The Discover Motiva credit card has an intriguing bonus for anyone who carries a balance.

Pay at least the minimum due on time for six months and Discover will return your last interest payment.

That bonus can be credited to your credit card account, electronically deposited in a checking or savings account, or claimed through gift cards from major retailers.

There are no limits on how much you can earn, so you can collect a bonus every six months until you get that balance paid off.

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Jon Stewart begins this segment of The Daily Show by worrying that we’re never going to see any serious reform of the banking and financial industry.

“You get the sense they want to preserve as many loopholes as possible,” Stewart says. “It’s kind of like we’re going to cut down on robberies. From now on it’s only what you can carry.”

Which leads the anchor to call in “resident expert” John Hodgman and ask if taxpayers who bailed out the financial industry will ever see “any real meaningful changes.”

“Well, I’m here to reassure you and the American people that the answer is, ‘Of course not,’” Hodgman replies. “No meaningful changes whatsoever…

“We’re never going to stop bankers and CEOs from finding every possible way to take our money. That’s capitalism. We can however, reform how people feel about it.”

The highlight of that public relations effort turns out to be the Angry Mob Platinum Diamond Card, “which allows you to express your outrage against corporate greed while earning valuable reward points.”

At an introductory rate of 32%. Or 39% if you keep complaining.

The Federal Reserve said it will continue to hold interest rates down for an “extended period” as CD rates reached new record lows this week.

The Fed’s rate-setting committee met on Wednesday and concluded that the weak economic recovery continues to make cheap credit more important than reasonable returns for investors.

As a result, prudent savers will continue to pay for the imprudent lending (and borrowing) that led to last year’s financial crisis well into 2010.

Bankrate’s weekly survey of large banks and thrifts taken Nov. 4 found the average annual yield for a:

3-month CD remained at 0.40% for the second week. That’s the lowest average since the survey began tracking 3-month CD rates in March 1989.

6-month CD fell to 0.57% from 0.58% — the lowest average since the survey began tracking 6-month CD rates in January 1984.

1-year CD fell to 0.91% from 0.92% — the lowest average since the survey began tracking 12-month CD rates in October 1983.

2-year CD fell to 1.39% from 1.40% — the lowest average rate since July 2003.

5-year CD rose to 2.20% from 2.19%. That’s slightly above the 2.15% reached in July, which was lowest average rate since the survey began tracking 60-month CDs in January 1984.

(Smart savers won’t settle for average returns. Use our extensive database of CD rates to compare the best deals from scores of banks.)

The Federal Reserve has pushed interest rates artificially low to save the banking industry, prop up housing prices and boost the economy out of the Great Recession.

To do that, the government-controlled bank has dropped what it charges commercial banks to borrow money to rock-bottom levels, charging from 0% to 0.25% for overnight loans.

With the government providing so much cheap money banks can offer some loans at extremely low interest rates. (See our most recent post on the best mortgage rates for a good example of that.)

But it also means they can pay next to nothing for deposits, including CDs, money market and savings accounts.

Many economists don’t think Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will allow interest rates to rise until the job market bottoms out and shows significant improvement.

If the unemployment rate peaks in February, they suspect Bernanke might allow interest rates to begin rising sometime next summer.

Frontier Bank is now alone at the top of our rankings of the best 24-month CD rates.

It did that by raising the best rate on its “Silver CDs” to 2.55% APY from 2.50% APY at a time most banks are lowering their returns.

But you’ll need an awfully lot of money to take advantage of Frontier’s best offer because it requires a $50,000 minimum deposit to qualify for that rate.

Don’t have that much to invest? You can do almost as well with the next best deals:

Hudson City Savings Bank continues to offer 2.50% APY with a $5,000 minimum deposit. That drops to $500 if you live near one of its branches in New Jersey, New York or Connecticut.

Frontier, which has more than 50 offices in Washington and Oregon, is paying 2.50% (up from 2.45%) with a $25,000 minimum deposit and 2.45% (up from 2.40% APY) with very reasonable $500 minimum deposit.

We might add that Frontier and Hudson City have had some of the best certificates of deposit for a while now and we can’t recall a single comment complaining about their service.

Always a good sign.

Click here to compare the best CD rates from dozens of other banks in our extensive database.

Or see exactly how much you can make at these rates with our new certificate of deposit calculator.

First National Community Bank has an intriguing offer that combines a high-yield checking account with attractive CD rates.

It’s paying 4.01% APY on balances of up to $25,000 in its “Maximum Earnings” checking account.

Anything over that earns a paltry 1.01% APY, which is quite typical for these kinds of accounts.

But FNCB is also offering its checking account customers 15- or 18-month “Maximum Earnings” certificates of deposit, which pay 2.25% APY with a minimum deposit of just $1,000.

That’s as much as you can earn with the best 12-month CD rates.

FNCB, which has 20 branches in northeast Pennsylvania, accepts deposits from anywhere in the country and you can sign-up online.

There’s nothing unusual about the Maximum Earnings checking account. To qualify for the 4.01% APY rate you must make 10 debit card transactions and make one direct deposit, or one automatic payment, each month. Do that and you can also use any ATM for free.

(If you’re unfamiliar with how reward checking works, click here for our ABCs of high-yield checking accounts.)

Compare this offer with the best CD rates from dozens of other banks in our extensive database.

Or see exactly how much you can make at these rates with our new savings calculator and certificate of deposit calculator.

Hudson City Bank hasn’t cut its chart-topping 36-month CD rates for more than a month now.

That’s noteworthy given the way other banks chopped their returns and CD rates fell in October.

Hudson City, which has dozens of branches in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, continues to pay 3.00% APY with a minimum deposit of $5,000.

The other best deals on 36-month CDs open to all savers are:
2.76% APY with a minimum deposit of $1,000 from The Equity Bank, which has two branches in the Dallas area.

2.75% APY with a minimum deposit of $2,500 from Discover Bank, the credit card company’s online bank.

2.75% APY with a minimum deposit of $10,000 from National Bank of Kansas City, which has six locations in Missouri and Kansas.

Most savers can also earn 3.0% with a $10,000 minimum deposit from Flagstar Bank.

But if you live near one of Flagstar’s 180 branches in Michigan, Indiana or Georgia, you’ll only be offered 2.75% APY. That keeps Flagstar out of our rankings since the deal isn’t nationally available.

Click here to compare the best CD rates from dozens of other banks in our extensive database.

Or see exactly how much you can make at these rates with our new certificate of deposit calculator.

PerkStreet Financial is an odd little newcomer that does one thing, and one thing only: checking accounts.

You can open an account with as little as $25 and pay no monthly fees as long as you use your account once a month.

There’s also no charge for using any of the 37,000 ATMs in the STAR network to make cash withdrawals.

A $50 bonus for opening an account is credited to your balance after you’ve kept it in good standing for three months.

You also earn a 1% rebate for all debit card purchases in which you sign your name (as you would for a credit card) rather than entering your personal identification number.

That rebate can be loaded onto a Visa gift card or gift cards from lots of merchants including Best Buy, Amazon.com, Ticketmaster, Gap and more.

The checking account is administered and insured by Bancorp Bank of Wilmington, Del., an on-line bank that specializes in providing FDIC-insured services to non-bank partners such as Boston-based PerkStreet.

Taco Bell is my usual stop for Saturday lunch.

But I may postpone today’s trip because Taco Bell’s offering everyone a free Black Jack taco from 6 p.m. to midnight.

These babies usually cost 89 cents and I can’t find anything on the Taco Bell Web site that says you have to buy anything to get your free taco. Although who can eat just one taco?

The Black Jack isn’t quite as tasty as the previous limited-time special, the Volcano Taco. But the Pepper Jack cheese sauce is still pretty good and the whole thing is a modest 210 calories for those of you who are counting.

We can only hope that Yum Brands is prepared to pull this off. Its last “free food” promotion — the one used to introduce Kentucky Grilled Chicken at KFC in May — was a disaster.

If you’re thinking of purchasing a home, don’t go with just any real estate agent: Get a full-time buyer’s agent.

One of the biggest advantages of working with a buyer’s agent is that you’re less likely to have any conflicts of interest.

Unlike agents who represent buyers and sellers, buyer’s agents won’t steer you towards a home that one of their clients has listed, or that’s being represented by an agent they’re working with on another deal.

You should never have to wonder: “Is my agent pushing me to buy this home because he wants to curry favor with the selling agent? Are they working on another deal together where their roles are reversed?”

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