By Gregory Williams
We live in a capitalist society, that is, a dictatorship of the rich. As we look around us, it’s obvious that the game is rigged against everyone except the billionaires. We’re so used to the B.S. that we start to believe it has to be this way. But does it?
The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. banks made over $30 billion in overdraft fees in 2016. Most of us who live from paycheck to paycheck have experienced this. You pay the rent, for instance, and your account goes into the negative. You’re already broke; then you get hit with a fee.
The banks are intentionally preying on the poorest among us. Often, they rearrange the order of a day’s transactions so as to slam you with multiple fees. Your landlord might cash your rent check a week after you write it. On the day it’s cashed (which you have no control over) you make several small purchases; the bank processes these after the whopping rent check is cashed, and there you are!
Like most other things in capitalist society, this is a racket. Banks are cashing in on struggling people, laughing all the way to…the bank. And yet, when the banks themselves were struggling during the last financial crash, their lackeys in Washington gladly bailed them out giving them $1.2 trillion of our money. The rich and powerful do what they can get away with. If workers organize, fight back, and say “No more!” it would not have to be this way.