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O
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Page 11 • Wednesday, December 1, 1999
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eople and forcing]
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n Bolu (province),!
g bodies,” TahsiniiK
a rain-soaked cam® the ’90s the easiest way to ac-
1 none of the281 fj®ss cash has become the Auto-
are eligible for apitiBated Teller Machines (A'l'M).
■FMs offer 24-hour eonve
Culec, whose tli®ce, instantaneous transactions
ms seriously damagjBanother window for banks to
to the town halltoBeze more profit out of the
a lot to set upanerlblic's’ ever-growing desire for
ig for his family. Hd and efficiency,
hut after the Augu Biking advantage of individu-
withstand thecoli Is whose schedules may necessitate the use of
P Bs, most banks attach a fee to the usage of the
non workers iverelMs they own and operate. According to CNN, the
ay to finish all the tesent is a time of soaring bank profits, teller lay-
omes — the 1,000 ffs and branch closures. The banks are not hurt-
ked up toe ig, but their customers’ options for accessing their
pounts are narrowing.
/pically, transaction charges are limited to those
j zt 'rvT.c
IF NO, PRESS HERE
ELIZABETH
KOHL
sink
ium.
ike to heart
life? If you
'our life, come]
ore website
, ng ATMs who are not members of the bank’s
e achine. In the last several years, the fee has be-
me nearly universal, but not unnoticed by the
herican public.
In Santa Monica, Calif, a city ordinance was re-
tntly passed banning the ATM fees.
ordinance officially took action on Nov. 12,
^ a,, I banks such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America
lein ra - eady responded by seeking litigation and re-
^Bting the use of the ATMs in Santa Monica to
La h | n * < customers only.
I |rQ lllie banks believe the fees associated with ATM
1 sage are necessary to install and maintain the
bines. And like small children who refuse to
lie a toy, the banks argue that not charging a fee
like offering free service to individuals who are
customers.
fhat the banks fail to realize is that they could
[k together, eliminate ATM fees and then draw in
customers as well as appeasing the old.
|y finding a way to change machines in order to
hall not hunam r ^ ree serv i ce > ATMs could become a useful mar-
v ietlng tool. Most individuals would gladly sit
pi ugh a 30-second advertisement while their trans-
ctton is being processed at no cost. Banks could
leu sell the ad time to fund the machines.
! By adding more appealing features to the ATMs,
teks could even use the machines to create a com-
rish but have etw^ffive advantage over other banks,
rist provides intellect |t is not as if banks lose money in the long run by
night like to discuss stalling ATMs. There is no minimum wage for a
e Crouse 5-3997, oi^hine, no benefits package and, in the event of
Jchnical difficulties, every employee would be of-
1 vacation time anyway.
he machines are just as convenient for the bank
sfor those who use them.
;;The public is questioning the issue of whether
I'M fees are necessary.
ifi addition to California, Iowa and Connecticut
|e also banned the transaction charges and New
urk has recently begun to toy with the idea,
s this trend inevitably spreads to other states.
banks need to recognize people’s animosity toward
the fees and seek out alternatives such as minimiz
ing, eliminating or creatively financing the fees.
Representing only a small fraction of any banks
income, banks refusal to eliminate the fees is just an
exhibition of stubborn business overzealousness.
There is a term for capitalism run amuck: greed.
This country is not an idealistic utopia and there are
limits to the drive of business.
In the case of ATMs, the additional fee is noth
ing more than banks satisfying their profit motive,
without taking the time to realize that not charg
ing for the use of ATMs would end in greater po
tential gains.
Elizabeth Kohl is a junior accounting major.
Banks should not
burden customers
with surcharges
IF YES, PRESS HERE
W hat would happen if a
customer waltzed into a
supermarket and de
manded a free gallon of milk, de
spite the fact that he had never
patronized the store before and
did not intend to in the future?
Surely he would be asked to
leave. His desire for lactose
would make the manager intoler
ant of such an unreasonable demand.
A scenario similar to this one is playing itself
out in California, but rather than milk, the contro
versy surrounds automatic teller machines (ATMs)
and bank surcharges.
Everyone understands the inconvenience of the
Fees not unfair,
should be allowed
at ATM machines
avid Thompson
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convenience charges ATM customers are bur
dened with, and many citizens would like to get
rid of them.
But legislation banning these fees is not the an
swer because the banks have every right to charge
non-customers for the service.
ATM customers in California have pushed
through a bill to ban bank-initiated surcharges on
all ATM withdrawals.
Banks charge these fees to overwrite the cost of
providing a money-on-demand service for non
customers. Making banks suspend these fees while
still providing ATM service would be like passing a
law to make Jennifer Lopez do the acting thing for
pay and the music thing for free. Thi§ kind of
monetary pro bono should not be expected, let
alone required.
On June 11, 1997, Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato pro
posed the Fair ATM Fees for Consumers Act.
The senator made this misguided proposal in
the wake of a 320 percent increase in ATM fees
from 1995 to 1996.
D’Amato said double-charging at ATMs hurts
working people who have nowhere to go during
lunch if they need money. He cited the fees as a
monopolistic practice that should be banned under
federal law.
However, some banks do not charge extra fees
for money withdrawal for non-customers. In fact,
many of these banks, which have Websites allow
ing concerned consumers to comment on their ser
vices, use their no-fee ATMs as a keen marketing
tool. They provide an alternative to the bigger
bank chains which charge for ATM service.
Customers do not expect other banks to cash
their checks. Nor can a non-customer go to. a
bank and request a large amount of change.
Drawing money from an ATM operates on the
same principle.
Since the passage of the California bill, banks
have vowed to remove ATM service for customers
who do not hold accounts with their bank.
Vacationers will have to carry cash with them
instead of having the convenience of withdrawing
money when needed.
Surely the few dollars paid for the privilege of
the bank service is worth the convenience of mon
ey on demand. '
Consumers should avoid supporting legisla
tion banning something just because they do not
like it.
They should recognize that in a capitalist
democracy like the United States, the most impor
tant vote is with the dollar. If ATM fees are truly
unfair, people will simply stop using them and
the banks will have to adapt.
Jeff Webb is a senior journalism major.
EDITORIAL
Editorial Board
SALLIE TURNER
Editor in Chief
CALEB MCDANIEL
Opinion Editor
BEVERLY MIRELES
Opinion Editor
MARIUM MOHIUDDIN
Managing Editor
CARRIE BENNETT
Community Editor
EMILY SNOOKS
Campus Editor
Editorials appearing in The Battalion reflect the
lews of the editorial board members. They do not
lecessarily reflect the opinions of other Battalion
iff members, the Texas A&M student body, regents,
administration, faculty or staff. Columns, guest
columns, cartoons and letters express the opinions
)flhe authors.
Evaluating Professors
indents should be given access to course information
iLast May, the Student Senate wisely passed
recommendation to make course grade dis-
ributions and professor evaluations available
n the Internet. Giving students easy access
3 such information about faculty members is
itirely reasonable and should be supported.
gHowever, cynicism about students’ mo
ves is causing some members of the Faculty
enate to criticize the proposal.
|A few professors fear students will browse
ride distributions with the intent of cush-
oning their grade-point ratios, registering only
or those classes that appear relatively easy.
■n this growing controversy between pro-
essors and their pupils, common sense sides
vith the students. Although compromises
ihould be explored to make professors com-
bhable with the plan, student leaders should
continue to represent their constituencies by
Supporting the proposed Website.
■Students are ultimately consumers. The
diversity offers its product — a good educa-
ion — and enrollees elect to buy. But since
students pay substantial amounts of money
or the courses they take, they have a right to
nspect their purchases.
■Students are not sneaky for wanting to
ivoid blowing their dollars or the grades on
tn unnecessarily impossible course.
Besides, it is difficult to understand why
professors would be reluctant to share their
records with potential students. If professors
work hard to help students learn, those efforts
will be evident in their classes’ success.
And if professors fail to give proper atten
tion to their teaching, tests and grades, they
should be held at least partially accountable
when their students perform poorly.
Granted, there will always be students who
receive bad grades despite the best efforts of
their instructors. But there should be no ex
cuse for classes which consistently average a
2.0 or lower. When over half the class barely
passes, students know.it is a tell-tale sign of
a teacher who does not teach. These are the
kinds of classes students have a right to avoid.
The Website is a valuable idea because it
will not judge a course merely by its grades.
Evaluations of professors will also be avail
able. Students deserve such information
about the classes that will affect their acade
mic careers.
Rather than being suspicious of student at
tempts to seek out this information, profes
sors ought to commend those with the initia
tive to make informed decisions.
Students care about learning, not just
grades. But if a professor posts a low grade
distribution, it is often a symptom of a course
in which learning is hard to do.
FDA should not try to protect
people from their bad habits
T he Federal
Food and
Drug Ad
ministration
(FDA) wants to
raise the public’s
consciousness
about the fats it
consumes.
Recently,
spokespersons announced that the
FDA wants to institute another rule
about food labeling.
This time they want everyone to
be aware of a particular category of
fats called trans-fatty acids, which
are bad for people and raise the risk
of heart disease.
What a noble goal — warning
people for their own good. Govern
ment is supposed to protect the
public, just like a more powerful
version of a parent, right? Maybe.
When the FDA required food
processors to list ingredients in pro
portion to their weights in foods, a
funny thing happened.
Foods that were mostly sugar,
like children’s cereals and drinks,
turned up with things in them such
as “high fructose corn syrup.” It
took unsuspecting parents a while
to realize that a sugar by any other
name tastes as sweet.
The same thing is likely to hap
pen with trans-fatty acids.
The public will get information
that leads them to believe that
everything is fine, while they un
knowingly continue to consume the
offending substance.
The FDA will be foiled again in
its mission to save people from their
own habits.
Maybe the reason for this is that it
just is not government’s job to pro
tect people from their own stupidity.
The FDA has its roots in the days
of Upton Sinclair’s novel. The Jungle.
A cross between investigative report
ing and horror, the book talks about
real events in the meat-packing in
dustry at the turn of the century.
Since no one wants the butcher’s
fingers ground up in the sausage,
the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
the FDA’s parent, was born.
Government
agencies have an
insidious tendency
to expand their
spheres of influence
to places no one
ever intended.
At the turn of the century, this
was a good thing.
But one of the most insidious
things about government agencies,
and about bureaucracies in general,
is their tendency to expand their
spheres of influence to places no
one ever intended.
Bureaucracies have a survival in
stinct that surpasses any species on
earth. The government slipped qui
etly from protecting workers from
their bosses to protecting people
from themselves.
It is very unlikely that there is a
person of normal intelligence in this
country who does not know that
smoking is damaging, yet there still
are millions of smokers.
There are very few people who
are morbidly obese who have not
been told by someone that being fat
is bad for their health, but there still
are millions of fat people.
There is a pattern here. People
make choices.
They want to make their own
choices, and they will make their
own choices.
The government can put town
criers on every street corner with
the news that this or that is bad for
them, and the public will still make
their own choices.
Many of those choices will be
bad for their health.
Having a government agency
whose aim is to prevent people from
making bad choices is pretty silly.
Paying the salaries of nobody-
knows-how-many government
workers to tell people what they al
ready know is worse than silly, it is
burdensome.
Frequently, one hears conversa
tions that run to the effect of: “If
this doesn’t get me, that will.”
The statement is ic Butter was
declared a “bad” fo j years ago.
Now, margarine is coining under at
tack, so the only al rnative is to eat
dry toast.
Yum. Pass the butter.
Ann Hart is a senior
English major.
any academic department
und who share the Christia"