>>I agree with all that, just didn't realize it was what you meant. One part I definitely agree with is that our gluttonous way of life is a factor. Not every individual, of course, but a great many of us "average Americans" have been living beyond our means. "We" have taken out mortgages we can't afford, run up credit card bills on discretionary items, have a horrible savings rate, etc. This is not to let the big guys off the hook but we are dishonest if we do not admit our own culpability is this crisis.
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>But the banks hate me and love your Joe Average. Because I have no debts, even have some savings. But that's me, diligently junking any ad that comes from a bank. Well, I do take their sample cards, they are perfect for spreading the grout and cleaning the bits of peanut shells off the desk. The rest goes to recycling unopened.
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>Which is why I missed my chance to get about half a million in credit cards (could have easily run it up that high, had I accepted every "preapproved" offer). I could have owed a million by now and could have bought who knows how many things I don't need. And I could have paid half the original value of the house to banks, through interest and various fees. Which they would love. They love fees, interest, and specially late fees. Late fees... imagine if you could charge real money for everything that arrived late. Your MSDN disks, for one. Windows NT. Your salary. Cash rebate. Anything - bang, $40 for just being one day late. Tell them to file electronically and then have what they send retyped anyway - we all know that the electronic filing means there's some software printing the paper checks. Charge them extra if they write checks themselves. And then send them the bill at the last possible moment, set a due date on a Saturday before a Mike Holiday Monday, and open a mailbox in Chuckabooga Valley, where post office opens twice a week, and receive their check late and use that as a reason to charge them $60 now and increase their interest rate - because, if they can't pay, they should pay more. And so on, turn the other butt cheek and have it kissed - be a bank, see the trouble they have to live with, and hope to achieve deeper understanding.
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>Which means, if you are a bank, you don't want to mess with savings. You get to play with other people's money, but you do that anyway, and you get them to pay you for that. With savings, people always have this delusion that you should be delighted to have their money in your hands and that you should pay them for it - just like you charge others when you give them someone else's money to hold for a while. Nonsense. It doesn't work that way, which is why the bank gives you very little incentive to save - but keeps stuffing your mailbox with offers how to borrow more, under many funny pages of small print.
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>And they were very good at it. I see my neighbor always trying to squeeze each last dime from the guys who come to fix her house, but drives a domestic tank which I doubt gets anything more than 20 mpg (and is ugly mousefart gray, but then the other neighbor has identical one, same non-color). And I have never seen it dirty, not even the tires. Why does she need an all-terrain 4wd quad whatever sixteen ton monster? She doesn't - the old sedan she had was perfect. But for the patriotic yell of Fall 2001 "go spend your money"...

You make a lot of good points.

As is happens I just got nailed last month with a bogus late fee. My checking account is with Chase and I pay all my bills electronically using their online banking service. When the bills come in I go to Chase's site and set payment up for the due date (or the Friday before if it's a weekend or holiday). Usually when I get done paying the bills I check through the list to make sure the ones that were supposed to be paid did get paid, then throw the paper bills away. Works pretty well. Last month I went through this routine to pay off the balance on my credit card, which is issued by Citibank. When the subsequent credit card bill arrived I saw a $39 late fee plus $20 or so interest on the previous balance. Looked into it on both online sites. According to Chase's site it was paid on the due date. According to Citibank's it was paid the next day, i.e. one day late. So I call them up. It can take a day or two for the transaction to be processed, the guy says. I said give me a break -- it takes a day or two for money to move electronically between two of the world's biggest banks? He agreed to reverse the late fee and interest charge "as a one time courtesy." Big of them, huh? I'm sure they would have done that anyway if I hadn't called (eyes rolling madly).