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If you want to spend your time on earth helping to destroy the lives of poor people, work at a bank like Bank of America or Wells Fargo. They've got evil corrup

If you want to spend your time on earth helping to destroy the lives of poor people, work at a bank like Bank of America or Wells Fargo. They've got evil corruption down to a science. > A 2014 CFPB study showed that about 8 percent of bank customers pay about 75 percent of all overdraft fees. And much of the time, the purchases that trigger overdraft fees are minor. The median debit card transaction that ends in an overdraft fee is $24, according to the bureau. > Overdraft fees began piling up in Davis Clark’s Wells Fargo account after he lost his job in February. The 26-year-old fell behind on bills, including about $9,000 in short-term loans he had taken out to help cover his living expenses. Each time the lenders tried to automatically withdraw payment from his checking account — his monthly payments added up to about $550 — he was hit with a $35 charge from his bank for not having sufficient funds. By the time Clark started a new job as a data analyst less than two months later, his checking account was negative by more than $1,400. The debt that ate up more than half of his first paycheck and made it more difficult for him to catch up on the rent and other bills. Last week, Clark opened up a second checking account with another bank so that he could avoid having his earnings eaten by overdraft fees. But with the charges continuing to pile up on his first account, he worries he will have little choice but to file for bankruptcy to clear the loans and overdraft fees. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2016/06/13/wall-street-is-making-big-bucks-from-overdraft-fees-again/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2016/06/13/... If you want to help people, empower your fellow humans with new technology that renders these truly evil megacorps obsolete.

jmulho 9y ago
I was once hit with a $35 overdraft fee three days in a row for buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I was really pissed off... at myself, for not staying on top of my bank balance. I don't consider the bank evil for enforcing terms I agreed to.
- Chirael 9y ago
  It's also often possible to set up low balance alerts including text and email. It's one of the first things I look for when setting up a new bank account (at any bank) - right after turning on 2FA of course.
  - johnpowell 9y ago
    I got a overdraft about 6 years ago and when I went into the bank to sort it out they said if I want they can just turn off overdrafts so the card will be simply declined. I use a credit union.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- influx 9y ago
  I'm all for personal accountability, but these banks have also intentionally "mis-ordered" transactions to make it that you hit multiple overdraft fees. http://www.wisebread.com/banks-manipulate-your-transactions-may-charge-you-1750-overdraft-fee http://www.wisebread.com/banks-manipulate-your-transactions-...
- untog 9y ago
  I don't think your punishment for buying an expensive luxury coffee is the main complaint people have with overdraft fees. There are plenty of people who do monitor their balances. Obsessively. Because they have to, because they live just above the poverty line. Overdraft fees punish those people, often for things out of their control (having to take a sick day when you don't get sick pay, for example. Or just not getting enough hours given to you in the first place!), punishing their loss of money by... taking away even more of their money. This is more of a debate about society than the specific products a bank offers, but you being daft enough to pay $35 for a Starbucks coffee isn't really comparable to the lives these people live, and the vicious cycle things like overdraft fees can land them in.
0wing 9y ago
Best estimates are that there are about one million holders of Bitcoin; 47 individuals hold about 30 percent, another 900 hold a further 20 percent, the next 10,000 about 25% and another million about 20%, with 5% being lost. So 1/10th of one percent represent about half the holdings of Bitcoin and 1 percent close to 80 percent (http://www.businessinsider.com/927-people-own-half- of-the-bitcoins-2013-12). The concentration of Litecoin ownership is similar (http://litecoin-rich-list.blogspot.com). Most of the big wallets have been in place from early on, so sitting back and watching your capital grow has been a very successful strategy. The distribution of Bitcoin holdings looks much like the distribution of wealth in North Korea and makes the China’s and even the US’ wealth distribution look like that of a workers’ paradise [1] Both Bitcoin and Ethereum mining are very centralized, with the top four miners in Bitcoin and the top three miners in Ethereum controlling more than 50% of the hash rate. [2] Even taking a conservative skewed estimate [3] of wealth distribution in Bitcoin, it's about twice as worse than normal capital oligarchy. This is because PoW* style cryptocoins allow anyone with capital to proportionally extract the limited supply of Bitcoins/Cryptocoins/Altcoins/Tokens/Etc - but often significantly worse due to how Satoshi style PoW algorithms produce the majority of the supply in a short time frame. Worse yet are the premined networks, like Ripple, NEM, ERC20 Tokens, NEO, Ethereum, and so on. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-inequality-2014-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-inequality-2014-1 [2] http://hackingdistributed.com/2018/01/15/decentralization-bitcoin-ethereum/ http://hackingdistributed.com/2018/01/15/decentralization-bi... [3] https://medium.com/@BambouClub/are-you-in-the-bitcoin-1-a-new-model-of-the-distribution-of-bitcoin-wealth-6adb0d4a6a95 https://medium.com/@BambouClub/are-you-in-the-bitcoin-1-a-ne... * Proof of Stake will exacerbate wealth centralization, due to statistical probability of block rewards going to the wealthiest, perpetually increasing their odds of further newly minted coins.
- nrhk 9y ago
  That's why I love Raiblocks, decentralized, distributed to third world countries initially, no marketing, feeless, fast. It most likely has the lowest gini coefficient of any coin in the top 100.
  - 9y ago

jmulho 9y ago

I was once hit with a $35 overdraft fee three days in a row for buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I was really pissed off... at myself, for not staying on top of my bank balance. I don't consider the bank evil for enforcing terms I agreed to.

Chirael 9y ago
It's also often possible to set up low balance alerts including text and email. It's one of the first things I look for when setting up a new bank account (at any bank) - right after turning on 2FA of course.
- johnpowell 9y ago
  I got a overdraft about 6 years ago and when I went into the bank to sort it out they said if I want they can just turn off overdrafts so the card will be simply declined. I use a credit union.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
influx 9y ago
I'm all for personal accountability, but these banks have also intentionally "mis-ordered" transactions to make it that you hit multiple overdraft fees. http://www.wisebread.com/banks-manipulate-your-transactions-may-charge-you-1750-overdraft-fee http://www.wisebread.com/banks-manipulate-your-transactions-...
untog 9y ago
I don't think your punishment for buying an expensive luxury coffee is the main complaint people have with overdraft fees. There are plenty of people who do monitor their balances. Obsessively. Because they have to, because they live just above the poverty line. Overdraft fees punish those people, often for things out of their control (having to take a sick day when you don't get sick pay, for example. Or just not getting enough hours given to you in the first place!), punishing their loss of money by... taking away even more of their money. This is more of a debate about society than the specific products a bank offers, but you being daft enough to pay $35 for a Starbucks coffee isn't really comparable to the lives these people live, and the vicious cycle things like overdraft fees can land them in.

0wing 9y ago

Best estimates are that there are about one million holders of Bitcoin; 47 individuals hold about 30 percent, another 900 hold a further 20 percent, the next 10,000 about 25% and another million about 20%, with 5% being lost. So 1/10th of one percent represent about half the holdings of Bitcoin and 1 percent close to 80 percent (http://www.businessinsider.com/927-people-own-half- of-the-bitcoins-2013-12). The concentration of Litecoin ownership is similar (http://litecoin-rich-list.blogspot.com). Most of the big wallets have been in place from early on, so sitting back and watching your capital grow has been a very successful strategy. The distribution of Bitcoin holdings looks much like the distribution of wealth in North Korea and makes the China’s and even the US’ wealth distribution look like that of a workers’ paradise [1] Both Bitcoin and Ethereum mining are very centralized, with the top four miners in Bitcoin and the top three miners in Ethereum controlling more than 50% of the hash rate. [2] Even taking a conservative skewed estimate [3] of wealth distribution in Bitcoin, it's about twice as worse than normal capital oligarchy. This is because PoW* style cryptocoins allow anyone with capital to proportionally extract the limited supply of Bitcoins/Cryptocoins/Altcoins/Tokens/Etc - but often significantly worse due to how Satoshi style PoW algorithms produce the majority of the supply in a short time frame. Worse yet are the premined networks, like Ripple, NEM, ERC20 Tokens, NEO, Ethereum, and so on. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-inequality-2014-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-inequality-2014-1 [2] http://hackingdistributed.com/2018/01/15/decentralization-bitcoin-ethereum/ http://hackingdistributed.com/2018/01/15/decentralization-bi... [3] https://medium.com/@BambouClub/are-you-in-the-bitcoin-1-a-new-model-of-the-distribution-of-bitcoin-wealth-6adb0d4a6a95 https://medium.com/@BambouClub/are-you-in-the-bitcoin-1-a-ne... * Proof of Stake will exacerbate wealth centralization, due to statistical probability of block rewards going to the wealthiest, perpetually increasing their odds of further newly minted coins.

nrhk 9y ago
That's why I love Raiblocks, decentralized, distributed to third world countries initially, no marketing, feeless, fast. It most likely has the lowest gini coefficient of any coin in the top 100.
- 9y ago