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The things he has done do effectively help people, but since he doesn’t constantly brag about it people don’t notice.

yeah still. I have never had so many beneficial things come out of a presidential term in my life.

I would argue that the insulin thing was not tiny at all. Biden has been a good President.

The IRA is a big structural change that puts us on a path where we might actually escape global armageddon. It doesn’t get us there, but it puts us on the path and buys us just a little bit of time. And its entire philosophical approach builds constituencies massively, which means the longer it exists, the more it will go into a virtuous cycle. So long as Trump doesn’t get in next cycle and dismantle it from within, it will be incredibly sticky.

It’s almost certainly the most important bill passed in any of our lifetimes. Not just climate-wise, but legislation-wise. It’s very technical and kind of boring, which makes it not as exciting, but it’s still absolutely huge.

I don’t give a fuck if people hate Biden for whatever reasons they have. But at least this one piece of major progress, somehow passed through an uncontrolled congress, must not be denied. If we deny it, that’s probably it for our civilization. If we let the achievement be ignored, climate policy will probably be over and the ecosystem will be allowed to die. Any other issue is petty next to total collapse of the global climate and if passing this bill was ALL he could achieve – even ignoring some of the other stuff like filling departments with the most diverse crowd ever in American history – it would still have been a good term for a president. Better-liked presidents have achieved less.

Very little ‘big structural changes’ can happen without Congressional support, and Biden at this point has an actively hostile Congress.

I can understand why people blame him anyway, but that doesn’t actually make much sense.

I totally get that and I do not like the situation, but when the choice is with or without lube im not going to forego the lube in protest of the situation.

That’s the media fueling their usual bull. Bernie put up a vote on the issue and 72 out of 100 said ‘Yes’ to allowing Israel to keep their genocide going. It’s crazy

I don’t love him. I think he’s taking half measures mostly as an attempt to maintain an economic status quo while pushing for a little bit of social justice (as a treat). It’s a move in a positive direction… but mostly because it’s the best way to be in opposition of the other side.

I’ll still vote for him, because that’s the only two choices we’re given for the presidential election. I’ll still push for better, and vote more for who I think will actually make a difference at lower levels (state/local races), but I literally can’t vote for who I “love” because it just won’t make any difference.

Love doesn’t enter into the equation, sadly.

If this works, making overdraft fees $3 is fucking huge.

Some points, directly from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:

• Among households that frequently incurred overdraft/NSF fees, 81% reported difficulty paying a bill at least once in the past year.

• Among consumers in households charged an overdraft fee in the past year, 43% were surprised by their most recent account overdraft, 35% thought it was possible, and only 22% expected it. Consumers who overdraft infrequently are more likely to be surprised by a fee

• While just 10% of households with over $175,000 in income were charged an overdraft or an NSF fee in the previous year, the share is three times higher (34%) among households making less than $65,000.

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-issues-report-showing-many-americans-are-surprised-by-overdraft-fees/

Well there has already been things like this that are done in his current term like no surprise billing and capping student loan amounts to the initial principle. I like that he keeps putting out new things rather than waiting for after the election. We have had to much of this, oh its an election year so lets hold off on things which then take time to get going. At least if he does get re-elected it can go into place quickly rather than starting at square one.

Seems to me they get elected when more normal folk fight amongst themselves while their small but rabid following is 100% behind them.

There have been a lot of small improvements to all of our future: start adding them up. Not everything has to start with bombast and braggadocio, or drama, to be significant

neither do i. I would not be surprised if there is not high agreement on that with folks.

I wouldn’t love living under a dictatorship. Sorry to put my own needs and my family’s needs first.

Ah yes, I forgot Biden is personally committing genocide in a country he’s not president of.

Frankly, yes. The company should just absorb that.

When you accept a credit or debit card, and decide to process the transaction later on, you are incurring a risk. Sometimes that risk will be realized. If you don’t like it, don’t incur that risk.

Not all stores process transactions immediately.

They can, if they choose to do so. You say not all process transactions immediately, but I don’t know of any that process offline card transactions.

Is the store supposed to just accept the loss and the bank doesn’t honor the transaction?

If they choose not to process the transaction immediately, yes, pretty much. They can retry the transaction periodically until it goes through, or they can use the payment information they have to identify the buyer and demand payment.

What happens if you have $5 in your account and visit two stores and purchase something for $4 in each store?

Then your bank sees the first transaction, does some very rudimentary math, sees the second transaction and says “Not enough in account to complete purchase” and bounces the card.

This already exists for bank cards in the form of a maximum line of credit. If you have a $500 line of credit and you try to purchase two $300 widgets on credit, I guarantee you that the second transaction will fail to go through. But if you have a $500 bank balance and try to do the same thing, you get an Overdraft Fee instead.

When I make a purchase using a debit card, it goes through this machine that accesses the debit network and my bank, on the other end, says “yes, the pin is correct and the chip looks good, and they have enough funds”. Similar process for credit cards. Why wouldn’t the transaction be processed at that point other than to create the deliberate risk that the person might overspend if you allow them to?

Brazil, 20 years ago, I was a student on a shoestring budget. I set my debit card so that I’d get an SMS after any purchase so I’d be on top of things in case shenanigans happened. I go to the small grocer on the corner, slide my card and type my pin. Before I can put my wallet back in my pocket, my phone dings. My bank was telling me where I purchased, when, how much it was, and how much was left in my account.

Are you telling me first world banks can’t do this today? Is it Brazil that’s so ahead technologically or is it greed preventing the banks from getting such a basic system in place?

This might be one of the unintended side effects of the law. If you have a low balance account or a ‘bad’ credit rating. Banks might simply stop offering debit cards that work on credit card stations.

This probably won’t happen unless overdraft fees are underwriting the risk of unpaid overdrafts. I’m not sure how many people just cancel or abandon accounts that go negative. I’d guess that it’s low but only banks would have the actual numbers.

Why would you spend $8 when you only have $5?

Outside of fraud the only reason you’re account is going negative is from you spending money that’s not there. It’s not a “poor” fee, it’s a fee that banks are within their rights to charge you for spending money that isn’t yours.

People need to have some semblance of financial responsibility, it’s not society fault that they spend money they don’t have

Banks push you to accept it though. If you’re a young adult and go to get a bank account, they’ll try to talk you into it. I’ve also declined it, and have it randomly be turned back on.

The ability to turn it off is, itself, a consequence of the Consumer Protection Financial Act. Biden is using the same legal language to implement a change in the maximum fee.

I wasn’t aware you could do that. I don’t use debit so unsure.

This, never do business with Wells Fargo.

I had that happen too with BoA, a long time ago. My initial reaction was “how in the fuck is this legal?!”

Then I nearly blacked out as a torrent of un-forgotten media, of all the jokes, comedic hate, and disparaging sentiment towards banks, flooded back to my minds eye.

Sadly, my only answer to this problem was “make more money”, which really isn’t an answer at all. Later, I switched to a credit union, which I would have done earlier had I known that was an option.

I dropped them when they charged me an overdraft fee because I over drafted because they charged me an overdraft fee. Then they charged me an over draft fee for over drafting because if the second overdraft fee. Most expensive $5 in gas I’ve ever paid for.

I worked as a banker there in the early 2000s and those OD fees was brutal. I remembered when it went from $24 to $35 and how much it completely devastated people’s lives.

Right before I quit, ANYONE with an OD fee that I saw, I just reversed it without question. Then I got in trouble for reversing thousands of dollars before I was written up. I put in my 2 weeks after and in those 2 weeks kept on reversing charges.

I would tell people to not bank here when I worked there unless you have at LEAST 25k cash or investments or a mortgage over 250k. Otherwise, you’re going get FUCKED by fees.

I’ve heard of shit like this, and not just from banks. A friend of mine had his insurance drop him without telling him, solely so they could send him a notice about it in the hopes that he’d renew and have to pay extra in “Coverage Gap” fees…

This shit needs to be illegal.

My sister has an almost identical story with that bank.

Had U.S. Bank do that to me when I was a high-schooler on my first job. Time stamps on the transactions came in pending - next morning I had 2 overdrafts and fees to go with them. Cleared that account out the next day after getting them to waive the fees.

I got a few dollars from 5/3 bank cause of a class action for exactly this.

Probably because they have enough money in their account to always have padding. People who live pay check to pay check don’t have that luxury.

It’s nice that you can turn off overdraft protection but some US banks will then charge you a Non Sufficient Funds (NSF) fee when a transaction is refused because it would overdraw your account. So you get fucked either way.

Credit unions be cool like that, at least mine is. Still glad my parents made my account for me, I joke with them that the account is older than me (it actually is)

Especially since the technology of today can mess up in such interesting ways…

My brother had enough to buy a fancy new laptop he had been saving up for, so he did, but the website goofed and accidentally processed the order TWICE… He canceled the second order and they refunded the money, but he still owed a fuckton in overdraft fees, and since the cancellation wasn’t instaneous and his bank charges him an extra fee ontop of the overdraft fee for every day his account is in the negatives…

Yeah he was fucked for awhile

Always use Credit for online purchases kids, the charges are far FAR easier to dispute if there’s a fuck up and it doesn’t overdraft.

Same goes for spending limits and region tracking/locking on checking accounts and associated debit cards.

When moving from BoA to a credit union, I was astonished at how this service was enabled by default. I once purchased a large TV and got a call from the bank’s security department confirming the transaction, as I was putting it in my car. I would expect no such service from a major bank.

Don’t forget how if you do freeze your account you often cannot block recurring or online purchases

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It really depends on what you negotiate with your bank, at least in Germany, though it always takes the same form: Either the withdrawal gets instantly bounced, or you negotiated an automatic credit. On average about 12% interest, definitely limited to 1000 or thereabouts or whatever lower sum you negotiated and the bank allows (depending on your regular income), if you’re poor and they’re a public or cooperative bank they probably just won’t give you one, or cancel it if you’re constantly in the negative, or limit it to something like 50 bucks, “buy food for the end of the month” type of territory. (And if you’re banking with a private bank that’s your own damn bloody fault they make a business out of fucking over their customers).

And while those 12% sound high if used as intended – need to pay something but your wage check is still five days away or so – then the interest is negligible. It’s not a substitute for an actual credit which are way cheaper and any honourable bank will tell you to refinance if your account is constantly in the red. You after all pay them to manage your money, not steal it.

Oh: When bouncing certain kind of transactions (all modern online ones) the transaction will just fail, you’ll see it right there on the POS terminal. With older offline stuff the bank will refuse and bill whoever wanted to withdraw from your account some small amount, you’ll then have to deal with that later as they’re bound to add it to the bill you have to pay. Long story short if you’re short on money don’t have your utility bill on automatic withdrawal, transfer the money manually they won’t break your knees for delaying it a couple of days.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

I think the us used to have banking through the post office https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_savings_system

Seems like the kind of thing conservatives would hate.

But banking is free… Running out of money is not.

Yeah I’m in the same boat. But I can’t say the bank put the gun to my head and made me overdraft! I did that, yes, it’s due to my financial situation which is the result of everything else going tits up.

The worst was when some banks would reorder their transactions so everything posted before your paycheck. Even though I’d make my deposit before writing checks for rent, insurance, phone bill etc, magically all those clear before the deposit then I’d be like -$700 in the red before payday again. I went to the bank (TCF, now Huntington) to plead my case but they didn’t care. I closed my account there and went to a more reputable bank. Never was a problem again. Now the practice of banks reordering transactions is illegal, I believe.

Lucky you. I keep trying to get that for my kids, so they learn early not to overdraft with no luck. At one point I had managed to get that set up for my accounts but then got a little ahead so use another account for overdraft protection

It was me too at one point. Spending a few years in banking was very educational and changed my whole perspective on money. Bankers treat money in a way you just don’t see anywhere else, since money is THE commodity in banking.

In short: the value of a dollar is not in the dollar itself. The value is in what you can get out of that dollar. Every dollar you have is either A.) Earning you money, B.) Doing Nothing, or C.) Costing you money.

The worst possible thing anyone can do, in my opinion, is to not know where their money is going. Tracking finances is intimidating to a lot of people. It forces them to face situations that can be filled with anxiety. Especially when they don’t have a lot of money. But it’s a critically important step to financial wellness. You can’t make decisions about how to spend your money when you can’t see what you’re doing with it.

I started tracking my finances a decade ago and I will tell anyone that the money I’ve spent on personal finance/accounting software is one of the best investments I’ve ever made. That small expense has paid for itself many times over. Whatever system you use doesn’t have to be super complex or expensive. All that matters is that it helps you achieve your goals.

But the bank didn’t support instant savings transfers and took a couple days to transfer the funds.

In case you, or others run into this in the future, know that cash (at almost every bank) posts to your checking account immediately. So for our situation if you were able to go back time and do this again, go into the bank and do a cash withdraw from savings, get the cash in hand, then hand it right back to them as a cash deposit to checking.

FFS, put your money in a credit union who isn’t actively working to rob you.

Even credit unions aren’t above this shit. At the end of the day, its a Principle-Agent problem. Some Credit Union execs will hose their clients as gleefully as any BoA VP.

Not everyone is able to use a credit union. Not only do they have limited membership but more importantly may have financial requirements.

For example after a financial catastrophe caused by a medical issue, one step in my recovery was moving everything to a credit union. However I was refused, based on my newly fallen credit score. I only got in by co-signing from my spouse (unemployed, so wtf)

So, my OD limit is $500, my fee is $35 regardless of how much I go over. Often in my poorest of months, I would wait till my account got very low, make sure there wasn’t any autopay or pending charges coming, then take out the $500 cash from an atm. I would use that cash to live on till my next paycheck, and deposit whatever funds were left over. My bank would reject any additional charges because its past the limit. This way I wouldn’t stack OD fees, and that’s less than 10%. In this late stage capitalist dystopia, I’d say that’s probably the best deal I could have asked for, outside of more money.

Agreed. That’s an option on my acct. Unfortunately it doesn’t stop majority of those with poor financial literacy to go nuts with it. It would be best if the option did not exist at all.

Typically yes… Even my Credit Union has a $35 fee for the first overdraft in a given time frame and then it goes up by $5 for each subsequent overdraft in that same period.

The same credit union will, as a courtesy, refund up to 3 overdraft fees per year but only if you call in and basically beg a customer service rep because you’re aware of the policy.