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.

The EFF recently reported that Last.fm gave the RIAA information about users who illegally downloaded U2's latest as-yet-unreleased bit of caterwauling uh, "music." That sucks and all, but there's a larger issue at question here than deniable, allegedly unintended musical surveillance.

Who the hell still cares about U2?

First, let me apologize for not having posted anything for a month. I do plan to do a debt update for Feb. (soon...) and start posting again soon. Now, on to my rant.

Over the last two days I've tried two times, at different places, to redeem a coupon at a fast food joint for a free sandwich. Both times I failed because a local franchise did not honor the coupon. I am incensed.

I have two Washington Mutual credit cards. Since Chase bought out WaMu last year, I've been receiving mail and e-mail messages about the conversion of WaMu credit card accounts to Chase credit card accounts.

One of the best features of WaMu credit cards is that they allow you to view your monthly updated FICO credit score as reported by TransUnion for free. Unfortunately, according to an e-mail I got from WaMu this morning, this freebie is soon going the way of the mastadon. Here's the relevant text of the e-mail.

Apparently, I was in danger of losing some of the most-watched channels in my house, to wit, Nickelodeon and Noggin. In short, I found out this morning that Viacom was threatening to pull 19 of its channels from Time Warner cable networks across the country because of a fee increase dispute.

During the month of October, Zecco is offering unlimited free trades with no minimum balance requirement. This is a great deal, since normally they require $2,500 minimum account balance for only 10 free trades each month.

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.

Howdy all!

It's been awhile since I've blogged, and I apologize. Hopefully nobody's been anguishing about my lack of posts, and you've all taken some time to catch up on other financial matters that need attending to.