the banks are made of marble/with a guard at every door...(Brian) by Winston

...and their vaults are stuffed with silver/that the [teachers] sweated for...

upon Keith's suggestion, and in the spirit of collecting these stories as we build toward more analysis and the debtors' union, below is the text of an email I sent some fellow-travelling victims of profit motive:

So I needed to open up a "summer savings" account. Watchung did it for me at a bank that had no minimum balance (I guess they had a deal w/the bank). Montclair is so big, ya gotta do it yourself - they can't run accounts for all the employees who'd want one. Problem is, I need an account w/a low mandatory minimum balance - I clear the sucker out pretty much by late August and can't do penalties. So me and Jones go to Chase today - they were open on Presidents' Day and are in walking distance, so they got our buisness. Basically, all we wanted was a "tuck my money away so I don't spend it" account for when the summer comes. As we discussed not being able to handle the $300 minimum balance - honestly, I can't see that happening by late August - and having no need for another checking account (they like to "package" accounts), you could smell the poverty, and the conversation had this awkward, talk-in-circles, stunted kind of vibe....I thought we'd leave in search of a better po' folks' bank...

So the guy says in passing that if I had an existing relationship with Chase, he might have other things I could do. I have a credit card with Chase - I could go on for hours about cards and debt, but suffice it to say I did some dumb things in my desperate youth and I rarely use the thing now and make payments barely above the minimum - just what they love - the business calls it "a taste for credit" - they call people who pay balances "deadbeats"... Well, this guy takes one look at my roughly $17,000 card balance and says, in unison with his partner , "That changes everything." Yeah, you're telling me - it's been changing things for me for a long time....So basically, I can bundle accounts together that have an average total daily balance of $5000 (we held off on the $15,000 in case I get some windfall and pay off two grand of debt)...that's right - for those of us with little cash flow, we can keep basically nothing in both the checking and savings account, as long as we keep the card balance above $5000 - it's a disincentive to get out of debt. I wasn't shocked, but I have to admit there are few days that debt can ever be spun into something positive. Incidentally, the checking-savings connection is good to have because the feds have electronic transaction limits on savings accounts - a deterrant to using savings like a checking account - i.e. an incentive to keep your damn money in the banks and open up more accounts.

And one more - picture this: Chase Bank, the only bank in town open on a holiday, with a sign out front giving away $100 if you open a checking account w/$100 (that goes untouched for 30 days) today only...how long until these guys are working Sundays with carnival barkers outside???

I feel good - I did my part to help save capitalism today... B

PS - not to seem overly simplistic in one's analysis, but it seems to me the ____s that caused this mess need to be giving us the keys to the place, not some $100 bait...

PPS - from a race/gender/class perspective: as I watched the execs get ummm... "grilled" (ha!) by Congress, I thought to myself I'm lucky (i.e. I have the privilege) no one judges the conduct of all white males based on these guys' actions...could you imagine if a small group of say, black women, were responsible for this crisis??

PPPS - I have a relative in financial - he says these guys are DESPERATE and at least partial nationalization is pretty much a done deal before the end of 2009 (he also says he'd get his own branch from Chase if they used HIS card balance as the guide, but that's another story...)