Bank of America has reversed its decision to charge debit users a monthly fee. Rita McGrath takes a first pass at a "case study in tone deafness":
Remember when airlines first introduced baggage fees? There were howls of protest. People swore they were going to take their business and go … where? Almost every company in the industry grabbed the opportunity for some ancillary revenue and introduced baggage fees around the same time. Because all the competitors were doing it, passengers had little choice but to accept the fees. … Unfortunately for Bank of America, the other banks took one look at the angry hordes and decided to back off. The revenue raised was simply not worth the risk of customer anger. So B of A was stranded with a vastly unpopular program in a very competitive, low-interest-rate market where having lots of deposits is a competitive advantage.
Greg Sargent assesses the role of OWS:
Even if there’s no clear evidence Occupy Wall Street was directly responsible for [the] decision, chalk this up as another potential data point in the way the protests — as well as the resurgence in populism and the intense larger debate over inequality and Wall Street accountability they have spawned — are shifting the overall landscape.
Dave Weigel has more.
The Dish 