I am pondering our banking system
nowadays it is impossible to actually function without a bank - we are paid direct to the bank; our shopping is mostly cashless; our financial lives are centred not around coins and notes but small pieces of plastic which we trust and rely upon with impunity
I am pondering the banking system as I have just been witness to what on any other day woud appear to be robbery: an overdraft that is growing, not because of spending but because the account is overdrawn; the longer it stays overdrawn the bigger the overdraft will get and every day the bank charges the account another £20. This it can do 10 times per month, plus a monthly fee.
The account holder in question went to the bank to ask for help; the 'insurance' that he has been paying for the past three years whilst he was employed is supposed to offer unemployment protection, but because he chose to leave his last job the insurance will not cover his present unemployment. It is not his fault that the job he was supposed to go to did not materialise; when he was asked if he had any money to pay to them to rectify the situation, he said he had £20. They asked him for it - when he asked if it would make a difference they said not, but still would like his money. When he asked them how he was supposed to eat for the rest of the week...
How can it be, that when our banks make obscene amounts of money, and obscene losses, and are now partly owned by us the tax payers, that they are able to continue to charge vast amounts of money, making a bad situation ten times worse, and we are helpless to do anything about it
I am pondering banks... a necessary evil
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