Word: banks
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...haughty protective screen of her First Ladyhood. "It is unfortunate," she sniffed, "that there are any questions about what was a very straightforward occasion." A First Lady can get away with that kind of arrogance; a candidate can't. As she told a friend not long before her West Bank visit, she has been in the wheelhouse for all 10 of her husband's campaigns, but "it's different when you're the candidate...
Consumers have come to believe that automated teller machines should distribute cash. Banks believe that ATMs should collect some too--say, a $1.50 bite out of each cash withdrawal at a bank where you're not a customer. And that's just the first bite, because often when you make such a withdrawal, two banks can get into your wallet. The combined ATM fees can reach $3.50 or more. Such sums have now sparked a nationwide legislative brawl over profitable ATM surcharges...
Consider the turmoil at ATMs in San Francisco and Santa Monica, Calif., which became the first U.S. cities to ban bank ATM surcharges. Megabanks Wells Fargo and Bank of America fired back by closing their ATMs to nondepositors in Santa Monica and threatening to do the same in San Francisco when its law takes effect in December--all of which made cardholders even angrier. A federal judge sided with the banks by blocking the anti-fee laws until a full trial can determine their constitutionality. Says Santa Monica council member Michael Feinstein: "The electorate's response to the ordinance...
...surcharges are particularly galling to pols and consumer groups because they seem to amount to blatant double dipping. For example, a nondepositor who pays $1.50 for ATM cash often pays his own bank a $1-to-$2 fee for the same transaction. Such fees more than cover the cost of the transaction, which opponents put at 27[cents] per withdrawal. Says Santa Monica's Feinstein: "The banks say there is no free lunch for a service, when in fact they are asking us to pay twice for lunch...
...hate the Israelis - who knew?), especially after Prime Minister Ehud Barak gave her a ringing endorsement as a friend of Israel. But what the incident may have shown is that the trappings of First Ladyhood, which had given her campaign its original bounce, have now turned dysfunctional - the West Bank, after all, isn't exactly a traditional whistle stop for New York political candidates...