A Lesson in Unnecessary Regulation

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

By now, you've probably heard about Bank of America's plan to begin charging $5/month on the customer side for debit card usage. What you probably haven't heard of is why:

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Bank of America Corp. (BAC), the largest U.S. bank by assets, plans to charge customers a $5 monthly fee for making debit card purchases starting early next year, according to an internal memo sent to bank executives Thursday.

...

Bank of America is trying to cushion revenue losses it expects to incur from new caps on the fees merchants pay when a customer uses a debit card at their stores. In June, the Federal Reserve Board finalized rules capping such fees at 24 cents per transaction, compared with a current average of 44 cents.

...

Other banks have introduced or are testing new fees in response to the debit fee caps, which stem from a provision known as the Durbin amendment in last year's Dodd-Frank financial regulation overhaul legislation.

This follows many banks ending free checking in large part to the regulations in the Dodd-Frank bill limiting debit overdraft fees. This will likely not be the last time we see banks making more adjustments, either.

Regulations matter. The negative impact of regulatory action when it's not needed only ends up hurting the rest of us in the long run. In a misguided rush by the left to "protect" the population from evil, predatory banks, all you've done is now made it harder for those who you profess to represent and care about the most to use banking services. Congratulations on another job well done.

Comments

Re: Note to the economically ignorant:

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Yes yes, once again when confronted to espouse your beliefs, you rely on vagueness and claims that I just don't understand what you're talking about. Either you're incapable of saying it in a simple way or you're just refusing to accept there's no fundamental difference between what I said and what you said.

And yet, that's exactly what's happened when it's been tried.

In bumfuck nowhere or NYC?

Re: Note to the economically ignorant:

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I've been as clear as I can be in this thread and you just continue to translate what I've said into something else. Espousing my beliefs is way beyond the scope of this thread. I'm trying to focus on one little concept, that libertarians do not say that the market is perfect and never wrong, only that it is optimal and self-correcting, and that you won't accept/understand that there's a difference. You appear to believe that libertarians believe a particular way and you refuse to be corrected.

Re: Note to the economically ignorant:

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

In bumfuck nowhere or NYC?

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2143663,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,448747,00.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=removing-roads-and-traffic-lights
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/london-seeks-to-reduce-congestion-by-eliminating-traffic-lights/
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23740921-boris-johnson-plans-to-remove-traffic-lights-to-make-roads-safer.do