Redhead Ranting

Bank of America: What’s the Deal?

Filed under Things that piss me off, WTF? by Izzy Woods on January 27, 2012 at 10:07 am {no comments}

Image via Wikipedia

Apparently the Bank of America have chosen this moment to announce a gimmicky new ‘deals’ service. It’s called ‘BankAmeriDeals’, and as well as having a ridiculous name, seems to be a ridiculous new way for the bank to try and squeeze just a little bit more hard-earned cash out of its long-suffering customers. This new venture is supposed to be similar to the Groupon deals website, with Bank of America’s account-holders being given offers when they log on to their accounts.

Well, now that all sounds quite nice of them, doesn’t it? Money off shopping just for logging into your bank account? Except for a few pretty obvious problems. First of all, apparently they will choose which offers to give you based on your spending. So if they see lots of transactions at Walmart, then that’s what they’re going to give you. Great, so these aren’t actually treats at all, just an encouragement to spend more on everyday groceries that you were just going to buy anyway. You can also bet your bottom dollar that they’re making money out of this themselves somewhere, probably giving details of your shopping habits to the stores they’re working with. Isn’t that really just a major privacy breach? You can opt out of the scheme, they say, but not everyone’s going to realize why they should.

Now is not the time

Then you’ve got the biggest issue: is this really what a failing, struggling bank should actually be doing? I have my doubts. This is a bank that only exists because us taxpayers provided it with billions of dollars in bailout money. Since that bailout back into 2008, there doesn’t seem to have been any significant change in the way Bank of America does things. According to CNN Money the bank is still struggling to stay solvent, despite an ongoing cost-cutting operation. Despite making thousands of people redundant, the Bank of America’s operating costs have actually risen in the last quarter. Of course, they haven’t made any commitment to cutting the pay of their investment bankers. You know, the ones who got them (and us) into this mess in the first place.

In that context, is it really appropriate for Bank of America to be wasting their staff time and money on a gimmicky deals scheme? Perhaps this is the attitude that led to all their problems: the idea that you can just paper over the cracks, you can just make everything look as if it’s OK on the surface and the fact that it’s nothing like OK can simply be ignored. If I was in charge of Bank of America, I’d be spending my time hauling their investment department over the coals, not thinking up new ways to try and get ordinary people to give me their money through some cheap bribes.

Weasel words

The thing is, Bank of America are just one of many companies who really seem to think that they just need to throw out a few scraps and they’ll have us all on their side. It’s the politician’s mentality: just say a few clever words and you’ll have the public eating out of your hand. Never mind the substance, never mind the things that really matter. The 2008 crisis proved that the wealthy really were living in an entirely different world to the rest of us. The failure of the banks was, when you look back on it now, inevitable. And those in charge of those banks could surely have seen that, if they’d chosen to look. But they just didn’t seem to care. Perhaps because they knew that we would be there to deal with the consequences of their failure.

Rather than changing their attitude, turning themselves around and rebuilding from the bottom-up, all they are doing now is to try to cover up their misdemeanors with gimmicks. Rather than becoming more like us, the banks are pulling further away. They just don’t want us to realize it. It’s almost impossible to know can and cannot be trusted amongst today’s cohort of bankers, businessmen and politicians. There are calls for the Bank of America to be broken up but what are the chances of that happening? The fact is, it won’t. They’ll just continue to try and make us believe they’ve spent our taxes well, while their executives go home each night to caviar and champagne and shake the last cents from the change jar.

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Izzy is a freelance writer with an axe to grind, so would like to thank Jen for entertaining her own ranting (even though she’s not a redhead!). When she isn’t waxing lyrical on the financial system, she writes on behalf of numerous companies including a leading sectional sofa company.

Miley Cyrus and her Penis Cake (not safe for work)

Filed under People, WTF? by Jen on January 25, 2012 at 3:51 pm {9 comments}

Miley Cyrus and her penis cake, Miley Cyrus sticking tongue out on penis cake, Miley Cyrus licking penis

Photo: TMZ

This girl really needs some schooling in how not to be photographed. Miley Cyrus is not your average teenager. She is a celebrity, has a bit of talent and really needs to keep images like this penis cake and her tongue off the internet. I know kids do silly things and there is a picture of me holding a rather large phallus just like the one on the cake somewhere out there but I’m a nobody. She’s not. Of course, maybe she’s trying to shed her squeaky clean image.

What do you think? Does it matter what she does? I know I would prefer my daughter not see this image until she is a little older but Miley isn’t Hannah anymore so does it matter?

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Is Macaroni and Cheese the New Cupcake? And Does That Mean The Economy is on the Upswing?

Filed under All of the Other Stuff, Food, Kids, Things that piss me off by Jen on January 24, 2012 at 10:06 am {8 comments}

: Photo: Hello-naomi.blogspot.com

Remember when cupcakes appeared on the scene? Suddenly cupcakes were everywhere. Stores opened up on the street selling just cupcakes (wtf?!) and reality shows were produced on a scale second to rednecks blowing up things on the History Channel. Cupcakes were everywhere. Pretty little things, too cute to eat.

Cupcakes a great investment

I attended an event for women entrepreneurs last year filled with nothing but young women (and young businesses) who made little cupcakes. Not even the standard sized cupcake but the mini one. What you missed, calorie wise, with little cake was more than made up for in frosting and fondant.

What a great ROI cupcakes provide. A box of Betty Crocker cake mix goes for about $1.50 with a tub of frosting often on sale for 99 cents. You could make two dozen normal cupcakes or 24 of the mini ones and sell them for a buck a piece.

It kills me that people will get upset when gas goes up a few cents per gallon but will throw down a green back for 1 mini cupcake.

Let them eat cake

Economists suggest that now that cakes, full size cakes or better, are making their way back in bakeries and reality tv, it means the economy has made that crucial turn for the better. If more people buy cake than cupcakes it obviously means the people are feeling more confident about the economy.

There have been rumblings on the web lately about Macaroni and Cheese. Suddenly the comfort food is everywhere; made with exotic cheeses, cream and (gasp) real butter. While Kraft has done everything to reduce the calories (and taste) from it’s iconic blue box of heaven others are making the dish that reminds us all of grandma with expensive and indulgent ingredients.

: Image via Wikipedia

Boxed or Homemade?

Articles are appearing on the web about the cheesy goodness and in fact there have been a smack down or two started over which is better.

Bloggers Nicky (We Work For Cheese) and Margaret (Nanny Goats In Panties) got into a heated debate recently about the best mac and cheese recipe resulting in a yet to be determined cook off. My money is on the goat. Sure Nicky works for cheese and has a well developed pallet but she’s Canadian and they don’t know anything about comfort food, American comfort food that is.

Margaret isn’t the best of cooks but I bet even she can throw together a box of Mac and Cheese.

I suspect we will be seeing gourmet macaroni and cheese shops popping up along the trendier streets. These may or may not be sit down restaurants, more likely a take out kind of place where you get a fancy pan in addition to your mac and cheese. Of course tied with a ribbon. Trust me, you will be able to shell out $10 for a cooked pan of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

This is America, for crying out loud.

*This post was inspired by an article on a national news site about mac and cheese (along with all the bickering between Nicky and Margaret) as well as the fact that we Americans will pay tons of money for anything that is mini, wrapped with a ribbon or just packaged differently. We don’t consider how much the contents of that pretty presentation cost.

That rant was inspired by my trip to CVS yesterday. I had to switch pharmacies and ended up at a CVS with a Starbucks across the hall. Even though I had called in my prescriptions four hours earlier they weren’t ready when my daughter and I arrived. After being told there would be a 15 minute wait (even though they had signage all over the pharmacy proclaiming that prescriptions would be filled within 15 minutes – guaranteed) so we went to the Starbucks across the hall where I paid $1.95 for a cookie (which wasn’t finished) and $1.75 for organic chocolate milk (because that’s all they have though I will say the barista suggested, after the milk had been cracked open, that next time we ask them to mix a chocolate milk and save a whopping .50). I bought those things for my daughter because I refused to buy her the apple sauce in the squeeze container. Organic apple sauce for sure but I’ll be damned if I pay $2.95 for half a cup of applesauce. Apple sauce that is only being purchased for the novelty.