"Folks can't carry around money in their pocket. They've got to go to an ATM machine, and they've got to pay a few dollars to get their own dollars out of the machine. Who ever thought you'd pay cash to get cash? That's where we've gotten to"
About this Quote
Janklow’s punchline lands because it takes a small, everyday annoyance and frames it as a moral indictment of the system. “Pay cash to get cash” is a tidy bit of folk logic: if the basic act of accessing your own money now comes with a toll, something has shifted from service to shakedown. The line is built for a stump speech - plainspoken, incredulous, slightly comic - but the joke carries real bite. It invites the listener to feel not just inconvenienced, but cheated.
The subtext is classic late-20th-century populism: ordinary people are getting nickel-and-dimed by institutions that used to be invisible. ATMs, pitched as convenience, become symbols of a new kind of friction in daily life - fees, intermediaries, permissions. Janklow isn’t arguing about monetary policy; he’s staging a small drama of lost control. The “folks” in his sentence are contrasted with a faceless “machine,” and behind the machine, banks and networks quietly collecting rent.
Context matters: ATM surcharges spread widely in the 1990s and early 2000s as banks and independent operators normalized fee-on-fee access. For a politician, it’s an ideal target: specific enough to be relatable, broad enough to stand in for bigger anxieties about corporate power, deregulation, and a world where convenience always comes with a line item.
The brilliance is the closing shrug - “That’s where we’ve gotten to” - which turns a complaint into a verdict on the era. It’s less nostalgia than accusation: we allowed this, and now we’re paying for it, literally.
The subtext is classic late-20th-century populism: ordinary people are getting nickel-and-dimed by institutions that used to be invisible. ATMs, pitched as convenience, become symbols of a new kind of friction in daily life - fees, intermediaries, permissions. Janklow isn’t arguing about monetary policy; he’s staging a small drama of lost control. The “folks” in his sentence are contrasted with a faceless “machine,” and behind the machine, banks and networks quietly collecting rent.
Context matters: ATM surcharges spread widely in the 1990s and early 2000s as banks and independent operators normalized fee-on-fee access. For a politician, it’s an ideal target: specific enough to be relatable, broad enough to stand in for bigger anxieties about corporate power, deregulation, and a world where convenience always comes with a line item.
The brilliance is the closing shrug - “That’s where we’ve gotten to” - which turns a complaint into a verdict on the era. It’s less nostalgia than accusation: we allowed this, and now we’re paying for it, literally.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
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