Bring back monthly maintenance fees
Disruption can be a healthy catalyst for innovation and advancement, but not when it’s based on a flawed premise.
An old and persistently annoying wound received some fresh claw marks recently. And I still blame Washington Mutual (WaMu).
In late December, a popular podcast devoted an hour-long episode to the rhetorical question, “Can You Live Without a Bank Account?”
“Stuff You Should Know” tackles a wide range of topics, so by definition it approaches each with a generalist’s view: A couple of intelligent guys (Josh and Chuck) taking a thoughtful approach to researching interesting questions.
As such, don’t expect expert analysis but rather a well-considered—and widely disseminated—perspective.
That said, I found myself screaming into my monitor at several points of this podcast.
After a history lesson dating back to the 1400s and some now standard-issue bank bashing, the hosts tee up a progression of financial alternatives that could conceivably allow an individual to “opt out of the banking system.”
At one point, one of them refers to banks as “gross,” which hints at their prevailing sentiment. Oddly, credit unions are never mentioned among those banking alternatives.
continue reading »
Discussion