What works for the Europeans probably wouldn't work for the USA.
Still wish we had an effective plan to combat poverty though. Preferably one not designed by the idiots in office, though.
Partially because Republicans just flat-out hate the poor and anything in the same zip code as socialism.
No you're thinking of Libertarians, the Conservatives (at least down here in Texas) are more of the "get a job!" types.
quite a lot of europe could be applied here, if we weren't so opposed to helping the poor
Yes, a lot of European policies could be utilized in the USA, i'm just saying that if we didn't "Americanize" them, i guess, these policies may widen the rift that already exists between the Right and the Left.
On the other hand, if you Americanize them, you're only making things worse.
I understand, but if you don't, you cause an undefinable shitstorm that tears the Government into two. It's a double-edged sword, really.
maybe it would help if the party of the people millenials are calling racist wouldn't exist on a platform of condemning minorities from other ethnicities as rapists and murderers as well as working to crush minority rights, safety nets, and close the doors to immigration at all.
like it or not, the republican party is racist. the generational gap today is going to hurt quite a lot when the coalition of trump inevitably looses power because they have no regard for tolerance, civility, or even basic democratic norms
I never understood how when you owe money companies throw more and more charges onto them it shouldn't be allowed.
It doesn't even make sense! Surely you'd rather it be easier to pay for the client to pay of the debt and actually be able to pay them off in the first place.
It's crazy that everyone does it not just banks it's like with phone bills, oh you missed your payment? We'll just add on to the bill before you next payment until you're paying a fucking years worth for one month..what?
Not really, it's better for them that you stay in debt forever. Interests end up making up for what you owed in the first place eventually.
Because debt is a currency in of itself except it has much more profit potential, if you put someone in debt you can have them perform tasks to clear it at minimum wage, It's essentially debt bondage and it is rampant in the U.S. but strangely brushed aside as if it's only a minor problem.
In fact there is so much manufactured debt you could buy it for pennies on the dollar from banks and collection companies that don't think they'll be able to collect and straight up garnish peoples wages from debt they accrued 20 years ago that nobody remembers regardless if the debt is considered dead.
my bank in the US has ATM fee refunds, 24/7 english speaking customer support and other goodies, and my savings account with the same bank has 1.75% APY.
all free.
Meanwhile, my mothers bank was bought by Bancorp who changed her account from free to one that costs every month (she has no job atm but didn't want to close her account) so they (to her unknowing) fee'd her like $4, causing an overdraft and resulting in them charging her $35. She went up to the bank to close it, they said they couldn't close it the day she paid her fees off and they'd do it tomorrow.
They never did.
i guess we should be expecting more of this with protections being rolled back under this administration
you can't garnish random people's wages, but you're right in that you can buy massive lists of people's identifying data and try to collect it yourself. John Oliver had a big thing on it where he bought tens of thousands in debt for a few hundred dollars and just tore it up
What bank fees exist exactly? In Aus there's multiple banks which charge no fees at all (some with conditions to have no fees, some with no conditions what so ever).
No, fuck that. Americanizing shit is what got us Romneycare rebranded as Obamacare (that republicans later repealed anyways). Appealing to the center is the biggest joke the left has been sold in decades.
They can charge maintenance fees on accounts (because there is sooo much upkeep on a line in a spreadsheet), banks can charge you a fee if you use their ATM but aren't a member (we're talking several dollars per withdrawl). Then there are the $25-35 fees for every overdraft you might incur. I come close to these fairly often because I had been hacked so many times that I have two accounts, and only one can be withdrawn from and I keep a minimal amount in it.
Hope they go through with this, bank fees are super predatory and disproportionately affect the poor.
Except police departments, roads, libraries, schools, fire departments, social security, their own fucking Congressional Healthcare... and a very very large list
Everyone secretly loves a lot of socialist shit, they just don't realize it
Hmm right I see. That all seems to wierd to me because I have 2 account with 2 banks:
one that refunds all ATM fees worldwide (even unbranded ATMs) and has no monthly fee, but to get this benefit there are a few conditions and it's an online bank so I can't deposit cheques or cash,
and another which I don't hold any money in and there are no fees with no conditions, but I keep it so I can deposit cash and cheques in the rare chance I have some to deposit.
I guess overdraft fees are the only fees I could be subject to really, but even then I just use my credit cards for purchases then pay it off when the statement is out so there's no fees anywhere.
I guess I talk from a privileged background though
Nothing better than forgetting you moved all your money to your other card and using the empty one only to pay forty fucking dollars on a sub
It's similar-ish for me, though I can't say I know anything about finance.
My previous bank wanted to start charging fees, so I switched. Now I have a credit card I can use for free globally¹ and no fees. Only one-ish account (debit and auto-balanced credit card) though, not sure I'll be in a position to deposit anytime soon.
¹ It's dependent on me having regular income and only applies to V-Pay terminals/digital use. I suspect I'm not wealthy enough to get into any of the serious bonus programmes.
There's also now a law in place in Germany that should make switching banks pretty painless.
You just get a new account and your old bank has to forward anything that happens to the old one to the new bank for a while. There's also often notification services you can use to quickly update your details with most places.
My only fees are 16 Euro per year (1.33 Per month or so).
I can use ATM's as much as I want (Doesn't matter if it's ATM of my bank or not)
I do get fucked though if I use ATM outside of EU (I got charged 20% Fee in Ukraine when trying to withdraw 50 euro)
Bare minimum measure intended to prevent indebted people to go under from the reduced welfare and tax overhauls. A very meager relief to an already air-tight domestic economy, and a creative way around having to announce a state of austerity.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing per se; it does make me want to post some articles about Macron-nomics to show you the type of measures this one is meant to counter-balance, and I think that would be some good discussion if I could actually find some balanced English sources on it.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
