this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 190 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Disappointed in the comments here so far. There's a cardinal rule of improv that also works well for many other things in life, politics included: "yes, and".

This is a great change that will save folks money and make the country just a little bit fairer. Celebrate that, and then use the momentum to push for more. This builds alliances and a shared vision, instead of devolving into petty squabbles around direction.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago

It's definitely a start.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You can please some of the people some of the time, but none of the people all of the time.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (9 children)

Do you mean all of the people none of the time?

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[–] [email protected] 116 points 9 months ago (4 children)

How about fucking "convenience fees" when I do shit like pay my fucking rent?

Always real "convenient" that there's a charge for paying your bills.

[–] [email protected] 94 points 9 months ago (3 children)

We used to pay our rent in 15-20 installments, one every day or two. The office of the apartment building we lived in was on the way to our apartment, so it wasn't any inconvenience for us to just drop a check in their drop box when we passed by, but I like to think it was mildly irritating for them to have to deal with the book-keeping. They asked us not to on multiple occasions but their only online option had a small "convenience charge" attached, so... No, thank you. I'd be happy to use it if they paid me a "convenience fee" for not making them process 20 checks every month.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 9 months ago (4 children)

The real issue is that the apartment building is charged a fee by their payment processor to use electronic payments, and they didn't want to pay it. It is a convenience fee for the bank customer (the building) because they have to do less work cashing checks.

It's stupid to try to pass that to people living in the building. Most personal bank accounts allow you to pay automatically with a check that's mailed for free. Paying by check is not inconvenient for individuals, it's only inconvenient for the person cashing all the checks.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The issue is further up the chain but it's an issue nonetheless. Banks want to go back to physical transactions about as much as people do, so in reality they should be charging for the physical to get people to move to digital.

It's safer, faster, and encourages more spending, just like a credit card does.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That sounds like a nightmare for bookkeeping... I'm not sure if it's genius, evil, or both.
How did you keep track of which checks were cashed, and which ones were pending???

[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Our bank had a really nice web interface for that. We could just go to the website and see all of the checks, the amounts, and the dates they were cashed, and we weren't using checks for any other purpose, so there wasn't anything else diluting the list. They could have made it a hassle for us by selectively "losing" some occasionally, I suppose, but they never did.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It would have exacerbated the hassle for them as well.

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[–] [email protected] 99 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Holy shit how are Boe Jiden's consumer protection agencies so based all day long? Not only do we have this EXCELLENT SHIT from the CFPB, we also get the constant anti-trust lawsuits from QUEEN Lina Khan, who is making the FTC relevant again!

Antitrust has been dead for generations, and for the first time in my+grandparents lifetime we see the government trying to reign in the travesty that is American corporatism. Fuck damn I love to see it!

[–] [email protected] 41 points 9 months ago

Also capped insulin prices and old people drugs. The man is speedrunning pothole legislation, oh yeah and he literally fucking made a national pothole fixing Bill.

Biden is definitely going down like Carter where 2 decades later everyone benefits from his presidency and are like "fuck he was actually pretty good".

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Lemmy leftie morons: JoE BiDeN hAtEs Us!

It's like they ignore all of this news and act like all he's ever done is beat the shit out of rail workers...

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

Yeah I can't believe he personally crucified union members with railroad spikes, I thought that was overboard, if a little impressive at his age.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I would hold off on any antitrust wins. That record is mixed at best.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

They're trying for the first time in forever, I count that as a win

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Idk you gotta start somewhere

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 9 months ago

The banking industry opposes caps on overdraft and credit card late fees

I'm shocked

[–] [email protected] 55 points 9 months ago (7 children)

I love all the little things his administration keeps doing, and they're good. I just wish he had some big initiative he could hang his hat on. Little things like this - while good - don't really get people excited and aren't the sea change(s) we need.

I know, a big part of that is congress.

But damn surely there's a lot more ballsy stuff that could have been done by now. Weed not being federally legalized yet is stupid, for one thing.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago (2 children)

There are a lot of big things that would be celebrated if our media covered it differently and if Biden was as self-aggrandizing as Trump.
But the little things are really what make me want to vote for Biden again. This is competent governing. In my field, I've seen how the little things lead to big things. Like the approval of off shore wind farms that were stalled under Trump are now approved and constructed leading to the first utility scale offshore wind farm in the US. A huge accomplishment from one little approval.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

Trump will probably campaign saying, “In 2024 I reduced junk fees,” and his people will believe him.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

The Inflation Reduction Act is one of the most significant pieces of legislation in a long time

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Even if this is low hanging fruit, I love him doing stuff like this. I remember how infuriating it is to get some random charge on an account, call up the bank to report fraud, only to be told it's because a savings account needs X dollars in it or some nonsense charge like that.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Great step forward. Now eliminate debit card overdrafting and those fees.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it would be filing a lawsuit against the CFPB "to prevent this misguided and harmful rule from going into effect.”

Don't hold your breath. The current state of the judiciary is nakedly hostile to administrative law generally and bank regulations specifically.

Keep an eye on Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association of America, Limited. Might not even have the CFPB for much longer.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago (12 children)

We need interest caps and a social safety net so people don't have to turn to 29% predatory lending.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That kind of commie talk makes St. Reagan cry.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 9 months ago (4 children)

... will close a loophole to slash late fees charged by credit card companies from an average of $32 to $8, which the agency projects will save $220 annually for 45 million Americans.

Someone double check my math here. But I'm reading this statement to say that 45 million Americans are - on average - late on 10 credit card payments each year. That's probably not a good sign of a healthy economic outlook.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago (1 children)

49% of Americans can’t afford a 1000$ emergency. I can see why you would use your credit card, try to pay it with your next paycheck, paycheck is late (because of course it is) then miss credit card payment.

Those are very thin margins that a lot of Americans deal with.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 9 months ago

Watch the credit card companies switch to charging late fees per day instead of per month that you're late.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Even though banks will still be able to charge limited overdraft fees, it won't be able to exceed the banks' losses under the rule. The CFPB has not finalized an amount but is exploring overdraft fees capped at $3, $6, $7, or $14, plus $.50 per transaction. The overdraft rule is currently under review.

They need to move their asses on this one. I think many banks charge $25-35 for an overdraft, an absurd amount of money that is obviously being charged to someone who doesn't have money.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I know somethat charge that DAILY!

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (1 children)

While they're at it, why not cap processing fees as junk fees? It for sure doesn't cost 2.9% of your grocery bill to facilitate the payment- it's all automated and there's little to no labor involved in the actual processing, it's just collecting economic rent

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Let's cap fees doctors can charge for missing an appointment. Since doctors seem to want to schedule months out sometimes shit comes up and we don't know our schedule months away.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I mean, if you have other shit going on that day, it's kinda on you to cancel or reschedule your appointment before whatever cutoff they have instead of just not going.

You made the commitment to be at your appointment at the scheduled time, and if you no show that's time that could have been spent seeing another patient and money they can't make because of your actions.

I've never had an issue if something came up the day of and I needed to reschedule, as long as I called the moment I knew I might not make it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (8 children)

This is true, but if I made an appointment for 9, how come I don't see anyone but the nurse for two hours?

Seems like the doctor doesn't have a commitment to take care of my problem at the scheduled time.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

Full disclosure: Trump bad! Biden good!

Impressive considering he reports directly to MBNA.
The article misrepresents it a bit because he didn't just back it. He actually WROTE that bill.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Okay. Why can't they just get rid of the fees altogether? Why do we need to have ANY kind of junk fees for anything? Oh wait, I know. To make rich people richer.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

Like they're going to just take the lack of those fee profits off the bottom line. Look forward to the new and/or increased yearly fees now.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Is your suggestion to just continue to pay the companies whatever they ask for without a fight?

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