Ever thought of keeping your money in Bank of Tokyo - Mitsubishi UFJ? Or maybe the National Bank of Kuwait? If not, you might want to think again – according to CNBC's Safest Banks in the World, these two financial institutions are members of an elite list of exceptional banks.

The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece today slamming government regulators for forcing Bank of America to acquire Merill Lynch. Before I get into my tirade, let me disclose that I own Bank of America stock, and have owned some of it for quite awhile.

It's a common epithet these days: "Taxpayers are shareholders." You read it in online articles, hear it in the news, feel it reverberating in the air, see it in the bounce of people young and old who really have no idea about the truth.

Taxpayers don't own a single thing.

Consumerism Commentary has a post about predatory bank fees. As you might think, I have a few thoughts.

Let's face it, nobody forces anyone else to sign up for a bank account. If you want a bank account, then you go get one. And you pay the fees agreed upon.

Let's face it: Banking is a cutthroat business. Banks are constantly fluctuating their rates and giving away everything from cash to gift cards to iPods in an effort to snag those few customers who for some unknown reason don't already have a bank account. Of course, just like dolphins in fishing nets, they also tend to snag a whole host of financial equivalents to those people who stand outside Best Buy the day after Thanksgiving so they can get a shot at one of the 10 "free after rebate" DVD spindles – A/K/A "rate chasers."

Over at MSN Money Central, Liz Pulliam Weston argues that you should send your comments to the Federal Reserve on their proposed changes to banking rules related to various types of fees and fee calculations.

So, I was doing some number crunching and discovered that last year I completed $1,428.95 in sundry deals over the course of the year. Most of that was from sign-up bonuses and in the form of cash (or cash equivalent, such as a statement credit). I also got at least $50 in gas cards, and a free iPod shuffle (Gen 2), which I gave to my daughter.

Market Watch reports that the Treasury Department wants to solicit ideas about how to change the banking regulatory system, and they offer a few suggestions of their own about which parts may be flawed.

Okay, I just went through a rather bizarre experience, and it's left me feeling a little like Indiana Jones when he retrieves his hat from underneath that slow-moving, heavy stone door at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I was a mediocre fan of the band Live back when they were popular in the mid-90s, enough so that I have a couple of their songs on my iPod. One song in particular happened to play today ("Waitress"), and one line from it reminded of the importance of small-change transactions. It got me thinking about how small change has made a difference in my finances over the past year. Not all of them are positive.