Japan Gov't Forcing Radiated Food on School Children

One would think that the government of a nation that experienced firsthand the biological horrors of nuclear radiation from atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be vigilant in protecting their people from this past year’s nuclear power plant meltdowns.

Instead, in the Fukushima region, they are forcing schoolchildren to consume radiated milk and rice as an act of “patriotism,” and publicly shaming those who, in obedience to their parents, refuse.

As reported by Ruthie Iida, an American teacher in Japan,

“Many mothers, mistrustful of food safety standards (food is simply labeled “safe”, and the exact level of radiation does not appear on produce ) would prefer their children to eat box lunches from home, made from foods carefully chosen ( preferably from faraway prefectures ) and carefully prepared….Teachers in Fukushima, however, insist that their students eat the school lunches (made with locally-grown produce) to show their loyalty to the prefecture. Children are torn between their mothers’ wishes and their fear of humiliation and punishment. This sounds hard to believe, but it’s been reported in various blog sites…and was unanimously confirmed by the Fukushima mothers that I met on Sunday. Worse yet, one mother reported that students who refuse to eat school lunches are now bullied by their peers as well as berated by their teachers.”

Kanagawa Notebook

A video of Japanese Parliamentary budget hearings from Sept 29 with English subtitles confirms this report:



Meltdown history

The Japanese Government’s response to the meltdowns at Fukushima following the horrific earthquakes and tsunami in March of this year has been permeated by missteps, conflicting reports, and the white-washing of safety issues, going back to the early days of the disaster.

After the March 11, 2011 earthquake, the Fukushima Daiichi power plant site was inundated by a 49-foot high tsunami wave. The connection to the electrical grid was broken, as the Tsunami destroyed the connecting power lines. With the loss of power, the nuclear reactors could not be cooled, and began to overheat.

The disaster was not unforeseeable.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex had been at the center of a 2002 falsified-records scandal, including serious unreported safety issues and inspections that were overdue by more than a decade. The scandal led to the resignations of number of senior executives of the plant’s parent company, TEPCO. In a document released by Wikileaks, it was revealed that in the wake of the scandal, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conveyed grave concerns about the ability of Japan's nuclear plants to withstand seismic activity. At the same time, the Japanese government was opposing a Japanese Court order to close a nuclear plant in the west part of the country over doubts about its ability to withstand an earthquake.

Just five weeks ago, the Japanese Government released an internal TEPCO report admitting that TEPCO knew that the plant could not withstand a tsunami as low as 18 feet, and, that based on previous seismic activity, they knew such a tsunami was highly possible.

Radioactive measurements throughout Fukushima, and a Government in Denial

Following the March 2011 tsunami, reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced full meltdown and multiple fires broke out at Reactor 4. Fuel rods stored in pools in each reactor building began to overheat as water levels in the pools dropped, and radioactivity releases led to the evacuation of people in a 12 mile radius around the plant. The government would later admit that dangerous levels of radioactive Cesium were actually being measured up to 30 miles away from the plant. Measurements taken by the Japanese science ministry and education ministry showed Cesium levels high enough to force the issue: food grown in the area was banned from sale, and tap water was deemed unsafe for children.

It was estimated by New Scientist that the initial daily release of Cesium from Fukushima was of the same magnitude as those from Chernobyl in 1986. And yet, Japanese government officials initially assessed the accident as only a “Level 4” on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), which runs from 1-7. Other international agencies challenged Japan, and the government grudgingly raised the level to a 5. Finally, pressured by scientists from around the world who determined it will take decades to clean up the radiation in the Fukushima region, the government finally admitted that its emergency was at the maximum level of 7. Article, UK Daily Mail

Government changes children’s exposure standards

As explained by physician Carolyn Roy-Bornstein,

“Children are at greater risk of the dangers of radiation for many reasons. Their minute volumes, or the amount of air they breathe in one minute, are greater than adults, causing them greater exposure to radioactive gases. They also live and breathe closer to the ground and therefore closer to nuclear fallout as it settles to earth. Radioactive Iodine is readily transmitted to human breast milk. (Cesium has been detected in the breast milk of seven women in the Fukushima area.) Cow’s milk also becomes quickly contaminated when radioactive materials settle onto grazing fields.”

(Carolyn Roy-Bornstein)

[Blogger's note: In July, over 100 cows raised 60 miles from the Fukushima site were fed Cesium-laced hay, and were sold at market for consumption. While the “safe limit” of Cesium is pegged at 500 bcq/kg, the hay registered at 97,000 bcq/km. The pollen from Cedar trees some 27 miles from the site measured at 175,000 bcq/km]

Prior to the Fukushima accident, the acceptable limit of exposure for children to Cesium was 1 millisievert (mSv) per year. As the accident unfolded, the Fukushima prefecture was directed to change that standard to 20 mSv per year, the same dose allowable for adult workers at nuclear power plants. Physicians for Social Responsibility issued a statement calling the move "unconscionable." Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama, head of the Radioisotope Center at the University of Tokyo, testified on July 27th before the Japanese Committee on Welfare and Labor that the uranium leak from the Fukushima Daiichi plant amounted to the equivalent of 20 Hiroshima atomic bombs. He further testified that he was frustrated in his work, as his team was told that the government could only provide him with a single Geiger counter. Further investigation showed that the US Army donated 20 such Geiger counters, which were withheld from him and kept in storage.

First, irradiated Milk forced on children; Now, Rice

Normally, radioactive Cesium washes out of the body relatively quickly in sweat and urine. But rather than being comforting, this becomes disturbing when one realizes that 8 months after the disaster, Japanese women continue to evidence Cesium in their breastmilk - suggesting that they are ingesting Cesium at a greater rate than their bodies can excrete it.

Cesium does, in fact, readily accumulate in food: in particular, it remains in concentrated form in plant and mushroom tissues, and an accumulation of cesium in water bodies has been a high concern since it was noted after the Chernobyl disaster. (Smith, Jim T.; Beresford, Nicholas A.. Chernobyl: Catastrophe and Consequences. Berlin: Springer. ISBN 3-540-23866-2.) Experiments with dogs showed that a single dose of 140 MBq/kg of caesium is lethal within three weeks, while smaller amounts cause infertility and cancer. (Redman, H. C.; McClellan, R. O.; Jones, R. K.; Boecker, B. B.; Chiffelle, T. L.; Pickrell, J. A.; Rypka, E. W. (1972). "Toxicity of 137-CsCl in the Beagle. Early Biological Effects")

It is all the more outrageous, then, that in order to compensate Fukushima rice farmers, government officials are buying rice from this toxic area and foisting it upon school children – in spite of the fact that USA Today reports elevated levels of Cesium in rice as far as 30 miles from the Fukushima site. Starting this Tuesday, Koriyama City schools will start using this year’s locally-grown rice in the city in all school lunches. This is a region where 500,000 bcq/kg of radioactive cesium was found in the rice hay. (Reminder: the ‘safe’ level of consumption is 500 bcq/kg)

Response by the Japanese People

As teacher Ruthie Iida so poignantly writes,

“…Fukushima families that managed to survive the quake and tsunami intact have been torn apart by circumstance and necessity; children have spent nearly eight months already living apart from their fathers. Women that I talked to said that even families who have stayed together in Fukushima are often divided in their thinking, with mothers hoping to evacuate and fathers wanting to stick it out. I watched an NHK special last week on a small company in Fukushima run by a group of men who have been friends since childhood; they have evacuated their wives and children and are staying on in Fukushima to keep their company going. This seems to be a common pattern, with men choosing financial stability and loyalty to the workplace rather than taking the risk of starting fresh with their families. Either choice is a hard one, and residents of Fukushima City are on their own, with no financial assistance from the central government (they are outside of the evacuation zone), and the situation complicated by community ties to the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

As Saeko told me, “I wish I had more friends working with me to halt the spread of the nuclear industry, but so many in Fukushima work for the company itself, or have connections.”

There is tension between husbands and wives, tension among friends, tension between teachers and students, and tension among students. It’s obvious by now that the central government is unable and unwilling to take responsibility for the chaos that has ensued since the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi. They are busy making plans to build and sell new, improved nuclear reactors in third-world, energy-starved countries. One mother that I spoke with recalled her own incredulity when she realized that families in her city had literally been abandoned by the government.

”Is there anyone at all that you trust in the Prime Minister’s cabinet?” I asked.

Saeko and her friends looked at each other and agreed, “No, no-one. “

Following the pattern established at Occupy Wall Street, growing numbers of Japanese women are coming together and demanding a more honest, effective, and empathetic response from the Japanese Government. Their demands are simple and clear:

- Provide government assistance for the evacuation of children from Fukushima. The ‘official’ evacuation zone is only 12 miles, while serious radiation is being found three times that distance from the plants. Thousands of families, bearing mortgages and having no relatives in other regions, feel trapped and forgotten.

- Keep the TEPCO nuclear power plants off-line.

And if the Japanese government’s treatment of its own children has not been poor enough, they are about to go global with irresponsibility: to bail out Japan's fisheries, there is now a government effort to export canned fish with excessive levels of Cesium to third-world countries. The unbelievable video footage, via a French news service with English subtitles, is embedded below:



And it doesnt stop at fish; it includes crops from Fukushima:



What Can You Do?

Pressure the Japanese Government to swallow its stiff-necked pride, admit the extent of the catastrophe taking place, and cease forcing toxic food on its own and the world’s children in the name of national pride. Contact these men and express your outrage:

ICHIRO FUJISAKI
Ambassador of Japan to the United States　
2520 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20008
Phone: 202-238-6700
Email: jicc@ws.mofa.go.jp

Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations

H.E. Mr. Tsuneo NISHIDA
Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary
Permanent Representative of Japan
to the United Nations

and

H.E. Mr. Kazuo Kodama
Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary
Deputy Permanent Representative of Japan
to the United Nations

and

H.E. Mr. Jun Yamazaki
Ambassador

866 U.N. Plaza, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10017
Tel: (212) 223-4300
E-mail: japan.mission@dn.mofa.go.jp



.

A Veteran's Day Reality Check

It’s Veteran’s Day, so, in accordance with our Civil Religion, we will all be saying our obligatory “Thank-yous” in a variety of ways. The morning news broadcasts are showing crowds waving flags; WABC just asked us to thank everyone we see in uniform, and send a picture into the station; my facebook friends are posting all the right pictures honoring the day; and later today I will be singing in a community concert honoring our veterans.

If I sound I sound cynical, it’s not so much cynicism as it is frustration with the easy and superficial treatment we afford the larger questions of the American military experience and impact on human lives.

We will justify what we have done to a generation of young soldiers and their families by ‘thanking them’ for ‘preserving our liberties,’ or some such sentiment. We will honor them by calling them heroes, and teach our young children to look upon them with awe and reverence. We will convince ourselves that they are fighting for our freedoms, and that we should be grateful and support a continuation of their mission, as we always do.

Let's never forget what General Dwight D. Eisenhower had to say about war:

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

I understand that today is not to celebrate war, but to honor the veterans that sacrifice so much to serve in our nations’ military.

In the most recent conflicts, that sacrifice has included the following:

By August 2011, 4,683 young American soldiers – three-quarters of whom were under age 30 – were dead from our participation in “Operation Enduring Freedom” and “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” (names that sound like they were invented by a Ministry for Propaganda.) That's over four thousand fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters, cut down in the prime of their life.

32,799 more are injured: feet blown off from landmines, arms amputated, eyes missing, and severe burns; otherwise healthy young men and women now using wheelchairs and artificial limbs for life to function as normally as possible.

2,293 active duty military personnel have committed suicide in the last 10 years, and the rate of suicide is increasing at a troubling rate.

When our soldiers come home as veterans, their troubles do not magically end, no matter how many flags we wave:

One-third of all homeless adults in the United States are veterans. In the course of any give year, the V.A. estimates that 214,000 Veterans will be homeless. Upon returning home, the Unemployment rate is higher among veterans (12%) than it is among the general labor force (9%)…and keep in mind that homeless vets are not included in that statistic.

Up to 30% of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans return home suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or other forms of stress and war-induced mental illnesses. The backlog of disability claims at the Veteran’s Administration has topped 1,000,000 unprocessed requests for help by veterans.

These soldiers return to their home towns and families having seen the horror of war, and living with the guilt and conflicted loyalties of having visited those horrors upon others.

Do we really think that a “thank you,” a patriotic song, and wearing red white and blue makes this all better?

We convince ourselves that while war is terrible, it is necessary to preserve our freedoms, and that our young soldiers are fighting for “us.”

Yes, we tell ourselves that, and the old men who send our young people to fight tell our soldiers that, too. But in the current engagements, it is a horrible lie.

The Constitutional Right against Unreasonable Search and Seizure is not being preserved by soldiers routing out the Taliban. Rather, the same Congress that sends our youth to Asia has systematically used these conflicts as justification to degrade these rights themselves through the “Patriot Act.”

Our Right to Vote is not being enhanced by protecting government buildings in Baghdad. In fact, those politicians who favor continuing the conflicts seem to be the ones most likely to support voter-suppression legislation, now pending or enacted in almost half of the American states.

Our Freedom of Speech is not being guarded by sweeping for landmines in Kandahar. Instead, our federal government is using the conflicts to squash speech, from the jailing of soldier Bradley Manning, to ‘security concerns’ expressed at protests on American soil. Ironically, there are a growing cadre of veterans, sparked by Marine Shamar Thomas’ outrage at the NYPDs treatment of Occupy Wall Street protesters, that has organized to preserve Free Speech here in the United States, where it appears to be needed more so than in Iraq.

You really want to honor Veterans today?

Demand that your Congress and President restore Constitutional Rights.

Demand that they bring our soldiers back HOME.

Demand that they treat veterans for their injuries and suffering.

Demand an initiative that provides them with jobs.

Demand a solution to our housing crisis, so that our vets do not end up living in cardboard boxes.

And by all means, stop repeating the self-comforting lie that this is all necessary to ‘preserve our freedoms.’ The current conflicts have nothing to do with preserving our freedoms, and, in fact, have been used as an excuse to restrict them. The current conflict is destroying lives while enriching corporate industrial interests.

And no one has borne these costs greater than our young soldiers.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

Republicans Lose Critical Elections All Night

On ballot issues ranging from statewide elections to union bargaining rights and voter access, Republicans took a beating in all corners of the nation tonight.

Perhaps the most closely watched ballot initiative was in Ohio, where voters rejected “Issue #2,” a Republican-supported initiative that would have severely restricted the rights of unions to pursue collective bargaining agreements. The vote was not even close, as voters in this swing-state rejected Republican Governor John Kasich’s bill by more than a 2:1 margin.

At the same time, voters in Maine have decisively rejected conservatives efforts to eliminate same-day registration for voting by a margin of 60% - 40%.

And in Kentucky, a state that saw a Republican Senate win in a special election just last year, voters elected to give four out of five statewide offices to Democrats. And in New York's Suffolk County (Long Island), where Republicans made the County Executive race a "referendum" on President Obama, the Republican candidate was losing by a surprisingly large margin of 55%-45% with roughly 40% of all precinct reporting. Further south in Virginia, that state elected its first openly gay State Senator, Adam Ebbin.

[Update from the West: Russell Pearce, the Arizona state senator from the Republican-dominated suburbs of Phoenix who wrote Arizona's controversial immigration law lost, was recalled last night 55%-45%. The election was widely seen as a referendum on tough measures against illegal immigrants.]

Nationally, Republicans have waged multi-state campaigns to restrict collective bargaining rights, oppose gay rights, impede voters from accessing the polls, and fomenting anti-immigrant sentiment. In my home state of New Hampshire, the Republican-dominated legislature supported all such measures.

When one considers that off-year elections tend to result in losses for the President’s party….and considering that the lower turnouts associated with these off-year elections almost always benefit Republicans...and considering the continuing economic malaise – these results should send a very clear message to the GOP:

Americans may not be thrilled with how Obama has handled his Presidency so far - in fact, they may be downright unhappy, frustrated, and/or disappointed - but by even greater numbers they completely reject the agenda of the current extremist Republicans.

Onsite at #OccupyWallStreet: 10 Myths Debunked

Over 35 years ago, Jerry Mander wrote a landmark book titled, “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television.” One of those arguments was that with TV, the media now had the power to edit the variety of pictures they showed to the public, thus enabling them to create whatever ‘story’ they wanted based on what they chose to show.

Today, my partner and I finally got to Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan and joined in the Occupy Wall Street encampment. And I have to admit that what I saw was not at all what I had read or seen in the media reports. Thus, my post today is meant to debunk some of the myths I have heard over and over.

Myth #1: The Protesters have ‘taken over’ Manhattan’s Financial District and are interrupting and burdening normal activities.

Wrong. OWS “occupiers” are compactly situated in Zuccotti Park, a plaza about two short blocks north of Wall Street. It is plaza that is normally “occupied” by the public. For the last eight years I have taken student groups to Manhattan, and each year we have had lunch at the plaza. The sidewalks surrounding the plaza are clear, and there is no interruption of vehicular or pedestrian traffic. From as close as one block away, we had no idea that anything unusual was taking place.

Myth #2: OWS is destroying the “park.”

Those unfamiliar with the park may incorrectly imagine this to be a grassy oasis in the midst of lower Manhattan. But there is not a blade of grass in the ‘park’ – it is a 100% paved plaza. The tents that have been erected are not compacting soil, killing vegetation, or being secured into the ground with pegs; rather, they are simply weighted down by their contents on the pavement. The Occupiers have taken great care to protect a planter of flowers and the small locust trees that have been planted around the plaza.

Myth #3: These protesters are just a bunch of spoiled young brats.

No, actually the group is as amazingly diverse as New York City and America are. Occupants are black, white, asian, and latino. They are students, war veterans (actually, veterans are present in significant numbers), grandmas knitting in chairs, economists in ties & suit jackets, middle –aged laborers, and senior citizens. My favorite sign, held by one middle-aged man with a great sense of humor, read, “Another green-haired, deer-hunting, real estate developer in support of OWS.”

Myth #4: They may be diverse, but they’re simply whiners looking for handouts.

No, these people are heroes. With temperatures falling below 40 and wind whipping through lower Manhattan, it is very cold right now. It is also very cramped: with over 100 tents squeezed together, occupiers barely have room to stretch out. They lack most of the creature comforts that the majority of us take for granted and go home to each night, without complaint. Rather than whining, these people are enduring hardship for all of us – hardship that many Wall Street Executives have never experienced.

Myth #5: OWS has no clear focus or message.

Nonsense. The diverse interests that make up OWS have a consistent thread: – opposition to corporate domination of the American political system. This opposition manifests itself in various ways: opposition to fracking, nuclear power, and the Keystone pipeline; indictments of corporate refusals to hire veterans; student loan burdens, and the exclusion of such loans in bankruptcy proceedings; the imprisonment of Bradley Manning; the Citizens United Court ruling; the irony of lower wages in a time of higher corporate profits; and the capture of both major political parties by corporate donors. Diverse causes, yes…but all undergirded by the influence of large corporations in government decisions.

Myth #6: OWS is disorganized and aimless.

A mere walk through the Occupy Camp shows an incredible amount of organization: there is a large lending library, a medical tent, a welcome table, a press tent, on-site legal assistance, scheduled teach-ins, addiction assistance, a food tent, a sanitation crew, and an energy operation. OWS has managed to create a voluntary, need-based, consensus-embraced camp, in spite of Mayor Bloomberg’s cutting them off from heat & energy sources and sanitary facilities.

Disorganized? Lacking electricity, OWS participants are peddling used, stationery bicycles to create electricity that is being stored in car batteries to continue their computer feeds – an effort in which your Blogger participated. This is impressive creativity, not disorganization.

Myth #7: OWS is hurting New York’s image and its economy.

First of all, the exercise of Constitutional Rights is not subject to image niceties. However, it is fair to say that not only is OWS not hurting New York’s image and economy – it has become a tourist attraction in and of itself. Located in the shadow of the newly-rising World Trade Center Building #1, tourists ringed Zuccotti Park the entire time I was there, snapping pictures, taking videos, speaking with Occupiers. The mobile food carts that have always been located on the south edge of the park remain there and are thriving….as are an increased number of street vendors that are set up across the street on the east side of Broadway.

Myth #8: These people are really anti-capitalist Communists.

To be sure, there are some Occupiers sporting Che Guevara signs and anti-capitalist slogans. There are also a number selling t-shirts, pins, souvenirs, and even refrigerator magnets. More than anti-capitalist (many of them are engaging in entrepreneurial activities), they are anti-corporatist, pro democracy, and promoting new approaches to wealth disparity. More than anything, they value social responsibility and paying a laborer what he or she is worth – a very American principle that has been sorely upended in the last two decades.

Myth #9: The Occupation has become unsanitary and a health hazard.

There’s no doubt that Zuccotti Park is messy & cramped – though hardly more cramped than some 6 x 10 student hostel rooms I’ve stayed in. And tents and canvas and signs and wind and a “camping” situation that is now 6 weeks old will not look like Martha Stewart’s living room. But “Unsanitary?” No. OWS has instituted recycling, composting, and its own “Sanitation Department,” complete with cleansing agents, brooms, and a garbage collection squad. On each side of the Park, very large “Good Neighbor Policy” signs are posted, clearly spelling out behavioral expectations. Considering it is the City of New York that blocked the delivery of port-a-potties (Bette Midler offered to pay for them), it is rather disingenuous of them to then suggest that the plaza is ‘unsanitary.’ (Ironically, *this afternoon* it was announced that port-a-potties will be located on the loading dock of the United Teacher’s Federation building, about two blocks away)

Myth #10: Crimes are going unreported (said Bloomberg today), and it is a lawless community.

I just have to laugh at this one. Police cars, trucks and at least one Police Tower are parked side-by-side along the north side of the park. TV trucks, with cameras looking down from twenty-foot-high booms, line the south side. Police stand on the sidewalks on all sides. There are more police at Zuccotti Park per square foot than in a Dunkin Donuts parking lot. To suggest that Zuccotti Park is crime-ridden in the face of the videos, cameras, cell phones, TV crews, and round-the-clock police presence, would tell us more about the ineffectiveness of the NYPD than about the Occupiers.

TD Bank Announces Higher Customer Fees

In the controversies that have swirled around bailouts, foreclosures, customer fees and executive pay, one bank that has avoided much attention is TD Bank. The parent company, more properly known as “Toronto-Dominion Bank” (hence, “TD”), is headquartered in Canada, and has tended to play by more traditional banking rules and avoided American media attention.

But today, one day after the Bank of America aborted their plan to increase customer fees, TD Bank sent letters to depositors announcing an increase in the types and amounts of customer fees that they will be charging.

We are in an era of financial crisis, in which the largest financial institutions have been declared to be “too big to fail.” And yet, TD Bank is a glaring example of a multinational bank that is the result of the mergers or purchase of dozens of once-small, community banks. At least 39 once-independent financial and insurance institutions in the United States alone (listed at the end of this post) have been gobbled up by this behemoth.

Today, TD Bank is the 6th largest bank in North America, and the second largest in Canada. Over 41% of the company is owned by Financial investment houses and other banks. It is the largest bank in Maine (controlling over 40% of the market share); within 1% of the being the largest bank in Vermont (with a 21% market share); the second largest in New Hampshire (with a 19% share, it is larger than Bank of America); the third largest in New Jersey; and fifth largest in Massachusetts.

In 2009, due to “industry trends” and the global financial crisis, Toronto-Dominion Bank responded by cutting Chief Executive Ed Clark’s salary by 5.5%, to a “mere” $10.4 million Canadian Dollars ($9.8 million US). This, I guess, should make us feel better about large banks.
Meanwhile, Yahoo Financial Analysts predict that TD Banks profit will increase 354% by this month next year.

Part of that profit-enhancing plan includes the following new fees on customers:

Money Orders: increase from $4 to $5

Bank Checks: increase from $4 to $8

Incoming Wire Fee: increase from Free to $15

Stop Payment Fee: increase from $25 to $30

Printed Check images with statements: increase from Free to $24 per year

Telephone or online bill pay: increase from Free to $9.00 per transaction for all transactions beyond 6 per month

Last year TD Bank was the subject of a class action suit for the manner in which it charges overdraft fees. Customer Donald Kimenker claimed in his complaint that TD Bank “deceptively reorders” an account’s debit card transactions in its computers to maximize overdraft fees. Such fees are processed from highest dollar amount to lowest, rather than in chronological order of purchases, according to the complaint.

“Charging the largest debits against available funds ahead of smaller debits results in more overdraft fees, as available funds decrease faster than they would otherwise, thereby generating hundreds of millions of dollars in additional overdraft fees for TD Bank,” according to the complaint.

Kimenker claims that a customer with $1,150 in an account who makes six debit transactions totaling $180 and then writes a $1,100 rent check would have overdrawn her account by $130. Rather than charging a single $35 overdraft fee on the rent check, TD Bank processes the rent check and then charges five separate $35 fees for a total of $175, according to the complaint.


It’s never too late to Move Your Money to a Credit Union

************

The once-local institutions that have been swallowed into TD Bank are as follows:

Portland Savings Bank, People’s Savings Bank (Lewiston, Maine), Rockland Savings Bank, Penobscot Savings, Waterville Savings, Franklin County Savings Bank (St. Albans VT), Lamoille County Bank & Trust Company, Woodstock National Bank, First Vermont Bank & Trust Company, Granite Savings Bank & Trust Company, Howard National Bank & Trust Company (Burlington, VT), Northeast Leasing, six branches of Casco Northern Bank, First Coastal Bank (Portsmouth, NH) Merchants National Bank (Dover NH), First National Bank of Portsmouth (NH), Oxford Bank & Trust Company, Mid-Maine Savings (Auburn, Maine), Bankcore, Inc / North Conway Bank (NH), Bank of New Hampshire, Family Bancorp (Haverhill, Mass.), Atlantic Bancorp (Portland, Maine), CFX (Keene, NH, originally Cheshire County Savings Bank,), Springfield Institution for Savings Springfield, Mass.). Farmington National Bank (NH), Evergreen National Bank (Glens Falls NY), Andover Bancorp (Mass.), 17 branches of MetroWest (Mass.), Ipswich Bancshares (Mass.), Warren Bancorp (MA), Community Insurance Agencies, Inc., Bancorp Connecticut, American Savings Bank (New Britain, CT), Cape Cod Bank & Trust, Boston Federal Savings Bank, acquired Hudson United Bank (Mahwah, NJ), Middletown Savings Bank (NY), Interchange Financial Services Corp (NJ), Boothby & Bartlett Insurance (Waterville, Maine), and Commerce Bancorp (Cherry Hill, NJ)


.

Move Your Money Campaign: It's a Wonderful Life Ad

Bank Transfer Day

Move Your Money Project



.