Time for my take.
Today we're just going to talk about interest rates and Australian banks. The banks were facing an unenviable position this week. They new rates would go down and they knew that they would want to keep as much as they can for themselves. How else would the Commonwealth Bank be able to afford to buy Bankwest, and Westpac be able to afford to buy St George. Billions of dollars does not grow on trees, it must be gouged from customer's pockets.
Fortunately for the spin doctors and PR people at the banks they didn't have to worry about passing on the full interest rate. Our PM and our Treasurer kindly helped out by telling everyone that the banks would not be able to pass on the full rate decrease as they were struggling so much with the "credit crunch", "toxic debt" and other meaningless terms that journos like to use to try and convince us they know what they're talking about.
Fact is that the banks were making money before the rates came down. Fact is that they had already put their rates up above the RBA's rate on previous occasions. Fact is that they were making plenty of money, are secure and are safe.
Sad fact is that all those people who could have been given a 1% reduction on their mortgage / business loan / credit card won't get it.
Fact is that the reason they're not getting it is due to the champion of working families deciding not to stick up for them when they need him most.
2 comments:
I agree with you that the full interest rate cut should be passed on. But I don't think there is any current way for the banks to be forced to do this, unless we nationalise a bank here or there, like Iceland has just done. Personally I would love to see a bank owned > 50% by the government, this would give great leverage against the banks' ridiculous gouging. I get around alot of this by not owning a credit card and paying zero fees through belonging to a credit co-op. Except for our house, we will never borrow money for anythin. Only buy what you can afford!
Of course they can't be forced. I would have like to see them do less of the PR for the banks and put some pressure ON the banks.
Post a Comment