Sure is hard to keep A Saving Account.

Well Fargo Bank, Called me and asked me if I wanted to start a Saving account. I'm still employed and need to start saving some money, and want to help the economy ( like keeping the phone bankers employed) so I agreed, to open a new savings account. I might have closed my Saving account before because of the same problems I'm telling you about now.

Before I got assessed so much money in Overdraft fees, I'd say from the year 2000 to 2010 , I was probably assessed more than 300.00 in overdraft fees if not more. In spite of having an income, and a saving account,and a direct deposit account, sometimes I wasn't careful enough... I got a negative balance. It would be like I'd check out my account at the Automatic Teller on the day before a direct deposit from my job. It would show a negative balance. Sometimes I'd borrow the money ( direct deposit advance), to cover the amount only too discover the next day and find out I was still assessed Overdraft fees ( $35.00 a pop), alot of money for me, particularly if you are overdrawn by .05 cents,many separate times.

Now days its supposed to be alittle better? The banks offer Overdraft protection, ( which I had previously), and now Debit card overdraft protection. this is all helpful provided that you have a Saving Account, so that if your overdrawn on a checking account,the bank will pull money from your savings .

This is why I wanted a saving account and money in it. I signed up for another Saving Account after the bank called me for one. But the new caveat for keeping a Saving account at Well fargo at least,is that you can only have a few transactions in it, a month, otherwise the bank might change the Saving account into a Checking account..thusly you lose overdraft protection since your Saving account doesn't exist, and the bank won't pull whatever money is owed from your newly designated Checking account .

So recently I incurred over a hundred dollars in Overdraft fees, because the bank changed the designation of my Saving account into a Checking account. Theoretically I now have two checking accounts. I incurred overdrafts on one of them, in spite of the fact that I had money in both accounts (one formally a Saving account), overdraft protection and debit card overdraft protection.

Sure the bank tell you by mail if there changing your saving account.I barely read letters or statement s by mail from my bank, since I can get whatever information about my account "Online" plus I have lots of other bills , and not alot of money in the bank, so I mostly ignore that stuff.

I called Wells Fargo, the teller offered my half the account they took out in Overdrafts, about $50.00. Probably not totally out of kindness, because there issues like the bank was taking automatic amounts out of my checking account to move into my Saving , monthly. That and other factors probably cause an overdraft. The point is though, that I had money in my Saving account,The intent of that account was to save money in. I had, overdraft, debit protection..it still failed.

What does any consumer need with two checking accounts from a bank?, So I had them cancel the newly designed Checking account, and lost my saving account. I tired of playing this shell game with the banks. Its like I got robbed of &50 00, Mooney I could use to pay rent, pay my Martial art dues, whatever.

I got mad enough to try to see if there was some sort of outside consumer protection agency for banks in cases like this, on the Internet.

The first site I hit was a Consumer agency located as part of the Federal Reserve Bank. Although the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States would seem to rank low in regards to consumer protection against banks in the U.S , I tried them anyway. After all , don't they manage ALL the banks in the United States?

Apparently not, They don't have any jurisdiction? over Wells Fargo bank, they referred me to an office called the OCC Office of the Currency Comptroller?. Isn't like the office "Brooksely Born" used to manage, I guess not. Anyway I haven't contacted them yet about this Flim-Flammery with Well Fargo bank.

I guess not having a Glass-Stegall act, for protection of consumers can hurt, in people like me. Maybe if the U.S Government could "Bail me out", or maybe Warren Buffet.

....................................................................................

MEANWHILE

Meanwhile in the News. Phil Gramm, former Republican Senator for the State of Texas, rears up his head and decided to endorse Republican candidate for United States President ..... Rick Perry. Turns out Rick Perry is a friend and former student of Gramm's.



Wasn't it was Phil Gramm that pushed legislation for the repeal of Glass-Stegall act in the Congress, and the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, which de-regulated the 500 trillion dollar "derivative" market. Also Gramms wife was implicated in that "Enron" scandal, where all those people lost there jobs, and Pensions in that company , and we thought it couldn't happen to us.

Also It seems that The Wall Street Crowd, banks and Investments,Dirty Bastards Incorporated the group that brought you Unemployment, the lost of your homes, Saving and Pensions..are now going to the Republic Presidential candidates. Candidates like Mit Rommney, who has a 1/4 of his campaign funded by "The Wall Street".

The new faces of Poverty in America

The New face of Poverty and Homeless in America are its young people. What's different about it is that is coming so stark. Normally, a few years ago you wouldn't see this, especially in more affluent neighborhoods, but this isn't the case any more. Most of these kids (and some older) are white. Has for other kids of color ,my guess is they'll usually end up in prison,taking to crime readily if they can't get a job, or money in this society.

Below; A duo of traveling Homeless/Jobless youth hanging out, outside a local restaurant McDonald's.



A friendly guy hanging out with a group of teens on the streets.



A group of impoverished teens hanging out outside a ,different,local McDonald's.



A Huckleberry Finn looking Kid, hanging out on the street. With a Puppy dog



Our formally "Grateful Dead" fan now entertaining a group of impoverished Teens. IS he homeless or a "deadhead"?



Our"Deadhead" above entertaining these groups of girls, I couldn't tell if they were homeless ,impoverished or students of the local university.



Seen this guy before,that "Huck Finn" looking dude,get a job,Huck!



Its kind of a blessing that I can even take these pictures. In order to combat crime, and gang related activities in some cities. Government officials there enact "Teen Curfews". American Cities like Chicago, come to mind (under the mayorship of people like Raul Emmanuel, Former Chief of Staff in the White House).

This might be a good strategy to combat crime by Teens, But it can also hide the appalling state of Youth in America ,by hiding the problem, rather than fixing the problem in large cities.

Teens need to exercise there political force in this Country, after all ,"You got to fight, for your right, to party...."

..."'Maybe we should all hide in the Basement"......

A few economists,(Paul Krugman) say the result of the budget debate in Washington D.C over the National deficit, has been a general disaster then there was the slight downgrading of the nation credit rating down from AAA+ to AA. Other Economists like Nomi Prins say that the Ben Bernanke's (Federal Reserve Chairman) decision to lower interest rates is tantamount to doing nothing.. I say based on her analysis, its like he's saying they should all "hide in the basement", like in that movie, George Romero movie "Night of the Living Dead". Hiding in the basement was one of the ways the characters in that movie could protect themselves from the onslaught of the Living Dead.

Our hero, and the hero in that Movie, "Night of the Living Dead", and our President of the United States, Barack Obama, should be fighting for the upstairs. There was a radio and TV upstairs in the Movie, they could get good information has to what was going on; there was a way to escape if they had to (thus there was some transparency that the characters could see what was going on, a point some Economist make when talking about the current financial crisis in the U.S). Survival was all critically dependant on all the characters in the movie working together.

Really, I wanted to break up the monotony of my other post. In spite of the Problems facing Americans these days One could argue that more should be done for the downtrodden in America, and perhaps you could blame Barak Obama for not doing more.. I don't see how you can blame all this on Barack Obama,and it not quite my attempt to do so.

It seems that the Power elites and the Media in the America would do just that. These are the people (Whites) that wanted Barack Obama in there in the first place,its not like African-Americans decided on Barack Obama to be President.

I think there was a African-American who wrote a book, before , Barack Obama came into power. It was a social treatise on "White Guilt". This was during the Clinton Administration ,and I thought how does white guilty feelings have to do with the price of tea and such, don't be silly I'd think to myself!.

Then they voted a person of color as President of the United States. He given a Bankrupt, corrupt legislature ,an increasing damaged world. When Obama can't quite make the Grade, then the voters and the elites who voted him into power , "Poo-Poo" him, after all its make them, look better, and they can have someone else to blame rather than the (white) administrations before him, and attitudes about how there dealing with the world i.e dealing with their economy, their attitudes toward Nations of Color.



Perhaps Barack didn't foresee all the problems that we would be facing as President. Any person of Color would have loved to get in Office there at Washington D.C, but probably very,very few would want to face the type of situations Barack Obama is facing there as President of The United States.

He's facing a disastrous financial situation, triggered by the Sub-prime mortgage debacle. Where the Nations is now 14 trillion dollars in due, partly due to bad( lucrative) loans made by banks and Mortgage companies and little if no federal oversight.

He faced one of the biggest ecological disasters in U.S history caused by British /Pacific Oil company, in the Gulf of Mexico, "Deepwater Horizon".

Plus, strange climate changes in the U.S, natural disasters of all kinds here,.The Nuclear accident in Fukashima, Japan, a meltdown of three nuclear reactors?

Not to mention three wars , the Nation is involving in,Iraq, Afghanistan and the "War against Terror".

Yet, in the coming election year, they want to blame alot of the economic woes On Barack Obama. They want to claim he's spending too much money. Well heck, there isn't any money in the Government coffers. And very likely Obama didn't cause the Financial woes that that is besetting the nation.

But On the negative side of voting for a Barack Obama. He came into the Presidency of the U.S with the blessing of the people who caused the financial debacle in the first place, even having some them as advisers on his Presidential campaign,as did the Republican Candidate.

Thus, some economists were saying that Obama hasn't enacted in true banking or financial reforms in the U.S, but maybe voters ought to be glad he didn't; at least threes still a banking system in America that offers credit, they avoided a Depression. But maybe what we have now is more of a "Zombie Economy", and economy that cannot grow and thrive ,or die.

Alot of people didn't like the safeguards George W. Bush put in as President of the United States, like various measures in the "Patriot Act". Barack Obama as President of the U.S is slow to remove them. He said he would close Guantanamo Base, it is still open.

Though Obama is slow to end conflicts in regional disputes in Afghanistan and Iraq, he's started us on a new round of them in Libya, Egypt, Yemen.

In spite of the terrible ecological mess of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Obama seems soft on these Oil companies and is still allowing "Deepwater" oil drilling off the coast of the U.S.

Obama or somebody opened up the rebate in Washington D.C, concerning the debt ceiling, all that squabbling resulted in was a lowering of the U.S Credit rating by one of the rating agencies out there,"Standard and Poor's". Mostly "Poor's" because these were the same companies,that gave AAA ratings to some bad loans, banks and mortgage companies made, packaged off and tried to sell on the market to investors, with AAA rating by Firms like "Moodys" , and "Standard and Poor's".

I digress here, but was it fraud for the rating agencies to do that? ..maybe not ...perhaps these firms knew that the U.S Government, the United States taxpayers, was going to bail out those investors with those bad loans, that's why the rating agencies gave those CDO'S ( collateral debt obligations) AAA rating.

Why not, after all Goldman Sachs had their pointman in Washington "Henry Paulsen" to make sure they (Wall Street) wouldn't take the hit ,when the bills came due. This All came to a head in the "Sub-Prime" mortgage scandal.

It came like some kind of accident..but it couldn't have been an accident if someone or alot of people in the George W. Bush administration knew the bubble was going to bust, particularly the rating agencies. George W. was very preoccupied with fighting the "War on terror "at the time. I'm convinced that, that incident couldn't have happened without the complicity of legislators/ Executives in Washington D.C. It was not "accident". And the Bush administration was culpable.

I think its going to be interesting to see what the other political candidates come up with to challenge Barack Obama with. Shall they Tax more? on the Backs of who? Spending cuts? whats going to become of the Country then? Perhaps the first people who should take pay cuts should be those in Washington D.C itself. Then there must be something done about the political "Cross-purposing" and general Corruption going on in D.C, or Problems like the "Sub-Prime Mortgage scandal are going to continue.

Should there be more regulation, or Less? Should we break up these "Too Big To Fail" banks", or persons, or keep them going?

Meanwhile the People holding all of our money, Banks/Investment firms, the "Wall Street" types are making there rounds in Washington,and in the coffers of our Presidential candidates for and in Academic circles.... There trying push the idea that deregulation is best, not more regulation. Incidents like the "Sub-prime mortgage scandal couldn't have happened with good regulation of financial practices and effective legal, and punitive oversight, they want to do away with any other regulation and gamble with your ,our money on the Stock market.

How about closing public discussion of government budget debt ceilings in the future? Wouldn't you like to know what your government is doing and how its spending your money?

Its going to be interesting to see whom the Wall street types can "buy out" , and which of the political Presidential candidates in the U.S is going to stand up speak out and have the fortitude to take it.

None of the Above.

The New faces of homelessness

 

A very photogenic girl and her friend,panhandling on the street.

 

A guy and his dog.

 

The photogenic girl sits with a friend

 

"To be a rock and not to roll"

 

This Young person couldn't have been older than 18 years old

 

A Street regular with his wares.


 

A young homeless person and a friend.He is a talented guitar player, who played some interesting soundsby tapping his fingers on the fretboard.

 

Homelessness/Poverty in America..con't

The U.S is having budget problems. So its not really a housing Issue, its an issue about a government that has forsaken its people.

There's alot of talk in the legislature about just how there going to pay, or tax U.S citizens to keep the super wealthy happy. One thing that upset me a bit was listening to a talk radio host,talking about how the the top 10% in this country pay most of the taxes,aren't they Taxed enough? Maybe we should tax these people, looks like they have money.

He'll they have 90% of the wealth in this country .In the United States we are too tough on the Rich/Wealthy. I'm all for wealth, but Many people have complained about the type of Capitalism we have in American where the U.S government subsidies the wealthy, 10% of the Country at the expense of the other 90%. Laissez-faire Capitalism

 

The Future of America, This kid lacks one thing if he's going to live out in the streets of America.

 

His Dogs....aaarrff

 

A photogenic fellow...Where's the wife? Wheres the pitchfork? This guy is trying trying to get "spare change"...obviously a believer in Laissez-faire capitalism

 

Scavenging for Lunch, outside a Starbucks store

 

Catching a nap in Chinatown Though China has a population of over 1.3 billion people, the United states with its population of over 400 million has more people living below the poverty line.

Homelessness/Poverty in America

Look at the New face of Homelessness and Poverty in America....Young People....Disenfranchised,in debt, drug addicted, troubled, they're hitting the streets in the U.S. While our legislators decided whether who they should tax,or whether or not the executive branch can decide whom to declare War on in the name of fighting Terrorism. But its our government and our legislators that mostly responsible for the economic mess were in.

Here are some of the Homeless I encounter on a day in the Bay Area, San Francisco California.

 

The New face of the disenfrancised in America..Young People. You have to have a dog with you.

 

These pictures,I took with my Ipod4 Touch,The IPod4 takes So/So still pictures. Here a group of teens camping out on the sidewalk.

 

 

Here's a guy who said he had an advanced degree in computing or something, he asked if I could take a picture of him on his laptop.

 

I got this guy to take a photo, he was fishing out of the garbage, sitting next to him.

 

This guys been living on the streets for a while.

 

About a half a mile down the street,another Homeless person is on the streets with his dog, the other fellow is in the second photo from the top. Below is a friend he's with, she was pissing in an alleyway. I talked to her ,she told me that she had an advanced college degree, but that she picked up an Heroin habit, they were headed for Chinatown. She was sangiune about the idea of being homeless, saying that they don't get any government assisatance, or help.

 

"...... Screw banks/not people"

Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 9:24AM
Nomi Prins

"This morning, amidst news of Moodys cutting Greece's debt rating to Caa1, I came across a phrase I wish I'd thought of first, reading through a friend's morning commentary. The phrase? "Too Stupid to Stop".

According to Bill Blain, Senior Director at Newedge in London, and self-professed Euro skeptic, "'Too Stupid to Stop' is based on politicians behaving as rational maximisers of their electoral objectives." He was referring to the real reason behind all the bank-demanded bailout loans for austerity measures throughout Europe.

In the United States, that mantra can be extended to include appointed officials, like Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner (still not admitting our record debt increase came directly from the $4 trillion worth of Treasury issuance and other forms of assistance extended to our banking system since late 2008, as we endure his stomach-churning 'show-begging' to the GOP for a debt cap raise) and Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke (ditto). It also, of course, applies to congress people whose political survival depends on corporate and bank contributions and financial support, the ones that believe the Dodd-Frank bill changes anything.

Rather than considering how governments have systematically done, and continue to do, the wrong (as in immoral, unfair, and uneconomically sound) thing by trying to preserve banks, any politicians possessing the ability to think independently (an oxymoron, I know) should be asking themselves instead, how clever they could be about closing them down. Take a cue from Iceland.

But, the 'Too Stupid to Stop" behavior, prevents this from occurring.

Bill and I used to work together at Bear Stearns in London during the 1990s, before the Euro came into being. Then, arguments in favor of its inception were more about how it would lead to a 'much-needed' consolidation of political-economic control, rather than an engendering of widespread economic well-being to more European citizens, which didn't even enter the realm of political discussion.

Fifteen years, marked by global currency crises, a US recession caused by energy and telecommunications fraud, a bank fostered global Depression, and a persistent strategy to gouge citizens to pay for the sins of bankers, later - nothing has changed.

What Greece should do is default. Not as a sign of economic weakness, but as a sign of protective strength befitting the notion of Democracy that the country is credited for having brought to the world. Default as an act of much-needed financial defiance and independence from the insatiability of banks.

Last year, Greece's bailout was fashioned in order to make foreign banks and their investors 'whole' on their investments in Greece. It had zero to do with strengthening Greece's local economy or its citizens' financial futures. Indeed, it was designed to further trash the Greek economy, to chain the country to untenable loan conditions that required selling assets at discount prices to pay off new and old debt, while callously condemning its population to decreased average wages and increased unemployment rates, particularly amongst the nation's youth.

Rather than telling those banks that were out the money - THEY HAD RISKED to begin with, to take the free-market, s**t happens, hit, all sorts of austerity measures were attached to the $157 billion bailout loan. They hurt citizens immediately in terms of reducing pension and other social-economic benefits, and hurt them ad infinitum by forcing ongoing fire sales of their national assets which resulted in job losses. The same banks on the hook for lending money to Greece during Phase 1 of the massive global leveraged bet gone wrong, demanded repayment for their risk (otherwise their investors would be upset). Now, they have a greater opportunity to scrounge (read: extract fees) for new deals via brokering European and global firms swooping in for fresh kill, amidst the remains of Greece's assets, such as communication and energy infrastructure.

And yet, rather than say - screw you - to the ECB and the IMF, and all the mega-banking conglomerates that signed off and received fees on deals and debt gone wrong, rather than say - you know what? - we owe a debt to OUR CITIZENS, not the banks that bet against them, and we don't like the terms of this arrangement, Greek politicians are saying - screw you citizens. Again.
Greece is set to present a brand new austerity plan on Friday calling for a FASTER pace of privatization, and more tax hikes on its citizens - just to be able to pay off bondholders and the risk incurred by international banks. This won't end well. If Greece does get a second bailout package, everyone will discover that absent a strategy to revive the local economy, the package will incur further pain, and at some point there won't be any national infrastructure left to sell, and unemployment will skyrocket further. A few bondholders will be happy temporarily because they DON'T CARE whether Greece succeeds or the ECB and IMF keeps creating debt to prop debt (like we do here in the US as a matter of economic policy), same difference. A few banks won't have to write down their losses for the same reason, and a few global corporations will have bought some more assets at rock-bottom prices in a country whose citizens won't be able to afford the payments that will be counted upon to price the related securitization deals. And Greece will be screwed even more.

The better plan would be to disband the Too Stupid to Stop mentality. Screw the banks. Sadly, it's a self-fullfilling downward spiral of incompetence - in Greece, Ireland, Portgual, Spain, Italy, and the United States where the Fed is gearing up for some verison of QE3 in the wake, ironically, of Euro-pay-the-banks, indenture-the-citizens, chaos.

I have a feeling meanwhile, there will be a lot more Greeks protesting in the streets come Friday."

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Another great article by Nomi Prins. Kind of sums up the situation in the U.S as well. AT a time when under political gamesmanship, potential Presidential campaigner "John Edwards" is arrested for taking illegal campaign contribution. Why doesn't the Obama campaign use its Federal machinery to indict some of these people responsible for that Sub-prime mortgage scandal? Even the rating company's like Moody's could be indicted for fraud, for all they were worth during that Scandal.