Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Nothing worth doing is easy.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.

So many bastards, so little time.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Come on, man.

You are here: Home / Politics / Political Action / Nancy SMASH Just Called and Asked for Your Help

Nancy SMASH Just Called and Asked for Your Help

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Hot Off the Presses from Nancy SMASH

Is your head spinning in horror, learning about the 9 awful Rs who are running for Speaker?

Is your stomach churning after reading the piece from Josh Marshall that Betty Cracker just linked to?

Nancy Pelosi just called, and she has the antidote.

⭐️

Don’t want to click the link on twitter?  You don’t have to, it’s right here.

Volunteer today.

If you click the link above, you can make calls for one of the VA folks we have been funding: Michael Feggans.  But there are lots of other choices, too.

Who are we to say “no” to Nancy SMASH?

Don’t mourn, organize!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  5. 5.

    glc

    About Mastodon:

    A longish preamble before it gets to the point, which starts with this paragraph.

    I’ve now been using it for about two months and I am here to tell you that it is, in principle, what we should want the internet to be. If you have been remotely interested in Mastodon but had reservations about joining because you thought it would be difficult, confusing, or otherwise annoying, it is not.

    Also, I’d recommend clicking on the “bright” button at the top left if you don’t like the dark theme (I find that theme weird and unpleasant but some people must like it).

  6. 6.

    sab

    I just signed up for a couple mor shifts handing out sample Democratic ballots at the Board of Elections early voting site.

    The State has made it harder. In addition to the old rule that we can’t come within 100 feet of the building entrance (a rule I agree with) now we cannot stand in any parking space anywhere in the entire parking lot. So we have to stand on the grass at the entrance, which is dangerous for the cars turning in. Also, only voters are allowed to park in the lot so we have to park off site. We are allowed to walk up to the 100 foot marker cones to hand things out as long as we don’t walk through a parking spot or block traffic, but there is always a Republican yelling at us even if we follow the rules.

    Frank LaRose sucks.

  7. 7.

    Yutsano

    There probably isn’t too much I can do about Virginia tonight (stupid time zones) but I can offer some moral support. Hopefully that gives y’all some energy.

  9. 9.

    Barbara

    @sab: In 2018 I volunteered to get last minute voters out in front of some large apartment buildings and a guy came out and threatened me and I told him that I would stand on the sidewalk rather than the steps to the building, and he said I didn’t have right to stand in front of the building at all, not even on the public sidewalk.  Eventually he called 911, and I heard the conversation from his end — basically, the operator was trying to understand whether he was being threatened and whatnot. Fortunately, he didn’t start that until the polls had almost closed so I just left as he was talking to 911.  It made me so angry.

  10. 10.

    rikyrah

    Magdi Jacobs (@magi_jay) posted at 9:50 AM on Mon, Oct 23, 2023:
    I feel like people do not understand that if the West entirely abandoned Israel, what the globe would be left with is a tiny country with nukes surrounded by hostile groups that could quite possibly overpower the tiny nuclear-armed country with conventional warfare.

    Magdi Jacobs (@magi_jay) posted at 9:59 AM on Mon, Oct 23, 2023:
    Something the globe does not want to see is a tiny, cornered country that has nukes overwhelmed with conventional warfare. *That* is the danger scenario: a cornered Israel facing defeat *unless* it uses nukes. Much more than a first strike from Iran, Russia, or North Korea.

    Magdi Jacobs (@magi_jay) posted at 10:01 AM on Mon, Oct 23, 2023:
    Now, none of this is actually going to happen. But I think it’s strange that people do not always consider the implications of their arguments. I also think it’s strange that we talk so much about fearing nukes from RU or NK, then wave our hands & argue for a real nuclear crisis
    (https://x.com/magi_jay/status/1716469936921436356?t=xdsxrSoS4fufEweiMVKkcg&s=03)

  12. 12.

    rikyrah

    I don’t know who needs to see this.

    But, I watched a terrifying TikTok yesterday.

     

    Woman was on the brink of tears.

     

    She went to her bank, and her savings account had disappeared. Not emptied to where the balance was zero . Disappeared like she never had one.

     

    I went this morning and downloaded the last 6 months of my checking and savings accounts – printed them out and emailed them to myself.

     

    Account DISAPPEARED – like she had never had one.

  15. 15.

    sab

    @rikyrah: We had a BJ discussion in the comments the last day or so about balancing bank accounts. That is one of the reasons I do it and print and save the statements every month.

    When my account got hacked a few months ago ($2000 worth of Beyonce tickets) I caught it within a day, and could go to the bank with all the activity printed out and proof that I knew what was going on in my account and hadn’t lent my card out to a relative or anything. They gave me a temporary refund pending investigation, and now it’s permanent.

    Also too, no more debit card. Back to using a credit card or cash.

  16. 16.

    Martin

    @rikyrah: I don’t argue to abandon Israel, and I especially don’t argue to abandon the people of Israel, but I think it’s entirely reasonable to expect that rich, industrialized democracies be held to increasingly high standards relative to other nations because as rich industrialized democracies, they can afford to do the work to reach that standard. Israel is no longer a poor, struggling country. We can expect more of them.

    I think Biden is doing a pretty good job here continually returning to the matter of civilians in Gaza, pushing for aid, focusing on the hostages, etc. My fear here is that Bibi, who I think is pretty open about his interest in annexing Palestine is setting up to do exactly that in Gaza – they’re going to take northern Gaza, set up new security borders on its south side, and then camp on it until some future time when they can just annex it and pressure Egypt into being the escape valve for the relocated Gaza residents.

    I don’t think the US government has a particularly good answer for why Russia slowly annexing Ukraine is bad, and why Israel slowly annexing Palestine is tolerable – even from the detached ethics-don’t-apply-here standard of foreign policy. This contradiction seems to just invite future conflict. I don’t argue against iron dome or security checkpoints or most of the things Israel does for security, but settlements are completely unacceptable because there is no justification for them whatsoever in the democratic world.

  17. 17.

    patrick II

    Mark Alford (R MO): You could put Jesus Christ up for Speaker of the House and Hee still wouldn’t get 217.

    My Brother: Of Course not. Jesus is a Democrat.

  18. 18.

    sab

    @sab: Board of Education is non-partisan in Ohio, so we (Democrats) don’t include them on our ballot, but they or their supporters canvass with us. That was very informative. One of them was Emilia Sykes’s mother!

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Martin: Yes, this blog has been pretty strongly in favor of the settlements.  And so had the Biden administration. Wait, no.  We haven’t and they haven’t.

  21. 21.

    Martin

    @rikyrah: We’ve seen that before. When BofA was hoovering up regional banks we had an account that they couldn’t find for about two days, and then eventually found.

    This is neither a unique problem nor a new one, but it does manifest in new ways. Your account is just some entry in a database somewhere, and while modern computer systems are great for backups and the like they also allow for operating on vast amounts of information at high rate away from the attention of humans, and bugs happen – especially when you are integrating different bank databases as what happened with us. In the end all was well, but we got the hell out of dodge and moved everything to a smaller credit union where that kind of data chaos wasn’t constantly taking place. To their credit, the banking industry has quite a lot of extremely good data practices which is why this isn’t a regular thing, but they do break at the margins from time to time, with decreasing frequency if reports are to be believed.

    In the old days a tornado would rip through a town and the banks ledgers and your passbook could both get scattered to the wind, resulting in the same basic outcome – and those things are hard to back up unlike the database.

    All in all, we’re better off now, but the scale and speed of the modern world also leaves you feeling utterly powerless to guard against it. At least with a tornado you can blame God.

    One thing we do is take all of the digital statement that everyone kindly offers and stuff them in a completely separate service so that we can access them. That lets us provide some proof that the account did exist, which if nothing else will give them a direction to look. They’ll be able to find our account in their logs and backups, even if it’s been scrubbed, but having an account number and some other details to go on help that immensely. And the bank will make it right – you can pretty much count on that, but it might mean you can’t do much until that’s sorted out.

    It also serves as our emergency solution should a fire come through and wipe out the house. It’s our digital backup that we can relocate, access and put everything back together again. I have the same thing set up with my parents so that I can pay their bills and manage at least some things remotely should something happen to them.

  23. 23.

    Barbara

    @rikyrah: We get monthly paper statements.  I use the electronic account to pay bills and all that but my husband insists on receiving paper statements.   I don’t mind, it’s just a lot of paper.  But still, I bet I wouldn’t have the discipline to save every monthly electronic statement in a separate folder.  This seems like it might have been some kind of glitch?  Surely, if she is having her paycheck deposited automatically or has automatic bill pay for utilities, there is going to be some proof of the account, if not with the bank, then with others.  Not to mention  paper checks, debit card and so on.

  24. 24.

    sab

    @Martin: Yes. If they keep doing settlements the eventual outcome is either mutual annihilation or one sided genocide.

    The settlers are being subsidized substantially to settle there, while Israelis inside Israel are not.  So housing costs in Israel are astronomical compared to the West Bank.There is lots of land available in Israel so there is no reason that new housing is all in the settlements. And then the government doesn’t even protect those who choose to live in the south of Israel. The southern kibbutzim were completely unprotected in this Hamas attack.

  27. 27.

    sab

    @Martin: When BofA hoovered up my bank in Las Vegas I couldn’t access my account for a couple of weeks, including my automatic deposit paycheck. Now I always keep a couple of hundred bucks cash around just in case.

  28. 28.

    Wapiti

    @rikyrah: Yeah, this is why I don’t rely on the bank to just send me electronic statement.

    My dad had some fraudulent activity, so he closed that account last year. Sure as anything, when I go to gather his information for taxes this year, what information is available? No check images at all. They purged that as soon as the account was closed.

  29. 29.

    Martin

    @Omnes Omnibus: I never suggested anyone here was in favor of the settlements. I suggested that Israel and in particular the leadership that the Israeli people elect are in favor of the settlements, and that from a foreign policy perspective, the US should NOT blindly support nations that annex other people – whether it’s Russia or Israel. That doesn’t mean abandoning them, but the US really needs to have some consistent statement on why it treats these two situations so differently.

    I know the answer to that – because strategically backing Ukraine is more favorable to the US than backing Russia and backing Israel is more favorable than backing Palestine, and morality plays no real role in foreign policy, but people do not operate amorally, and those positions need to get squared with other principles that, say, a democratic nation advances – and I think the US has failed to do that, and I do not like that US citizens, by virtue of how their government supports Israel have been pulled into being supportive of annexing another people. I think the US government deserves to be criticized for that, I think the Israeli government deserves to be criticized for that, I think the US should use their role as aid provider to Israel to leverage that to pull Israeli off of the settlement path (this is probably not the right time, and yet failure to do that in the past throws us into this crisis), and I think a lot of supporters of Israel  very actively elide by the settlement question and simply choose to pretend it’s not happening, and then wonder ‘why do these terrible things keep happening’ as if there is no very obvious, if partial, answer to that question.

    I don’t think it’s a radical expression that if you want to prevent terrible things from happening to you, at the very least *start* with not doing terrible things to other people (this also applies to the US). I’m not in any way suggesting that is sufficient to stopping terrible things from happening, but I am suggesting that it is necessary to stop terrible things from happening.

    Put another way, it’s going to be very hard for a lot of people to be pro-Israel when Israel is pro-settlement. And I don’t think it’s great that a lot of the GOP support for Israel comes *because* of Israeli settlements. I think that just reinforces the fascist leanings of the GOP, something we could do with less of.

  30. 30.

    Barbara

    @Wapiti: We get check images every month as well.  Sometimes I roll my eyes at my husband, but I do see the utility of having hard copies of certain things.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    @sab

    Non-giant banks between a rock and a hard place.

    Third-quarter results today show that a slow-moving earnings crisis has replaced the acute liquidity woes of the spring, as smaller banks pay up for deposits without seeing the benefits from higher rates enjoyed by giant banks, which are sitting on $11 trillion of deposits that are earning a relative pittance and being lent out at increasingly higher rates.

    Profits fell 48% at Ohio-based KeyBank, 31% at North Carolina-based Truist, and 32% at Rhode Island-based Citizens. JPMorgan and Bank of America both reported double-digit increases last week. Source

  32. 32.

    Barbara

    @NotMax: It’s astounding how many people are leaving all their money in Bank of America, among others.  They are so used to earning low interest on bank accounts that they seem not to have noticed that they could earn far higher rates at other institutions.  We are closing a BoA account and working to move to flexible CDs somewhere else.  It’s crazy.

  33. 33.

    sab

    @NotMax: Keybank and PNC are both threatening big layoffs and branch closings.

    PNC already closed the branch my parents banked at since 1966. If PNC lays off my favorite tellers my accounts will be gone from there within a week.

  34. 34.

    SiubhanDuinne

    There is nothing about that photo that I don’t love, all these years later.

     

    Love the fabulous red coat.
    Love the stride.
    Love the shades.
    Love the smile.

     

    Love the attitude.

    Nancy SMASH! is one of my few idols, and I’m 81 years old FFS.

  37. 37.

    Martin

    @NotMax: Yep. This cycle has been going on, boy, at least since the S&L crisis. The primary dealers rent seek on their relationship with the Fed, and fuck over anyone who isn’t in the club, along with their customers. Their scale give them operational efficiencies and opportunities that other banks can’t access (see 2008 housing crisis) and the only real safe place for a customer is at a non-profit credit union which is out of their reach because the charters put them out of their reach.

    Credit unions aren’t a panacea, but their inability to wade through the same finance waters as the primary dealers seems like a pretty good thing. The best way to avoid shooting yourself in the foot is to never own a gun.

  38. 38.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Yutsano:

    (stupid time zones)

    Talk to NotMax. He loves him some time zones!

    I damaged myself this morning (boring details only upon request), so will not be an active participant. The spirit is willing but the flesh is fucked to hell and gone.

  39. 39.

    Martin

    @Barbara: BofA and Wells Fargo should be broken up, not because they are too big, but because they are terrible organizations run by terrible people.

  41. 41.

    Ruckus

    @Martin:

    I still get paper statements for my bank accounts. But this is a rather small bank, with a very high score from the bank rating companies. They’ve been my bank for a number of years and I’ve never had one issue, and I’m a small account. Sure it’s a pain in the ass to keep the paper, but it’s a hell of a lot less pain if it gets upside down. I used to go regular as I lived not far away. Now I live about 25 miles from the nearest office and I’ve been inside once in the last 4 yrs. The manager and the original tellers recognized me. That is a smallish bank. Their capitalization is not that small though.

    I’d say my point is that I did the research and due diligence when I moved there. Just as I did for the bank before that, which I would have stayed at except no branches near me.

  42. 42.

    sab

    @Barbara: I mark my January statement in pencil by year, and stuff every succeeding statement in that envelope. Envelopes take up a lot of space. Some envelopes can go all year. Others need a new envelope quarterly or semi-annually.

    I am dealing with mutiple accounts because we have a rental with its own account, and I am still managing my parents’ accounts (Dad is 99, with dementia and also checking, savings, and money market accounts, and Mom left a trust account that needs monitoring.)

    Neither the bank nor I are clear on what my legal rights are to all of these accounts, so I write checks where I can and monitor the others and print out my monitoring. Even as a professional accountant I find this tedious, but much of life is tedious. I also wash dishes daily.

  43. 43.

    Martin

    @cain: Its so hard watching these video clips because I know the US would *never* operate the way Russia is. I keep watching these wondering ‘why were we ever afraid of these guys?’ Why would you even try and take a position that you know you don’t have enough force to take? And then repeat the same failure every couple of days?

  44. 44.

    Ruckus

    Any BJ contributor:

    My computer all of sudden will often not let me type more than a few lines for my comment, but only on BJ.

    I have zero concept/idea what is happening but as of yesterday I frequently cannot type much more than what I’m saying here. I have no idea if it’s my computer/browser but I’ve had this one for some time and this just started in the last couple of days. I rebooted and it was better for a bit so I’d assume (yes I know) that it’s my computer/software and I will check that out. But it is always possible it isn’t.

  45. 45.

    sab

    @Martin: My extremely RWNJ brother in finance has been trying to get his RWNJ employer to move from Wells Fargo for twenty years just because they are such a toxic combination of incompetence and dishonesty, and yet they still thrive.

  47. 47.

    sab

    @Ruckus: I am a luddite so I cannot help, but BJ has been balky for me in daytime hours, and early evening. Middle of the night it has been fine. Ohio here.

  48. 48.

    Martin

    @Ruckus: Yeah, I don’t think losing an account, etc. is something people need to be particularly worried about. It’s so rare, and so likely to get fixed quickly.

    Find a nice boring bank that does nice boring things and you’ll be fine. My dad was CEO of his credit union for a while and said that the normal banking activities of evaluating loans and paying interest and all that was so well established that as long as you followed first principles you couldn’t fuck up.

    The problems come when you step out of those bounds and get creative or make exceptions or convince yourself that these kinds of loans are now safe because reasons. I remember going through with him the economics of how ATMs pay for themselves, which was kind of fascinating – and which advertised the risk potential right up front. Like, if you got fucked over on excessive ATM fees as a bank, there’s zero way you couldn’t see that coming.

  49. 49.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    Yeah, thanks, NM.

    I am beyond grateful for Aleve, which has kept the pain at bay for the past 12 hours. In the meantime, and I do mean “MEAN,” my otherwise innocuous face would today scare off the boldest cohort of trick-or-treaters. It has frightened the bejesus out of me whenever I have walked by a mirror today.

  50. 50.

    sab

    @KSinMA: I’ve had it for months, but only knew it was really mine lately. Even the temporary refund was a godsend, allowing me to plan in case it was revoked.

  51. 51.

    Ruckus

    @sab:

    Most people think that a bank is a bank is a bank. If they have one they like it is likely not because of how great a bank it is, but because the nearest branch is close or convenient or they like the manager or a teller. There are bank rating sites out there that can give answers to a lot of issues as to which bank is actually trustworthy with your funds. And that is often the opposite of the size of the bank. That’s not to say the smallest is best or the biggest is worst, or the other way round, there are a lot more issues than size.

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus: When it does that, does it keep replacing the last letter you can see with the last key you have hit?  Or does it appear to stop taking input?

    If you click Medium Cool in the sidebar and go back to a post that is 3 weeks ago (you can still comment for 30 days after posting) does it happen if you comment in that post?

  55. 55.

    schrodingers_cat

    OT: I am playing around with fountain pen inks, hot pink, violet and green in addition to the regular red, blue and black

    I have a Lamy Safari, Shaefer and a Parker (the last two from my father’s collection and some cheap Chinese brand that I got from Amazon.

    BTW has anyone used the waterproof black Noodler’s ink for fountain pens?

  56. 56.

    sab

    @SiubhanDuinne: I fucked up my right arm a month ago doing yardwork.  Don’t know what. Possible tendon problem in my right shoulder and my right elbow.

    Resting it is hard because I am the resident housewife and I love cast iron cookware. Which is very heavy.

    My husband says call your doctor. I say your doctor recommended surgery and you almost died from a MRSA infection and you are on unpleasant antibiotics for life.

    He says a medical consultation does not lead to inevitable surgery.

    Sigh. He might be right. I often wish he wasn’t an idiot but then I balk when he is right.

  57. 57.

    Yutsano

    @WaterGirl: I won’t know for sure until the 30th or Halloween. Until then it’s the wondering that gets you. I’m trying to be optimistic as I scored some really good points in that interview. But nothing is certain until it is.

  61. 61.

    sab

    @schrodingers_cat: Yikes and yay! I missed that.

    ETA I took a drawing class where I had to draw my husband as homework. I was underwhelmed with the results. I drew what I saw but I wasn’t happy with it. Husband said “That looks just like me!” I see him as twenty years younger.

  63. 63.

    WaterGirl

    @Yutsano: Yeah I had an interview once where it went super well and when they gave me the tour they said “This will be your office.”

    But you know how it goes.  The guy who wanted to hire me wasn’t getting along with the HR lady, and the whole thing was a power play, and the position was the pawn.

    Unstable environment; probably best that i didn’t work there, but still, it sucks.

    Same thing happened to my niece, 10 years later.  And to the fellow who built my porch.  They recruited him, paid for him to come, said he got the job, then the power struggle happened at the place and suddenly no job.  At least he hadn’t moved!

    edit: All of which was not to depress or discourage you, just to not count on the impression you were left with.  But you know that anyway.

    Fingers crossed for you.

  64. 64.

    Ruckus

    @Martin:

    Yep to all of this.

    My last two banks, which I’ve been at for almost 2 decades between them (And the only reason I switched is location, location, location – I don’t like to have to drive 400-500 miles to make a deposit.) were both highly rated by actual bank rating services and most were there for business over personal banking. The attempts to relieve the customer of any loose change to profit the bank have been non existent.

  69. 69.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    No broken bones in the face. One toe is black, swollen, and painful, but if it’s broken there’s nothing much they can do about it. It might just be sprained or bruised. I’m used to damaged toes.

    Fair amount of bleeding in the cut over the eye, but it’s okay now and should heal without a mark.

  70. 70.

    sab

    Mild marital tiff here. My husband’s coffee klatch got sidelined on ear worms this morniing. Husband knows them all but sings them very  badly. He is both tonally and rhymthically challenged from a musically talented family.

    He was busily blasting Taylor Swift, Abba, and hits from the sixties. And singing them badly.

    Then they had an earworm competition because my husband has a drug ad earworm. They came up with “Little black egg.” I remembered that song because it was the only hit song from my childhood hometown, Daytona Beach. I could not believe anyone else had ever even heard it. But these Akronites all knew it and sang it.

    Weird morning with the (three years older than me) old farts.

  72. 72.

    sab

    @sab: Tiff was could he please go back to the diabetes medicine song and stop on little black egg. Or get anything better? Or be quiet?

  74. 74.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    No it does not replace any letter it just stops accepting input and removes the last line I typed. It only does this on BJ, but then I don’t type a lot on other sites but do not have this on any other site of any kind. When I restart the computer it won’t do this for a while, then it starts all over. Because it starts all over I tend to think it’s my computer but because it’s only on BJ, I suspect the site has something to do with it, even if it’s just my computer reacting to something, something, something. As you can tell – I have zero idea, other than it works normal for a while after I restart. I will contact my computer manufacturer tomorrow and see if this is a known problem for anyone else. I think it could be the operating system or browser or website but as restarting fixes it for a while, my tendency is to think computer end.

  75. 75.

    sab

    @sab: Also too, we had a pleasant walk around the block. MUCH less far than we used to do, but much more than he could do immediately before or ever after the back surgery. So progress, slow but so far relentless.

  78. 78.

    Yutsano

    @WaterGirl: The beauty of federal hiring is that any sniping like that has already happened. So I’m pretty much clear except for the competition. Although there are 10 positions open so…

     

    @schrodingers_cat: Thank you so much! I’m trying to stay optimistic.

  81. 81.

    Ruckus

    @sab:

    Search for bank rating services and close any that ask you anything about actual money because they have zero need to know anything about you. Enter the banks you are interested in, most of them allow you to search for banks in your state/area. They will explain how they rate, what they rate and for how long they have been doing this. What I have found is that some/most of the major banks are not bad, because we have laws and entities that keep an eye on them. But they differ in what they do and somewhat in how they do it. I don’t have a record of the last one I used or I’d check and put it down here if it still was a good one. There really aren’t too many of them. They give you the basic history, the gross and net worth, and a few more things, like some sort of formula, which includes the numbers over time for the bank you put in. Some have lists of the various large banks but will give you answers to any actual bank in the town/area/state you are asking about. There are lots of measurements to give a banks health score from the account holder’s POV. Cash on hand, current number and types of accounts, scores from the government entities that cover banks, bank value, bank holdings value, deposit totals, number of locations, banks in your area. And an overall score of how well they treat their customers and where they fall down. Because banks are relatively well watched and their laws are strongly enforced, on a professional basis, they can give a score against a standard and explain that score and what is a good or bad score and why. I have, as a benefit, the fact that I did the books for a company for years, am/was very math orientated in many ways and had a friend and neighbor who was a very good accountant so my experience may be a lot different from others. In collage I used to tutor others in different advanced math classes. Also remember I worked in manufacturing things out of metals to high precision and math was used in many ways daily. I used a slide rule at work before calculators, and even worked on the mold to make the plastic body parts for one of the first hand held calculators.

  85. 85.

    Sister Golden Bear

    FWIW, I have accounts at two different banks — originally because I needed a safety deposit box here in the SF Bay Area, and my long-time credit union is in SoCal.

    But I’ve found it’s useful in other ways, specifically I still use the credit union for most of my banking, but all the money needed for property taxes, earthquake insurance, and a few other things go into the local bank. Each paycheck I auto-transfer the needed amount from credit union to bank, so being out of sight, out of mind reduces the temptation to raid it. Plus I keep a reserve of emergency money locally as well.

    It’s also useful two have two different ATM cards, so that one is available as a back-up in case the other gets eaten by an ATM machine, gets lost, etc. Though these days I only really use the ATM to get cash to my stylist, nail lady, trainer, etc. who prefer cash. Though I definitely recommend bringing two different cards when traveling (one never leaves the room safe).

  88. 88.

    Cowgirl in the Sandi

    @sab: love cast iron cookware. Which is very heavy

    you may already know this, but just in case…

    I used to volunteer at a cooking school and one night we were making stew in Le Creuset pots. One of the attendees commented about how heavy it was lifting the pot into the oven and out of the oven. The instructor suggested when doing that either take the lid off first that removes quite a bit of the weight- not all but a significant part.  everyone was like duh why didn’t I think of that?

  90. 90.

    kalakal

    @schrodingers_cat:

    @WaterGirl:

    I’d love to but I’ve no idea where they are☹️.

    I’m actually working on a couple of art projects but they’re going to be a while yet, this year has been a bit chaotic to put it mildly, what with floods, an ongoing kitchen remodel etc, when I have something I’ll put them up

  92. 92.

    RevRick

    @Barbara: Yeah. I got fed up with the lousy interest rates on my checking and savings accounts, so I moved a big chunk of my money into the Federal treasury. The one-year note pays over 5%. I sent them $37,900, and next year they will give me $40,000. Just had to open a TreasuryDirect account.

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