I'm the best bank in the world

Well, not just me - my wife should be included in that. Especially because she used to work in a bank (as a teller). So how can I say, "I'm the best banker in the world?" Because I'm able to offer the best rate of return on investment that I've ever seen advertised. If I put my money in the bank (which to me is like a loan to them), they give me much less than 1% interest plus there are service charges added. When I "lend" money to the bank, I don't charge them service fees. Plus, I go to them to do my business (either in person or to their website). They only came to our house once to finalize a loan.

I'll bet you are a better banker than the banks in your town, too. You and I are also better lenders than credit card companies. Their interest rates are even worse than the rates bank loans get. There is a new trend in credit cards where you put a certain amount of money into a card and cannot spend more than the amount you've put in the card. That sounds like a good idea and would mean you wouldn't be borrowing money from the credit card company and wouldn't be paying them interest. So, how will they make money? Well for one thing, I'll bet there would be fees associated with it. For another thing, they will have your money until you spend it. Do you think you will get interest on the money you "store" on your card? No way.

The other funny thing about banks (I have to consider it funny or I'd cry) is that they seem to have tired of being just a bank. Originally, banks kept our money safe, offered checking accounts for our money (with no interest) and accepted checks that we deposited from other people into our accounts. They also allowed us to have savings accounts where we got interest. The interest rate used to be pretty much 5% everywhere and rarely changed. Now, the lines between banks, investment funds and insurance companies have blurred. The banks weren't making enough money just being banks. Now they charge service fees and charge for investment advice.

This all reminds me of the law of thermodynamics. We need to formulate the three laws of common people dealing with banks and credit card companies:

1) The first law of thermodynamics states that the increase in internal energy of an object is equal to the amount heat added to the object minus the amount of work done by the object. Translated to our first law of common people dealing with banks and credit card companies this becomes:

The amount of money you have is the amount of money you earned minus anything the bank or credit card company needs to keep going

2) The second law of thermodynamics states that when two objects interact by transferring energy or material, the total amount of entropy will almost always increase and will never decrease. Translated to our second law of common people dealing with banks and credit card companies this becomes:

Whenever a common person deals with a bank or credit card company, the amount of money they own will almost always decrease and will never increase

3) The third law of thermodynamics states that as the temperature of an object reaches a temperature of absolute zero, its entropy approaches a constant value (typically zero). Translated to our third law of common people dealing with banks and credit card companies this becomes:

The amount of money a common person has approaches a constant (typically zero) the longer the person interacts with a bank or credit card company

That's it for my three laws. There is one more corollary to these three laws. Here it is:

Dealing with a bank or credit card company is a lot like dealing with a gambling casino