It’s time for taxpayers to flex their muscles. While Clyde Haberman is talking about banks in New York City, let me bring up a few points, in the same vein, for the banks down here in east TN that will be reaping the benefits of our taxpayer dollars. So, being one of the 140 million people that filed their taxes last year, I am now the proud/foolish (I guess that depends on the day) owner in stakes in numerous banks.
According to our math, not the most reliable of guides, each taxpayer in this country has a $1,785.71 ownership share in the banks of America.
This figure is based on the $250 billion that the Treasury Department is investing in banks to prod them to start lending again. We divided $250 billion by 140 million, which the Internal Revenue Service says is the number of individual tax returns filed last year. By our count, that gives every taxpayer a $1,785.71 stake in JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and the rest.
Uh, by the way, as an aside, Joe the plumber doesn’t get to have a say.
Also excluded is Joe the Publicity-Hungry Unlicensed Plumber. Public records have shown that Joe suffers from Sticky Fingers Syndrome in paying all that he owes.)
Down here in Tennessee, it seems that banks that had not bought into the risky lending business are also reaping taxpayer dollars.
First Tennessee Bank Executive Vice President Donna Cooper says, “We’re very much in the loan business, just as we were six months ago.”
Cooper says First Tennessee wants to make sure its customers know it never bought into risky loans or borowers, so it hasn’t had to tighten money or lending standards
But, First Horizon, the parent company of First Tennessee, is getting $866 million taxpayer dollars. Makes one wonder what First Horizon was doing, even if First TN did not participate in risky lending. Was First Horizon considered an ailing bank? Not really — they want the infusion of our dollars so they can buy other ailing banks, or so it seems.
Be that as it may, let me follow on Haberman’s coattails and offer my thoughts for banks in this area, and banks in general:
1. Gov. Phil Bredesen should take a page from Cuomo’s playbook and urge the TNAG to issue a statement similar to Cuomo’s.
As shareholders, we were going to suggest that the top executives of the banks forgo end-of-year bonuses, but Andrew M. Cuomo, New York’s attorney general, was ahead of us. He sent a letter on Wednesday to nine big financial institutions asking for information about their plans in this regard. It doesn’t guarantee that mega-bonuses are finished. But, really, why should we give a dime to executives who had to come to us hat in hand? Better to give an extra buck or two to the guy in the subway with an outstretched plastic cup.
2. A moratorium on building more bank branches sounds pretty damn good right about now. Here in west Knoxville, bank’s, known and unknown, are popping up on corners faster than Dunkin Donuts in the northeast. (If you have ever visited the north east, directions are given based on the number of 7-11’s and/or Dunkin Donuts between point A and point B, they are on almost every corner imaginable) And, by the way, while banks are building new offices, plenty of commercial space is going to waste around here. There are dozens of empty buildings, zoned commercial, that are just sitting around collecting dust.
3. Recognizable names, or should I clarify this to say recognizable companies. I haven’t seen a Sovereign bank or Banco Santander, but Green Bank and Bank East? Who the hell are these banks?
For my next two suggestions, I can’t improve on Haberman, so here they are:
Might we end the procedure by which banks stiff you when you deposit a large check? Often, you are initially credited with only part of the deposit, and must wait a few days to gain access to the rest. Meanwhile, the bank is using the withheld portion to pick up a few bucks for itself. Check-clearance times have been speeded up in recent years. But why shouldn’t depositors be able to get at their money immediately, all of it?
For that matter, why must bank customers pay several times to retrieve cash at an A.T.M. (known to some as short for Always Taking Money)? If you use an A.T.M. at a bank other than your own, that bank usually charges you a fee. Fair enough. But your own bank also charges you for the same transaction. So you pay twice for the privilege — no, make that the right — to withdraw your own money. How is that?
Let’s add to that, how overdraft charges are applied. Yes, on occasion we all make a mistake, and go over what is in our checking accounts. But, in this day and age of online banking, many folks check their account status on nearly a daily basis. When a pending purchase overdraws that account, you make a deposit before the purchase clears. When I worked at a bank, more than 20 years ago, it used to be that deposits were credited to your account first then checks debited) Not for Bank of America customers. It seems that Forbes doesn’t like that giant sucking sound we are hearing from our checking accounts, either. And here is their take on the overdraft scam:
It’s easy to rack up multiple bounced check/overdraft fees simply by virtue of how banks tend to process checks. Someone with $300 in their account may have written six checks totaling $375, the result of either shoddy math or a bet that the checks won’t clear until an expected electronic deposit arrives.
In any event, let’s say the checks, written in amounts of $200, $12, $50, $60, $23 and $30, arrive at the bank on the same day for processing–before the deposit comes in. Rather than clearing the four smallest checks and bouncing the $200 check, a bank would more typically clear the two biggest checks, $200 and $60, and bounce the other three, a difference of $105 in bounced check fees versus $35, assuming that’s what the bank charges.
So, now that I own a stake in these banks I am demanding a change back to an era of actual customer service, instead of the Culture of Greed.
