Net operating revenue during the quarter was $170.6 billion
Read more at Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/us-financial-regulation-earnings-idUSBRE97S0O520130829#2eYieExsx9LOchO7.99
Read more at Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/us-financial-regulation-earnings-idUSBRE97S0O520130829#2eYieExsx9LOchO7.99
This was 2nd quarter 2013.
A friend notes that banks charged $30,000,000,000 in overdraft fees "from people who had no money". That divides to $7 billion per quarter (the year was not specified, maybe 2014), so, 5% of bank revenues.
This seems to confirm that overdraft fees are a penalty for irresponsible bank customer behavior, not the core of bank revenues. I say people need to be penalized for irresponsible behavior. They should be ticketed for, say, tailgating, where possible ... and they should be penalized for overdrawing accounts.
If people could willy nilly overdraw their accounts, the whole banking system would fall apart. The whole system of money, which exists to distribute wealth according to productivity (wealth creation), would fall apart. Then we would really have something to complain about - unless, and, I grant it's possible, we would be better off just running about in the woods naked and alone.
I watched a snippet of an interview with the bogey man himself, Charles Koch. He wined and complained about being unfairly treated. I don't agree with him that Liberals are unfair debaters. They aren't any more than he is. Accusing your opponent in a debate of unfairness is, when it comes down to it, unfair debating. It's trying to "shut down debate", to borrow Koch's own words. You should just debate, whether it's fair or not.
I don't agree with Koch that there should be no government, no regulation of industry. That's just a silly position. I'm sure Koch want the worker and liberals to be actively regulated, he just doesn't want to be actively regulated himself.
Well, he's just a guy, and that explains it. Eighty percent of the poor and Eighty percent of the rich are irresponsible children ... and the other twenty percent of both the rich and the poor are responsible adults. The numbers are the same for Democrats and Republicans, I suspect.
But Koch seems to be strangely sincere. He longs for a more dignified era, which is unrealistic, but, sweet. And I do agree with him - I think this is his position - that people need to take care of themselves. If they don't, they'll just be miserable.
We run a little charity of sorts. Certain people who don't have anywhere else to turn (or anywhere as nice) have been staying, at a deeply discounted rate, in an apartment we maintain. This is over about a two or three year period. Right now, I'm using the apartment - landlords should live in their own apartments at times, so they can assess the quality of them - and I just discovered that, during this whole time, no one who has stayed here has ever cleaned behind the knobs on the stove! (I'm just as glad - the job looks somewhat delicate, and I felt I should approach it quite carefully - this is a whole other issue, the marginal quality of appliances.)
I watched, for the last six months, some people who want to be friends, for six months, do absolutely nothing but sit around the pool, drinking and smoking, and continually complaining about the world, and causing trouble for everyone around them. It is, they have concluded, the fault of the banks that their lives are so difficult. It's the fault of the police that they've been arrested. It's the system's fault that their home is miserable. Well, I've been in their home, and it was, indeed, a miserable place. The furniture was ... it lacked any kind of warmth. They simply have no sense of how to choose good furnishings. It's not that the expense is unmanageable. An attentive person can find very good furniture FOR FREE. They choose deplorable stuff, that's what it comes down to. Their house is cold, they complain. Find some nice warm rugs! Clean behind the stove knobs every day! But, that kind of suggestion simply draws from them a bovine stare.
I realized this morning I've been taking the wrong approach, trying to argue my point with people like this. I'm reading about a better approach, a healing approach. It's an amazing story, but I was skeptical. My skepticism is starting to melt away a bit.
In another book, about how to be rich, I read, yesterday, "what do you wake up thinking about? Bills and difficulties? Then you'll get more bills and difficulties." And, this morning, when I remembered to think about that, I found I was thinking about troublesome friends, and why do I always attract them? Why are they so unreasonable. So, when I remembered the advice, it was pretty funny to see what I was doing. I then tried to think about something more positive. It was actually kind of hard!
Still, I am working my way into more businesslike activities. I set up a little system, yesterday, which locates very nice things for people, and makes me a little money, if they buy. There's an advertising component, too, to bring in customers. It feels more stable and effective than my previous attempts. I'm still quite lost, in the business, but I'm also getting some help, by actively searching for it, and paying a little money for it.
What are my goals. The author I'm reading said exactly what I've been thinking, that that's the hardest question to answer! It sounds like the easiest one, but it's not, it's the hardest! That's partly because great goals are complicated ... and it's partly because people are suspicious of ambition. We tend to want to not behave in a suspicious manner ... so, we have to work quite hard to be both ambitious and not suspicious. Absolutely, my goal is to have money. Nah nah nah nah nah nah. But what's it for? I guess my plan is to be a producer.
