The banks are not your goddamn friends. 3% interest on savings accounts with five dollar monthly fees, and 20% on credit cards? How the fuck do you justify that? And why does it take 48 hours to transfer money into the account of someone whose account details I've already got listed? Aren't robots doing that shit now? "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell," so says Edward Abbey. Every year each of the Big Four posts a record profit while levying egregious interest and charges on its clientele. And they have to! If they ever earned less than they did the year before it'd be a disaster for them! The whole macabre system perpetuates itself with the infinite momentum of its own warped logic. The worst thing is the advertisements. I walked past a branch on Saturday night and there were all these posters on the side of it that pictured an attractive young urban go-getter having an excellent time while sharing a seductive smile with an equally attractive white collar male as they danced at a music festival. The exposition down the bottom was something along the lines of: "using EFTPOS will help you spend money on the things you love!" Well no shit, thanks for the heads up. Here I was all this time, labouring under the misapprehension that because I am not currently working as a drug dealer or dodgy plumber, I actually had no choice but to use my debit card. Silly me, I completely missed the fact that every EFTPOS transaction used as a means of exchanging my disposable income for the possibility of social activities that are pleasurable to me is actually a fun and exciting enterprise that will help me find a suitable life partner of equal social stature and income levels to myself. Basically, any guy who tells you the banks are your friend is an idiot douchebag and you should cross the street to avoid speaking to him next time you see him. I had to go into this particular branch, under sufferance, because I needed to get a bank cheque for an FOI request I'm making. (I won't bore you with what a brou-ha-ha that's been, except to say that I wanted to know when they're rolling out more of those sick new E-class trams and apparently I've fallen into a coma and woken up as a Manchester police detective in 1973, because trying to find a way to lodge an FOI request without using a payment method that became obsolete around the same time animal husbandry was invented is an exercise in utter futility.) Anyway, I walked through the sliding doors and immediately noted the clean and orderly nature of the branch. There were plenty of staff on hand and a reception booth to direct newcomers as to the correct place to go. Unlike many other branches outside of the CBD, there were more tellers than required, and it was less than a minute before I was served. I stated my intentions, and I was just about to finish filling out a form for my little slip of paper when I was suddenly informed that bank cheques cost $10 each. Ten bucks! You could send half the third world to college for that amount! The teller was immediately apologetic - perhaps feeling a little ashamed that she had not told me earlier, and suggested I consider a money order at the post office instead. I was sad not to spend longer in the branch because it smelled really nice, like the fresh flowers and scented carpet of my youth. But 10 bucks is more money than the GNP of most countries in our immediate region and I don't have the cashdollar to be ordering bank cheques willy-nilly. I did learn an important lesson from the respectful - and dare I say, cute - staff member that served me: Don't hate the player, hate the game. read more