News comes today that legislators are close to hammering out new rules for the banking industry. It couldn’t come a moment too soon. There needs to be a lot of change in the banking business, because frankly, my bank pretty much blows and I’m sure yours does too. In anticipation of these sweeping new regulations, I humbly offer a few suggested improvements I hope are in the works in this closely-guarded deal:
- I’d like my bank to open earlier. A lot of the time they don’t open until I’m already at work. This is inconvenient.
- I’d like my bank to close later. A lot of the time by the time I leave my office, they are already closed. This is a pain.
- This means I pretty much have to go at lunchtime, like everybody else. So I’d like ALL the windows of the tellers to be open at that time, instead of just a few. And all those people sitting in their special little glassed-in rabbit hutches? I’d like them to be available to help me, too. I like to sit in those tiny offices and be treated like a special person, even if on that particular day I’m not.
- I’d like the tellers to stop talking to each other, when there’s a line, and attend to customers. Very often the tellers seem to be having a very nice time, chatting and yukking it up all over the place, while people on their lunch hours stand around festering. I’d rather the tellers fester while people on their lunch hours get their business done and get out of there. That would be a good rule.
- I’d like everybody in the bank to be a little friendlier, too.
- I think it would also be very nice if they would also reinstitute some things that seem to have gone out with the demise of the Glass-Steagall Act. Like giving out toasters with new accounts. My toaster is more than 10 years old. I could use a new one. I would definitely open a new account at a different bank if I thought that I would get a new toaster out of it. Larger accounts might glean even bigger rewards. For example, a toaster-oven!
- And I’d like there to be a new rule saying that if a bank takes my money it has to give me some interest on it that amounts to more than nothing, after taxes. That would be awesome.
- I’d like there to be a rule that the bonuses a bank pays to its top 10 executives cannot exceed its profits.
- And I’d like them to promise that they won’t lose my money, no matter what.
I’m sure you all have equally good ideas on the subject. Please feel free to lob them in. Now’s the time, you know. Who knows when another chance to effect significant change in this important economic sector will come again.