Within our system of government there is an intrinsic problem of representation in a Republic. Lobbyists get passed very specific legislation designed to address whatever minute issue dissolves their composure or might increase their profitability. The populace, the sucker who trudges through the snow in November to lodge his or her ballot, votes merely for some schmuck who will not propose nor pass legislation unless the whole country does the wAve for him or her at the SuperBowl of a Demanding Public Opinion. Even then, as we saw in the last election, legislators will dance around an issue despite an overwhelming consensus of opinion among the electorate.
I'm not your ordinary Rodney Dangerfield who don't get no respect though.
If the large issues so overwhelmingly demanded by the voter are ignored, you can be more than assured the little issues never even get taken up. So, I don't even bother writing to my Congressmen anymore, unless I can for some good reason embarrass them publicly, and hold a Damoclean sword over their head, A Letter to My Senator, Susan Collins. I do it as respectfully as is possible, however. Don't get me wrong. I like Susan. I wouldn't write to her otherwise. Just ask Senator Olympia Snowe how many letters she's gotten from me lately.
For the last six or seven months, since that fateful moment that has since enslaved me with the burden of working for the bank, when my wife and I did some rearranging of our banking situation, almost invariably I have had to call my bank, talk to their computer through the keypad on my telephone, get through and talk to a minimum-waged in-bound telemarketing customer service representative, provide my account number, provide the last four digits of my social security number, the last four digits of my wife's social security number, look for and relate a recent transaction in our joint checking account, and then, ask to speak to a supervisor, an "escalation manager" as they call themselves, talk to the supervisor, again provide an account number, again provide the last four digits of my social security number, again the last four digits of my wife's social security number, again look for and relate a recent transaction in our joint checking account, and then again explain why my wife has one account in her name, but not mine, wake her up to verify this is to whom we are speaking to, and, finally, I again this month get to ask why I have to call every month to get a $20 "service charge" un-slammed from my bank account, again, from my checking account balance where I have been slammed every month for months, despite the fact that I had done exactly the same thing the month before and for every month before that well into the distant unrecognizable past, and every time, still, though being assured that the matter was taken care of properly, and yet, I get slammed again the following month. Why? It won't be addressed again, and it won't be taken care of again this month. Why?
I'm going to tell you why. And, I want you to get the awareness of this problem out into the public consciousness so that some day, we can all have the required legislation written into law to stop this sort of problem from becoming a my-problem, when it's not our problem at all. It is the bank's problem.
It's not my problem. It is clearly the bank's problem after all these many months. It was their problem from the very first month when I graciously and only out of the goodness of my heart, called them to make them aware of their problem, and to of course, get them to put the $20.00 back into my account.
But they insist upon stealing from me $20.00 every month just like they steal similar amounts from lots of people every month by making their problem our problem until it pays. Crime pays for banks.
You see, aside from this little problem I have getting the bank to take care of their problem, we all have a problem that puts each of us into the annoying situation of getting the banks to take care of their problems. Why? Because they make money by making it appear and, in fact making their problems become our problems. Crime pays if you are in the banking business. Crime pays for them because buttressed by a phalanx of customer service representatives who cannot address or ameliorate these problems the bank has devised as a clever device, that is their problem, but which they intentionally make our problem, so they can steal from you and me.
The bank doesn't send any of us a bill. The banks don't send us a bill, which is a request for payment of that bill. That is a problem for which the solution is simple. Require banks to send bills instead of just stealing money out of our accounts.
The banks don't send us a bill, because they want to be able to make up some charge and just steal money out of our accounts. And succinctly thus, they are able to make their problem, our problem, because there is no fix. And while they only steal $20.00 or so from so many of us every month, and while it is just a small theft, it adds up to literally billions of dollars every year that they steal from all of us. They just take the money out of our accounts, and thus with this small theft, and that is what it is, theft; by this theft they make their problem our problem. They make their problem impossible for us to get fixed by dealing with their customer service representatives. They do this so that their problems remain our problem forever, because eventually they wear down enough people, or they just don't notice, and hence the banks profit immensely from their scheming and pre-meditated theft.
I could write to my Congressmen, but they would do nothing. But that's okay. I can write an article about these things and let the whole country know on which side of the bread is the butter. The Chinese water torture is apparently the only way to get anything simple done in a Republic.
If we all marched on Washington D.C. over these $20.00 bank thefts every month, our Congressmen would refer the problem to the Committee on Banking Regulation or some such other. Our federal Congressmen and Congresswomen would then say, it is a state problem, needing to be addressed by the states, all fifty of them. And the Congressional lifers at the state level would say in turn, it is a federal problem. Call the police!
And in the end of our civic efforts, and long enough before we all died of tortuous and crippling old age for there still to be enough time to put us in the grave, the banks would rightly deduce from all the Congressional buck-passing and gerrymandering inaction, that what the banks are doing, is just capitalism, and the accepted American way of stealing.
The banks would then re-double their efforts and, account slamming by banks would escalate. They would review the telemarketing staff to weed out those with intelligence above the level of a third grader, make them work longer hours for lower pay to increase their incogency, their short tempers, and their willingness to cross the line we will not as human beings tolerate, all so as to increase our collective and individual frustration, punishment, oppression and, and... Make their problem they have made our problem, pay even more.
The banks are ruthless. But, the banks are also a very big target not easy to miss when a philosopher decides to write an article about them.
When the complexity of modernity has become this oppressive, it is time to scald a few of the perpetrators with more than these words! Like the Johns of prostitutes, names need to be published! Take your pick. Every bank in the country is a small time bank robber of your account funds. They are ALL thieves
I have no doubt, there is now a growing enterprise made of businesses who have expertise in designing these sorts of their-problem to my-problem thefts for banks, insurance companies, brokerage firms and every other industry that has had their revenues revved up by the likes of the legions of consultants who have peddled these wares of modernity to their corporate interests.
If there be no such industry as I suspect, and it is all done in-house by rip-off specialists, they should quit their jobs and form a business to provide these services. There is an intractable source of ill-gotten wealth that is in high demand by the banks and other industries that can get away with this sort of theft.
One could open up a business designing ways to ameliorate these problems for banks, and, and... They wouldn't have a single customer.
Banks should have to send us a separate bill for service charges, instead of simply taking the money out of our accounts. This is the problem. It is a problem intrinsic to the very process they have designed to slam us once a month. The bank doesn't send us a bill for these frauds and these ill-gotten gains. We would simply refuse to pay it! That would make their problem their problem! There is no money going to be made/stolen doing that! Nope. They steal the money right out of our accounts and make it our problem when they charge us for something that we don't owe.
Why do banks steal money from our accounts every month? As Willy Sutton the famous bank robber once said when asked, "Why do you rob banks, Willy?" "'Cause that�s where the money is." replied Willy. And that is why banks and other similar industries steal from our accounts every month, because that is where the money is. The money is in our accounts, and the banks simply help themselves. They use computers to do it too.
Banks have a lot of nerve just taking money out of our accounts. They try to lead us into believing our money is safe in their bank. Safe? SAFE? How safe is it when they can simply steal money out of what we have in their bank? Banks should be forced to send us a bill, or pay us back triple when they get caught stealing from us thus and, we bother to take the time and make the effort to chase the thieves down and tackle them over their worse than scurrilous inbound telemarketing lines. Call the police!
There is an urgent need of legislation to address this very problem.
Similarly, the IRS should look into these capital gains too, because the banks are not performing any legitimate business service when they pilfer our accounts like this. They owe the government tax on these ill-gotten capital gains. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should be pressing RICO Organized Crime prosecutions of the whole banking industry that steals from us every month instead of rationalizing endlessly warrantless wire-taps. We know who the criminals are, Alberto! There's no need of tapping their phone lines! Everyone in the country knows they are stealing billions from us every year! Are you listening to me Alberto? "Que pasa?" Don't you "Que pasa?" me, Alberto. Get after them. Bank robbers, Alberto! I want to see pictures of them in the Post Office until they are apprehended!
I am reading right now how 80,000 Vandals came across at Gibraltar into the Roman Empire and dismantled it. A mere 80,000! How? Because those who lived under the yoke of Roman rule were saddled so heavily with debt and taxes they welcomed the Vandals. The Vandals were liberators! The Vandals exterminated the great landowners, wiped out all debts to the Roman money-lenders and abolished the last vestiges of Roman military service. The great mass of people living under the Roman yoke actually found themselves better off when the barbarian Vandals took over.
In our Republic there is no difference between the bank and the government. Right now the banks are profiting massively from the mountains of cash being shipped overseas, and then returned to our shores to be lent to the citizens of this country. In this sense the banks have made themselves immune from the inflationary pressures that are squeezing every last citizen into ever greater debt. But do the banks also have to steal from us every month?
And they get away with it because the government turns a blind eye toward these monthly thefts that also come in a myriad of forms other than mentioned within this article. It is unconscionable that our government leaders are so busy lining their own pockets with graft they cannot even address the outright robbery of its citizens by banks, brokerage firms and insurance companies.
There is a name used to refer to people like me who make trouble and squeal on criminals like those in banking. No, I'm not a stooge or a fink. The moment they stop referring to me as a valued customer, and they start threatening to hang up, they almost immediately start calling me a philosopher. I confess! I am a philosopher. And, the next time the bank crosses me, I'm going to philosophize with the name of the bank in the title of the article.
Your bank is doing it too.
My next article I'm already working on is entitled, Mr. President, LOOK OUT! It concerns the Iran thing that seems to be the next step in the lingering mythology of what the new American century might look like. It will be our century, but not looking like what anyone currently thinks about it. So stay tuned. I'm just putting the finishing touches on it.
Don Robertson, The American Philosopher
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