Let the banks to fall!

We achieve a point where the consumer (the client) no more knows which taxes/fees he is paying. Economists have their own language and people are unable to learn it because they are busy earning some money to eat and a big slice for bank fees. We no longer have access to our own money (bank account) without paying to see it! Paying money to see our money! Curious...

This letter was addressed to a Portuguese bank and reflects well this absurdity:

Dear Sirs,

I would like to know if you would accept to pay a small monthly fee for the existence of this bakery, located near your bank; or for the existence of the petrol station or the pharmacy or the kiosk, all indispensable for our daily routine.

It would work in this way: all clients would pay a small fee to maintain these services (bakery, pharmacy, kiosk, mechanic, grocery store). A fee that would not guarantee any extra right to the client. It would be used only in the maintenance of a high quality service and to amortize investments. What do you think?

Well, yesterday I got out of your bank sure that you Sirs would agree with such fees. For a reason of equity and honesty. My certainty derives from a simple chain of thoughts.

Let us imagine the following situation: I go to this bakery to buy some bread. The baker complies with kindness, sells me the bread and charges me a fee to pack the bread. Besides he imposes fees for "accessing the bread", "storing the bread", and even a fee for "having the bakery opened". Everything fulfilled with cordiality and professionalism, of course.(...)

Do you want some enlightenment?

- fee to open credit = fee to access the bread
- fee to open bank account = fee to open the bakery store
- fee to see your bank account = fee to the existence of the bakery store
- fee to maintain a special limit of funding (every trimester, no advantages) = fee to keep the bread warm
- fee in any account money transfer = should I pay to breath the air of your facilities?!

(...)After I payed all the taxes maybe you would answer, always with such cordiality and professionalism, that a bank service is quite different from a bakery store. That your responsibility is much bigger, that there are many legal requirements, that the business risk is huge, etc, etc. That besides being profoundly sorry about this situation, you cannot do anything, because you are not inflicting the law. I know that. I also know that you are covered by some special legal advantages that protect your business from any disturbance. I presume a bakery store does not have as much risk and also that does not count with the influence power that you Sirs have.

I know that everything you do is within the law, but I also know that it is immoral.

Imagine now that you do not just laugh with this adapted letter, but that we really do it. That we start fighting for special benefits (introduction of stupid fees) in every single private branch. Companies from which people depend on their daily activities... On the other hand, should we all go to jail for trying to rise up some morality and mutual help between people of this crazy world? Examples of success, of what is accepted as right in this society are corrupting the basic human principles and if we do not do something, these legal fees might become a reality.

As a wise man said once, save your money under the mattress!

Fuck The System

The Human being is a social being, more precisely, its nature and interactions are based on the biopsychosocial model, first theorized by the psychiatrist George L. Engel in 1977. An individual cannot develop without social interaction. In fact we would not fit in this world without the surrounding social environment, so important for the development of language, values, religious views, and, ultimately, of crucial importance for the perpetuance of our species once we still do not know how to reproduce asexually. This social interaction begins at the time we have not seen a light beam, when our development is influenced by our mothers’ mood, stresses, personal problems, cuddling over the tiny piece of skin that separates us from the outside world. Then, we are fully dependent on the touch we receive from the caregivers (mother, father, others). If we are not held on the arms of our caregivers we simply die, we do not acquire the notion of self-esteem, self-confidence; we do not develop our ‘self’.

Being so dependent on the environment for our correct development, one might ask, what is the best environment to raise a human being? The answer is so obvious that does not even deserve discussion. What is of extreme importance is that the role of the closest persons in our lives is being lost to the big scramble of information, politics, propaganda, wars, crimes, lists of death people, educational programmes, etc, etc. Every single person knows the power of the media in the transmission of information, nowadays so easy with the development of our technology, the creation of social networks, online newspapers, and wide range of TV channels. It is so widespread and it does its work (transmission of information and entertainment) so well that its control is desired by the most evil people living on Earth.

This ‘social’ interaction is killing our species.

Nowadays we simply accept the options that were first given to us. We live in a capitalist system and if you do not share this common sense notion, you are called anti-capitalist; if you believe that the government can have some power over private companies you are called fascist; if you defend a more patriotic and nationalist approach, you are called nazist; if you think everyone should have some social support from the government, you are called communist! All these words are so negatively-charged that people are suppressed by them when trying to make a point that has no similarities with any of the true definition of these terms. More, when arguments fail, people with new ideas are simply ignored or, even worse, called anarchists simply because they do not feel as a part of the system the world has to offer.