[fredkbloggs]

It's pretty obvious that banks do not act in the public interest. I'm not sure why anyone would expect them to. They are for-profit corporations and they will do everything within the law to increase those profits.

The US regulatory strategy with respect to banking is to limit the interest they can charge (often to a level below break-even), limit the set of customers to whom they can make loans, limit the terms on which loans can be made, require them to do business with a particular central bank that does not pay interest, require them to hold a certain amount of capital in forms that you dictate, prohibit them from charging fee A, then when they start charging fee B (legally) instead, prohibit that too.

Under the circumstances, I don't see why anyone should be surprised or upset that they then stop charging fee B and start charging fee C instead.

If you want the government to do something that would actually help people, you should be looking at all the laws that effectively prohibit the use of cash. Or the laws that in many states require doing business (with fees!) with a bank in order to get paid, or to take advantage of public assistance programs. Start by accepting that banks are not charities; they are never going to act the way you would like. What you can do is to give people good options that don't involve banks at all, then let the market sort it out. When you force people into banks, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. You will never be able to regulate away every last way to make a profit, and if you did manage to do so then you would rapidly find yourself without the ability to conduct any transaction -- because you've legislated everything into the banking system (where you can watch it and dictate to everyone in world). It just doesn't work.

[rev_bird]

That's an interesting angle that I hadn't considered -- I get that it's unreasonable to ask banks to be a public trust AND a public corporation at the same time, but maybe separating the "for-profit business" side of things from the "financial services necessary to just be alive" side would be more productive for everyone. Just never occurred to me, for whatever reason.

Thinking more about it, this seems like a similar problem to one some states are running into with privatized prisons and "public" schools -- corporations are put in charge of public services and are doing a horrifying job in some cases, because their business is oriented toward profit, not "the public good." I'm not saying the companies are acting unreasonably, but maybe some things should just be set aside for something other than profit... firefighters come to mind.