Not many people can remember what this $2 solution was/is all about. Many have accepted it as a way of life and the new normal. It happened nearly 20 years ago, but I still remember. Just to refresh the memory, two decades ago computer technology was not that advance and computer memory was quite small and expensive. I am not sure if this was the main problem, but some banks found that having too many accounts was not only troublesome for their computerized system, but also costly. Computer memory cost money.
What to do? And to ridicule the problem, many accounts were either inactive or have very small deposits in them, some from children’s saving accounts. It was not profitable or meaningful to have these teeny weeny accounts. The only way to get rid of these accounts was simply to charge them a $2 monthly fee if the clients want to continue to keep the accounts. The logic was simple, it cost manpower and resources to service these accounts, and computer memory space.
As a result, all the banks started to impose a $2 fee on accounts with less than $500 or $1000 deposit. I was a victim of this brilliant solution. I totally forgotten about a gold savings account with a local bank. There were a couple of hundred dollars left in them after I sold off my investment. One day I received a note from the bank that it was closing this account of mine as there was no money left. My few hundred bucks gone like that!
I was furious. How could a bank eat up my money which I thought would grow as the interest was quite high then. What I did was normally expected of an unhappy customer. I closed down all my accounts with the bank. Till today, I have no accounts with the bank, not even its credit cards. I was not the only victim. Many victims also suffered in silence as it was their fault for not closing the accounts. It was the fault of the customers to leave their accounts open. The banks happily kept deducting the money and did not bother to remind the clients to close the accounts.
The $2 was a brilliant solution to save money and unnecessary work for the banks. The one who came out with the solution must be a brilliant super talent.
I think NUS School of Management should use this as a compulsory case study in its management courses. It will be a shining example of how effective a $2 solution can be in cost cutting and getting rid of undesirable customers. Harvard may also want to incorporate this into their courses, as a brilliant Singapore solution.
11/13/2011
11/12/2011
Posts disappearing after posting
Several bloggers have encountered this problem since yesterday that their posts were disappearing. Is this a bug in Blogger or is it something more sinister?
Whatever, people will put one and one together and look at the direction which they think is the likely source of such strange things. America did it many times. Create a problem and point the finger at whoever they want to target. It is called false flag incidents.
Now some bloggers may think that I am deleting the disappearing posts. No way that I am doing it. I hope it is such a bug. There is no reason for me to delete any post. In fact I welcome more bloggers to post in my blog. The more the merrier. That is why my posts often are provocative and take on pretty strong and controversial views.
I hope this problem will go away. If it persists, as it has never happened before, you can make your wild guess. A point to note, as it made me wondering, was the exceptionally high traffic on Thursday morning. It more than double the normal volume. Could that be the indicator of someone breaking into this blog?
Redbean.
Whatever, people will put one and one together and look at the direction which they think is the likely source of such strange things. America did it many times. Create a problem and point the finger at whoever they want to target. It is called false flag incidents.
Now some bloggers may think that I am deleting the disappearing posts. No way that I am doing it. I hope it is such a bug. There is no reason for me to delete any post. In fact I welcome more bloggers to post in my blog. The more the merrier. That is why my posts often are provocative and take on pretty strong and controversial views.
I hope this problem will go away. If it persists, as it has never happened before, you can make your wild guess. A point to note, as it made me wondering, was the exceptionally high traffic on Thursday morning. It more than double the normal volume. Could that be the indicator of someone breaking into this blog?
Redbean.
All the signs of the world economy going down
The crisis in Europe is just opening up. How serious it will become is still anyone’s guess. Europe is going down, and so is the US. Foreign banks here are starting to retrench some of their staff, in small numbers. The cause, financial deals are drying up. The financial industry will be the first to be hit this time as investment banks are losing credibility with their huge appetite for gambling.
High net worth clients who are smart enough would be getting cold feet with banks gambling with their money. Yes, it is big time gambling, not playing jackpot machines in the casinos. Many high net worth clients must be losing huge sums of money with stock markets going down in a spiral. And with cash is king, some may be tempted to just sit on it.
The retrenchment of investment bank staff is likely to affect the finance talents whose incomes are pretty substantial. And if these people are committed to multi million dollar properties and expensive cars, it is going to hit them in some ways. The big mortgages are not going to go away. They need two big incomes to service.
Then people will be pointing naughty fingers at them. Why take such big loans and big risk? Why buy properties beyond their means. The thing is that they were not given a chance. They were not eligible to buy properties within their means, to eligible to buy more affordable public housing. Hope it is not going to be the case, or some will be strangling themselves. Those in MF Global are likely to be seeking new jobs too.
When the bubble bursts, those who put these people at unnecessary high risk must touch their hearts and ask themselves if they have done wrong.
High net worth clients who are smart enough would be getting cold feet with banks gambling with their money. Yes, it is big time gambling, not playing jackpot machines in the casinos. Many high net worth clients must be losing huge sums of money with stock markets going down in a spiral. And with cash is king, some may be tempted to just sit on it.
The retrenchment of investment bank staff is likely to affect the finance talents whose incomes are pretty substantial. And if these people are committed to multi million dollar properties and expensive cars, it is going to hit them in some ways. The big mortgages are not going to go away. They need two big incomes to service.
Then people will be pointing naughty fingers at them. Why take such big loans and big risk? Why buy properties beyond their means. The thing is that they were not given a chance. They were not eligible to buy properties within their means, to eligible to buy more affordable public housing. Hope it is not going to be the case, or some will be strangling themselves. Those in MF Global are likely to be seeking new jobs too.
When the bubble bursts, those who put these people at unnecessary high risk must touch their hearts and ask themselves if they have done wrong.
11/11/2011
The world watches in silence
After Iraq and Libya, the next target of the Empire is Iran. They are preparing the grounds for it. They have spoken openly of the impending attack to gauge world reactions. Silence. The muslim world is headless and too deep in their own trouble to worry about anything else. Some may be afraid that their country will be next to be invaded and regime changed. Better to dig the head deeper into the sand for safety.
The rest of the world also remains silent as if nothing is happening. Like the proverbial 4 monkeys, see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing and do nothing. Don’t count on the western media or the white men’s conscience to denounce the premeditated murder of the Iranians.
Can any country stop this evil Empire from its murderous intent? If the rest of the world is willing to stand behind China or Russia to challenge the evil Empire from committing more genocide, there may be some hope. You need the rest of the world and the two nuclear power countries to keep the evil Empire at bay.
But why should China do anything? The rest of the world believes that China is the evil one, the aggressive one, their enemy, though China has not even lift a little finger to attack any country. It is best for China to stay out of the killing and destruction and let the evil Empire go on to take out one country after another in the name of peace. Any attempt for China to stand up for the weak nations will be immediately condemned by the western media. That is understandable. But the attacks by the western media will be joined by more attacks by the weak nations of Asia and Africa on China. They will immediately point the finger at China as a country willing to use military power to bully smaller nations. They could not see the Americans are doing exactly that.
It is best for China to stay out of the impending nuking of Iran. It is best for China just to look after its own territorial integrity and make sure that no little pesky country would dare to encroach on its territories and make spurious claims on them.
Let the evil Empire teach the weak nations a lesson on goodness and who to trust. It is now fabricating more evidences, like WMD against Saddam Hussein, to attack Iran. It is forcing China to join them against Iran, to impose more sanctions and even support the strike against Iran.
What a peace loving Empire.
The rest of the world also remains silent as if nothing is happening. Like the proverbial 4 monkeys, see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing and do nothing. Don’t count on the western media or the white men’s conscience to denounce the premeditated murder of the Iranians.
Can any country stop this evil Empire from its murderous intent? If the rest of the world is willing to stand behind China or Russia to challenge the evil Empire from committing more genocide, there may be some hope. You need the rest of the world and the two nuclear power countries to keep the evil Empire at bay.
But why should China do anything? The rest of the world believes that China is the evil one, the aggressive one, their enemy, though China has not even lift a little finger to attack any country. It is best for China to stay out of the killing and destruction and let the evil Empire go on to take out one country after another in the name of peace. Any attempt for China to stand up for the weak nations will be immediately condemned by the western media. That is understandable. But the attacks by the western media will be joined by more attacks by the weak nations of Asia and Africa on China. They will immediately point the finger at China as a country willing to use military power to bully smaller nations. They could not see the Americans are doing exactly that.
It is best for China to stay out of the impending nuking of Iran. It is best for China just to look after its own territorial integrity and make sure that no little pesky country would dare to encroach on its territories and make spurious claims on them.
Let the evil Empire teach the weak nations a lesson on goodness and who to trust. It is now fabricating more evidences, like WMD against Saddam Hussein, to attack Iran. It is forcing China to join them against Iran, to impose more sanctions and even support the strike against Iran.
What a peace loving Empire.
MAS is starting to show interests
The MF Global sham must have triggered MAS into action. Or is it Paul Volcker’s recommendation for more regulation than deregulation? Well, MAS is introducing more regulations to prevent more lemons appearing in our financial market, to protect the average investors. Sophisticated instruments, derivatives etc will now be subject to more regulations to prevent innocent, ignorant and unsophisticated investors from being sucked into the quagmire and lose their life savings.
It is a good start, albeit a little too late and a bit too little. The measures taken are still too inadequate to prevent the loss of billions to the big funds which is happening daily. It is not just the derivatives and sophisticated products that are at fault. There are system faults that cannot go on like this.
The derivatives are now seen as dangerous, if not toxic. If they are dangerous, shouldn’t they be taken out of the system completely? Or it is okay to sell poison as long as the buyer knows that it is poison? This is a philosophical question. It can be a matter of right and wrong, a moral issue.
Derivatives are not only dangerous by themselves. The fact that they are derived from the major stocks in the market will also put these stocks at risk to grave manipulations. The intrinsic values of these component stocks will be of no bearing to the speculators whose only interest is profit by pushing the stocks up and down, at high speed.
The more dangerous development is to allow funds to hook up their computers to the stock market system. This is unfair in many counts. They could trade at high speed with the advantage of high speed computers and with the information provided by the system that the average investors are not accessible to. And they could use big muscles, with practically unlimited trading limits to corner stocks, to move stocks at will.
Cornering of stocks, buying and selling without change of ownership are all against the rules and regulations of the stock market. Are the funds doing it, or allow to do it?
For several years, the investors have been brought to the cleaners by the big funds. A report on who are the main winners and who are the losers would tell the story much clearer on how the system is disadvantaging the average investors.
MAS could have done more to ensure that the stock market is a level playing field to all investors, big or small. Funds can play with their sophisticated computers, algos, big war chests, but must not be allowed to hook their computers to the exchange. This is the least that MAS has to do.
It is a good start, albeit a little too late and a bit too little. The measures taken are still too inadequate to prevent the loss of billions to the big funds which is happening daily. It is not just the derivatives and sophisticated products that are at fault. There are system faults that cannot go on like this.
The derivatives are now seen as dangerous, if not toxic. If they are dangerous, shouldn’t they be taken out of the system completely? Or it is okay to sell poison as long as the buyer knows that it is poison? This is a philosophical question. It can be a matter of right and wrong, a moral issue.
Derivatives are not only dangerous by themselves. The fact that they are derived from the major stocks in the market will also put these stocks at risk to grave manipulations. The intrinsic values of these component stocks will be of no bearing to the speculators whose only interest is profit by pushing the stocks up and down, at high speed.
The more dangerous development is to allow funds to hook up their computers to the stock market system. This is unfair in many counts. They could trade at high speed with the advantage of high speed computers and with the information provided by the system that the average investors are not accessible to. And they could use big muscles, with practically unlimited trading limits to corner stocks, to move stocks at will.
Cornering of stocks, buying and selling without change of ownership are all against the rules and regulations of the stock market. Are the funds doing it, or allow to do it?
For several years, the investors have been brought to the cleaners by the big funds. A report on who are the main winners and who are the losers would tell the story much clearer on how the system is disadvantaging the average investors.
MAS could have done more to ensure that the stock market is a level playing field to all investors, big or small. Funds can play with their sophisticated computers, algos, big war chests, but must not be allowed to hook their computers to the exchange. This is the least that MAS has to do.
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