[bedhead]

No, it's the same system that allows the lottery to exist. It's not "fuck the poor", it's "fuck the stupid" (alternatively, "fuck the bad-at-math"). If there's a high correlation, I don't think anyone is going to be terribly surprised, as uncomfortable as that may be.

I have been poor. I have also been the opposite. I have also been a bank employee, and a professional investor who studied security analysis by looking at banks. The feds have rightly come down on banks via recent regs about how to charge overdraft fees, because banks did in fact used to play bullshit games with how they charged fees. A lot of that has been fixed. But the uncomfortable truth is that the people who repeatedly fall victim to these fees these days are simply irresponsible. You might as well complain about the high price of parking/speeding tickets - every opportunity in the world is there to avoid it.

I'm sure this will get about 50 downvotes but whatever.

[danharaj]

There is a cognitive overhead to managing every predatory relationship. The poor have to deal with many, many predatory relationships all the fucking time. People make mistakes and extremely powerful people and institutions exploit them as much as they can when they do.

Good on you for being able to say that you were poor, in the past tense. I'm glad. I don't think people are stupid just because they stay poor. When you call people stupid because they suffer and can't catch their breath or get their affairs in order because human institutions are structured in the most hostile, alienating, predatory way they can get away with, you start seeing stupidity wherever you ought to see compassion and empathy.

[bedhead]

You're right that the poor face many asymmetric relationships day-in and day-out. Whether I would describe it all as "predatory" I would disagree.

Again, I think this is a very, very uncomfortable topic to have an honest conversation about, but I think people often mix up causation and correlation on this general topic. Let's stop kidding ourselves about it - many, many poor people are poor because they lack the basic building blocks for success that we take for granted: god-given intelligence, a strong work ethic, long-term thinking, careful considering for non-trivial decisions, an upbringing that values education, etc. I'm NOT saying all, but definitely many. So to the extent people and organizations are trying to in some way take advantage of "poor" people, this isn't really accurate - they are trying to take advantage of people who don't make good decisions. Heck, if you were trying to sucker someone for money, wouldn't you (ignoring everything else) go after someone with lots of money? People can't "catch their breath" or "get their affairs in order" not because of systemic oppression, but because they simply don't have the basic life skills to do it in the first place...that's probably a large part of why they're poor. There's also just a lot of inertia with this stuff, but we're getting way off topic. I read an interesting book about this years ago called The Persistence of Poverty, which I would recommend.

None of this is to say I am not empathetic or have any compassion. The blatantly predatory behaviors are deplorable and should be stopped and if applicable, the people involved should face whatever punishment is allowable. But adults need to be treated like adults at some point.

[fideloper]

Sounds like victim blaming. To an extent you're right, but the situation is not at all this black and white (like anything in reality).

Take for example just the fact that it's easy to lose track of your current savings especially without ready access to the internet, a common situation for the low income.

[bedhead]

Yes, it's is 100% victim blaming, because for god's sake, at what point do we expect grown adults to take some friggin responsibility for themselves?? Puh-lease, spare me the "easy to lose track" garbage. It's never been easier to keep track of one's finances, and that's before even considering an internet connection. If your budget is that tight, maybe, just maybe, actually closely tracking your bank account should be a priority, no??? One would think. God knows that's how I was when I had almost nothing to my name.

I don't like the banks playing games with this stuff and I'm glad most (but not all) of their bs got stopped. But my god, when are we going to hold adults accountable for just basic life skills instead of insulting and coddling them? Ever??

[thaumaturgy]

You're obnoxious, but you're right. I've suffered more than my fair share of overdraft fees, and every one of them was my own fault. It didn't help that my bank's online banking system was a filthy liar with a long-standing bug that caused it to display an incorrect balance (for up to a day or more) when there was an incoming transaction that wasn't pre-auth or posted -- but ultimately that just meant that I had to start writing down all of my charges and deposits, so that's what I did.

Overdraft fees are onerous, banks absolutely do exploit their poorer customers for extra revenue, several of the larger banks are next in line for most-hated organizations in America behind AT&T and Comcast, and the structure of fees across a wide array of services are all biased against the poor. But, none of that changes the truth that most overdraft fees could be avoided if the poor were more diligent about their finances.

[magicalist]

Oh please. Everyone should be more diligent about their finances. The difference is that someone with money says "oh damn it, I spent too much. I should buy less stuff next week" and someone without much money gets an overdraft fee.

Maybe the problem with the current system isn't poor people, the problem is just people. It's just that some people don't have any sort of margin of error, so we shouldn't tilt the scales against them too. No need to add to the shit situation they're already in.

[thaumaturgy]

Fantastic, I agree with everything you said and you didn't disagree with anything I said.

[guelo]

Except that banks go through great lengths to make keeping track of your money as confusing as possible.

[bedhead]

Examples? Again, as a former bank employee and someone who's analyzed banks for well over a decade, I know with certainty that you are 100% wrong...but I'm interested in your explanation.