this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2026
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Work Reform
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- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
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Being poor is super expensive. When you don't have enough money in your bank account they'll charge you a monthly fee. When you're too poor to have an account, you have to go to a check cashing place and pay to get paid. Too poor to have awesome credit? You have to pay higher interest fees and larger deposits.
I've never understood check cashing places.
I thought people only went to them because they didn't want to wait for checks to clear, or they didn't want a paper trail on a checking account, because it would get automatically garnished for child support.
Are you saying that someone could actually be so poor that a bank will refuse them from opening a checking account? What risk is there to the bank if it goes empty?
Ive cashed paychecks at one point using these placss. I dont think I had a bank account at the time. To open an account you have to deposit money. I couldnt afford to just leave money in an account in any given week, so I didnt have one. So I used to cash them at Stop n Shop, a grocery store. They would do it for a small fee. Then one day, they said they wouldnt cash my checks anymore, because my credit was bad? It made no sense to me at the time.
So for about a year, I used the local sketch ball check cashing place. I think they took 8% or something. Later in life, there was a time I just cashed them at walmart. Damn, there was a time in my life I was too broke to have a bank account. oye.
Banks have a separate system, like the credit rating system, they use just for depositors. Credit scores reflect the risk to lend money to you. But the banks keep other scores and lists of depositors. Too many overdrafts or transactions their AI considers suspicious? You can be blacklisted from opening an account at any bank.
One thing is financial literacy.
A lot of people come from a cycle of poverty where no one around them can explain why it's a good idea to have a bank account.
Also, there are predatory banks that demand minimum amounts to start any account. If you don't have $200.00 to start an account it's hard to start an account.
Back in the day, banks encouraged little kids to start bank accounts with just a few dollars. I had a bank book when I was 12. Those days are long gone. I went to Bank of America with a check from a BOA account and they wanted to charge me. I could wait to get to my own bank, but other folks wouldn't have that option.
We also used to have a 70% wealth tax in those “good ol days” pre Reagan
Reagan was a good family man who believed in small town values and honesty.
He threw away his wife for a bimbo after moving to Hollywood.
I understand your comment to be snark. From what I remember:
Reagan was a commie scare guy who blacklisted his enemies in the screenactors guild if they didnt share his conservative viewpoint.
Reaganomics was flatly stupid or a con job, take your pick-- just tax cuts for the rich that were supposed to trickle down and never did, and massive swathes of dergulation, including environmental rules. His deregulation of the banking industry caused the savings and loan crisis that cost a lot of people their life savings, and destroyed the US economy for a good long time and caused a recession.
Iran Contra happened on his watch (although he claims he knew nothing about it). The CIA were literally flying pallets of cocaine into florida air force bases on private cargo planes and selling them on our streets to make money. I find it hard to beleive that a single lowly colonel could have run all of it, using the presidents CIA.
He was a bad B-list actor. His movies sucked really bad, even back then.
He was reportedly a closetted bisexual (with Howard cook before he was married) whose shame steered him to slow walk AIDs treatments for 6 years while his surgeon general screamed for him to allow it, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands who needed treatment during an explosion of AIDS.
The only good thing about him was that he wasnt under AIPAC's thumb. But he still gets an F on policy and basic decency, although republicans and dems both adored his grandfather-leader BS act. The man was a complete idiot, as are his followers.
https://youtu.be/lFV1uT-ihDo
Oliver North 'American Dad"
never seen that one, pretty good!
I's like to think that any kid growing up today will see this when they learn about the Reagan years.
Credit Unions for example require a share purchase usually so while it's usually quite small some people can't afford to loose even $5.
Sometimes it's also debt, guy owes his normal bank a fuckload of money so uses the cash checking to cash his check, he might lose a bit in fees but it's probably less than what the bank would of taken. I've seen alot of contractors in this situation.
Is that what they mean when they say money's tight?
They don't want to risk people overdrafting and just changing banks.
Then don't give them overdraft? I bet a lot of them don't even want it and would rather it just reject any payments that would put it in the negative because they charge extra for using overdraft, too.
You don't understand. They WANT to de-bank poor people.
Nah I understand, showing some problem has a simple solution that gets ignored shows that that problem isn't the real problem.
There's not a high risk of making much money off then, so it's considered a waste of time and resources