Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Personal Responsibility: Overdrafts

In one of my, You Might Be A Progressive, series, I posted one that created quite a bit of discussion. You might be a progressive if you believe a bank should loan you money for free in the form of overdrafts. The statement doesn't fully represent an overdraft, but it did create discussion on the topic of bank overdraft fees.

Earlier in the day, I had a progressive complain about the billions charged to bank customers because of overdraft fees. A progressive on Twitter, a Bernie Sanders fan, said, “Banks collected over $30 billion in overdraft fees last year from people who could ill-afford it.”

This is classic progressive thinking. I have no reason to doubt the $30 billion figure and don't deny that these fees are set high and increases company profits. What progressives don't understand, overdraft fees aren't solely motivated by profit. These fees are to dissuade people from writing checks for amounts greater than their balance. Intentionally writing a bad check is against the law even if you plan on depositing funds to cover that check before it clears.