17 November—Our friendly brick-and-mortar banks are charging consumers interest on mortgages that hasn’t been as high as it is now in 20 years, interest on car loans in 14 years, and so on. But what kind of interest are the self-proclaimed community-minded banks paying the faithful depositors in their communities on passbook accounts and certificates of deposit?

There’s a Vulgar Latin word for it on the street, in the banking business, and on The Street: bupkes. That’s what the greedy bastards are paying you to use your money to clean up for themselves. Bupkes and more bupkes. (Yes, Vulgar Latin was a real language, a.k.a. Late, Colloquial, or Popular Latin. I won’t bore you with the details or the Judeo-Hellenic etymology of “bupkes,” which means “absolutely nothing” in Yinglish.)

I just got an email invitation from a very friendly, community-minded local mutual savings bank: “Grow Your Savings with our CD Specials [Sic. “our” isn’t capitalized in the promotion.] With two terms that will fit your financial goals,” it boasts, “5 Month CD: 1.00% APY/11 Month CD: 2.00% APY/Put your savings to work with our 11 month & 5 month CD specials that will work hard for you.”

Is that tempting or what? The two terms certainly won’t fit most savers’ financial goals and won’t even keep up with inflation. As for the CD specials working hard for me, it’s more like they’re soft quitting.

In all fairness, that promo is rather less niggardly than what most of the friendly local, community-minded banks are paying on CDs, a whopping 0.10 percent (i.e., one-tenth of one percent) for six months, and a double-whopping 0.20 percent (i.e., two-tenths of one percent) for a year. Underwhelming, isn’t it?

It’s not just the local banks that are screwing depositors, to be sure. The huge national and international buggers are at least as niggardly and rather more profitable. I can’t imagine why anyone without special needs would want to do business with a big impersonal bank in the first place. But neither can I imagine why anyone with half a brain would support Donald Trump for anything.

Long- and short-term depositors and savers can do considerably better with online banking, in all events, and with the same protection of federal deposit insurance. But why should that be necessary?

So what’s to blame for this particular screwing of the great unwashed? Well, it seems most banks don’t need more cash because they already have too much on hand that’s not doing anything for their bottom lines, which never fail to support the lifestyles of the right people even at the worst of times. And who’s to blame for that? Ultimately, as usual in financial matters, the fault lies with the counterproductive Federal Reserve that fiddles with the money supply for any reason that strikes its fancy.

Why is it no surprise, then, that the Federal Reserve governors—the people who control the money—are all bankers?

A mama doe and her two adolescent fawns I’ve been following since their spotted infancy are contentedly grazing in the meadow now. Daddy has been around, too. They’re all pretty safe if they stay here, so I’ll end on that positive note . . .