$5 ATM Fees?

Yes.

Vampire Forecloses On Bank

Alternate headline: Bloodsucker Vs. Bloodsucker.

(Via - Daily What)

Rep. Alan Grayson On Financial Reform: Too Big To Fail Means Too Big To Exist

Grayson thinks the Senate finance reform bill is too weak.

Senate Passes Financial Reform Bill

By a partisan vote of 59-39, the Senate has passed its sweeping financial reform bill.

The legislation aims to prevent a recurrence of the near-meltdown of big Wall Street investment banks and the resulting costly bailouts. It calls for new ways to watch for risks in the financial system and makes it easier to liquidate large failing financial firms. It also writes new rules for complex securities blamed for helping precipitate the 2008 economic crisis, and it creates a new consumer protection agency. It would impose new restraints on the largest, most interconnected banks and demand proof that borrowers could pay for the simplest of mortgages.

"Our goal is not to punish the banks but to protect the larger economy and the American people from the kind of upheavals that we've seen in the past few years," Obama said earlier Thursday after the Senate cleared a key 60-vote hurdle blocking final action. The financial industry, Obama said, had tried to stop the new regulations "with hordes of lobbyists and millions of dollars in ads." Two Democrats, Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Russ Feingold (D-WI), voted against the bill. Four Republicans, Sens. Scott Brown (R-MA), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), voted in favor of the bill.

A House version of the bill passed in December and now must be reconciled with the Senate version.

Cash For Gold, Abu Dhabi Style

While desperate American mail their gold jewelery to corporate scamsters in return for cash, a hotel in Abu Dhabi has installed an ATM machine that dispenses tiny gold bars when you feed it money. Because there's so little conspicuous consumption in the region.

(Tipped by JMG reader JM)

World Markets Sagging As Financial Crisis In Greece Worsens

Today In Banking Scams

JP Morgan Chase is telling its customers to select "credit" when making debit card purchases, because then they'll have to sign for their purchase and that's safer than entering a PIN in public Except banking industry experts say it's actually not safer. Could this new advice arise from the fact that that JP Morgan Chase makes a dollar from the average $100 signature debit purchase, versus a nickel or dime from the same PIN debit purchase? Naw!

Photo Of The Day - Office Politics

Dealmaker provides the above photo of how one tech analyst at Credit Suisse handled a conflict with a banker in the next cubicle. Commenters at the link are especially tickled by the Jolly Roger.

(Via - Gothamist)