Banks (and financial instititions in general) have a bottom line to make. If you take from/eliminate/reduce ONE potential pool of income (under the guise of "consumer protection"), they will simply increase or create ANOTHER pool of income to make up or it. So, in the long run, all Durbin's amendment did was reduce costs for retailers by capping interchange fees (with ZERO of that cost savings passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices) while driving up costs on OTHER services banking customers used to get for free.
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Here we have the President and Senator Durbin advocating a run on banks that charge such fees:
And here we have the President of the ABA explaining exactly what I predicted months and months ago. The "Consumer Financial Protection Act" does NOT protect consumers from ANYTHING. It just shifted costs and created ANOTHER burdensome regulation for the financial industry:The president told ABC News he hoped that "you're going to see a bunch of the banks say this is not good business practice." Reminding the banking behemoth of the money it had gotten from the federal government in its bailout of Wall Street, Durbin called the fee "an outrage" and urged BofA depositors to bank with their feet and take their business elsewhere.
"Get the heck out of that bank. Find yourself a bank or credit union that won't gouge you for $5 a month and still will give you a debit card that you can use every single day," Durbin, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat said.
It's hard to remember the last time a major U.S. politician advocated a run on a bank but, as we've already seen, BofA is "too big to fail" so there's no worry there. What's one more bailout among friends?
Now, before you start lumping in ALL financial institutions, be it known that the credit union I run will NOT be implementing a fee to simply use your debit card, but we WILL be reaping the rewards as these bank runs start! I hope to take this $250 million credit union and be a billion by the end of next year!ABA President: "It's disappointing and puzzling that the president would attack a private corporation for responding to government price fixing that has fundamentally altered the economics of offering a debit card. As a direct result of the Durbin Amendment, consumers have started paying for financial services they previously enjoyed free of charge. Unfortunately, this proves that whenever government tries to control pricing of a product or service, consumers lose."
I heard a man on the street segment last week asking people about these new fees and was yelling at the radio at their responses. WTF don't people get? Why do they think it's a 
