Regulation D

While Fox News has been lambasting David Letterman, Bloomberg has been doing its best to lie about the economy, and the big 3 networks have been playing sycophants to the Obama regime, all kinds of little controls have been placed upon the American people.  No one read the “Stimulus Bill” and no one is playing watch dog, effectively, over the over-reaching federal government. 

I discovered one minute way that the current regime is bringing change to America. While doing an online banking transaction, I discovered that I am now limited by the Federal Reserve as to how many withdrawals I can make from my savings accounts in a given month.  In the grand scheme of things, perhaps this is a small chip off the granite rock of individual rights and self-determination, but it reaches directly into my bank account. 

In America, we tend to think of our money as our money, not the government’s money.  But due to the new regime’s ideology of wealth distribution and the pending tax hikes that the administration will be forced to implement, I am under the growing impression that Mr. Obama considers my money his money.  Perhaps Comrade Chavez was not employing hyperbole when he noted the need to catch up to Mr. Obama’s socialist agenda. 

My bank now reports that it is ”required by the Federal Reserve Board to limit the number of electronic withdrawals or transfers that a member can make from each Savings or Money Market Account…You are limited to 6 of the following transfers or withdrawals, in any combination, within the period of 1 calendar month.  If more than 6 transfers or withdrawals are done in a month then a fee of $5 will be assessed for each transfer and/or withdrawal.”

What interests me about this new regulation is the why?  Why is the financial-government complex trying to limit the number of savings withdrawals that I make?  Is it that the banking industry is so desperate for capital, that they want to invent a new system of punitive fees against those accustomed to online banking, i.e. customarily switching money from one account to another?  We will either limit the number of withdrawals that we make or we will pay fees.  It’s a win-win for the banking sector, unless of course people start to think that the Fed cannot back the money they say they insure.  In this case, some will get their money out of savings entirely.  A story from teaching may illustrate this movement.

A few months ago I asked one of my Vietnamese students if she kept her money in savings.  She and several of the other Vietnamese students said “no”, they do not give their money to the banks. 

“Where do you keep your money, in a coffee can under your bed?”

Shyly, she responded, “yes”.

“Why?”

“We don’t trust the government.”

Maybe the experience of Communism has tainted unfairly their enthusiam for taxation and wealth redistribution.  Or perhaps they have gained a wisdom that we might want to attend to.