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‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

nytimes.com

131–140 of 164 posts

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what situation will an individual need to supply their utility bills to the taxman during an audit? > This is blatantly false. Unless paying taxes is a "very special circumstance." I’ve certainly never needed to pull up my utility bills while paying taxes as a private person. It really feels like you’re just coming up with stuff, utility bills aren’t normally tax deductible (unless you are a business). There’s no…

Wow, you really created an account to make that comment? > In what situation will an individual need to supply their utility bills to the taxman during an audit? The bills would be useful if they expensed some of those payments, deducted them, or whatever. With a record number of people working from home, some portion of those expenses might be tax deductible for some people, some people might receive reimbursements…

No post body was provided.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#132

> it hurts to see that the digital world has dehumanized us to the point that loyalty has lost all of its worth sigh , this has almost nothing to do with the "digital" world as much as it does with the fact that corporations never cared. If they could have saved a single cent by moving to "tellers"/ATMS that were mechanical in nature, 51 years ago when he first opened his account, they would have. The corporations we…

perhaps, but those things are related. the necessity of live human interaction must have created regular feedback loops that arrested extreme user-unfriendly cost saving measures. the digital world reduces or outright removes those frictions.

This is an extremely interesting idea that pins down a lot of stuff that had been rattling around loose in my head - have you written more about it?

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#133
post #59

Hopefully this is the moment we start realizing that capitalism is not serving the public the way we need it to. How can we expect the old to be cared for without a profit motive? How long will we ignore expert opinion that communism is the most ethical option in nearly every way? How many more cases like this man's will we need to see?

> communism is the most ethical option in nearly every way Citation needed.

For communism to actually work well, I think you first have to fix human nature. And if you could fix human nature, maybe capitalism would work out better too.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they should just eat the cost" No consumers will eat the cost of a bunch of boomers who want to keep using cheques. And here's what will happen: the non boomer consumers will choose a cheaper bank. So unless the government wants to pick up the bill any sensible company will tell those senior citizens to get with the times.

Checks are awesome - I use them all the time and I'm at least a third of the age of the elderly. Accessibility is huge to think about especially with "requireables" like the banks, and so it's just good practice and the right thing to do to think about the elderly and edge cases for folks who don't do email/smartphones. It pays to have empathy to all cross sections of society, not just the ones that are the most visi…

but excessive empathy is crippling for future progress. this is literally the root issue in the US system - way too much consideration for special interests. look at housing as an example.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they should just eat the cost" No consumers will eat the cost of a bunch of boomers who want to keep using cheques. And here's what will happen: the non boomer consumers will choose a cheaper bank. So unless the government wants to pick up the bill any sensible company will tell those senior citizens to get with the times.

As if the cost for those few bills make a dent in a bank's operating costs. The government invents money by the billions die these guys. The least they can do is provide some service.

'die these guys' should have read 'for' these guys.

I used swipe typing and I was a little bit off and didn't notice it. Oops. But I think it's pretty clear from the sentence what I intended.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#136
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if the cost for those few bills make a dent in a bank's operating costs. The government invents money by the billions die these guys. The least they can do is provide some service.

This is very unlogical: Gov creates money not the banks. They do have operational costs. And it is not one person who needs to accept checks, every branch has to support this. I have not been to a bank for the last 10 years. They are obsolete. And those buildings are expensive and they have to be able to compete with online banks. It's not even an option for them to just keep those buildings.

As I understand it, the new money that's 'created'(not even minted as paper money is pretty niche now) by the government is given to the banks to invest.

PS I was just at my bank and I'm not even super old :)

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#137
My French bank was welcoming me for A YEAR AND A HALF with a blocking page (I neeed to click ok I understand twice to go further) when I was loggong in, saying in essence "because of the new law blah blah, you need to provide us the following document: ". And that is all there was. No mention of the nature of the document.

I called them every 15 days and the help line guy or gal was telling me "impossible, you cannot have this page". Despite having sent them a screenshot.

Then one day it was gone. Came back a year later, and gone again after two months.

I really like the bank so I did not switch but I was close to do so.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#138
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very unlogical: Gov creates money not the banks. They do have operational costs. And it is not one person who needs to accept checks, every branch has to support this. I have not been to a bank for the last 10 years. They are obsolete. And those buildings are expensive and they have to be able to compete with online banks. It's not even an option for them to just keep those buildings.

Of course banks create money. You don't think that they hold enough money to pay all their creditors at once do you? Never heard of fractional reserve banking? See https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fractionalreservebankin...

No post body was provided.

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#139
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very unlogical: Gov creates money not the banks. They do have operational costs. And it is not one person who needs to accept checks, every branch has to support this. I have not been to a bank for the last 10 years. They are obsolete. And those buildings are expensive and they have to be able to compete with online banks. It's not even an option for them to just keep those buildings.

As I understand it, the new money that's 'created'(not even minted as paper money is pretty niche now) by the government is given to the banks to invest. PS I was just at my bank and I'm not even super old :)

But for what?

Re: ‘I’m Old, Not an Idiot.’ One Man’s Protest Gets Attention of Spanish Banks

#140
post #3

I've had to assist an elderly neighbour after her phone company cut off her phone service. Why? The way she had paid for it for the preceding 40 years was she would get the paper bill in mail, and then go down to the post office and organise payment using the details in that paper bill. They switched her over to paperless billing with an email that they've done so but you can opt out. She either did not understand th…

Same thing happened to my Dad with AT&T
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