The Dodd-Frank Banking Fee

According to a story in Investment.com, the $5 monthly fee bank of America intends to impose to recover losses incurred by the Dodd-Frank bill probably should be named the Dodd-Frank fee.

The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act put a limit on fees banks could collect from sellers when their customers make debit card purchases — cutting 44 cent fees to 21 cents.

“Throwing their weight around at the height of the banking crisis, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut vowed to stick it to banks. They blamed them for the mess to cover up the fact that they forced banks to lend to favored constituencies who could not repay.

“The two Democrats pushed through the much-vaunted Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which President Obama signed and touted as one of the signature accomplishments of his presidency.

“That act, which included a micromanaging amendment on fees, carried a $2.9 billion implementation cost for that alone over five years, according to the Government Accountability Office...

“The ‘economics of offering a debit card have changed with recent regulations,’ a bank spokeswoman told ABC News Friday.

“BofA says it stands to lose $2 billion from the arbitrary Durbin price-fixing amendment and now has no choice but to make up for the lost revenue some other way.”

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Sen. Chris Dodd, once associated with the senate’s banking committee and now a gold plated Hollywood lobbyist, felt compelled to hammer banks after the mortgage industry in the United States went belly-up, largely in response to impositions imposed on them by Dodd and Frank in a successful attempt to encourage banks to lower their lending standards so that people who could not afford mortgages would be able to buy houses. Canada, which maintained standards widely observed here in the United States before Dodd and Frank began to micromanage the banking industry, has few mortage and housing problems.

Dodd also was principally responsible for undoing the last remnants of the Glass Steagall Act, a measure adopted during the enlightened administration of Franklin Roosevelt that prevented rapacious financial institutions from meddling with the bankbooks of Dodd’s constituents.

And here we are – in lowdive.