Yesterday’s New York Times humanizes the plight of victims of banking algorithm punishment in the world’s largest economy. [read: Why Banks Are Suddenly Closing Down Customer Accounts]

I, and probably many readers of this blog, have experienced our own frustrating incidents of unexpectedly frozen or closed bank accounts. In my own personal experience, the damage of unjustifiable bank account closure has proven surmountable but not any less exasperating. I feel great sympathy for the under-banked populations who are forced into financial hardship.

There’s the case of the immigrant from Nigeria, working at Morgan Stanley while earning a Masters degree in quantitative methods and modeling, who suddenly can no longer receive rent money from his parents overseas. Or the two partners operating a chain of neighborhood bars which involve weekly cash deposits, whose business and personal bank accounts were abruptly closed without notice, as well as the accounts of their family members even. Or the example of the rejuvenated ex-convict who had successfully put his life back on track, only to be suddenly kicked back out of the banking system because of the infraction in his distant past, a previously disclosed societal debt for which he had already repented and repaid.

To be fair, the banks are not solely at fault. Overbearing regulations which eliminate any room for common sense decision-making or recourse share the blame. Disingenuous politicians who gaslight their electorate by condemning banking alternatives like bitcoin as the culprit for all evil in the world set the tone as well. Sometimes it makes me just want to throw up my hands and ask them, “Who are you fighting for ?“