Fight The Power - Banks
The Fight The Power series will be my writings about our daily struggle with those in position of power. First and foremost is government and will include banking, pharmaceutical, oil companies, politicians, bosses and any other form of power that is being abusive towards us regular folk.
As someone who just went through a horrendous banking experience I have plenty of ammunition for this blog entry. That ammunition is called anger. I could list about 10 abuses of power they tried to inflict on me but that isn’t the point of this is entry.
The point of this entry is that money means power. And the top banks here in Canada Land are making record profits in the billions each and every year. As Consumerist.com just pointed out, banking fees have gotten out of control. And I see kids up here paying for gum with their ATM card, which could mean that the ATM fees could be higher than the gum itself. Thus, they are giving money away to the banks for free!
Up here, if we don’t have our bank balance at a certain level and we use an ATM machine not belonging to our bank, we pay a fee to that bank and pay a second fee to our bank as well. Idiocy. On line banking is great, but you pay a fee at my bank every time you perform certain transactions on it. It adds up in a hurry. How did we get to this point?
We do not teach people about personal finance in school.
There are three major subjects we don’t teach at school, Personal Finance, Marriage and Personal Health. We learn about tangents, why a train goes from A to B, Greek history but we don’t teach our young about how the banks will always pick your pockets without a care. Try watching this documentary on big banks. It should be mandatory in all high schools.
Banks don’t care about you at all. They only care about your money.
Again watch this documentary. Unless you are super rich, banks don’t really care about you. They know most people are weak. They know most people love money. They know that our society is more concerned with image than true happiness. They will feed you credit cards until you completely destroy yourself. They love to give out credit. People love getting their credit card limit higher. It makes them feel good about themselves. I am weak as well. I have an American Express Gold Card. Paying the yearly fee on it is completely absurd.
People don’t live within their means.
Big companies know that people are weak. They prey on them as much as possible. And weak people don’t live within their means. I know a few people that look like they are rich, but they are swimming in debt. Living with your means is all about making more money that you spend and keeping it. Sure, a mortgage is almost necessary. But are high card balances or even car leasing necessary? No. Not at all.
So.
The choice is yours.
About the Author
Terry Vermeylen is one of those rare people that is passionately driven to help others unlock their own barriers toward fulfillment, meaning and purpose. He is the founder of http://www.mylifechanges.com/, an Internet value identification and goal setting enterprise.
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