I live right next to a pretty major road. In addition to large amounts of traffic coming down the street right next to my house this also means I have to look at ads on billboards pretty much anytime I leave the house other than just getting my mail.

There is one billboard in particular that sits almost at ground level and is at an intersection just down the street from my house. One can't help but look at this billboard as they drive past. Personally, I can't help studying it when I sit at a red light there (it's usually a painfully long one).

Every couple of weeks the ad changes. Most are pretty boring and standard fair. Ads for some community centers, McDonald's giant hamburger ads, March of Dimes stuff. Nothing really of note. The one up right now, though...well... let me just describe it first. It is an ad from Bank of America. It has this pretty ethnically diverse woman looking up thoughtfully with a finger on her chin in the corner and above her in huge letters is the quote "It's raining ATMs."

Now I get that the maker of this ad was probably trying to convey the fact that Bank of America is huge and has ATMs everywhere you could possibly want. This idea of ATMs everywhere might encourage you to switch banks if, say, you are with a small bank that does not have many ATMs. I get that. But this is the first thing that comes to mind whenever I see this ad:


Which now that I think about it is a pretty accurate representation of what happened with the bailout Bank of America received.

They get money raining in from heaven. We get crushed underneath all the weight of that money.

Suffice to say, this ad made me glad that I bank with a smaller not-for-profit credit union that doesn't rain ATMs on me.