Contribute your $5 a month to continue our Gilded Age!

[Charlotteman]

re: $5 monthly debit fee proposed by Bank of America.

B of A has proposed charging members a $5 monthly debit fee. Didn't the American people just bail out B of A?

Isn't B of A still paying those outlandish CEO salaries and bonuses?

Didn't B of A just spend untold money on a new Charlotte skyscraper, a skybridge and an Uptown Charlotte Ritz Carlton?

Isn't B of A already collecting a fee (from the business owner) every time the debit card is used?

This $5 a month = $60 a year of windfall profits for an already morally reprehensible bank. Don't fool yourselves folks. This $5 a month will go to pay some billionaire's yacht payment, or his daughter's Mercedes payment.

Anyone that choses to pay such a fee is essentially going along with this evil Gilded Age we find ourselves trapped in.

[Neo]

I'm extremely proud to not be a BoA customer, but I fear that the other big banks will follow suit now that the largest bank has initiated this tax on its customers. They want to charge me to spend MY money, the same money they make their billions off of?

No thanks.

[HopHead]

I'm by no means defending BofA here, but what do you expect them to do? With all the regulations being thrown at banks now, they are losing their revenue streams and need to find new avenues for it. BofA's $5 fee is not original. Wells and Citi were already testing a monthly fee in select markets before this came out. All of the larger banks will be doing the same thing soon enough. Kind of like when airlines started charging for bags. One did it and the rest followed. If you want to avoid fees, best option is to join a credit union.

[Charlotteman]

If B of A enacts this fee, I will join a credit union, or I will switch to a bank that does not wallow in greed.

This $5 fee is just a small example of the massive transfer of wealth happening in this country today. The transfer is of course toward the wealthy.

If working people keep going along with this stuff, billionaires will own more vacation homes, and the rest of us will face more foreclosures.

[Gard]

It's crap like this that makes me happy I've always kept my money in credit unions. Credit unions have been reporting rapid growth over the stretch of the economic downturn, so I'd imagine this will only accelerate it. Suntrust has also been experimenting with debit card fees as well.

[Charlotteman]

This $5 fee is nothing more than naked greed. Greed born of this Age of Privilege we are living in.

We have been living in a Gilded Age for several decades now. Billionaires are getting richer everyday, and new millionaires are born everyday in this country as well.

All the while, the Middle Class has been thoroughly crushed. Unemployment is at a scary level, and poor people are getting more and more desperate.

Who can possibly deny that this $5 per month is solely to further enrich already wealthy bank CEOs and shareholders? On the backs of the working class, and the poor. Just another example of modern-day transfers of wealth.

Are other people seeing the raw evil of this?

[HopHead]

And here we go... Like I said, BofA isn't alone with the fees. Looks like Citi will be jacking up their checking fees as well: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Citi-announces-new-fees-on-cnnm-215283525.html . Look for this to keep coming from other banks.

[49er]

Part of me wants to defend the move because whats good for BoA is good for Charlotte. But, that's selfish! I think the fee is simple ill conceived in a time when the back is already a PR goat on a national scale. If I were a BoA customer, I would surely find another place to keep my money. The middle class simple won't be charged a bank executive's bonus fee. I know that even a lot credit unions charge a $1 or so monthly maintenance fee on accounts so what we might we witnessing is the beginning of the end of free for all checking and savings.