Your Bank Hates You: From Banks to Credit Unions

My First Experience with a Big Bank

What’s going on with the big banks today reminds me of what happened in the early 1990s. When I went to work for Leadership Directories, Inc. (Back then it was called Monitor Publishing, but eventually changed its name because Monitor is the name of the paper the Christian Scientists publish – which we had nothing to do with)… oh that was a heck of a digression.

Anywho, when I went to work in NYC in 1991, I opened an account at Manufacturer’s Hanover. “Manny Hanny” was a pretty big bank, but it was regional to New York City. Plus, being based in NYC as it was, I could get money out of a MAC anywhere in the city. 

For those who don’t know MAC stands for “Money Access Center,” the old northeast version of ATM. By the way, never call an ATM an “ATM Machine.” ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine, so if you say ATM Machine you are really saying Automated Teller Machine Machine. And that’s idiodic. Like saying PDF File. PDF stands for Portable Document File, so really you are saying Portable Document File File. You are using an RAS. Please stop. Try not to sound like a mentally-challenged platypus. But again, I digress…

So I could get money once I got to the city via the PATH train, or on the way home via a MAC machine. (“MAC machine” is, by the way, allowable since there is no redundancy.) Checking was free as long as there was a direct deposit from my place of work. Not a problem at all and I had that Manny Hanny account for about a year. I actually used to walk through this door to do my banking.

The Manny Hanny Golden Door on 34th St.

Then they merged with Chemical bank. Chemical was having trouble with bad real estate loans (sound familiar?) and Manny Hanny was having problems with international loans (Argentina and Mexico, in particular), so they decided to join forces. At the time it was the largest bank merger in American History.

At first it was no big deal. Until Chemical – as the new bank was called – decided to close 70 locations. That put a damper on where I could get money, when I could get money, and how I could get money. No big deal, just a little bit more planning and walking and waiting in lines. Until…

Chemical decided that they did not want to deal with piss ants like myself. They decided to up the amount you had to have in your account to about $1,500 or they were going to start charging. People who were living paycheck to paycheck, people just starting out, or just starting over, or just making ends meet…people like my friends and I, didn’t have that money just laying in a bank. And they wanted rid of us. We were a PITA to them. They didn’t make any money off our piddly little checking account balances. We cost them money, so they put up barriers that basically forced us all to move. I went to Pamrapo Savings & Loan in Hoboken. Right across from the PATH, so again easy to get money going in or out of the city. My friends also changed banks. 

My 2nd Experience with a Big Bank

Eventually, however, I found my way back to a big bank. The big bank: Bank of America. I was fairly happy with them. Until... first they wanted to charge me $40 just to have one of their credit cards. Say what? A $40 fee on a $2K card. Please. Then they started to take away the free checking. That was that. Buh-bye.

Does this sound familiar? It should.  Bank of America is jacking up debit card rates and Citi is changing all sorts of requirements for depositors. Its not just the nationals. Regions, First Tennessee, and Suntrust all jerking around their customers with fees. It appears that the banks have decided that we aren’t worth it. They don’t want to deal with the “loser” working class anymore. Fine. Or they want us to move to credit cards so they can make even more money off of us. Fine. Piss on them.

Take your money out. Find a credit union. You can start here. And here. And here too. Forget the big banks. We bailed them out. They took our money. Now they are using the money that we saved them with to charge us to use our own money. Eastman Credit Union is my new financial institution.


And the colonists thought King George was a nonrepresentative taxer! If Thomas Paine and Sam Adams, etc. could see what was going on now, they’d be right in the thick of #occupywallstreet, in their white powdered wigs, getting ready to burn down some buildings and start another revolution!

What ever happened to my old Manny Hanny? Chemical....


was bought by Chase...

...which merged with JPMorgan...

...and is now JPMorganChase. 

JPMorganChase is one of the biggest banks in the world, like BoA, Wells Fargo, and Citi. We bailed them all out. They are all  charging people to use their own money. Leave them. They don't love you. In fact, they are abusive, not only to you as a customer, but to our country as well. Leave them. GTFO.

Nightmares and Dreamscapes*

Sometimes you have to break out Freud, Jung or Lacan to figure out what the heck your brain-body is trying to tell you about what is bothering you about your life.

(I make no distinction between the mind and the body during dream states. That doesn’t mean that I am a monist. I am most certainly not. I believe in I have a soul, am a spirit, believe in God, etc. I also believe that the body remembers things as well. It stores emotions, activities and such. What I mean is I believe the body and soul are more intimately connected in sleep than in waking life. There is not an überconsciousness to get in the way. )

Sometimes you can have a great dream about sharing a bed with someone special. Sometimes you dream you are flying or falling. Some dreams are absolutely bizarre and you have no idea what they are about at all. As the fragments hit your awakening brain all you can think is “What the hell was that?” Sometimes you have nightmares that scare the hell out of you, like waking up and all life suddenly was like this shit.

Not me. Not lately, anyway. I know exactly what my dreams are about. I dreamt twice the other night. They are different dreams, but have the same theme. Here goes:

Dream #1:

I am sitting in an office. Across from me behind a large desk is am man. I think he was a black man, but I am not quite sure since the room is somewhat dark. He says to me, “Ok, so we are offering to pay you nineteen thousand dollars per year if you take this job.”

“Nineteen? You will have to make to twenty, if you really want me to take it.”

“Twenty it is then,”

We stand up and shake on it both of us getting exactly what we want. I leave the office and walk outside. It is a sunny day and I am smiling and whistling, pleased with myself. And I stop in my tracks…

…because I realize he didn’t say nineteen thousand dollars. He said forty-nine thousand dollars. And I just took it for twenty.

And I woke up in a cold sweat.

----

Dream #2:

I am in a café of some sort, behind the counter, wearing an apron. It is my first day on the job.  I am nervous.

“We are throwing you right up at the register on your first day. Its sink or swim Andrew,” says a guy in a black polo shirt, obviously the manager.

I walk over to the register. The keyboard on the register is about three feet by two feet, but all the buttons are half the size of a key on a regular keyboard. I cannot read what button is for what product.

Flash forward.

There’s an angry crowd around the register all yelling at me. Red faces. Yelling louder. The register makes no sense. I can’t figure it out. People are shaking their fists at me. Manager guy comes up next to me.

“You didn’t even last fifteen minutes. Get the fuck out of here.”

And I woke up again.

---

When I worked in IT I used to dream I was fixing computers and such. When I was working on my dissertation, I would dream I was researching or writing.  As an unemployed person I am not dreaming about unemployment. I am dreaming that I will screw up my future employment. Fear of failure. I don’t need Freud or Jung or Lacan for this.

*Thanks SK for letting me borrow this title