With the Federal Reserve Bank keeping the interest rate that banks pay to borrow money at around 0.25 %, you would think that banks would pay that courtesy forward by lowering their super high credit card interest rates. No such luck, many credit cards are carrying interest rates of 22% or more. In my humble opinion, that's a vig that would make Tony Soprano happy.
A really nasty side-effect of The Fed keeping the interest rate they charge banks low is because they get that cheap money, the banks become arrogant and independent. They literally get their money at giveaway rates from The Fed and more and more are turning up their noses at small depositors like us. What it amounts to is that The Fed has gone into competition with us small savers and priced us out of the market.
Most of the banks have their own ways of letting us know that they don't need our piddling savings accounts. They have reduced the interest they pay us to the point where we might as well stuff our money into a convenient mattress, because the interest they pay is both insulting and doesn't keep up with inflation by a long shot. To pour salt on the wound, they are coming up with more and more bloodsucking fees that not only wipe out any interest paid, but put us in the position of having to pay rent to keep our money in their bank.
What is the answer? Perhaps we need to vote for politicians who have the courage and integrity to take on and straighten out The Fed and America’s new breed of predatory banker.
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