Visa dropped like a rock today after a judge overturned prior ruling about debit card fees (of which Visa is the king). Anybody buying the dip?
I picked up more shares.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/07/31/why-visa-shares-got-hit-with-an-overdraft.aspx"Two years ago, the Federal Reserve sought to cap fees per debit-card transaction at $0.12 apiece but was pressured into raising that limit to $0.21. After a contentious battle between financial-industry lobbyists and a retail coalition, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon overruled the central bank's authority, which appears to have put the ball back in retailers' courts. Leon's ruling says that the Fed disregarded Dodd-Frank regulations by "inappropriately inflating all debit card transactions by billions of dollars and failing to provide merchants with multiple unaffiliated networks for each debit card transaction."
Comments
• "high physical prices have cost consumers an extra $3 billion a year" ... (Link)
• "merchants were overcharged billions of dollars" ... (Link)
• JP Morgan Chase accused of rigging electricity prices; they'll pay the fine !!! ... (Link)
• Wall Street Creating "Home Rental Payment"-Backed Securities ... (Link)
• Americans Gambling on Rates With Most ARMs Since 2008 ... (Link)
and a quote from bee:
"One aluminum can at a time...one Kilowatt at a time...one pound of sugar at a time...one toll charge at a time...one mutual fund fee at a time...one local, state, federal tax (take yout pick) at a time...one bank fee at a time...one insurance premium at a time...all of these are dispersed costs that funnel and concentrate the benefit into a single trough like drops of rain into a single rain barrel." (end quote)
The Wall Street bastards have not been in the least dissuaded from ripping off any and all that is in their power to do so. Those who have "have no problem with unabashed capitalism" should be very happy, indeed.
"In another deal offered in January, the federal agency said Southwest offered $66 flights from Dallas to Branson, Mo. But the DOT said it found no seats available for that price during the sale period."
These are like financial oil companies. Only when they have a "spill" and damage the economy, our government caters to them.
"The Wall Street bastards have not been in the least dissuaded from ripping off any and all that is in their power to do so. Those who have "have no problem with unabashed capitalism" should be very happy, indeed."
Lol, we bailed them out and gave them the "systemic risk" card that they can play whenever they get in trouble.
"Eric Holder made this rather startling confession in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, The Hill reports. It could be a key moment in the debate over whether to do something about the size and complexity of our biggest banks, which have only gotten bigger and more systemically important since the financial crisis.
"I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy," Holder said, according to The Hill. "And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/eric-holder-banks-too-big_n_2821741.html
So who are you going to be mad at first: Wall Street or the government who continues to cater to its every need?
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As for Visa, I think the issue will be worked out in a manner satisfactory to Visa. I just continue to see a move towards a cashless society in the next decade. Spain banned cash transactions above 2,500EUR last year (http://www.thedailybell.com/3814/Spain-Bans-Cash) and I think many of the reasons they did so appeal to other governments and others. Fee debate aside, I think moving towards cashless benefits retailers in a number of regards.
Square (which Visa has invested in) has allowed anyone, such as someone at an art fair or farmers market, to accept cards. The Apple store has started selling a "Square Stand", which turns an IPad into a complete point-of-sale register.
Eventbrite is an app that people can use to sell tickets to local events and manage everything - from payment acceptance to scanning tickets at the door. Over 120M tickets have been sold via the service. (http://www.eventbrite.com/features/)
As I've said a bunch of times, AT & T has said mobile data demand was up 50% y/o/y. I have my concerns about things big picture, but I do continue to be interested in a number of themes, particularly mobile. Within mobile, there's social, but I think mobile payments and mobile fitness (Nike, others) will rise considerably in coming years.
Beyond that, more and more things will be connected to the internet in the coming years. "The Ford Focus Electric will use the embedded AT&T wireless connection to send and receive data about the car, Ford announced today.
Through the new MyFord Mobile smartphone app, owners will be able to plan trips, monitor their vehicle's state of charge, locate charging stations, remotely lock/unlock doors, use a built-in GPS system to locate the car and receive alerts." (http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20046093-48.html)
The US has lagged other countries in terms of adoption of EMV cards and mobile payments, but that will likely change in coming years.
Cash registers will eventually start to go away in some stores in favor of mobile terminals, and the cash register real estate can be freed up for other things. Whole Foods doesn't accept checks anymore and I wouldn't be surprised if other retailers follow. You're going to see cards that have LCD displays and keyboards (http://gizmodo.com/5958721/i-really-want-a-credit-card-with-a-lcd-screen-and-touchscreen-keypad) and you'll see a coupon on an ad, scan it with your phone and both pay and use your coupons with one swipe of the phone at check-out.
Check company Deluxe doesn't even have checks featured on the front of their website, they have things like search optimization and website design. Checks are 59% of the company's revenue (down from 64% in 2009.) Not that the company can't go forward, but saying that they are clearly looking at other avenues for the future - "Marketing and Other Solutions" has gone from 12% in 2009 to 19% last year. (http://seekingalpha.com/article/1536002-get-your-deluxe-stodgy-stock-here)
It's a digital society of digital interactions; it's remarkable to me that Google can come out with a new phone (Moto X) that is "always listening" for commands. What's particularly fascinating is that I have read next-to-no articles that display any concern about the fact that your phone is "always listening" to you.
I don't think things change overnight by any means - there's no way they could. Still, I continue to think we're in the 7th inning of money as we know it.
We've not discussed Google in particular, as far as I can remember, but I personally regard that company as perhaps the most dangerous commercial entity in America, if not the world. I've mentioned this many times with my wife over the dinner table.
Some folks are all upset over the NSA, which at least has the national security argument going for them. Google makes the NSA look like amateurs. Personally I refuse to use them for homepage or searches (Duck-Duck-Go is a great substitute), and avoid them whenever at all possible. I do use them for a list of daily MF price updates, but my portfolio as listed with them shows merely one share of each fund, so they have no idea of the actual amounts involved.
I would not be surprised in fact if at some point in the future the NSA and Google are for all intents and purposes the same outfit. All it would take is one more major catastrophe such as 9/11, and it's not hard to imagine a "national security emergency defense bill" which would authorize the NSA access to Google and anything or everything else that they wanted to look at, on a "temporary emergency basis" which of course would slide into secretive permanency. At that point the NSA will have access to every known piece of data on everyone in the US, excepting of course the sacrosanct records of who actually owns deadly automatic weapons. The NRA will see to that.
"I continue to think we're in the 7th inning of money as we know it."
I really agree, and thank the heavens that I'm as old as I am- we have only one old "stupidphone" that we take with us in case of an emergency, and 99% of the time it's never even turned on. So far, so good- but I agree completely with your assessment with respect to the future. Even now, I carry very little actual cash- just enough for the casual under-$20-purchase, and for use at ARCO gas stations, which have cheap gas if you pay cash.