Banks discriminate against seniors

I would like to accuse our governments and Ben Bernanke, of the Federal Reserve Bank, of age discrimination. Seniors, and especially those on retirement, can only invest in fixed, short-term interest such as saving accounts, money markets, 2 percent CDs or treasuries. Anything other than that is gambling, which seniors cannot afford to engage in with their savings at this stage of life.

Short-term bank interest has been artificially driven down and held down to much less than 1 percent by Bernanke to benefit the banking industry, while bank home loans are 5 percent and auto loans are 7 percent or more.

Banks are making considerable money off the seniors' investment money. President Obama has now put Bernanke in charge of the banking recovery who, with Alan Greenspan, oversaw the loan industry debacle over the last years. To my knowledge, the Federal Reserve is not even a part of our government.

Our president is placing his importance on the banking industry at the expense of aged Americans who have no jobs, and hence, no income. Obama continues to give millions and billions for stimulus packages, or businesses who ask for it, and seniors can expect a sudden increase in their future taxes because of this.

In another act of age discrimination, Social Security did not get a raise this year, for the first time. In past years, banks and Bernanke have driven up the price of homes, the major investment of retirees, who will likely be forced to sell for less now in order to carry out the rest of their failing lives.

We are taxed by the county government, which is using last year's highest prices for homes to determine our real estate tax rate this year.

Frank J. Sasevich

Bolingbrook