Are you being screwed by your bank?...

of course you are - it's a bank.

It reminds me of the joke about the man who saves a frozen snake.  After the snake thaws out, he bites the man.  The man is gobsmacked and wants to know why the snake bit him after he saved him.  The snake said, "You knew I was a snake when you brought me home."

If you're still floundering around, a victim of normalcy bias, maybe it's time to do some research.

Unbanked and Underbanked

I never heard the terms "unbanked' or "underbanked" until last week.  These are terms the banks themselves have coined.

I also read that Chase Bank will not allow people to keep cash in their safe deposit boxes.  I have no idea if that is true, since we no longer bank at Chase, and have never had a safe deposit box. It did immediately make me wonder how the bank would know what was in someone's box. 

Putting that together with the news that the economy is in the toilet, it makes one wonder if earning 0% interest on your savings account is worth the hassle of having a bank account.

I highly doubt most people can just close up their bank accounts, but we can certainly become a bit less dependent on them.  In other words, we can become a member of the underbanked.

Bank Locally?

We originally banked at Washington Mutual when we first moved to Idaho 26 years ago.  We financed and then refinanced our home with them, and were quite pleased with the service.  Then Chase bought out Washington Mutual and things went rapidly downhill.

So off we went to a nice locally owned bank; Panhandle State.  We refinanced there in order to get our mortgage out from under Chase, and a much better interest rate.  Guess what?  Panhandle became Columbia Bank and has a whole raft of new rules.  Meantime, our mortgage was sold off to a crap company that we don't trust.

Your Money Belongs to the Bank

Once you put your money in the bank, the bank owns it.  The banks engage in fractional reserve banking, meaning that they do not have enough cash on hand to pay off all their depositors at the same time. That doesn't sound good to me.

I don't purport to be a banking expert.  Heck, I don't even play one on TV.  And I'm not trying to sell you gold.  I believe the only good gold is the gold hanging around my neck, encircling my wrists, or dangling from my ears.

I am suggesting that leaving a bunch of money in the bank is not a good idea.  In case you become really worried, do not go down to your local bank and withdraw a gob of money.  Anything over 5K triggers a suspicious activity report (SAR) from your bank to the feds.  Furthermore, bank employees are now being encouraged to call the local police for anything they consider suspicious.  So that 20-year old twit at the bank can report you for just about anything.

What if the Dollar Crashes?

If the dollar crashes, the money stuffed under my proverbial mattress is worthless.  Thing is, it's also worthless if it's in the bank.  Given the choice, I'd rather have it under my mattress.  Wouldn't you? 


More:

Rural Revolution:  When cash is no longer king

My latest at the Datechguy:  On Prepping 

Michael Snyder:   Hopium: How Far Can Irrational Optimism Take The U.S. Economy?

A very good series from AltMarket with lots of bank info: 

One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes - Part 1

One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes - Part 2

One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes - Part 3

One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes - Part 4

One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes - Part 5

One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes - Part 6 - Solutions

 

 

 

 

 

It's Friday...

what's going on.

Let us today concentrate on just one issue, and it's not the government shutdown (who cares?), Obamacare (catastrophe), John Boehner (dope), or Harry Reid (insane.)

As always, when there is a big brouhaha about something, in this case the government shutdown, I start looking around for what the puppet masters don't want us to see. 

So let's take a look at what's going on with the dollar. 

Some of these articles have been sitting in my tabs for weeks.  Some are as recent as today.

Several of these are fairly long and not easily digested articles.  However, they are all important.  

Let's start with an Ann Barnhardt post from September 7th.

On Poland and Detroit. Not For the Faint of Heart.

On October 3rd from Canada Free Press we have:

The Real Debt Ceiling

and

about a week ago from WND:

Americans warned Bank "Bail-ins" Coming

just yesterday from WND:

US Banks Already Can Take Your Money

finally today from Northwest Intelligence Network:

Forget the government shutdown – it’s about shutting YOU down

and also


SHTF Plan:  U.S. Treasury Warns of What’s to Come: “Catastrophic Effect… Could Last for More Than a Generation”

Now that's a lot of unhappy, some might even say scary, information.  What you do with it is up to you.  Some sources of economic news are into selling gold, something that always makes the hair on my back flicker a bit.  Are some of them sincere in their belief that gold is the way to go?  Probably.  For me - I'd rather have toilet paper.  


More:

More sorting of the trees from the forest...

Who really owns the money in your savings account?...

  

More bad economic news...

 17 Reasons Why Those Hoping For A Recession In 2012 Just Got Their Wish

If you were hoping for a recession in 2012, then you are going to be very happy with the numbers you are about to see.  The U.S. economy is  heading downhill just in time for the 2012 election.  Retail sales have fallen for three months in a row for the first time since 2008, manufacturing activity is dropping like a rock, sales of new homes are declining again, consumer confidence has moved significantly lower and a depressingly small percentage of businesses anticipate hiring more workers in the coming months.  Even though the Federal Reserve has been wildly pumping money into the financial system and even though the federal government has been injecting gigantic piles of borrowed cash into the economy, we still haven't seen an economic recovery.  In fact, we appear to be on the verge of yet another major downturn.  In California the other night, Barack Obama told supporters that "we tried our plan — and it worked", but only those that are still drinking the Obama kool-aid would believe something so preposterous.  The truth is that the U.S. economy has been steadily declining for many years and now we have reached another very painful recession.  read the rest

Is QE3 on the way? w/Update

A disaster waiting to happen.

We just received our property tax statement for the coming year.  Our land and house have declined another 10K or so.  This doesn't bother me because, unlike many other areas of the country, our taxes will actually go down. We were also lucky enough to have bought low - really low, and so our equity gain is still close to 150K.  Others have not been so lucky.

At the same time people are losing money in their most valuable asset, there is now ice cream (I believe it was Bryer's) that costs as much as $7.99 per quart. We didn't buy it... 

Horror for US Economy as Data Falls off Cliff

The last month has been a horror show for the U.S. economy, with economic data falling off a cliff, according to Mike Riddell, a fund manager at M&G Investments in London. 

"It seems that almost every bit of data about the health of the US economy has disappointed expectations recently," said Riddell, in a note sent to CNBC on Wednesday.

"US house prices have fallen by more than 5 percent year on year, pending home sales have collapsed and existing home sales disappointed, the trend of improving jobless claims has arrested, first quarter GDP wasn’t revised upwards by the 0.4 percent forecast, durables goods orders shrank, manufacturing surveys from Philadelphia Fed, Richmond Fed and Chicago Fed were all very disappointing." read the rest

Update:  I just noticed that there's some discussion about this article going on over at Memeorandum

The dark side of human nature is the basis for our economic problems...

and everything else that's wrong, too

Keynesianism and the Economics of Envy

The "I forgot to give it a title post" which I guess can be called "the economic meltdown" or something

It has long been my opinion the mess our country is in has taken a century to develop and it won't go away for many decades - and then only if we have people who are determined to make it go away.  Do I think this will happen?  No.

Over at Conservative Hideout, the Classical Liberal has posted:  Blog Focus: U.S. Economic Meltdown
giving us a good run down of the realities we are facing.  

Too many Americans continue to think the problems facing our country can be solved via Democratic or Republican politicians. That somehow, someway, the 545 people responsible for all of U.S. woes, are also the same people we should count on to get us out of the mess. read the rest

Raising Taxes does not solve a debt problem

The solution for debt is to spend less not forcibly take money from the producers to expand the reach of the federal government.

The Cato Institute:  Taxes and Uncertainty 

I am convinced this "man" is insane...

and anyone who listens to this crap and actually believes it, is also insane.

The country will look like Michigan before this is over...

It used to be said that California was the trend setter for the country.  Last I checked, Callie was dead flat broke.  Florida is in pretty poor shape, and The Blog Prof, expert on all things Michigan,  gives us the facts on what's going there (it isn't pretty) Granholm's $billion 21st Century Jobs Fund declared a total bust by the liberal Detroit Free Press.

While chatting with my doctor's wife a few days ago she said, "It's time to think outside the box."  No, actually it's time to get rid of your box all together.   

I'm heading out to vote in our primary.  Elections have consequences and primaries are important.  But I fear it may be too late.  When you have more than half the people in a country reliant on the government (that would be you and me), for their sustenance, it is highly likely the downward trend can be reversed.  


I'm not being pessimistic, just realistic.  The good news is, the cream of the populace will rise to the top eventually.  The people who don't rely on Starbucks or granite counter tops for their happiness, will suffer the least.  Which will you be?

And now for the good news

Private pay shrinks to historic lows

Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.  read the rest

More at:

Doug Ross:  Economy Hitting on all Cylinders as Obama Recovery Rolls On

Discussion at Memeorandum  and Hot Air

Myths About the Economy

My brilliant law professor buddy in Spokane, Mark, has put together the best summation of the economy I've seen in a long while - and we thank him...

Three stories on the American economy

The common theme between the following three stories; the fantasy quality of much of the current debate over our economy, particularly in regard to the Obama administration's efforts to reformulate the economy via bailouts and healthcare reform in the absence of a solid manufacturing base in this country: read the rest

12 Trillion and rising / UN says "no more dollar"

By way of Drudge Report: Senate must raise debt ceiling above $12T

[...]

Changing the debt cap “does provide an opportunity to look at fiscal policy and what its failings are, and ideally it could give both sides an opportunity to think about what we need to do so we don't keep raising the debt limit,” said Robert Bixby, the executive director of the Concord Coalition, a fiscal watchdog group.

How about you just quit spending money we don't have? Simple!!


UN wants new global currency to replace dollar

The dollar should be replaced with a global currency, the United Nations has said, proposing the biggest overhaul of the world's monetary system since the Second World War.read the rest

MSM criticizing Obama?

Be still my beating heart...

AP - Obama repackages stimulus plans with old promises
By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writers

A few quotes:

For the first time, the administration admitted the economic forecasts it used to sell the stimulus were overly optimistic.

"At the time, our forecast seemed reasonable," Vice President Joe Biden's top economic adviser, Jared Bernstein, said Monday, explaining that the White House underestimated the scope of the recession. "Now, looking back, it was clearly too optimistic."

Americans apparently agree. Obama's disapproval rating on the economy has risen from 30 percent in February to 42 percent, according to a Gallup poll completed May 31 read the rest

Can More Inflation Revive the US Economy?

Having just finished reading economist Gregory Mankiw, former White House adviser and Harvard professor, I was pleased to read this most concise and intelligent article over at the Mises Daily (Ludwig von Mises Institute) written by Frank Shostak

"Is it true that inflation helps to alleviate the debt burden in the economy? What raises the debt burden is the declining ability of individuals to create real wealth. Obviously, then, more inflation weakens the ability to create real wealth and can only increase and not reduce the debt burden." read the entire article - it's excellent!