esterday I called Bank of America about my mortgage.  I had the taxes lowered on my house by re-setting the value from $275,000 to $125,000.  But the bank paid the OLD tax amount instead of the new one.  Now I have to call the county assessor to make sure they are going to refund the difference to the bank.  My payment dropped by $90 for this month and once they get the refund to the bank it will drop another $35.  But why do I have to tell the bank what is going on?  Why can’t they figure it out themselves? 

I mentioned to the rep for B of A that the govt recently gave them $15 billion to help out the people with bad loans.  The rep was proud to tell me that B of A is paying back the entire amount in full with interest.  They are doing this in an attempt to break free of the government requirement that they treat their customers well.  Scary!  Later I heard that B of A has retained $100 billion in loan revenues and has not put that back into circulation in the form of new loans.  So, while money gets tighter, the banks get richer, and the people who need it most get nothing while Wall Street and the big corporations are all reporting record gains and incredible profits.

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What part of this sounds fair to you?  It seems that the taxpayer’s money was given to all but the taxpayer and even though “we the people” have less money to share right now, we are being indirectly taxed through higher costs and smaller portions.  Have you noticed that a half-gallon of ice cream is now 1.75 quarts?  2×4 posts are no longer 2 inches x 4 inches … they are smaller.

Look at the governments and banks throughout the world.  Everyone is giving away money at the expense of their citizens or bank investors.  The corporations are absorbing profits as much as possible and withholding jobs in an effort to increase their bottom line and make them stronger in order to survive the Depression/Recession.  But when will they learn that it is the consumer who controls the market place,  not the corporations?  By sucking in all the money and holding prices down it seems that they have found a way to prevent inflation on the short term.  But what will happen long term?  “They” claim they do not know since this has never happened in the past, in exactly the same way.