Bank Transfer Day is Upon Us.
Bank Transfer Day is today! It’s a celebration, bitches!
According to the Credit Union National Association, more than 650,000 consumers nationwide have joined credit unions in the past four weeks for a total of $4.5 billion in new credit union savings accounts. In response, Bank of America already scrapped its plans to charge $5 a month for debit cards.
Behold the power of the consumer!
[transcript after the jump]
Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The war with the banks we fought;
We know of no reason
Why the war of this season
Should ever be forgot.
Anonymous and their companions,
Did much of the scheme derive,
To shut down the banks and elitists,
No more may they deprive.Nine thousand Proxies our ships outflow,
To force the banks overthrow.
But, by the one percent powers provocateurs dispatch,
Against the 99% game set match.They give us our cake,
Unemployment and heartache.
They think they have won,
Wait for round two.
The better for us,
And worse for the few.
A rope, a rope on some soap,
In the pen you’ll find them.
A world washed down,
And a maximum security prison to hold them.Holloa World! Holloa World! Set sail upon our ships!
Holloa World! Holloa World! Oceans filled with scripts!
Hip Hip Hoooray!
Anyon else feel like they’re living in a movie that’s part Children of Men, part V for Vendetta, and part The Muppets Take Manhattan? Just me then?
Okay.
[cross-posted at ABLC]
Yutsano
Already had two friends close B of A accounts already today.
Zagloba
So when does CNBC jump in on the join-a-credit-union bandwagon? /sarcasm
Loneoak
Expect a bunch of articles from the Slate/Planet Money contrarian crew explaining how the big banks don’t really want these small accounts anyway because they don’t bring in enough on interest and waste resources on things like checking, to be dutifully reposted by Sullivan.
Anyway, I’ve never had a Big Bank account—I opened my very first banking account with a credit union and have never looked back.
drkrick
@Loneoak: So it’s win-win, then. Fine.
cathyx
@Loneoak: That’s why big banks tried so hard to limit the scope of credit unions a few years ago.
RossInDetroit
I forgot about this until now. I was wondering why when I went in to deposit my paycheck this morning the place was way jammed. It’s a Chase, so this might have something to do with it.
cathyx
@RossInDetroit: Why weren’t you there to close your account?
S. cerevisiae
On a Saturday? That sounds like poor planning. I have been in credit unions for years and love it. Screw big banks.
jrg
@Loneoak: Hear, hear. I’ve been a happy customer of a credit union my entire adult life. The only thing I don’t like is that it’s hard for me to get a fixed-rate mortgage with my CU. Everything else about it is great. I highly recommend joining one.
cathyx
@S. cerevisiae: Most banks are open on Saturdays and more people have time to do it on a Saturday also.
Villago Delenda Est
I do wish people would stop forgetting that Guy Fawkes and his crew were not heroic resisters, they were religious terrorists who plotted to kill a King (and his family, and the Parliament) who was about as sympathetic towards them as one could be at the time.
V for Vendetta gave people the wrong idea about Fawkes and his crew.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeppers, the Brits celebrate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yeah, I don’t get the geek fascination with Guy Fawkes. Yay lets reestablish Catholicism!
I think Alan Moore is a big anarchist, and thinks in terms of “if Fawkes succeeded, Britain would’ve become anarchist without a government, which is somehow good.”
Loneoak
@jrg:
Yeah, there are a few things they could do better with. Like credit cards with perks—I make a killing on air miles with my Chase United card, way outstripping the fees and assorted bs I have to deal with. My credit union offers no perk cards, and they only offer us about 10% of the credit line Chase does (not that I use more than a sliver of it anyway). I have to think that the various credit unions could co-sponsor some better credit card deals.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amanda in the South Bay:
If Fawkes had succeeded, V for Vendetta might have been written in Spanish.
We seem to forget just how non-warm-and-fuzzy the 16th Century Spanish monarchy was. Those scenes in Pan’s Labyrinth with the commander? That’s how warm and fuzzy the Spaniards were.
There is little doubt given Fawkes’ background (he fought for the Spaniards in the low countries against the Dutch Protestant rebels) who was supporting him.
schrodinger's cat
@Yutsano: I cancelled my B of A credit card way back in 2009 when they slapped me with some late fee through no fault of my own. I eventually got the money back but I decided that I had had enough with them. They have very poor customer service. I didn’t choose B of A on my own either, I had an account with MBNA which merged with B of A.
Zagloba
From what I hear, the merchants you’re doing business with are the ones paying for that particular free lunch, to the tune of double-digit transaction fees.
That’s two digits to the left of the decimal point.
arguingwithsignposts
@Amanda in the South Bay: I think the geek fascination is with the character V, who happens to wear the GF mask.
And apparently, it was the illustrator, not Moore, who came up with the idea of dressing the character in the mask.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est:
@Amanda in the South Bay: Have either of you read Faith and Treason? Friendlier to Fawkes et al. than I would be, but a good history of the plot.
RossInDetroit
@cathyx:
Well, it’s complicated. They have our 2 checking accounts, 2 savings accounts, CDs, retirement account, mortgage, 2 credit cards and I forget what else. They’ve actually been pretty good to us in terms of service, fees and responsiveness. Plus they’re 100 feet from our front door. We switched to Chase after getting terrible service* and low rates of return for years from our large CU. I finally got fed up and I’ve been happy with the big bank.
I totally support CUs and used one for years. I get why people are abandoning their big banks and I support that. But for us it would be a difficult and time consuming step backwards.
*Unable to process a simple car loan on three tries. We said ‘screw it’ and paid cash. Big fail.
Loneoak
@Zagloba:
You’re never going to find me being all sentimental about being on the better end of a commercial transaction. I’mma take that free trip to Paris every time. Besides, the transaction fee would be the same regardless of whether I used a credit union or Big Bank issued Visa.
Nikki
You want even more big bank tentacles in your credit union account?
Amanda in the South Bay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Haven’t read it, but by James I Catholicism had been pretty severely reduced by the Reformation. Probably somewhere early in Elizabeth I’s reign would’ve been the last moment that the English Reformation could’ve been stopped and a majority of Englishmen still professed the ancient faith. I think the best thing for Catholics would’ve been a British born monarch professing the faith, rather than a foreign monarch. Though we saw what happened with James II (and the British didn’t seem to mind a foreign Protestant with William).
Omnes Omnibus
@Amanda in the South Bay: Check it out if you get a chance. I think you would enjoy it.
Loneoak
@Nikki:
How does this follow? Banks offer the credit behind a credit card, and the processing companies provide the infrastructure so they work everywhere. How would a credit union credit card with perks from airlines involve the big banks?
Zagloba
Not true, if my sources (e.g.) are trustworthy. The googles seem to be in consensus that there is a significant differential pricing structure in credit card interchange fees, with rewards cards at the very top.
/Can’t seem to find any verification that the fee can exceed the purchase amount if it’s small enough, though.
Zagloba
Also, too, a take from the crunchiest side of Oregon:
cathyx
@Zagloba: What kills me is that most people with a rewards card carry a balance on it. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
uptown
@RossInDetroit:
Try a local small bank instead. What you’re looking for is someone who invests in and supports the local community.
*My CU was able to give me a loan for a car I had already bought and taken home. Just had to go through the motion of getting approved for the dealer’s financing and then have the CU send them the money within a week. Many CU’s offer refinancing for your late model car.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
I will have to check it out.
One of my hobbyhorses is that the reason the US Founding Fathers put in all that stuff that screams “NO THIS IS NOT A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY!” in the Constitution (albeit much more explicitly in other writings) is how close they were, in history, to the religious bloodletting of the 16th and 17th centuries.
The situation in England was a walk in the park compared to a lot of the stuff taking place on the Continent, also, too.
cleek
@Zagloba:
i’m what you might call a “merchant” (though a very small one), and i’ve never paid anything close to double digits. i think the most i’ve ever paid is 3%.
PanurgeATL
@Amanda in the South Bay:
“Bloody Mary” was born Catholic, wasn’t she??
PanurgeATL
BTW, background music continues to suck (even while it sounds great).
Brian R.
Like, say the Treaty of Tripoli (1797), which says “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” Signed by John Adams, ratified by a Senate made up of signers of the Constitution. Pretty much cut and dry there.
Villago Delenda Est
@PanurgeATL:
She was born Catholic, but her major malfunction was that she was born inept.
Maude
@Villago Delenda Est:
She was also a nasty piece of work.
b-psycho
Ever had a bank charge you an overdraft fee when the transaction that caused the overdraft was a fee by the bank for making fewer transactions than they’d prefer? I have…
Way ahead of them on the credit union thing (I’m done with banks, period), but props anyway.
gnomedad
Are wingers rushing in to open Big Bank accounts to Piss Off Liberals? Just wondering.
Yutsano
@schrodinger’s cat: I have an account with a small (but awesome) regional bank and a credit union. I haz options. :)
Bex
@Villago Delenda Est: Inept at producing a male heir or heirs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bex: Inept in general.
pablo
I’ve got a BAD feeling about this!
greenergood
@Loneoak: Credit unions are great for lots of people – but they’re especially helpful for people who are NOT in the financial position to build up Air Miles, or arrange mortgages, etc. – just sayin’ :-)
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Did you read the book or just watch the movie? In the book the question of totalitarianism and anarchy is treated a bit more evenly, and V isn’t explicitly shown to be right in what he does. In the movie, he was the hero, full stop. That’s part of why Moore always refuses credit on movies made from his works. (That, and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen brrrr)
That said, Moore may well be an anarchist. He’s a man who worships a snake-god who he admits isn’t real, so anarchism would be one of his more normal beliefs. I think it’s safe to say that he wouldn’t prefer a Britain ruled by the Vatican, however.
As for Anonymous using the GF mask as their symbol, I think it fits well. The most obvious reason is that, in the comic and the movie, the mask is given out en masse to allow the citizens to revolt anonymously. Also, being associated with V, or even Fawkes himself, makes it plain that what Anonymous does won’t always be the right thing. They’re more of a barely controlled force than an organization.
After all, it’s not like a vote was held and the GF mask was chosen as their emblem. People just started making pictures with it on 4chan and similar sites and it caught on. Another symbol of Anonymous is a headless man in a suit, but that’s a harder costume to make.
Also, it looks cool.
schrodinger's cat
@Yutsano: Following dental surgery I can only partake semi solid food, I remember once you had posted a risotto recipe with oats do you remember it by any chance?
cathyx
McDonald’s Job Applications Dumped On ‘Occupy’ Protesters By Chicago Board Of Trade
This is the same place that had the “We are the 1%” signs on the windows.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/04/occupy-chicago-mcdonalds-applications_n_1077133.html
Yutsano
@schrodinger’s cat: I did a baked risotto once. Just for fun I did some Googling and found this which might work and sounds intriguing.
cleek
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
that’s a big reason why i wince every time i see OWS and Anonymous aligning themselves. Anonymous is not a force for good (in the sense of good US liberal politics) – they’re just a force. and OWS is going to get themselves tainted by something Anonymous does that doesn’t happen to coincide with whatever goals OWS supports.
arguingwithsignposts
Where is M_C when you need her? she’d set us all straight on assangian anonymity WAI MENA JAFI etc.
also, too – cudlips
gbear
I’ve got checking and savings accounts, a car loan and a credit card at a credit union, but the credit card I use most often is a PNC card. I always pay off the balance every month and I earn about $7 a month in rewards so I get a check for $100 every year or so. How evil is PNC when compared to the other big banks?
Robert Sneddon
There’s some evidence the Gunpowder Plot was a sting operation by the Government of the time to clean out a group of Catholic plotters, some highly placed in society, connected to the Spanish throne. A whole bunch of people were rounded up after the gunpowder was discovered and condemned as co-conspirators but most folks in Britain only know of Fawkes. Most of those folks think he was burned at the stake since the November 5th bonfires usually have a mannequin of Fawkes on top. In reality he suffered the fate of a traitor being hung, drawn and quartered and the parts put on public display.
Chris
@PanurgeATL:
Do you mean Mary, Queen of Scots? Yeah, I think she was.
Don’t know that much about British history, but out of curiosity, is that who people are referring to when saying “Bloody Mary” three times in front of a mirror?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Chris: No that’s when you’ve had so many Bloody Marys that you think you’re ordering the next three from a flight attendant but are actually standing in the bathroom.
Professor
@Amanda in the South Bay: Don’t forget that William was the nephew/son-in-law of James II and grandson of Charles I. William III was married to his cousin Mary.
Origuy
@Chris: Not Mary Stuart, Mary Tudor. Elizabeth’s half sister. After her half brother, Edward VI, died, Mary I restored Catholicism. She was pretty bloody-handed about it, but Edward’s government had been about the same way to the Catholics. Mary, Queen of Scots was also Catholic, but during the time that she was in France, Scotland became Protestant. She never tried to restore Catholicism, having enough trouble just holding onto her
thronehead.Belafon (formerly anonevent)
So, how many times has the transfer to credit unions been used to prove that government regulations of banks is not needed? That the free market will solve everything?
scav
@cathyx: A little bit of street theater would be fun here. Parade of people in fast food uniforms (just to avoid the branding howl) marching up, and while they probably don’t know how to ring a peal on their knives ♠ they could probably work up a good clatter with their spatulas. Ideally, they could set up camp under the building, put little top-hatted sausages though a meat-grinder, fry ’em up and hand them out as free snacks to the passer-bys.
♠ ringing a peal with the knives is from Pepys description of how the Strand butchers went about celebrating the loss of the rump parliament (there were apparently a lot of Rump BBQs all around London that night). There is that tricky bit about it all also being about the return of the a king, but the Guy Fawkes allusion is a little dicey so I personally am ready to let it slide. Seriously. A marching band made out of guys clanging together meat cleavers.
PatrickG
I’m very sad that my local Chase bank branches close at 2… wasn’t able to make it today. Monday will be soon enough.
Also, I’m incredibly tickled that one of the banner ads on this site urged me to open a new account at Chase (apparently, they have great rewards!). Tickled pink, indeed.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Loneoak: Actually, there was an article on Yahoo I think that talked about how some banks are actually happy that the smaller accounts are closing. They were claiming that the checking accounts had less money in them then it cost the banks to operate them. I can’t seem to find it myself: My wife showed it to me.
Professor
@Origuy: Mary I was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon and the grand daughter of Isabella of Castile. Mary I was married to Philip II of Spain
Snowball
@Zagloba:
Janis Martin, who owns Tanuki restaurant in Northwest Portland, wishes conscientious Portlanders would think sustainably when they pay as much as they do ordering food. “People ask me where are your eggs from, where do you get your pork, where are my chickens from,” she says. “Then they pull out a rewards card from Citibank. No one cares about whether their credit card is sustainable. The fact is, it takes money out of the local economy, and it’s largely going to big banks.”
So dumb question, but if I wanted to help the local economy, would it be better if their customers paid cash rather than with a credit card?
Villago Delenda Est
@Bex:
The Scots basically ran her out of the country for her incompetence as a monarch, which is why she wound up in Elizabeth’s custody. As a potential rival for the English crown, this was…um…inconvenient. Which is why Elizabeth kept her locked up in castles. Eventually even that became a non-solution to the problem, so…off with her head!
scav
And, let’s be fair, Liz I, despite her going on about not wanting windows into men’s souls, etc. wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet when it came to executing people as a faith-based initiative. Although I always forget if it was Liz or her father that managed to execute people of both faiths in the same week. That might have been Dad VIII.
Phylllis
@Belafon (formerly anonevent) Sounds a little like ‘neener neener, I never liked you anyway’ to me.
freddie
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire: Thank You. These guys too wonky sometimes.
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: My take on it has always been that Liz was primarily interested in protecting her throne. If someone’s religiosity, ambition, or anything else interfered with that, she acted.
Villago Delenda Est
@Robert Sneddon:
I’ve read of that theory, and I wouldn’t put it past Cecil and his lot to have done something like that. If so, they found a great fall guy in Fawkes.
SiubhanDuinne
@Villago Delenda Est:
Mary Stuart (aka Mary Queen of Scots) was the granddaughter of Margaret, the sister of Henry VIII (Elizabeth’s father), making Mary first cousin once removed to Elizabeth. WAY too close a threat and claim to the throne — certainly as good as, or better than some of the claimants during the Wars of the Roses. Although in the end, Elizabeth left the throne to her second cousin, Mary Stuart’s son, James I of England/James VI of Scotland.
Bloody Mary was simply . . . bloody.
AA+ Bonds
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Man it must have taken them all night to come up with that one
James E. Powell
In California people receiving unemployment benefits no longer get checks. They get a debit card with BofA. I wonder what the details are on that deal?
Also too, when I read the stories that banks don’t want some checking accounts because they are too small to justify the costs, I wonder what the costs could be? It’s not like the banks are paying interest on small accounts. What would the costs be?
AA+ Bonds
@Amanda in the South Bay:
It makes perfect sense to me. V wasn’t about reestablishing Catholicism and the symbolism of the work speaks to Americans even though their aim, once again, is different. I take it you’ve read V?
Stuff changes, culture is fluid, etc. etc. I don’t see the threat or problem with seizing the Gunpowder Plot for current purposes.
Me, I just hope David Lloyd gets his due, because it’s his design that was appropriated. Moore is notoriously florid in his scripts but he’s not an artist.
AA+ Bonds
@James E. Powell:
I don’t like BofA but putting benefits on cards encourages spending according to some experimental results, and that’s exactly what we want from government spending on unemployment.
Remember, under current theory those benefits fit into aggregate demand the same way tax cuts do. And the whole recent problem with tax cuts as stimulus is that people are reluctant to spend.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: She was rather interested in the fundamentals, good on her. But, religion was a tool she’d use. And she, like all major Tudors benefited from some extremely good self-engineered PR (Gloriana kept her hand firmly on how she was portrayed down to the paintings). I’ve heard it suggested that Mary, had she reigned longer, would have accomplished a lot more and not looked such a monster but, winning sides and all that. Like Richard III, Mary simply had to look bad.
AA+ Bonds
Me, I bank with credit unions and always have out of self-interest. Lower fees and less desire to screw me aside, I trust the government to ensure NCUA payouts more than I trust them to pay out on FDIC during a crisis, especially given what happened in 2007.
It’s a gamble but I’ll continue to take it. And frankly, I’m not helped in this regard by a bunch of new credit union members, but I have interests beyond greed.
eemom
@cleek:
I thought it was kind of funny how they backed right the hell off from fucking with the Mexican drug lords. Apparently there are some limits to their “force,” like a desire to not be found dismembered under a bridge.
AA+ Bonds
@cathyx:
So they dropped a bunch of applications for a company that famously has an applicant/acceptance ratio more stark than Harvard University right now.
WAT IS MARKETS
mamayaga
@AA+ Bonds: Don’t think you have to encourage the unemployed to spend their benefits — I never knew anyone collecting unemployment to have any left over to save!
AA+ Bonds
I love how these threads always have these catty grumpy conservatives around the edges who are super angry that the left has a popular movement and drool and gibber whenever they think they’ve figured out why OWS is secretly super bad.
AA+ Bonds
@mamayaga:
The issue isn’t saving per se but people paying down their debts instead of making new consumer purchases. Debit cards seem to encourage purchases according to a few studies in behavioral economics/behavioral finance.
AA+ Bonds
@gnomedad:
Hahaha yeah I bet, with all that money that conservatives have right now that is just waiting to go into a BofA account, I bet they’re liquidating their tricorner hats and Hoverounds as we speak for The Good of The Movement
cleek
@AA+ Bonds:
to whom are you referring?
AA+ Bonds
@cleek:
Mainly you and your Big Ol Concern for the channers somehow causing problems for OWS which would only be possible through conservative lies, lies it would be your duty to combat instead of foster.
Or maybe I’m wrong and OWS should come out with a statement apropos of nothing saying that they hate Anonymous, maybe man, maybe
mamayaga
@AA+ Bonds: Sure, I can see that our consumer-driven economy has to see continued new purchasing or it’s dead in the water. But I’m not convinced that the unemployed are a good target to use to try to push the economy one way or another. They are going to spend the money regardless of the form it comes in, whether a check or debit card (and look at all the yummy fees BofA gets with that), and they will spend it on whatever is most urgent: food (new purchase) or debt (back rent).
It’s the rest of us who have some discretion in what we do with our money that have to be cajoled into spending. Many in that category were burned to a greater or lesser degree by the crash, and are thinking that more rainy days are not so unlikely. It’s really the flip side of the reason corporations are sitting on mountains of cash, but won’t hire any new employees. They are concerned that there’s no demand for additional goods, we are concerned that we will need that money we’ve socked away if the Great Recession has some additional dips in store.
MikeJ
@eemom:
They also claimed a few weeks ago they were going to take down the NYSE and they never did that either.
kdaug
@arguingwithsignposts:
Please don’t start. I was nervous enough about the Bloody Mary reference, but I don’t think you need to invoke M_C’s name three times to get her to appear.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@AA+ Bonds: True enough. When my wife received unemployment is was a direct deposit to the checking account. We used it like you said, to clear out some debts. It would have gone to spending if they’d given us a card. Which would be good for the economy but bad for us.
Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“The situation in England was a walk in the park compared to a lot of the stuff taking place on the Continent, also”
Yep, that’s why Oliver Cromwell is remembered with such affection in Ireland.
The scars of the 17th century wars affected UK politics immensely in the 19th century (the Irish question) and in the 20th. Scottish culture and politics is still influenced by sectarianism.
JWL
“Remember.. Remember… the fifth.. of November”.
I didn’t have a clue to what John Lennon was referring to in that song (‘Remember’) all those years ago.
And I was wondering why the hell today was picked today to declare as “Move Your Cash” day.
But now I get it.
Give me enough years, and figure most such things out.
maya
@AA+ Bonds: Better than that. They’re using their spare cash to buy BoA stock (BAC). The thinking is: At around $6.50 per share and near an all time low of $5.20, there’s no place to go but up, up, up. BoA and the stock market is our friends.
Now that OWS has negotiated this epic action I think the next logical protest is to NOT take back that hour tomorrow. Or do you all plan on sleeping in? Thought so. Moonshine patriots.
FlipYrWhig
@AA+ Bonds:
Sure, it’s great. Maybe in 2400 there can be a whole left-libertarian cosplay holiday dedicated to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Everyone can march around in oversized underwear to send a message that the government should be afraid of its people!
schrodinger's cat
@arguingwithsignposts: She doesn’t really upset me much, may be because I just don’t understand what she is saying.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@kdaug:
“What about that other one, that M–”
“Shh… Don’t even say the name. You DON’T want her help.
“Well… We might…”
“No you don’t! She does not work well with others.”
eemom
@arguingwithsignposts:
she’s still playing with herself over on the arglebargle thread.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Small favors, grateful for, be.
FlipYrWhig
BTW, William III carefully timed things so that he would land in England on Guy Fawkes Day 1688 — that way his battle against (Catholic) James II would become a new phase of the struggle against “Popery and Arbitrary Government” like the detection of the Gunpowder Plot was.
Suffern ACE
@MikeJ: You mean, they don’t always do what they promise to do and we’ve got to be wary that Anonymous might do something at odds with our goals. So what is the difference between an alliance with them and an alignment with serious Democrats?
Southern Beale
Saw the movie “Margin Call” this afternoon, highly recommend …
cathyx
@schrodinger’s cat: I usually don’t understand her either. And when I see her name at the beginning of the comment, I just skip over it. Pretty easy to do.
Mr Stagger Lee
2011, the year of the backfire. Netflix and B of A will have that year burned into their brains. 2011 the year that the serfs/hobbitts/Liliputians/proles began the revolt?
Maude
@SiubhanDuinne:
What opened the door to Mary Queen of Scots having claim to the throne when Elizabeth I was queen was Lady Jane Grey was put on the throne after Edward died.
Elizabeth had to kill Mary for treason or be afraid of being overthrown.
AA+ Bonds
@Southern Beale:
http://exiledonline.com/want-to-watch-107-minutes-of-wall-st-propaganda-then-go-see-margin-call/
Long story short, “Margin Call” is a flick by an unknown name who just happens to be the son of a Wall Street fat cat who retired in 2007, and in interviews, he’s explained it as a pro-fat-cat response to criticism of Wall Street.
handsmile
There is nothing remotely funny about the decision by Anonymous to cancel its exposure of Mexico’s Zeta drug cartel.
Anonymous had originally threatened to name members of the cartel and Mexican officials working on its behalf in response to the kidnapping of one of the group’s members.
On Thursday, Anonymous IberoAmerican, its Spanish-speaking affiliate, announced that Zeta had released the kidnapped member, but that the person delivered a note from the cartel stating that it would kill 10 people for every person named in the release.
Following that announcement, an unofficial Anonymous spokesperson Barrett Brown, a Texas-based web activist, issued a statement declaring the suspension of the release, “This moved the operation from being a risk to knowing that I would be murdering people.”
Here is the link to the Guardian article on the matter:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/04/anonymous-mexican-drug-cartel-pl
A laff riot, huh?
AA+ Bonds
@FlipYrWhig:
. . . okay.
Bex
@Villago Delenda Est: You’re talking about Mary Queen of Scots. I’m talking about Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Mary Tudor married King Phillip of Spain, but the marriage produced no children, so when Mary died, her half-sister, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, became queen.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bex:
I didn’t have my scorecard handy. Keeping Henry VIII’s wives straight is difficult enough…
Divorced, beheaded, died.
Divorced, beheaded, survived.
I think that’s how it goes…
S. cerevisiae
The death of Mary, Queen of Scots
bjacques
The V masks came out in 2008, when some Anonymous declared war on Scientology for trying to censor a loopy Tom Cruise off the internet. Scientology are notorious for personally going after any detractors they can identify, hence the masks.
Since then, it’s become a great icon, because nothing says global protest like a mask appearing in Mexico, New York, Frankfurt and a hundred other cities. And it’s only vaguely connected to Anonymous these days.
Omnes Omnibus
@bjacques: Yeah, the connection to Fawkes is tenuous at best by now.
Thor Heyerdahl
@schrodinger’s cat: All the best in getting well soon.
I’m cooking this in a couple days – Chestnut Risotto with Butternut Squash http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chestnut-Risotto-with-Butternut-Squash-231295
I’ve had it before and it’s very tasty.
magurakurin
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
I’m thinking you pegged the reason right here in the tag line:
Guy Fawkes? Who the fuck is that? It’s some English thing. We’re Americans, hell, we can’t even really understand what the fuck the Brits are saying. After all we need subtitles to watch a Guy Richie movie for Christ’s sake. And they eat shit like blood sausage and spotted dick. What the fuck IS spotted dick, anyway. I’m sure the English are very nice people but who in the States really has the time or the inclination to figure out what one of their damn holidays means. Hail Britania, and all that rot…cheerio, mates…
schrodinger's cat
@Thor Heyerdahl: Thanks much, last week has been quite an ordeal.
cleek
@AA+ Bonds:
how about you don’t tell me what my fucking duty is, ok sport?
Judas Escargot
@Sock Puppet of the Great Satan:
My grandmother’s people were from Drogheda. Which wouldn’t have happened if Fawkes had succeeded.
Makes it hard not to root for Fawkes, at least in the abstract after all this time. Sorry.
xian
@handsmile: yeah but they got their kidnap victim freed with bruises only, as opposed to dissolved in a vat of acid or beheaded, so… ?
Ruckus
@Loneoak:
Actually the fee varies for each card, There are over 100 different card fees. Percentage wise it”s about a 2 point shift total plus a set fee for each transaction. My current merchant bank charges me the actual bank fees for each card plus a small set fee per transaction. The usual way is to group the fees in 3 groups. The merchant bank then gets to skim the difference when a card is at the bottom of the group. Now I do.
So the bottom line is, you pay for that premium card every time you use it. Of course so does everyone else, even if they don’t have one.
Bex
@Villago Delenda Est: That is indeed how it went.
A Humble Lurker
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Beetlejuice reference FTW!
Banana hammock
Through reading a good portion of the comments, I feel most of you missed the point of there actions. They’re focus was to show all of you, through your own choices, that we the people still have power to make a change. We control what we buy, consume, and use.
If enough people choose to buy only organic produce, the grocery stores will have no choice but to comply.
A proper company will adapt to what the people want.
If enough people choose to buy only American made products, any company will go out of business unless they adapt to what the people want.
The lesson they are trying to teach all of you is we have the power.
Unite and we all can make a change.