the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jun 4, 2012
Big banks such as Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank aren’t satisfied that they have devastated millions of homeowners with mortgage-securities fraud. They aren’t satisfied that they’ve taken trillions of taxpayer dollars in bailouts. These loan sharks are now preying on workers with “payday loan products.”
If you want a $100 short-term loan from such a bank, or perhaps a $100 prepaid card, you first have to authorize direct deposit of your paychecks. This lets the bank put its hands first on your pay before you get it. The bank automatically deducts its loan first. Plus its $10 interest, plus its $10 “origination fee,” plus its $3 monthly maintenance fee, plus its $3 fee for seeing a bank teller, plus its $2 fee for using an ATM more than once a month.
You can easily overdraw the account given all these deductions–especially since you will be charged for merely asking about the balance! The bank then closes its final trap and begins charging $40 overdraft fees.
Yearly charges on such accounts have reached upwards of 4000%.
This sort of legalized theft is one of the ways by which the top five U.S. banks have now cornered assets equivalent to 56% of the nation’s GDP. This is how JPMorgan Chase’s CEO can be paid 23 million dollars for 2011, how Wells Fargo’s CEO can be paid 19.8 million, how Citigroup’s CEO can be paid 14.9 million.
But if a hungry worker would take one dime from these insanely rich, powerful, criminal banks–now, that would be a crime in the capitalists’ law books!