Does anyone consider the banks themselves to be at fault?

How do you like the $35 NSF charges on both ends when they bounce your account for a $2.50 overdraft? A $70 profit because they couldn't front you $2.50?
How many times a day do you think they get away with that?
How about as soon as you MAKE a purchase with your credit card, it is IMMEDIATELY withdrawn from your account, but if a company or bank issues you a credit, you have to wait 3-5 days to see it?

Or how about the $29 "late fees", and the way they keep changing you payment due date?
I caught SEARS changing my due date to the 22nd one month, from the 30th. For busy people, who pay near the end of the month, that's conning us and hoping we'll mess up so we get their "late charge".

How about after 9/11 when George Bush ACTIVELY ENCOURAGED everyone to go out and SHOP? Remember that? (Hit em with trauma then tell them to go get some icecream.) I thought it was REALLY WIERD at the time, but now I'm not so sure they just weren't preying on us).

Or how about the ads for Mastercard where a lady has two shopping bags in each hand and passes by another shoe shop where a pair of $300 red shoes are rotating on a pedestal in the store window, and the announcer says "For everything else, there's Mastercard".

It's all subtle, but it's there. We are being manipulated and exploited, and they managed to suck up our profits allright.