Thursday, January 26, 2006
How to grind your customer's face in the dust
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face - forever." Thus said George Orwell in his book 1984. He was predicting that totalitarian governments would wear the boots. instead it turns out it's the banks who are grinding their boots in the faces of customers. Not content with acting as a cartel to introduce higher fees while reducing services - all in the name of user pays, not in the cause of the obscene profits they have reported for the past 10 years - they remind us we are powerless in the face of their bastardry by jacking up fees remorselessly. The banks say they care about customers, a farce given the way we are treated.
Westpac has intoduces a punitive fee for customers who access their Westpac accounts through ATMs of other organisations. They will skim $2 off your account everytime you use the most convenient ATM. "We're trying t affect the behaviour of our customers," said the mealy mouthed weasel, er... spokesperson, who was given the job of defending the indefensible. Obviously customer convenience does not matter when compared with corporate profits. "Go off looking for a WESTPAC ATM, if you can," says Westpac. "We don't care if it screws up your plans," says the Bank. "After all, we're a bank. What do you expect?" Westpac is confident to make this move because it knows its competitors will follow suit"
If the government cared about its citizens it would call a royal commission into the banks. If I remember rightly, it was a federal government that established the Commonwealth Bank because the other banks were preying on citizens like a pack of wolves. We citizens owned that bank, until a federal government sold it to a bunch of opportunists called shareholders (Marx called them capitalists). Another federal government is selling off the telecommunicaitons carrier we own to a bunch of opportunists. It is effectively delivering the citizenry - especially those in rural and regional Australia - into the hands of another pack of wolves. I didn't vote for it. I don't remember being asked. Maybe the boot is a government's and the face is your and mine.
Chifley was right. Nationalise the banks. ¶ 9:27 PM
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face - forever." Thus said George Orwell in his book 1984. He was predicting that totalitarian governments would wear the boots. instead it turns out it's the banks who are grinding their boots in the faces of customers. Not content with acting as a cartel to introduce higher fees while reducing services - all in the name of user pays, not in the cause of the obscene profits they have reported for the past 10 years - they remind us we are powerless in the face of their bastardry by jacking up fees remorselessly. The banks say they care about customers, a farce given the way we are treated.
Westpac has intoduces a punitive fee for customers who access their Westpac accounts through ATMs of other organisations. They will skim $2 off your account everytime you use the most convenient ATM. "We're trying t affect the behaviour of our customers," said the mealy mouthed weasel, er... spokesperson, who was given the job of defending the indefensible. Obviously customer convenience does not matter when compared with corporate profits. "Go off looking for a WESTPAC ATM, if you can," says Westpac. "We don't care if it screws up your plans," says the Bank. "After all, we're a bank. What do you expect?" Westpac is confident to make this move because it knows its competitors will follow suit"
If the government cared about its citizens it would call a royal commission into the banks. If I remember rightly, it was a federal government that established the Commonwealth Bank because the other banks were preying on citizens like a pack of wolves. We citizens owned that bank, until a federal government sold it to a bunch of opportunists called shareholders (Marx called them capitalists). Another federal government is selling off the telecommunicaitons carrier we own to a bunch of opportunists. It is effectively delivering the citizenry - especially those in rural and regional Australia - into the hands of another pack of wolves. I didn't vote for it. I don't remember being asked. Maybe the boot is a government's and the face is your and mine.
Chifley was right. Nationalise the banks. ¶ 9:27 PM
