Un-Occupy-ing the Big Banks
06 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in Bank of America, Banks, Chase Bank, Credit Unions, Occupy Oakland, Occupy Seattle, Occupy Wall Street, Protests, Seattle, Wall Street Tags: Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union, Working Washington
People are breaking up with the big banks! Tuesday’s protest against Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and yesterday’s National Bank Transfer Day were truly inspiring. According to the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), at least 650,000 people have joined credit unions within the last month as of Friday, the day before the official National Bank Transfer Day (further inspiring – a movement started by one woman’s Facebook post!).
A number of people went into and closed their accounts Saturday at both the Chase branch across the street, then the Bank of America branch at Westlake park.
Bank Transfer Day - Seattle
While I understand they are part of the 99% and don’t blame the big banks’ local employees, they do need to either get educated or stop telling lies about credit unions. I forget what else they claimed to one of the customers closing their account that set me off, but one of the things they were whining about was that credit unions don’t pay taxes. That would be income tax, which is true – because credit unions are non-profit cooperatives, where all the customers are co-owners who get to vote on polices and there are no shareholders getting wealthy off ripping people off with bad loans and excessive fees.
http://www.cuna.org/gov_affairs/legislative/cu_difference.html
I’ve been with the Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union for several years, having left Washington Mutual (or WAMU!, as they liked to call themselves), before the crash and Chase taking over. I still have free checking, no charges from SMCU for using other institutions ATMs, and a nationwide network of credit unions and ATMs I can use for free (including ATMs at 7-11, which admittedly is a little strange).
There are a number of reasons to take your money out of the big banks and go to a credit union or community bank. Fees are one of them. I couldn’t afford $5 or $10 a month for my checking account, yet it’s the customers who have the least money the banks like Chase and Bank of America charge (although they did back down, due to the protests, on charging a monthly fee for using their debit cards as well). True, they are a business, and if they want to run a business model charging those who can least afford it to subsidize those who have the largest accounts, they can do it. I fortunately still have a choice not to keep my money there (and wouldn’t even if I were one of the wealthy. For shame! Exploiting the poor, like you need it more?).
However, taking taxpayer money for a bailout (with your CEO, who makes $10,000 an hour, on the Fed board, no less), not paying any taxes and foreclosing on homeowners trying their best to pay their bills is not okay, even if it is legal.
Which is what brought so many of us out into the street in the rain Tuesday night, to protest Chase CEO Jamie Dimon:
I’ve already mentioned in my last post some of the reasons we’re protesting Chase (and in my post before that, Bank of America). Here’s a little more from Working Washington‘s blog entry, November 5: We’re breaking up with the Big Banks (and remember, according to the Seattle school teachers at the other protest, Chase is getting away with not paying taxes on mortgage interest as an in-state bank):
Chase Bank hasn’t been a good relationship. When they first took over Washington Mutual they fired 3400 employees as a way of introducing themselves to our state. They then raised fees on social services like EBT for which they were already being paid by the state at the ridiculous cost of $8 million a year, your tax dollars not at work.
Chase Bank didn’t stop there. They then gave even larger bonuses and pay to their CEO Jamie Dimon ballooning his pay to nearly $10,000 per hour. In fact, he is the highest paid banker in the United States. His earnings have exploded while he continues to foreclose on Washingtonians; nearly 10,000 and counting while making a profit on food stamps from folks who can least afford it.
Now, don’t feel too bad about Jamie Dimon, according to a Seattle Times article about his visit and the protest, he doesn’t lose any sleep at night. Having a lot of money and no conscious will do that for you!
Too much pepper spray flying once again (shades of WTO and the protests shortly after), and I evidently just narrowly avoided getting hit both at the protest I happened upon after my last class let out (maybe 2:30 or 3 pm) at the Chase branch on Capitol Hill on Broadway and at the Sheraton where Jamie Dimon was speaking (video below by Jonathan Walczak of the Seattle Weekly). Ironically, the Sheraton is within a block of the Washington State Convention Center which hosted the WTO a decade ago.
While I wasn’t crazy about some of the “f@#k the cops” chants or the challenging people just trying to get home by the mostly young protesters at that earlier protest; after seeing the photo of the cops pepper spraying them in the Seattle Times, I’d have to say that they were remarkably restrained.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/photogalleries/localnews2016673721/10.html
I was heartened to see so many more people, and including a lot of union members and a Marine with an American flag, by the time the rally and march to greet Chase CEO Jamie Dimon started at 6 pm, in the cold and pouring rain. We even had older people in wheelchairs taking to the streets and one woman on oxygen (which made me very nervous, as she was near the front, like I was, just behind some young people in bandannas and even gas masks, with the already itchy fingered SPD with their hands on their pepper spray canisters. I was glad when her friends persuaded her to move back).
Myself? I sometimes moved back, and sometimes was up near the front, taking pictures, and I checked out the action at all the exits the crowd had eventually blocked. I was generally hanging back just a bit, but ran into a friend and ally who came to America after being involved in the protests at Tiananmen Square in China, and really didn’t feel like chickening out as she went up front and even talked to one of the police officers (fortunately, not while they were into pepper spraying). Which did put things a little in perspective, as I don’t think SPD would get that bad, at least not deliberately, but one of the did have a gun with, I think, rubber bullets ready; and as Oakland showed, people can be seriously hurt by “less-lethal” (and unneeded) weapons.
I noticed the headlights on the police helmets, which I suspect was to make it harder to photograph or videotape their excesses. On the other hand, I could read their name tags and they didn’t seem to be covering those over, which was an issue during the WTO era.
SPD's Helmet Lights
I know a lot is made of the excesses of a few protesters, like the “black block” anarchists in Oakland that same night. I’m not defending them, but anyone focusing on the actions of a handful, when thousands were peacefully taking the highway and closing down the port in a mostly peaceful general strike in Oakland is missing the point.
Teachers Educate Chase Bank
30 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in Banks, Chase Bank, Occupy Seattle, Protests, Seattle, Wall Street
I went down to Westlake and joined Occupy Seattle‘s Robin Hood Tax protest yesterday. I got a good education on Chase Bank‘s corporate greed from Seattle’s school teachers.
Teachers Give Chase a Lesson
It turns out Chase hasn’t been paying any state tax on mortgage interest income, thanks to a loophole created for Washington Mutual as an in-state bank. Chase is based in Manhattan, so how did they get to keep that loophole when they bought WAMU for pennies for a dollar? According to the Social Equality Educators website: “Their fair share would add nearly $100 million per year to our State’s sorely strapped budget.” Closing loopholes for out-of-state banks sounds like a good place to start to turn around our grim budget our Governor proposed to us Thursday, instead of cutting education, health and social services.
I, ironically, missed the largest march so far, the previous Saturday, catching up on other things, and having been to the march the Saturday before that. I want to mention that because if, like me, you missed that one, it might seem like energy is waning.
Here’s a video from their march through Pike Place Market:
They were protesting Chase then as well. Following Governor Gregoire’s draconian proposals for our state budget, even though she and other Democrats say they don’t want to do it; I think we need to push them and the Republicans, who are all too willing to cut social services, health and education, on why we’re giving an out-of-state bank a free ride. Its time to end corporate welfare, and they are the ones who should be shamed, not the people who end up out of work or underemployed, just struggling to get by for themselves and their families.
Ironically, Chase even profits on that:
Chase Profits for Food Stamps
Why does Washington, and other states, pay to have their food stamp cards run through Chase bank? Why not have them through a credit union, say for Washington, WSECU, the Washington State Employees Credit Union? Why, in fact, is there apparently a state law that limits cities like Seattle to using only the largest banks, according to the city budget director interviewed in The Stranger, in response to Nick Licata’s proposed resolution for the city to review its banking and investment practices?
OK, I’m off on a tangent. Back to this Saturday’s rally, which was about a proposal to pass a version of the Robin Hood Tax, an idea that originated in England. What Adbusters proposed is taxing 1% of financial transactions and currency trades.
Sounds like a good idea to me. Sadly, the money has been going in the other direction, with the public bailing out the poor bankers, who apparently can’t manage their money properly. Shouldn’t we have some case managers if we’re going to have corporate welfare?
How much corporate welfare? Just for starters, the results first Federal Reserve audit, which happened thanks to an amendment added to the Wall Street reform law by Senator Bernie Sanders (VT):
The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
$16 trillion – that’s a lot of money, and with some of that (plus interest – it’s a loan, right?) would do a lot towards balancing the budget and we might not need to take a Credo action to tell Congress not to use Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security as bargaining chips.
”As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world,” said Sanders. “This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.”
Not to mention the conflicts of interest that the Federal Reserve routinely gives waivers for:
For example, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the New York Fed’s board of directors at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed. Moreover, JP Morgan Chase served as one of the clearing banks for the Fed’s emergency lending programs.
Would that be the CEO of Chase who is coming here to Seattle, and Occupy Seattle is planning to protest, starting at 5:30 pm Wednesday? Seems like we have a lot to talk about. . .
Don’t Occupy Bank of America
27 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in Bank of America, Banks, Occupy Wall Street, Wall Street Tags: Merrill Lynch
Wait, I was wrong about Bank of America trying to shift their shaky Merrill Lynch derivatives off to be covered under the FDIC insurance covering our savings and checking accounts. I wasn’t paying attention. It turns out they have, to the tune of $53.7 trillion.
Don't Occupy Bank of America With Your Money
According to Truthout:
The total amount of derivatives in the FDIC-insured portion of B of A as of mid-year was $53.7 trillion, up 10 percent from $48.9 trillion the prior year, and up nearly 35 percent from its pre-fall crisis level of $40 trillion (the Merrill Lynch securities division holds $22 trillion in addition.) The bank has $5 trillion of credit derivatives, nearly double its $2.7 trillion pre-Merrill amount. In addition, because of its inherent zombie status and rating downgrades, the cost of insuring B of A against a possible default continues to rise in the credit derivatives market – a pattern that American International group (AIG) once followed.
So the FDIC, which is meant to insure safety of our savings and checking, is already being used to cover shaky investments. Fees to customers continue to be raised. I’m kind of shocked that people put up with that, having left WAMU years ago over overdraft fees, back when banks had free checking (without a high minimum), and no monthly debit card fees, or fees for online bill paying. We still have free checking at credit unions, with no monthly debit fee In fact no charge at their own machines for anyone, customer or non customer, and you can use any credit union ATM and many other places, including 7-11s fee-free.
Then, of course, Bank of America throws out people trying to close their bank accounts. They say you can’t close your account if you’re protesting. Wait! Its their money, and they were very polite in asking for it back.
It gets worse.
It is the official bank of the US military and has branches by or on many bases, which provides the firm with another locus of extortion. B of A can entice military personnel to take out loans at usurious rates. Personal loans made to soldiers for a few thousand dollars can actually keep them indebted for the rest of their lives.
Last May, Bank of America paid $22 million to settle charges of improperly foreclosing on active-duty troops. The firm spun these foreclosures as being Countrywide’s fault for having started them before becoming part of B of A.
Pretty outrageous. At our expense. This is why people are Occupying everywhere, and good reasons not to let your funds occupy Bank of America and the other big banks. There are a lot of options with credit unions and community banks, and with credit unions, you’re a co-owner. People run the credit unions, not some corporation.
November 5 has been declared Bank Transfer Day. Maybe its time to consider other options.
Iraq War Veteran Critically Injured at Occupy Oakland
26 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in Iraq Veterans Against the War, Occupy Oakland, Veterans for Peace, Wall Street
I was sickened to learn that a young Iraq war veteran was in critical condition last night, with a fractured skull and brain swelling, after being hit by a tear gas canister in an assault by the Oakland Police Department on peaceful Occupy Oakland protesters.
According to The Guardian, 24-year-old Scott Olsen, seen at the end of the video above as fellow protesters carry him away and frantically call for a medic, did two tours of duty in Iraq. Olsen is a member of both the Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War, and I noticed a Veterans for Peace flag as well as the fact that Olsen was wearing a t-shirt with their logo, and the group was standing near the cops.
What happened gets even more disturbing, however. Keith Shannon, one of his friends who served with him in Iraq, mentions he has seen “ the video footage showing Olsen lying on the floor as a police officer throws an explosive device near him.” As you can see in the footage below, the police officer is throwing the explosive into the crowd of people coming to Olsen’s aid. Truly outrageous, and there can be no excuse for this, even if they claim the original injury was accidental.
Another horrifying image, from Occupy Together‘s Facebook page is of a woman in a wheelchair trying to escape the tear gas:
Woman in Wheelchair, Trying to Escape Tear Gas in Oakland
MoveOn has an online action to the Mayor of Oakland in protest:
http://civic.moveon.org/oaklandpolice/?rc=c4_oaklandpolice_letter.fb.v2.g1
MoveOn also posted a link to a great video about what the protests are all about:
Wall Street still isn’t finished with trying to pass off their bad investments on American taxpayers. Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi reports about Bank of America’s attempt to shift risky investments to FDIC insured accounts in his article Occupy Wall Street: Washington Still Doesn’t Get It:
Bank of America is shifting a huge collection of Merrill Lynch derivatives contracts onto its own federally-insured balance sheet. This move of risky instruments off the uninsured Merrill balance sheet onto the commercial bank’s balance sheet was done to prevent Bank of America’s creditors from attacking the firm with collateral calls and other sorties. Essentially, an irresponsible debtor, B of A, is keeping a loan shark from breaking his legs by getting his rich parents to co-sign his loan. The parents in this metaphor would be the FDIC.
The FDIC naturally is not pleased with this development, but the Fed, the supreme banking regulator, is apparently encouraging this move. Here’s how Bloomberg characterized this move:
In short, the Fed’s priorities seem to lie with protecting the bank-holding company from losses at Merrill, even if that means greater risks for the FDIC’s insurance fund.
Risks for FDIC’s insurance fund. Think about that a bit. That’s the fund that protects our savings and checking deposits. Would you let your savings be used to bankroll gambling? Yet, that’s what we’re doing if we cover derivatives, otherwise known as futures – gambling on the future worth of something like stocks or farm commodities (pork bellies, anyone?). Its fine if you chose to invest and know the risks, but that is not what safe savings and checking accounts are supposed to be all about. All this making it safe for Bank of America, because, if it all goes bad, well. . .we can’t let FDIC fail, can we, and take all Americans’ savings?
Taibbi also reports:
Barack Obama is apparently expressing willingness to junk big chunks of Sarbanes-Oxley in exchange for support for his jobs program. Business leaders are balking at creating new jobs unless Obama makes compliance with S-O voluntary for all firms valued at under $1 billion.
Here’s how to translate this move: companies are saying they can’t attract investment unless they can hide their financials from investors.
Doesn’t seem like life is too good for the investors, even, if we let Wall Street have its way.
Occupy – Reason for Real Hope?
25 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in Barack Obama, Economy, Occupy Seattle, Occupy Wall Street, Wall Street
I am inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement and the local gatherings like Occupy Seattle. I have hope, almost (which is scary, because I remember what happened last time, or rather, what didn’t . . . on so many issues). Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and friends playing Occupy Wall Street at Columbus Circle reminded me of those heady days when so many of us thought “Change” was possible.
Yet, that is part of the hope, both in seeing what the people did via so much grass-roots activism in getting Obama elected, and in the realization of most of us this time not to put our faith in a candidate and on the Democrats being different enough from the Republicans. Turns out too many of them are owned by Wall Street, too (and that is one of the most crucial things that needs to change, which is indeed a formidable goal).
Occupy Seattle March
Why are people occupying and marching? Is it really as vague, incomprehensible and unreasonable as some pundits make it? Personally, I think the “We are the 99%” and “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out” slogans do a pretty good job of explaining why people are so upset.
Lets see, according to The Atlantic, “Half of all workers made less than $26,364, the median wage in 2010,” and “The size of the missing workforce is 10 million. ” In spite of being bailed out at public expense, banks are raising fees and trying to foreclose on people they talked into loans with unfair terms, even “losing” paperwork so they can foreclose, as in the case of Dixie Mitchell and her husband in Seattle which was reported in the PI (and fortunately, Washington CAN is helping them fight).
Alternet‘s article, Which Bank is Worst for America? details how the banks congressional influence led to the collapse.
One of its biggest coups was the overturning of the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era law that created a firewall between investment banking and the commercial banks that hold deposits and make loans.
How much of our tax dollars went to the bailout?
Among our big five, Citigroup was the largest beneficiary of these funds, with $45 billion, but even Goldman Sachs got $10 billion. Wachovia/Wells Fargo and JP Morgan got $25 billion each, while Bank of America got $30 billion. According to ProPublica’s calculations, the big five have all paid back their TARP funds.
Oh, they’ve paid it all back? Wait, there’s more.
But TARP was only one way in which the federal government subsidized the big banks. The Federal Reserve also handed out trillions in unsupervised loans during the so-called crisis period.
And if those numbers weren’t big enough, just this August Bloomberg reported even more secret Fed loans to the big banks: “The $1.2 trillion peak on Dec. 5, 2008 — the combined outstanding balance under the seven programs tallied by Bloomberg — was almost three times the size of the U.S. federal budget deficit that year and more than the total earnings of all federally insured banks in the U.S. for the decade through 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.”
Just a coincidence, I’m sure, that so many in Congress, Democrats as well as Republicans, had large donations from Wall Street.
Just who are the recipients of all this largesse? There are many, but most play key roles on Congressional committees that oversee their businesses. Consider just one example: Senator Chuck Schumer, D-New York, one of the most powerful members of Congress (Schumer is known as “the senator from Wall Street”).
According to the National Journal‘s rankings, Schumer is tied with two others as the 10th “most liberal” member of the upper chamber. But he owes his career to Wall Street.
The article also notes that “(t)wo of Obama’s top bundlers are also connected to Goldman Sachs,” but “Mitt Romney is the clear favorite candidate of Wall Street this year, having taken in $2,339,588 from securities and investment companies.” Don’t despair, or rather, do despair, if you’re not a Wall Street banker, because the Washington Post reports that:
. . .Obama has brought in more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all of the GOP candidates combined, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data.
As the Washington Post notes in another article:
(I)n the tug of war between Main Street and Wall Street, Obama has made his loyalties clear. Just take a look at the long list of Wall Street contributors to his campaign. Unfortunately, Mr. President, you are the company you keep.
How corrupt is Congress? According to the Spectator:
Uniquely among legislatures in the developed world, our Congressional parties now post prices for key slots on committees. You want it — you buy it, runs the challenge. They even sell on the installment plan: You want to chair an important committee? That’ll be $200,000 down and the same amount later, through fundraising. Unlike most retailers, though, Congressional leaders selling committee positions never offer discounts. Prices only drift up over time.
Bank of America is trying to get more taxpayer funds, to cover their derivatives, which apparently many be ready to blow.
Why is Bank of America moving derivatives from Merrill Lynch to an insured subsidiary? Is it because the derivatives could blow up at any time leaving Merrill with gigantic, unsustainable losses? If that’s the case, then it would make perfect sense to shift them into a depository institution that’s covered by the FDIC. That way, the taxpayers would wind up paying for the damage and no one would be the wiser.
Back to the Occupy movement. I’m inspired that people are on the street, especially because they’ve got the rest of us talking. That is something that cannot be taken away, even though some jurisdictions are trying to crack down on protesters and Twitter may or may not be censoring trends (and maybe even tweets, although that may be my own paranoia and lack of sleep at the time; more at a later date). What is going to be exciting is what changes are we going to be pushing for? No matter how impossible it seems, getting money out of politics has got to be a major one if any other changes are going to work.
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