Sitting in the hand of God
Black Cloud
pushes
blows
Now sitting at the edge
Holy Spirit
pushes
blows
Now safely in the middle
Until the next storm comes through
Friday, December 30, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Patience
"Patience is a virtue" I am beginning to detest that phrase. I think I've developed enough of this virtue to last a life time. Apparently God doesn't think so. He is still requiring me to pull out more patience to get through this very complicated and long lasting purchase of a house. I just want a home. A home that I can have family over whenever they can come. A home where I can invite people to a Bible study and have plenty of room. A home where I can love the pets that God gave me to love. I'm going into pet withdrawal, entertaining withdrawal, space withdrawal and PATIENCE withdrawal. "I've" had enough. God hasn't. He has a plan that I haven't figured out yet so I guess I'll pull out my patience virtue a little longer because God is in control and I'm not.
Friday, December 16, 2011
My brain on overload
So, eventhough I've got TONS to do with moving/buying a house on the 23rd and getting ready for Christmas, I still find time for my wacky thoughts...........Where I work, we use A LOT of white-out. Scanners can not read messy handwriting but people need their transactions posted correctly so we have to white-out and rewrite numbers constantly. That brings me to the past-tense of white-out. It sounds funny to say, "I whited it out already." It also sounds completely wrong to say, "I white outed it already." Or, a really strange past tense could be "It was 'whit" out." Practice rolling those words off your tongue, it's good exercise! I've done a little researching on this issue. Depending on the place in the sentence, "whited" could be a verbal---a noun that has been changed to an action verb by adding an ending. "I whited it out." It could also serve as an adjective or adverb, depending on how you chose to phrase the statement. What are some other strange word combinations you have come across that there doesn't seem to be a "rule" or pattern for? I find this stuff interesting so bring it on!
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
New concepts...to some people
So, here comes another soap-box moment. Since I started working for a bank over a year ago, I have learned that MANY things I assumed were true about banks were completely false. I am sharing an article written by someone that articulates these assumptions much better than me! Don't feel obligated to try to read the whole thing, just scan through and pick some interesting ones out to think about!!!
Free Checking Isn't Cheap for Banks
By: Victoria Finkle
American Banker, 12/9/2011 -- For banks, free checking is many things — but it isn't free.
Despite a public perception that taking deposits is a can't-lose business, maintaining a checking account costs banks between $250 to $450 a year. In many cases those accounts aren't even turning a profit.
The average checking account cost banks $349 in 2011, says Mike Moebs of Moebs Services Inc, a research firm. But the average revenue per account is just $268, implying a loss of $81.
That equation helps explain the thinking behind some of the recent, highly-controversial steps banks have taken to raise the prices their customers pay for checking accounts.
"Banking is a subsidized business," says Hank Israel, a partner at New York-based consulting firm Novantas LLC, pointing to the fact that the profitable accounts balance out those accounts maintained at a loss. "When the plane flies full, coach covers the whole cost and first class is the profit," Israel says.
But thanks to new regulations, including the Durbin amendment in the Dodd-Frank Act, which caps fees on debit interchange, the number of profitable customers is falling. Those fee caps, which went into effect on Oct. 1, are expected to eliminate more than $5 billion in annual bank revenues.
"Since Durbin, the coach class isn't breaking even, so the profit [on checking accounts] is being cross-subsidized by [deposit] balances, and with interest rates so low that's not covering costs either," Israel says.
He estimates that one third to one half of checking account customers are now unprofitable for banks.
The single biggest cost, Israel says, is the cost of branch branches and ATMs. Another 20% is spent on back-office functions, including maintaining call centers and payment operations.
Overhead costs, including executive salaries along with security and compliance expenses, also account for about 20% of the costs. The last 10% covers product development and sales.
The mismatch between the costs and the returns of checking accounts is untenable for the industry at large. But as banks consider what the new regulatory landscape means for their account offerings, analysts caution that the solution is not likely to be one-size-fits-all.
This is in part because the costs to maintain checking accounts can vary widely across institutions of various sizes.
For the largest banks with assets greater than $50 billion, the average checking account costs between $350 and $450 a year, according to Moebs. Overhead, or the institutional costs not associated with a specific division or service, is what weighs down some of the largest banks, making it more difficult to cut costs, he says.
But he adds that for some of the smaller banks with less than $5 billion in assets, the costs are much lower — around $175 to $250 a year.
The sweet spot for breaking even or squeezing out a profit on free checking is likely to be among the mid-sized institutions.
The issue comes down to efficiency and economies of scale. The banks likely to fare best are those that are big enough to support a sizeable base of checking account customers, but which are not loaded down with ancillary costs.
"The community banks and the credit unions will offer free checking and will get revenue — the major item is from overdrafts — and that revenue and other revenue, such as transaction revenue, it's enough for them to break even," says Moebs.
For those institutions, offering free checking brings more customers in the door — giving the banks an opportunity to turn a profit eventually.
"They've got a free name and address and telephone number and hopefully an email address," he adds. "What that they can do is cross-sell and get more business. That's the true purpose free checking."
Such a strategy is not likely to be sustainable for megabanks like Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. Those are the companies that reacted to the Durbin amendment by adding or raising monthly checking account fees, or by trying to start charging customers for using their debit cards.
"The big guys are operating checking at a loss," says Moebs. "The big guys have to get out of this business because with [cuts to] interchange and overhead revenue, they don't have enough to cover their costs."
But Israel of Novantas cautions that free checking may not be a winning solution for all smaller institutions. He notes that those customers who are likely transferring accounts in the current environment are more likely to be the unprofitable customers.
"Based on the work that we've done, the accounts in motion tend to be lower in deposit levels and less complex relationships," in part because those accounts are the easiest to move from one financial institution to another, says Israel.
In addition, "with so many offers on the market as larger banks try to improve account quality, only the accounts impacted by [checking account] fees are moving banks," he says.
Those checking account fees are designed to recoup the costs of serving customers who keep small deposits with the bank, complete few transactions each month, or have not bought other, higher-margin bank services like mortgage loans.
If small banks offer free checking without considering these factors, there could be a "deluge of customers seeking free checking whether or not [the bank has] capacity to service them along with their more profitable customers," Israel says. "They can definitely move volume, but are they moving value?"
Nevertheless, some "small challenger banks… are really in a position to acquire these customers. They have lower cost structures because they either organize themselves online or have very concentrated focuses," says Israel.
The migration to online and mobile banking could be the great equalizer for institutions of various sizes, as more customers look to the internet and smart phones to do their banking.
A 2010 study by consulting firm Javelin Strategy & Research found that the average cost per bank transaction varied hugely depending on how the customer made the transaction.
Javelin estimated that an in-person transaction at a physical branch cost a bank $4.25, while a phone call to a call center or the use of an ATM cost $1.29 or $1.25, respectively.
By comparison, mobile banking transactions cost just 10 cents, and online banking transactions cost just 19 cents.
Overall, Javelin found that customers not using online banking cost banks $359 a year. That was $167 more than the annual cost of $192 for customers using online banking services.
If banks can reduce the number of customer service calls associated with online banking, the cost differences could be even greater, says Mark Schwanhausser, a senior analyst with Javelin.
"If we can move customer service representative calls back to self-service online banking, something that became an added cost [with online banking] becomes an added efficiency," Schwanhausser says.
Free Checking Isn't Cheap for Banks
By: Victoria Finkle
American Banker, 12/9/2011 -- For banks, free checking is many things — but it isn't free.
Despite a public perception that taking deposits is a can't-lose business, maintaining a checking account costs banks between $250 to $450 a year. In many cases those accounts aren't even turning a profit.
The average checking account cost banks $349 in 2011, says Mike Moebs of Moebs Services Inc, a research firm. But the average revenue per account is just $268, implying a loss of $81.
That equation helps explain the thinking behind some of the recent, highly-controversial steps banks have taken to raise the prices their customers pay for checking accounts.
"Banking is a subsidized business," says Hank Israel, a partner at New York-based consulting firm Novantas LLC, pointing to the fact that the profitable accounts balance out those accounts maintained at a loss. "When the plane flies full, coach covers the whole cost and first class is the profit," Israel says.
But thanks to new regulations, including the Durbin amendment in the Dodd-Frank Act, which caps fees on debit interchange, the number of profitable customers is falling. Those fee caps, which went into effect on Oct. 1, are expected to eliminate more than $5 billion in annual bank revenues.
"Since Durbin, the coach class isn't breaking even, so the profit [on checking accounts] is being cross-subsidized by [deposit] balances, and with interest rates so low that's not covering costs either," Israel says.
He estimates that one third to one half of checking account customers are now unprofitable for banks.
The single biggest cost, Israel says, is the cost of branch branches and ATMs. Another 20% is spent on back-office functions, including maintaining call centers and payment operations.
Overhead costs, including executive salaries along with security and compliance expenses, also account for about 20% of the costs. The last 10% covers product development and sales.
The mismatch between the costs and the returns of checking accounts is untenable for the industry at large. But as banks consider what the new regulatory landscape means for their account offerings, analysts caution that the solution is not likely to be one-size-fits-all.
This is in part because the costs to maintain checking accounts can vary widely across institutions of various sizes.
For the largest banks with assets greater than $50 billion, the average checking account costs between $350 and $450 a year, according to Moebs. Overhead, or the institutional costs not associated with a specific division or service, is what weighs down some of the largest banks, making it more difficult to cut costs, he says.
But he adds that for some of the smaller banks with less than $5 billion in assets, the costs are much lower — around $175 to $250 a year.
The sweet spot for breaking even or squeezing out a profit on free checking is likely to be among the mid-sized institutions.
The issue comes down to efficiency and economies of scale. The banks likely to fare best are those that are big enough to support a sizeable base of checking account customers, but which are not loaded down with ancillary costs.
"The community banks and the credit unions will offer free checking and will get revenue — the major item is from overdrafts — and that revenue and other revenue, such as transaction revenue, it's enough for them to break even," says Moebs.
For those institutions, offering free checking brings more customers in the door — giving the banks an opportunity to turn a profit eventually.
"They've got a free name and address and telephone number and hopefully an email address," he adds. "What that they can do is cross-sell and get more business. That's the true purpose free checking."
Such a strategy is not likely to be sustainable for megabanks like Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. Those are the companies that reacted to the Durbin amendment by adding or raising monthly checking account fees, or by trying to start charging customers for using their debit cards.
"The big guys are operating checking at a loss," says Moebs. "The big guys have to get out of this business because with [cuts to] interchange and overhead revenue, they don't have enough to cover their costs."
But Israel of Novantas cautions that free checking may not be a winning solution for all smaller institutions. He notes that those customers who are likely transferring accounts in the current environment are more likely to be the unprofitable customers.
"Based on the work that we've done, the accounts in motion tend to be lower in deposit levels and less complex relationships," in part because those accounts are the easiest to move from one financial institution to another, says Israel.
In addition, "with so many offers on the market as larger banks try to improve account quality, only the accounts impacted by [checking account] fees are moving banks," he says.
Those checking account fees are designed to recoup the costs of serving customers who keep small deposits with the bank, complete few transactions each month, or have not bought other, higher-margin bank services like mortgage loans.
If small banks offer free checking without considering these factors, there could be a "deluge of customers seeking free checking whether or not [the bank has] capacity to service them along with their more profitable customers," Israel says. "They can definitely move volume, but are they moving value?"
Nevertheless, some "small challenger banks… are really in a position to acquire these customers. They have lower cost structures because they either organize themselves online or have very concentrated focuses," says Israel.
The migration to online and mobile banking could be the great equalizer for institutions of various sizes, as more customers look to the internet and smart phones to do their banking.
A 2010 study by consulting firm Javelin Strategy & Research found that the average cost per bank transaction varied hugely depending on how the customer made the transaction.
Javelin estimated that an in-person transaction at a physical branch cost a bank $4.25, while a phone call to a call center or the use of an ATM cost $1.29 or $1.25, respectively.
By comparison, mobile banking transactions cost just 10 cents, and online banking transactions cost just 19 cents.
Overall, Javelin found that customers not using online banking cost banks $359 a year. That was $167 more than the annual cost of $192 for customers using online banking services.
If banks can reduce the number of customer service calls associated with online banking, the cost differences could be even greater, says Mark Schwanhausser, a senior analyst with Javelin.
"If we can move customer service representative calls back to self-service online banking, something that became an added cost [with online banking] becomes an added efficiency," Schwanhausser says.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Traditions vs. Callings
I've tried not to get on my "soap box" but this "post" has been on my heart for quite some time. I've been searching for the best way to express this and Sunday morning, Pastor Scott helped me put the words together. One of his points was doing things because God calls us to do them, even if it means going against "Traditions." With Terry being in his third year of Seminary, I get asked A LOT-- "Where is he going on his internship?" "What church will he be serving?" That is the tradition of seminary--three years of study, one year of internship and then on to a church. That's a fine tradition if that is what God is calling someone to do. When we say that we feel God calling us to stay in the Twin Cities area to serve in urban ministry/urban outreach, people get taken aback. I've even had someone say that not taking an internship and church was wasting the years at Seminary. How is serving the people that need God's love the most a waste? We may not know "how" God is going to lead us in this area. We may not have many details at all. We just know that we are supposed to stay in this area and be ready to serve in how God leads us. That may not be tradition but it's God calling and we are doing our best to listen and follow. There...'nuf said, off my soap box....:-)
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Contemplative......
I find myself in an awkward time of the year. I want to spend time contemplating the celebration of Christ's birthday. I enjoy thinking of the fond memories of Christmas' of the past. The problem this year is that we are moving, like, closing on the house on December 23rd.....How is that for timing? Do I decorate for Christmas; how do I NOT decorate for celebrating Christ's birthday? I want to spend time enjoying this season but I HAVE SOOOO MUCH TO DO. It's hard for me to be in both a "thinking/contemplative" season and a "running myself crazy with stuff to do" season. We went to see an adorable "Christmasy" type play today and that got my brain to slow down and enjoy the moments. We also went to a needy neighborhood and provided food and clothes to MANY people, some of which were homeless. While standing outside on a street corner, it started to snow and snow and snow......Even facing the coldness, the people we were serving were singing stanzas of various Christmas Carols. If they can be joyful in the snow, I should also be! (Even though I could live my whole life without seeing a snowflake and never miss it.) We called the big wet snowflakes coming down "flakes of sugar sweetening up the hot cocoa." It was a blessed afternoon. So, in the next few weeks, I'm going to try to remember both the play we saw and the needy people of the Phillip's neighborhood. Hopefully I will remember these moments when I start running around frantically trying to accomplish everything at once.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
It's as simple as that!
In Bible study this morning, we were studying what verses pertain to "the law" and what verses pertain the "the Gospel." One person brought up that the Israelites needed to make sacrifices for all their past sins and as soon as they finished one sacrifice, they would sin again so more sacrifices would need to be made. It was a never ending cycle. Then Jesus Christ came and made the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, both the past sins and the sins of the future. For those who believe this, it's as simple as that! No heavy thinking needed here!
Friday, November 25, 2011
What was I thinking?
Last year, the day before Thanksgiving, I worked my regular day and then came home and made lefse. For those of you that know anything about lefse, it's quite the project but soooooo worth it. I did this while also taking full time college classes, homeschooling Z. and working full time at a bank. I definitely wasn't "thinking", I was "doing." I was going through the motions of getting things checked off of my list. I didn't have time to think. No deep thinking on philosophical views; no deep thinking on theology/doctrinal views; just praying that God continues to give me the strength to keep "doing." Now, I'm still homeschooling Z. and working at the bank but I'm done with college (YEAH!!!! I have "that piece of paper"!!). And I now have time to "think" but I can't seem to find as much time to "do", like make lefse....So what is better, no time to think but get tons of stuff done or have time to contemplate but get little done.....mmmmm I think I'm thinking too much now.....What was I thinking?!
Monday, November 21, 2011
Quips from someone else's brain
Although I don't agree with Rene' Descartes "philosophy and theology" of life, I have always found his ideas intriguing. The most famous one is "I think, therefore I am." He was trying to reason out if he (and each of us individually) was actually a live, individual. He wondered if he was really REAL. How could he prove that the person he thought of as himself was an actual person and not a figment of someone else's imagination. Was he just a character in someone else's idea? Did he REALLY exist? Whenever I decide to pick up some of his writings, I marvel at how deep he thinks about things. He finally comes to the conclusion that because he can think (make decisions, change events...) he must be an actual person, separate identity, REAL individual. If I lose myself in my head, I could end up with the same questions but I just have to remember that God didn't create us as imaginary beings to fill up his world. HE created us to be in HIS image and for that, we must be real. Another favorite author of mine is C.S. Lewis. He tends to have the same way of deep thinking but comes to some very different conclusions. I'll share my favorites from C.S. Lewis another time. I wouldn't want to waste all this wonderful thinking on one post!
Friday, November 18, 2011
More on Names......
I have a new nephew whose name is Jaydee. I haven't asked how they came up with that name but I'm guessing it's a combination of their names--first initals J and D. I couldn't find Jaydee in a name dictionary but I think it's cool to come up with unique names. I wonder if he'll get a lot of questions through out his life about where his name came from. I work with someone that has a different name and he constantly gets odd comments and questions. Is it ok to make comments about someone's name? Is there a non-offensive way to ask? I'm always curious about things but I never want to offend anyone so I tend not to ask people. I'll look things up, research and try to figure something out before asking. Sometimes I find out that if I had just asked, I would have found the answer sooner but then I wouldn't have gained the knowledge that I obtained by doing the research. So, I'll just assume Jaydee is from J.D. until I'm told otherwise........
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
The Letter "C"
Why is there a letter C? It doesn't have it's own sound. It can either sound like a "k" or sound like an "s" or be combined with an "h" to make "ch". If we need a letter c, why can't it just make the "ch" as it's own sound? This changing the alphabet could lead to getting rid of "X". It also doesn't have it's own sound; it can sound like a lot of different letter combinations. In case you're wondering, yes, I have spent a fair amount of time in my life analyzing the alphabet and the usefulness/uselessness of several letters. I like to know "why" in most areas of life. Just because something has always been done a certain way doesn't mean that it's the best way. I have had many people ask me through out life how I figured something out...it's because I ask why. If I can figure out "why," I can usually figure out "how". The one thing I haven't figured out is how to get rid of the letter C......
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
What makes a name a name.....
When I hear someone name their baby with a name that is "different" I have wondered why we think it's different. I've heard some people comment that "that's not a name, that's an object/thing/word." But all "names" have a meaning so, were they "words" that got used as names so often that they become names instead of words? "Diane" in Greek means divine (I won't comment any further on that meaning.....) "Terence" is Olde English coming from the clan Terrance. Was "Diane" used as a word for divine? If it was never a "word", how did it get the "meaning"....... I've read a blog from a mother that names their children after very specific "things". At first I thought that was strange and when I read her children's names, I thought--those are just words, not names but maybe those "word/names" will become so common as names that they won't be words anymore.......just names. How's that for circular thinking?
Is Blue really Blue?
How do we know that everyone sees colors the same way? We already know that some people are "color" blind but does everybody see colors a little differently? My blue and your blue might be different.......Only God's view of "blue" is the perfect interpretation. These are the kind of questions and ideas I think about in the randomness of the day.
Monday, November 14, 2011
The beginning.......
I've often wanted to share the little thoughts and ideas that come to me. Sometimes I share these on facebook but so many people just "don't get it." I don't know if anyone will "get it" on a blog but it is worth a try!
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