Somewhere or another these costs have to be covered," said William Cooper, chief executive of Wayzata, Minn.-based TCF Bank, an $18 billion company with some 450 branches and 1.8 million checking accounts. He said it could mean the end of free checking, which his bank pioneered over 20 years ago. "Instead of that monthly charge we get debit-card fees, ATM fees and so on that make up the difference. If you take those away it's pretty clear what will happen; we'll have to go back to $10 a month," for checking accounts, he said. "Then everyone will end up paying for it."
Friday, March 20, 2009
Somewhere John Galt is Smiling
Courtesty of Bloomberg.com and Caroline Baum
So True.
Commentary by Caroline Baum
March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Somewhere John Galt is smiling.
The hero of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” is smiling because he’s seen it all before: the government’s intervention in the private sector; the constraints placed on business in the name of the people; the desperation on the part of government bureaucrats when they realize their leverage is limited; and -- this part is still fiction -- the decision on the part of business leaders to walk away from the enterprises they built.
That’s all I could think about when I read that American International Group Inc., recipient of $173 billion in taxpayer funds, was paying out $165 million in bonuses to employees of its financial-products group, the poster boy for risk and greed.
The Obama administration, Congress and the public are outraged taxpayer dollars are going to enrich the folks who got us into this mess. So am I.
Members of Congress want to blame Edward Liddy, the former chief executive officer of Allstate Corp., who was recruited by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in September to steer AIG away from the shoals.
Liddy is paid $1 a year for his efforts. “My only stake is my reputation,” Liddy said in a March 16 open letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
His only crime, as far as I can tell, is inheriting compensation contracts providing for retention bonuses for certain AIG derivative traders, some of whom have left the company, and listening to lawyers on his options.
‘Directive 10-289’
Why should Liddy endure the public’s wrath for the sake of his reputation, which lawmakers will destroy in a heartbeat to save their own hides? Youwalkaway.com isn’t an option just for homeowners who owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth.
In Rand’s magnum opus, the “men of the mind,” as she calls the nation’s producers, quit. Literally. They walk away from the mines, factories and businesses they built as the government tries to deprive them of their wealth through increased regulation and taxation. (Whether financial engineering constitutes production is an issue for another column.)
Rand’s men in Washington believe they’re entitled to the output of these minds and the material rewards, enacting an Equalization of Opportunity bill, which is really about equality of outcomes; a Railroad Unification Act, to prop up weak carriers and destroy competition; and ultimately, as the economy collapses, “Directive 10-289,” which makes it a crime to stop working.
The “looters,” as Rand calls them, fail to understand that the men of the mind may vote with their feet, refusing to work for the benefit of others.
Eerie Parallels
I’m not alone in noting the parallels in the government’s evolving response to the financial crisis. For a year I’ve been waiting for Paulson or Geithner to announce “the John Galt Plan to save the economy,” which is right out of Rand’s novel.
It wasn’t until the AIG bonus brouhaha broke last weekend and I watched government officials flailing to contain the fallout that I realized the government is losing its leverage. Or maybe it never had any leverage to begin with.
Let me explain. The government has been propping up teetering financial institutions, including AIG, Citigroup and Bank of America, creating the illusion that the banks need the government.
The government doesn’t care about these institutions. It cares about the stability of the financial system: the totality, not the parts.
Congress can refuse to allocate more money to institutions in which it already owns a share (80 percent in the case of AIG). It can levy a tax on the AIG bonus payments or withhold them from the next $30 billion cash infusion, although who would notice? And it can install new management.
Reardon Steel
Why hasn’t the government put in its own people already? Maybe no one wants the job.
The government needs Liddy and Citigroup’s Vikram Pandit and Bank of America’s Ken Lewis to continue working to restore their firms to prosperity in the same way the looters in Rand’s novel need Hank Reardon and Francisco d’Anconia and Dagny Taggart, respectively, to run their steel mills, copper mines and railroad.
From their perches as chairmen of the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee, respectively, Democrats Barney Frank and Chris Dodd fulminate about the lack of regulation and about inflated CEO compensation. For Dodd, it’s a good opportunity to deflect attention from his sweetheart mortgages from former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo and his questionable real estate deal in Ireland.
All that’s left for life to imitate art completely is for these CEOs to quit. Let Barney Frank and Chris Dodd run AIG. Let’s see how they fare.
Fact Versus Fiction
The government needs these companies to survive -- and buy back the government’s ownership stake -- more than they need the government. Most of these CEOs are already wealthy. They don’t need a job working for the government, which is what running a bank amounts to today.
What’s in it for them? One dollar of compensation? Their reputations? The house on the lake looks more appealing by the day.
Is anyone surprised sales of “Atlas Shrugged” have spiked in recent months as reality comes to resemble Rand’s fiction?
(Caroline Baum, author of “Just What I Said,” is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
So True.
Commentary by Caroline Baum
March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Somewhere John Galt is smiling.
The hero of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” is smiling because he’s seen it all before: the government’s intervention in the private sector; the constraints placed on business in the name of the people; the desperation on the part of government bureaucrats when they realize their leverage is limited; and -- this part is still fiction -- the decision on the part of business leaders to walk away from the enterprises they built.
That’s all I could think about when I read that American International Group Inc., recipient of $173 billion in taxpayer funds, was paying out $165 million in bonuses to employees of its financial-products group, the poster boy for risk and greed.
The Obama administration, Congress and the public are outraged taxpayer dollars are going to enrich the folks who got us into this mess. So am I.
Members of Congress want to blame Edward Liddy, the former chief executive officer of Allstate Corp., who was recruited by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in September to steer AIG away from the shoals.
Liddy is paid $1 a year for his efforts. “My only stake is my reputation,” Liddy said in a March 16 open letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
His only crime, as far as I can tell, is inheriting compensation contracts providing for retention bonuses for certain AIG derivative traders, some of whom have left the company, and listening to lawyers on his options.
‘Directive 10-289’
Why should Liddy endure the public’s wrath for the sake of his reputation, which lawmakers will destroy in a heartbeat to save their own hides? Youwalkaway.com isn’t an option just for homeowners who owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth.
In Rand’s magnum opus, the “men of the mind,” as she calls the nation’s producers, quit. Literally. They walk away from the mines, factories and businesses they built as the government tries to deprive them of their wealth through increased regulation and taxation. (Whether financial engineering constitutes production is an issue for another column.)
Rand’s men in Washington believe they’re entitled to the output of these minds and the material rewards, enacting an Equalization of Opportunity bill, which is really about equality of outcomes; a Railroad Unification Act, to prop up weak carriers and destroy competition; and ultimately, as the economy collapses, “Directive 10-289,” which makes it a crime to stop working.
The “looters,” as Rand calls them, fail to understand that the men of the mind may vote with their feet, refusing to work for the benefit of others.
Eerie Parallels
I’m not alone in noting the parallels in the government’s evolving response to the financial crisis. For a year I’ve been waiting for Paulson or Geithner to announce “the John Galt Plan to save the economy,” which is right out of Rand’s novel.
It wasn’t until the AIG bonus brouhaha broke last weekend and I watched government officials flailing to contain the fallout that I realized the government is losing its leverage. Or maybe it never had any leverage to begin with.
Let me explain. The government has been propping up teetering financial institutions, including AIG, Citigroup and Bank of America, creating the illusion that the banks need the government.
The government doesn’t care about these institutions. It cares about the stability of the financial system: the totality, not the parts.
Congress can refuse to allocate more money to institutions in which it already owns a share (80 percent in the case of AIG). It can levy a tax on the AIG bonus payments or withhold them from the next $30 billion cash infusion, although who would notice? And it can install new management.
Reardon Steel
Why hasn’t the government put in its own people already? Maybe no one wants the job.
The government needs Liddy and Citigroup’s Vikram Pandit and Bank of America’s Ken Lewis to continue working to restore their firms to prosperity in the same way the looters in Rand’s novel need Hank Reardon and Francisco d’Anconia and Dagny Taggart, respectively, to run their steel mills, copper mines and railroad.
From their perches as chairmen of the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee, respectively, Democrats Barney Frank and Chris Dodd fulminate about the lack of regulation and about inflated CEO compensation. For Dodd, it’s a good opportunity to deflect attention from his sweetheart mortgages from former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo and his questionable real estate deal in Ireland.
All that’s left for life to imitate art completely is for these CEOs to quit. Let Barney Frank and Chris Dodd run AIG. Let’s see how they fare.
Fact Versus Fiction
The government needs these companies to survive -- and buy back the government’s ownership stake -- more than they need the government. Most of these CEOs are already wealthy. They don’t need a job working for the government, which is what running a bank amounts to today.
What’s in it for them? One dollar of compensation? Their reputations? The house on the lake looks more appealing by the day.
Is anyone surprised sales of “Atlas Shrugged” have spiked in recent months as reality comes to resemble Rand’s fiction?
(Caroline Baum, author of “Just What I Said,” is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
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