Fotos de memorial day

1. Why are US bank payments so slow? Transfers using the Automated Clearing House — the legacy system invented in the 1970s — can take days to complete, partly because it lumps transactions together and processes them at specific intervals. Newer instant-payment tools like Venmo are fine when you’re doing something like buying a hot dog or sending cash to a friend who uses the same app. But when you want to pull money back off those platforms, the funds grind their way through the legacy banking system before they show up in your account. The same thing happens when you receive a paycheck or pay a utility bill. A survey by American Banker in 2021 found that 21% of consumers had abandoned a financial transaction or account opening because it took too long. The current slow transfers often lead to late fees for missed bill payments or penalties for overdrafts. So for the millions of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, the delays can be costly.
   
2. Why can’t banks solve the problem themselves? All the income from those overdraft and other fees meant banks had little incentive to come up with a faster solution on their own. A bank can also temporarily sweep transfer funds held overnight into short-term securities to earn a yield. US banks have the right to hold your money for as long as 10 days for the purpose of making sure it is not the proceeds of a crime. A group of big US banks did come up with a rapid-settlement platform of their own, known as real-time payments, or RTP, but have marketed it mainly to business customers because they already offer a peer-to-peer system called Zelle for consumers. While this is sold to consumers as a real-time transfer service, in some instances the transfers are settled over the legacy batch system and the banks in effect extend short-term credit until those payments settle.
   
3. How will FedNow work? FedNow will offer instantaneous payments from one bank account to another 24/7, all year round. Because payment occurs instantly, customers will know right away if the transfer has completed or failed. The person receiving the funds will be able to use them almost instantly. The flip side is that, unlike a check, you can’t put a hold on a FedNow payment or cancel it. Once you’ve made that payment, the money is gone for good. And unlike a credit card, there are no rewards, points or fraud protection.
   
4. What are the fees for using FedNow? Payments will cost a few cents, but it’s not clear who will pick up the tab — the bank or the customer. With ACH, it’s often the bank that pays the fees unless the customer is making a large number of payments.
   
5. How can I sign up for FedNow? You can’t, as there won’t be a FedNow consumer app. First your bank will need to sign up to use the system and plug it into the back end of its own banking website or app.
   
6. Will this kill providers like Venmo or Cash App? That’s certainly not the goal: The Fed has always said consumers are best served by a competitive payments landscape with multiple players. FedNow will both complement and compete with existing electronic payment systems. Almost 10,000 US banks and credit unions will be able to join and use FedNow, giving the country’s patchwork of regional lenders and credit unions a better chance of vying for payments business against giant banks and financial technology firms.
   
7. Is the US leading the way here? Europe’s Single Euro Payments Area already allows instant payments across 36 countries, while the UK introduced instant payments in 2008. One limitation of FedNow is that it doesn’t allow for “pull” transactions in which utilities, phone companies or other service providers can trigger a payment from a customer account on an agreed date, a capability that makes it easier for those businesses to manage their cash flow.
   
8. How soon will my bank offer FedNow? Fed officials expect the adoption to be slow and gradual, and it could be many months before FedNow shows up on a bank’s website or app. While there were just over 100 banks in a FedNow pilot program, there’s no obligation to use the service and it’s not known how many will choose to do so.
   
9. Will FedNow invade my privacy? Since this will be a bank-operated system, the same privacy infrastructure that exists around other payment systems will apply. Like it or not, your basic information is all over your non-cash payments, from your credit cards to your bank checks, which have a lot of information about you written right on them. If you want more privacy, stick with dollar bills.
   
10. Is FedNow a step toward a digital currency? Various commentators on social media have suggested FedNow is a scheme to phase out physical cash or part of a plan to introduce an official, government-backed digital currency to replace the dollar. (Some politicians, including long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have seized on some of those talking points, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has railed against the idea of a central bank digital currency in the US.) The Fed denies this, saying the new payments service will simply be a faster way to move deposits and that it will continue to provide notes and coins for those who still want to use cash. The people most responsible for the declining use of hard currency are consumers themselves. Commercial payments in cash dropped to about 20% in the pandemic year of 2020 from 30% in 2017.
    

In Deutschland’s realm, Dürer’s truth unfurled, Reformation’s fire, chaos hurled. Yet Shakespeare’s words, in England’s sway, Illuminate the human’s timeless play. 

She sits in the attitude of Rodin’s “Penseur,” and still holds in her hands the compasses, symbols of measurement, by which science will conquer the world. Around her are all the emblems of constructive action: a saw, a plane, pincers, and those 2 prime elements in solid geometry, the sphere and the dodecahedron.
And yet, all these aids to construction are abandoned. And she sits there, brooding on the futility of human effort. Her obsessive stare reflects some deep psychic disturbance.
The German mind that produced Dürer, and the Reformation, also produced psychoanalysis.

• Civilisation (1969) EP06 ⟩ “Protest and Communication”

• Riemenschneider
• Erasmus
• Holbein
• Albrecht Dürer
• Melancholia
• Luther
• The Destruction of Images
• Michel de Montaigne
• William Shakespeare