I've heard of some of the problems people are having. Free banking came about many years ago, largely because the Scottish banks did it and began to make Accounts in England, easier to open. I think this was in the early 70s, but I can't be sure. But I do know, they have been trying to roll the whole thing back ever since.
The thing is with the banks is they are basically maintaining a lie. The lie being that private accounts don't make them any money and they run them almost as a favour. They seem to be trying to maintain an image of struggling with problems while simultainously accepting responsibility for causing the recession by lending money to private customers.
The reality is, without private bank accounts and especially, cash payment cards, the money suppy would be considerably more static. A static money supply equals recession and a recession is to a bank what petrol shortage is to the car industry.
Claims that they only make money from their big investment arms are a nonsense. (ie a lie). The big investment arms make very little when there is a recession, apart from a small minority who basically move their capital around.
Private bank accounts, as well as keeping the money supply moving, also provide the starting point for almost every entrepenure. They provide a base from which the banks can lend money. Some of those investments become major. An indication of this is that I still have an enormous overdraft facility, where I only need pay for the interest. Almost everyone with a bank account does. If the banks were losing so much on private accounts, that would be the first thing they could cut. It's not as if people won't still go into the red all the time.
Bill Gates had to buy his first computer. He would almost certainly have needed loans. Banks thrive on loans. Small beans for individual customers, but they mount up to a major source of revenue.
The real reason banks are putting the squeeze in private bank accounts is to force governments to let them, (the nationalised banks) split themselves into parts and for governments to maintain some guarantees, thus taking the pressure off. Especially if they mess up again. The banks, from the mid 70s onward have pressured governments and employers to pay directly into banks. Even some welfare payments. We need a bank account. Now that they've foirced that one us, they want to up the anti, in their favour.
I appreciate this all sounds so conspiratorial, but if you think about it, it's all fairly obvious. Our governments have got themselves in up to their necks over their bail out of banks.
It preposterus to suggest that the recession was caused by a few bad loans in the US. The obvious reality is that the enormous weath accumulated was squandered bombing Iraq and Afghanistan back to the stone age. Anyone with a basic knowledge of economic history can tell you that there is always a recession after a major conflict.
Every war is basically the same story. Governments go in, gung ho, full of confidence. Things never work out as they plan, mainly because war opponents stubbornly refuse to surrender when anticipated. Costs rise and that means borrowing. This is so predictable its a matter of record.
What is strange is that the press seems so willing to go along with this. In the immidiate term, we are gradually being pushed onto a smaller number of banks.
