Open Letter to J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Capital One, et al

Per your request, the following is an explanation as to why I am closing my Chase Checking Account.

I was not pleased that you intended to sharply increase the interest rate on my credit card inherited by Chase from WAMU to 22.9%--which is why I closed that account in 2009 prior to the increase taking effect. Evidently, you must think that all your customers are completely clueless about financial affairs. Chase charges exorbitant & constantly increasing fees & rates during a period when the Fed is holding interest rates near 0% (actually negative when adjusted for inflation) "for an indefinite period of time".

Thus while Seniors earn almost nothing on their painfully accrued savings, the Bernanke Federal Reserve caters to and rewards institutions like yours that almost destroyed the world's economy--and still may do so.

It must be very pleasant to have the ability to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars at the Federal Reserve discount window @ 3/4 % & immediately lend the same monies back to a supposedly hapless (but in reality not) Fed @ 3 1/4% (10 year T-Bond)-a completely riskless transaction which locks in untold profits! It's probably also quite agreeable for Chase & its ilk to pay next to nothing for deposits-- less than 0.25% for Fed Funds (overnight bank-to-bank lending rate) & savings accounts & nothing at all for Demand Deposits-DD's-(checking accounts).

And rather than lending these funds to small businesses in an attempt to help revive a moribund economy, commercial banks like Chase are choking off credit by raising rates & tightening lending standards.

And this after gorging yourselves at the taxpayer trough of unlimited "Fed favors" during the financial meltdown.

These outrages continue despite recent putative financial "reform" legislation--which was hopelessly watered down thanks to the army of Congressional lobbyists the banking & credit card "industries" employ.

Your operation would impress even Tony Soprano!

You don't break legs--but you greedy and unrepentant parasites DO ruin lives utilizing legalized usury.

A Federal government that was truly populist would indict all of the large commercial banks as criminal enterprises under the RICO (Racketeering) Statutes.

I have therefore transferred my business to a financial institution not based in the U.S. & that consequently has NOT taken ANY taxpayer monies and/or guarantees & subsequently announced obscene profits a la J.P. Morgan Chase, Capital One Bank, Citigroup, et al. And it even pays nominal interst on DD's!


P.S. Please explain to this writer, Mr. Chase Chairman Jamie Dimon, why I should pay down the balances on my two closed Chase Credit cards--interest rate 15.9 %--which both Chase & failed WAMU Bank tried to raise to 22.9 % ?! (An action only averted by my closing both accouts).

Uhmmm..Go get the money from Mr. Bernanke. He'll just print or borrow it. He is an associate of Tony Soprano. You see, he likes to confiscate the income of Seniors like me, too. Then he gives it to you, Mr. Dimon. It's the "American way".

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Coming soon: The ultimate "thermonuclear" option Seniors can employ vs. the Banks, Credit Card Companies & Health Care Providers--BANKRUPTCY. How it actually IMPROVES rather than DAMAGES your credit and why. And what does it mean to be "Judgment-Proof"?

For an in-depth discussion of U.S. bank profits, please follow this link:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/bank-a18.shtml

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DISCLAIMER:

MrKen is NOT a registered financial advisor & any opinions, suggestions or strategies explained are based on his own experiences and knowledge. Readers of this blog should consult their own financial advisors, accountants and/or brokers before taking any action explicitly or implicitly recommended or recounted by this writer.
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Quantum's Jim Rogers says US 'out of control'

The case for commodity stocks has been forcefully, and in my opinion, quite correctly expressed by Jim Rogers, co-founder of the Quantum Fund. While sharp corrections are possible at any time, Rogers is taking a longer term view.

Especially alarming is his thesis of armed conflict over resources. But of course we have already experienced this; the U.S. invaded Iraq to secure the desperately needed oil resources of the region. To the conservative neocons** out there who insist that we selflessly sought to bring democracy to Iraq--well, Karl Rove appeared on Fox News on Sunday (3/2) as an analyst to point out that the U.S. could not allow Al-Qaeda to build up a base in Iraq because it would endanger our oil supply.

**The Wall Street Journal, for example, has written many silly, disingenuous editorials about this county's putative motives for invading Iraq; e.g., the invasion was not about oil but only about the fact that Saddam Hussein was a 'bad, bad man & killed many of his own people' & the U.S. is so selfless and pure that it was a moral imperative for our 'Dear Leader' to send its imperial armed forces to Iraq in order to topple him. As if siding with dictators with blood on their hands ever bothered Amerika; re Stalin, Batista, Franco, Shah Pahlavi of Iran. Not to mention supporting Saddam against Iran in the almost decade-long war in the 1980's and selling him much of the chemical weapons technology he later used to kill his own people (along with France & other European countries).

Memories tend to be quite short in the U.S.A.--as short as attention spans...

From the London Times Online (2/28/08):

Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent

Jim Rogers - who co-founded the now closed Quantum Fund with George Soros - told 750 global fund managers in Tokyo today that, America is “completely out of control”, there will be a 20-year bull market in commodities and that prices will be in turmoil.

And he also warned that it “made sense” if global competition for resources ended in armed conflict.

Mr Rogers told delegates to the CLSA investment forum that the prices of all agricultural products would “explode” in coming years and that the price of gold, which hit an all-time high of $964 an ounce yesterday, will continue its surge to as much as $3,500 an ounce.

Gold would continue to rise, the analyst Christopher Wood told fund managers, “because it is the exact opposite of a structured finance product”.

In a blistering attack on US monetary policy and the “helicopter cash drop” responses of the Federal Reserve, Mr Rogers described the American dollar as a “terribly flawed currency”.

He said that the plan by Ben Bernanke, the Fed Chairman, to “crank up the money-printing machines and run them until we run out of trees” had exposed America’s weakest point to her rivals and enemies.

The dollar may have declined recently, he added, “but you ain’t seen nothing yet”.

Talking to a room almost exclusively populated with Japan-focused equity investors, Mr Rogers recommended an immediate language course in Mandarin and a switch into commodities — the second-biggest market in the world behind foreign exchange.

Mr Rogers said that historic drains on wheat, corn and other soft commodity inventories have created market dynamics that could lead to severe food shortages.

The outlook over the next two decades would see prices of everything from cotton and sugar to lead and nickel “going through the roof”.

Heavily playing down the prospects of a big recovery in Japan, Mr Rogers said that the country’s demographics — as the fastest-aging country in the world — would cause it greater problems and an ever-diminishing quality of life for ordinary Japanese.

But he also said that other countries — including Britain, Italy, China and the US — should take note of what their own demographics would look like without the effect of immigration.

“Japan will be the perfect laboratory for the world to watch how a demographic crisis plays out,” he said.