What the hell is this .025% APR on savings accounts BS?

[TwixVoy]

Is anyone else sick and tired of a banks ability to charge us 29.99% APR when they lend to us, but only pay out a fraction of a percent on our savings? Even CD rates the past few years have been pretty damn low.

I realize that right now half the big banks in the country are technically insolvent so they won't be paying out much to anyone, but I wonder how much people would have had in savings the past decade if savings accounts actually paid out a decent rate.

Anyone remember back in the 70's we could get a money market account that paid 18% easy? And that was before banks were pulling in tons of interest from loans.

Now it seems if you want ANY return over 5% you have to put your money in high risk "investments" and pray to god a situation like this one doesn't wipe you out.

The banks could have EASILY paid out a decent rate on savings. Americans have a negative savings rate and are swimming in debt to these same banks. We are talking trillions of dollars in loans charging anywhere from 10%-30%.... with such a small proportion of that in savings accounts they could easily have paid out a decent rate to peoples savings accounts and actually filter some of that loan interest BACK TO THE PEOPLE. Instead it went to $50 million jets.

[Venceremos]

1. If the banks pay decent dividends on savings accounts,

it discourages people from high risk investments and Wall Street doesn't get to pick our pockets. That's my theory anyway.

My bank has a "rewards" account that pays 4.25% interest but you have to meet certain criteria. Still pretty lame, but better than .025%

[Art_from_Ark]

2. Why pay people to borrow their money

when you can get good ol' Uncle Sam to print as much as you need, for pratically nothing?

[Selatius]

3. 18% sounds good, but in the 1970s, inflation was well over 10%.

The rates were only so high in order to stay above the rate of inflation. The real rate of return, as a result, was like 4 or 7% or somewhere in that range.

[CreekDog]

4. Sounds like Wells Fargo

:eyes:

after they bought Wachovia, they took my money market rate down from 3.0% to 0.80% in short order.

of course the actual Wells Fargo is paying 0.05%

[Dr.Phool]

11. Yeah, they told me that too.

Now $10,000 is sitting in a safe deposit box in their bank, in the form of Krugerands, that have earned 15% in 6 months.

[DJ13]

5. Maybe we need a law

The financial institutions cannot charge more than 10x the interest they pay on savings accounts to their credit card customers.

[CountAllVotes]

7. all savings accts. used to pay 5%

that was the standard until we got Ronnie the Reagun and the trickle down and the deregulation. :nuke:

:dem: :kick:

[roody]

6. Save at a local credit union. Still not high interest, but better.

Better for the community also.

[metapunditedgy]

8. Some places offer you "a little more yield" and later on you find out

you put your money into a risky slush fund just to get an extra 0.5%. I got screwed by Ameritrade that way... they count on their customers being dissatisfied with the low interest rate and offer them something "a little better." Then a few weeks later you find out you've got a handful of something like IOUs from bankrupt companies, and (by the way) the bank was skimming some of the returns off the top before they passed on the rest to you...

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But especially damned if you do. These days.

[defendandprotect]

9. You need $25,000 in order to open a money market account now --- !!!

Agree -- it's about time we were all making a lot of noise on this ---

Protest and threaten to take money out of banks unless rates go up?????

[slipslidingaway]

10. K&R n/t