Remember the justification the big banks are using for possibly colluding to charge customers new fees, just for the convenience of using their debit cards to spend their own money? "Diminished profits," they say, because now they can't charge exorbitant rates to merchants whose customers use those debit cards, rates than end up costing the consumer about $230 annually in passed-on price increases.

They're going to get that money from us some how or another, because they are just struggling on the margins, those poor behemoth banks, barely able to make payroll. Or so they'd have us believe.

Bank of America reported a $6.2 billion profit for the third quarter as gains from the sale of assets like its stake in the China Construction Bank and positive accounting changes outweighed weaker results in its trading business and continued losses in its huge mortgage portfolio.[...] The other major commercial banks that have reported earnings in recent days posted profits of around $4 billion each. Both Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase benefited from a $1.9 billion increase from the accounting change applied to the declining value of their company debt, posting profits of $3.8 billion and $4.3 billion, respectively. Wells Fargo had record earnings of $4.1 billion despite a 6 percent drop in revenue.

But they desperately need your $5 a month to stay afloat.