Right on Palin ole buddy; I love this discussion.

I possess maybe a tiny fraction of your level of knowledge pertaining to computers and related gadgetry. However one thing I've observed, from a comfortable distance thus far, is this endless tug-of-war between techies on both sides of the legal fence; essentially the watch dogs & gatekeepers versus the hackers & thieves. And it reminds me of a see-saw. One day it's the good guys with the upper hand, but then a month later it's the sleaze bags. Know what I mean? Back and forth it goes.

As to automatic withdrawals, that addresses what is a huge boundary issue for me. No one accesses our bank accounts but my hubby and me- period. I watch our accounts like a hawk and never write checks without simultaneously, doing the math, thus adjusting the balance in my register. I go over our statements each month with a fine-tooth comb. Nothing gets past me. It's how I stay in control of our financial affairs. On our budget, it's a simple matter of survival. The moment I give someone else access to one of our accounts, even if they are honorable, it becomes much more difficult for me to keep track of that balance. If I happen to get embroiled in a conflict with some company, I want the ability to withhold payment whenever I see fit. If the company can access my money, that option is lost. So then I must fight to retrieve my money, an added burden I'm best off avoiding. Neither consequence of such an arrangement is acceptable to me, or something I'm willing to risk. Bottom line, my friend: you don't have to be an expert or trained professional to be on to this shit. We become activists simply by sticking up for ourselves. - Aliceinwonderland

Aliceinwonderland and Palindromedary ~ I don't disagree with any of your electronic banking apprehensions. However, there is some aspects of the service you both seem to be unaware of. For instance, even with electronic banking I've had problems with the water and garbage disposal service with late bills. The problem is because the two services haven't completed their conversion to electronic banking. You can pay your bill online, but the services do not send out automatic electronic eBills like everyone else does. They also fail to send out prompt mailing bills. The result is that in order to pay your bill on time you have to anticipate the due date, the amount, and voluntarily pay the bill when it is due, otherwise the bank will send you an alert when it is usually due and you have to respond accordingly. Of course the bank only tells you that a bill should have been paid, it doesn't tell you how much. To learn that you have to call the utility company. Kind of defeats the entire purpose of eBilling doesn't it? I'm not the only one I know who is fed up with these basic service companies on this issue. Any entity that can screw up eBilling can certainly screw up traditional billing.

On another note, recently, I had my debit card stolen. On my birthday, no less. No, not from my wallet, from over 150 miles away while I was enjoying myself at home. Somehow, someone 'obtained' a copy of it and went on a spending spree. Out of three attempts to use it in three different stores two were denied and one made it through for a $200 withdrawal. The bank caught it quite quickly and notified me within minutes the same day. I was shocked and felt somewhat violated. The bank is going to carry the loss but still, how the heck does something like that happen? It really shook my faith in the system; and, since I somewhat endorsed the system in past posts I felt it necessary to share this experience. It didn't cost me much more than inconvenience. My debit card had to be reissued and I was without one for two weeks. I still don't know how this happened and the bank didn't want to go into any detail explaining it other than saying, "It happens all the time."

I still feel relatively safe doing business online; however, I am through endorsing it. My advice is to stick with whatever you feel comfortable with. Getting a good night sleep is more important than the money in your bank. Your health is something money can't buy.

We should get rid of our fixed amount tax rates and set a progressive percentage based on standard deivation from the mean income. The rates should go up progressively as the income moves away from the mean until at some standard deviation the rate is 100%. This limits the income disparity independent of inflation or other factors while still allowing for fair individual incentives to stimulate economic growth and change. It also would encourage investments that raise eveyone's income (the mean) as the only way for the super rich to increase their income.

Having been a banker myself, before branch banking was legal (1976), I can tell you that banks, by their very definition are UNFAIR. They do nothing except make profit from interest rates, which they charge from lending out other peoples money. When those loans became too risky (which by itself should be criminal, based on fiduciary responsibility) then they somehow convinced their puppets in Washington to bail them out. The average American loses trillions in income and life savings, which the rich somehow made out like bandits.the entire banking system would be better off if it was a part of the government. the government has huge regulatory divisions designed to prevent banks failures, but for some reason they looked the other way as mortgages for 250k were being made to people making 10 dollars and hour. How could this be? Because the banks only required deposit slips for income verification. So if you happened to be a drug dealer, this was a great opportunity to get a huge loan based on illegal funds. This practice was totally unfair to hardwrking Americans who didn't realise this practice was not only going on, but would be a large reason they lost the equity in their homes. Another unfair banking ploy was the ARM. (Adjustible Rate Mortgage). I believe these were illegal when I was a banker or perhaps they were just not needed, since the prime rate back then made for affordable fixed mortgages. It was when the prime rate flew up to 21% in 1980 that the ARM became popular. Then after 2010 they became selling tools for preditory lending. It is amazing what interest rates can do to a mortgage payment. The average consumer who takes out an ARM is never prrepared for the interest rate jump when it hits. This was the othe lending practice that led to the mortgage meltdown. Yes the post office could help those poor folks who cannot bank accounts, but the real unfair part is yet to come. Interest rates. The Fed has kept interest rates at near zero for years now, but once it starts to creep up then you will see how they will make trillions more for doing nothing different. I call that unfair.

We don't need to be the Big Brother Thought Police or effect some cliquish tyrranny by personal popularity. If Ken wants to be obnoxious, especially if that's his honest opinion he's expounding, he has a right. We don't have to like it - or him, for that matter - and we can say so but this blog is for everybody but the intentionally abusive and destructive.

What is so UNFAIR about Banks ?

they have to charge something . Some Bank fees may be excessive. There are credit Unions too.

But i think that Post Office could do what the PAYDAY Loan sharks Cash do ie cash checks of those who cannot afford bank account to deposit or cash their wages

Pay day loan system has made. poor people even poorer.

That would be great..............

i know what you mean, Nora. Smells kinda fishy, doesn't it! Since when was the IMF so concerned about the counter-productive nature of austerity?! Even when tyrants do something right, it's generally for the wrong reasons. Or it's some sort of false pretense they're hiding behind. - AIW

Just to refresh your memory, Ken, here's a little something I harvested from the terms & conditions of this blog, addressed to all who wish to participate here:

"Trolling is to deliberately post derogatory or inflammatory comments in order to bait other guests into angrily responding. They may also focus on changing the subject or diluting the discussion with content-poor posts, or focus on only one topic and point of view whatever the discussion. The troll has no intention of taking part in discussions, save to try and ruin the quality of the community for others. Trolls may also adopt sock puppets - alternative identities - to further their aims. Trolls will be banned."

Many of us like to vent about issues we're passionate about; we've had plenty of disagreements, and even gotten on each other's nerves from time to time! But I've observed no one else posting here who makes a habit of picking fights with other bloggers out of nothing, after a "bad hair day" or whatever. Get over it, Ken! - AIW

For some reason Mr. Ware has always had this special contempt for Marc, Palin and me. Predictably, now that he's back from his long sabbatical, he's at it again with his stupid tirades and petty little jabs, accusing Thom and us of "bashing America" ad nauseam... What I find especially ironic is how this man will post a long-winded, angry tirade about "people like AIW and Palin just to mention a couple of angry people". Apparently Mr. Ware thinks he's the only one entitled to that emotion. What I'd like to know is, if Mr. Ware finds these discussions so boring, why does he keep coming back for more? Meanwhile we are subjected to the same old chest-thumping monologues and Cold War regressions we've heard repeatedly over the past year & a half... (Talk about boring!) This is because Ken Ware is just a troll. It's a common tactic trolls use to divert the dialogue away from the subject at hand. Suddenly we find our discussion caught up in a juvenile pissing contest. Because that's all trolling is about: power and control (or "con-troll"... tsk!) It really is pathetic.

Grow up, K.W. Aren't you too old to be playing these games? Remember, you're a grandfather now! Tsk tsk tsk. - Aliceinwonderland

So Bernie Sanders is prepared to run for President in 2016!!!
He's certainly got my vote!
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/bernie_sanders_im_prepared_t...

Aliceinwonderland: Very coincidental that you mentioned that problem you had with "missing checks". I have had this problem as well and thought the very same thing...that they may be doing this for the purpose of frustrating us so that we will give up on sending checks and migrating to paying bills by computer. I just had another "missing check". My water company, which bills every two months..just sent their bill and it said that the last period payments was not paid. Since I had previously had some problems with other checks not received...I have been making it a point to write the checks on the same day I receive the bills in the mail and if I don't mail it that day, then within the next couple of days. And I have been shying away from using my local post office and going to more major post offices to mail the checks inside the post office. Then I make a note on the calender which bills I paid and which post office I used. My check carbon copy showed that I wrote the check and I noted that I mailed it on the calender. And I even remember when I mailed it. So, it is either the PO or the water company that lost my check. I had to cancel the check...and the bank verified that the check had not been cashed. So, it was either lost or purposely mislaid.

I certainly will not pay my bills by computer. It is just not safe to do so. People get suckered into "convenience" and then they get swindled later. I'm certainly not a Luddite and think computers are great but I also know how dangerous they can be if you're not super careful (paranoid even).

People think they are safe with firewalls and virus checkers...but I think it was Mark Russinovich (of Microsoft [now]...[used to be Minternals]...which is now called Sysinternals under Microsoft) who said that even he cannot ever be very confident that his computer is free of malware. And he has written a whole bunch of free software tools to hunt down and delete malware.

He stated that the major virus checkers can only find about 40% of the malware that's out in the wild. And they won't do any good for day 1 malware and certainly won't do any good unless people are regularly updating the malware signatures. And some malware are dug so deep in the computer and hidden so well that virus checkers and even malware installed by rootkit technology just cannot detect them.

So, as people type in their passwords to their banks, key loggers will be recording and reporting them to hackers. There is just no way I will ever have my bank information on my computer. If it's not there, there is just no way anyone can hack into my computer and get something that is not there. And, by the way, it is not so easy to get some companies to stop drawing on your bank account once they have your account number. Obviously your account number is printed on the bottom of the checks, and they get you account number anyway, but you have not given the companies permission to make automatic withdrawals.

Branski, you and I are in complete agreement where Hillary Clinton is concerned.