Robin Hood Tax on Financial transactions for Big Banks....
 

Good Idea?

I dont know, but what I do know is I almost punched a banker in the throat the other day when I went in to get a explanation for a "excessive account activity" fee.

Did you know you can only make 6 (online) transfers from your savings account per month without incurring a fee? That its actually a federal law?

Should we guess which bank drew up that law?

It makes total sense though, hold on while I think of the reason...

It still pisses me off thinking about it.

You can avoid the fee by going to the branch and doing it in person. I asked the banker WTF is the difference if I come in here or do it online.

Her answer as if speaking to a 5 year old, "one is doing it from a computer and the other is talking to a person face to face."

Holy shit I almost snapped.

It sounds really good in theory and if it can be pulled off, I'm all for it.

The risk, however, at least in the long run, is that financial transactions relocate to other places, such as say Hong Kong. This would weaken the financial sector and "export" lots of jobs.

Yes, they even say all countries need to be involved so that doesn't happen and give anyone an advantage.

There are several problems with this. First of all, the name is silly, since robin hood was takkng from the tax collectors and the government and giving back to the people, so a "robin hood tax" is a contradiction. Secondly any tax on a business is counted as a cost, and passed on to the customer in some way. This always happens, until the tax becomes so high that the business becomes uncompetative, either through high prices or prices that do not cover costs, in which case they stop selling the product altogether and either move or go out of business. When they raise taxes on bread, WE pay for the increased cost of sandwhiches. Dont be

Reducing liquidity... good idea if you want even more financial problems.

Dont be fooled by government claims of taxing "evil business". In the end, its just smoke screen to increasetaxes on everyone. The other effect, of course,is that it kills off smaller competitors from coming into the market

Really? How do you plan to pay for police protection, paramedics, firefighters, new roads etc etc

Yes, 'cause we know how well that's worked so many times... Clusterfuck.

this isn't bread and sandwiches.

It would be, if the government hadn't fucked around with bailing out the banks to begin with.

I love Bill Nighy. I could watch every movie he is in back to back, day after day, and never tire of him.

That's been a law for a while now. I think the idea was that a savings account is supposed to be where you save money for long-term uses, and a checking account is for everyday uses.

Save yourself the fee by keeping extra money in your checking.

Thats what my 401k is for. What do they fucking care how and when I use my own money.

This is interesting. When I was in high school (I graduated in 1989) one of the required classes was called personal finance. It basically taught you how write a check, balance a check book, make a household budget and all those types of basics that a typical person would need.

My teacher taught us that we should always keep our money in savings until we have to pay our bills and pay them on the last day you can without them being late. For example, if the bill is due by the 25th, pay it on the 25th (if you can. You might need to mail it a few days earlier) and keep your money in savings until you write the check to pay the bill then transfer the money over to cover it. The idea was that you will gain interest on that money as it sits in savings and unless you have an interest bearing checking account you won't while it sits in checking.

I still do a version of this today, but I only make a few transfer per month since most of my bills are due either at the first of the month or around the 15th

Texas & Nevada collect use tax
 

Maybe it should be called The Sheriff of Nottingham Tax, like when the police seize millions of dollars of property, because they find one pot joint in an ashtray, or one stray pot plant growing on the property, the owner didn't know about.
Happened to somebody I knew. She admits they smoked pot like fiends, but had no idea somebody planted pot on their land. Next thing they know, is he's in Leavenworth for a long stretch and she's working as a barmaid just to give him cigarette money.

I don't disagree, I'm just explaining what the deal is.

I pay everything by credit card. Credit card payment comes out of my checking account on the day it is due. Checking account has enough funds in it to cover the credit card. Remaining money goes in ING savings (better interest.) Fully automated, builds my credit, and earns interest.

Is dealing with a few transfers a month really worth the $.50 you are gaining on interest? ;-)

CitiBank
 

That works, except on day I found out there was a late credit card payment. Seems every couple of months Citi slowly moved up the date from the 12th to the 2nd. I always paid a few days early, but didn't realize they had moved up the date until I got a call. By being late against the 2nd, huge penalties. Good thing it was my Sears card, that they had already dropped my credit approval for paying off the entire balance. Paid it off, dropped the card.
Credit cards are crazy. My GF gets at least one offer a month, for a minimum of 100X her annual income. 3 or 4 cards, we could buy a small country.
Best was Bank America offered her a "Black Visa," sort of like the 'Black AMEX.' Unlimited spending limit. You can buy anything. Black AMEX only exists since, some novelist created it in a book. Then AMEX customers kept calling demanding to know why they didn't have one.

Those are offers to get your girlfriend in the door. It's a blank mail that everyone gets. She would not be approved for that.

You can also call your bank/credit card company and set your credit card date to any day of the month that you want. They all do it. Synchronize all of your payment dates. Also, set up your auto pay from within your credit card company itself, not through your bank or check issuing source.

Cards
 

Citi is notorious for the creeping payment date, so they can hit you in fees, when you suddenly became late.
They caught people like me, that never look at the statement, just send a payment or have their online banking mail a payment on a certain date. In less than a year, the payment date went form the 12th to the second. Dummy me, I just never bothered to look.

Well GF has a
$10,000 Target card
$8,000 Bank America
$10,000 Citibank
$5,000 Victoria's Secret
and A $50,000 Bank America
Probably the reason they offered her the black card.
Think they're basing it on her income from 10 years ago, about $500,000 (she used to own one of the most profitable restaurants in a national chain). I know that doesn't sound like much, but you try earning a profit, selling all-you-can-eat breakfast for $2.99
Once you have a solid gold credit rating, they fall over themselves to offer you more.

What the fuck is this stupidity? Where I live banks charge MORE when you do transactions in person because you use their human power. Every bank ENCOURAGES to use internet for transactions. This one is doing it backwards :1orglaugh