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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;davidh, post: 1262532, member: 15062&quot;]I think that many of you have the wrong idea about what exactly a bnak is.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>It is NOT a public shop set up for your personal convenience; it IS a <u>business</u> which handles financial transactions of several types.&nbsp; They entice individuals and businesses to deposit monies so that those same monies can be loaned out to other individuals and businesses at a profit, by charging inerest.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Like any business they have their own expenses.&nbsp; I&#039;ll make up a few numbers here - the building in which they operate cost maybe $300,000 to build and furnish.&nbsp; To build they had to obtain a loan on which they are now paying mortgage payments.&nbsp; Or, they may have rented space in an existing building.&nbsp; Either way, they are paying mortgage/rent of maybe $2500 per month.&nbsp; On top of that there are utilities of maybe $2000 per month.&nbsp;&nbsp; Then there are salaries for 20, or so, employees at an average of around $25,000 per year.&nbsp; When you add this all up, you get an operating budget of $554,000 per year, or almost $11,000 per week.</p><p><br /></p><p>That&#039;s $11,000 each week that has nothing directly to do with the money you have in the bank.&nbsp; In order to make up that $11,000 and just to stay even, they have to assure that the interesst received on loans they are making (less the interest paid out on various accounts) is greater than the weekly operating costs.</p><p><br /></p><p>Since they are not offering a product on which profits can be built in, and they have to stay competitive on their interest charges and payouts, the only way they can assure profitability is to charge fees on some of their transactions.&nbsp; It used to be that savings accounts paid as high as (in my experience) 7%.&nbsp; Because of higher operating costs this amount has dropped gradually to under 1% in some cases.&nbsp; This, in effect, was an invisible fee.&nbsp; Most other fees are more visible - check charging fees, teller access fees, ATM transaction fees.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>If a grocery store sells Cereal for $2.50 a box and finds that their profit margins are falling, they simply increase the cost of a box of cereal to $2.60 (a $0.10 fee) or, same thing - reduce the amount of product in the box by a few percent, and life goes on.&nbsp; You may grumble but soon adjust.&nbsp; It&#039;s the same with banks.&nbsp; They have to earn enough money to remain in operation and to do so they have to charge fees beyond the interest charges.&nbsp; You may grumble about it but life goes on. </p><p><br /></p><p>As far as cash availability, go back to the grocery store in response to an ad for cereal and tell them you want 2000 boxes of cereal.&nbsp; If they only have 500 boxes on hand, there&#039;s no way you can get 2000 boxes until they arrange with their warehouse to send them out, which may take at least several days.&nbsp; If they don&#039;t have it on hand, you simply can&#039;t get it.&nbsp; Plus, they are within their rights to limit the amount they will sell to you so that they can service their other customers who might also want cereal.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Same with the bank.&nbsp; You might have a check for $250,000, or even have that amount in your account, but if the bank doesn&#039;t have that amount of cash on hand, plus enough left over to service other accounts, there is simply no way that you can withdraw that amount on the spot.&nbsp; You MUST wait until the funds can be made available.&nbsp; Most banks order money one day a week (usually Monday) and have it delivered once a week (Friday).&nbsp; So, if you present your demand on, say Tuesday, it will be Friday of the following week before your cash is available.</p><p><br /></p><p>Many banks failed in the past because depositers were demanding more money back than the banks were worth.&nbsp; Real deposits of cash were made and loaned out, leaving the banks cash-poor</p><p><br /></p><p>Finally, as others have stated, there are various other hoops to jump through to satisfy Homeland Security, the IRS and other agencies who think that they need to know your business.&nbsp; It&#039;s an unfortunate fact of life that you can&#039;t do transactions of large size without some agency wanting to know what you&#039;re up to.&nbsp; Exercise your power to vote and in some multiple of four years maybe there will be a change made.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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