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Saturday
March 20, 2010 Since 1922 |
Letters for October 21, 2009
It really is free
Congress is beginning to address what many call exorbitant banking fees charged by most banks. Their main contentions are the $25 to $35 dollar overdraft fee for insufficient funds and ATM fees.
The problem does not lie with the bank but with the customer. If you maintain financial responsibility and write no ‘hot checks’ and use your own bank’s ATMs there is no fee at all. Also it is clearly spelled out when you open an account the cost of overdraft fees and the simple way to avoid such fees is to keep enough money in your account so the bank does not have to ‘loan’ you money to pay for your excesses or mistakes.
Isn’t this really a non-issue? If you simply spend no more than what you have in your account most of the services the banks offer (Direct Deposit, Checking, Savings, and ATM services) are 100% FREE. Congress needs to educate the consumer rather than attack the banks. The old days of writing a ‘hot check’ and hoping to deposit money before the check clears is over.
Perhaps those who have a problem with bank fees should just purchase Money Orders to pay their bills and keep cash under their mattress…and drop their bank account(s).
Don Sanders
Baytown
The war on weed
An interesting article concerning cannabis in Texas and the nation appeared recently in Texas Monthly. What is believed to be the first law enacted against a drug that has grown wildly and has been used legally for 5,000 years, was in El Paso, in 1914. Now, after firing the first shot in the war on marijuana, the city council of El Paso has been trying to declare a cease fire. Why? Because 5,600 people have been killed by drug cartels and a third of these deaths have occurred in Juarez, their sister city.
Attorney General Eric Holder stopped the DEA from raiding medical marijuana Clinics. A former Seattle police chief, who heads up the White House Office of National Drug Policy, announced that the term and program “War on Drugs” has been scrapped, and treatment and prevention will now be the main mission. Our special envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, announced that we were stopping the eradication of poppy crops that drove the people of that country back to the Taliban. This effort did not even make a dent in the amount of opium reaching the market.
Recent polls in the United States have shown that in a decade, the amount that favor the legalization has grown to over 50 percent and in Texas, the numbers are over 70 percent that favor legalization for recreational use of weed. One day in Starbucks, you may hear, “Don’t bogart that joint my friend!”
Murrie Gene Kinney, Jr.
Dayton
Congress is beginning to address what many call exorbitant banking fees charged by most banks. Their main contentions are the $25 to $35 dollar overdraft fee for insufficient funds and ATM fees.
The problem does not lie with the bank but with the customer. If you maintain financial responsibility and write no ‘hot checks’ and use your own bank’s ATMs there is no fee at all. Also it is clearly spelled out when you open an account the cost of overdraft fees and the simple way to avoid such fees is to keep enough money in your account so the bank does not have to ‘loan’ you money to pay for your excesses or mistakes.
Isn’t this really a non-issue? If you simply spend no more than what you have in your account most of the services the banks offer (Direct Deposit, Checking, Savings, and ATM services) are 100% FREE. Congress needs to educate the consumer rather than attack the banks. The old days of writing a ‘hot check’ and hoping to deposit money before the check clears is over.
Perhaps those who have a problem with bank fees should just purchase Money Orders to pay their bills and keep cash under their mattress…and drop their bank account(s).
Don Sanders
Baytown
The war on weed
An interesting article concerning cannabis in Texas and the nation appeared recently in Texas Monthly. What is believed to be the first law enacted against a drug that has grown wildly and has been used legally for 5,000 years, was in El Paso, in 1914. Now, after firing the first shot in the war on marijuana, the city council of El Paso has been trying to declare a cease fire. Why? Because 5,600 people have been killed by drug cartels and a third of these deaths have occurred in Juarez, their sister city.
Attorney General Eric Holder stopped the DEA from raiding medical marijuana Clinics. A former Seattle police chief, who heads up the White House Office of National Drug Policy, announced that the term and program “War on Drugs” has been scrapped, and treatment and prevention will now be the main mission. Our special envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, announced that we were stopping the eradication of poppy crops that drove the people of that country back to the Taliban. This effort did not even make a dent in the amount of opium reaching the market.
Recent polls in the United States have shown that in a decade, the amount that favor the legalization has grown to over 50 percent and in Texas, the numbers are over 70 percent that favor legalization for recreational use of weed. One day in Starbucks, you may hear, “Don’t bogart that joint my friend!”
Murrie Gene Kinney, Jr.
Dayton