Thurs., Nov. 17
5:00 pm
Meet at Occupy Charlotte encampment
5:00 pm
Meet at Occupy Charlotte encampment
600 E. Trade St
March to Bank Of America
100 N. Tryon St
Charlotte NC
Showing posts with label banks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label banks. Show all posts
Nov. 17: Occupy Charlotte March on Bank Of America HQ
In solidarity with Occupy Wall Street's call for a Day of Action to close down Wall Street we will march to Bank of America.
Feb 26: Charlotte Protest for Workers & Against Corporate Tax Dodgers
"Since 2009, America’s most profitable companies such as ExxonMobil, General Electric, Bank of America and Citigroup all paid a grand total of $0 in federal income taxes to Uncle Sam."
Saturday, February 26, 2011 from 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM
Peaceful Protest of Corporate Tax Evader Bank of America
Bank of America, 8551 US Highway 29 North, Charlotte, NC 28262
We pay our taxes. Why don’t they?
U.S. Uncut is a new progressive, people-powered advocacy organization whose aims include ensuring corporations pay their fair share of income tax on the revenue they make instead of hiding it offshore.
On February 26, demonstrations across the United States and the United Kingdom are taking place to bring awareness to the practices of these huge companies, including demonstrations at Bank of America, Target, Amazon, and Comcast:
You read that right. Charlotte-based Bank of America has paid ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH in federal income taxes since 2009, despite having received $45 billion in tax-payer supported income. Instead of paying taxes, BofA funneled its income to 115 separate offshore bank accounts while it lavished bank executives with bonuses.
Answer the call to Action in Charlotte on Saturday (2/26)
What: Peaceful Protest of Corporate Tax Evader Bank of America
When: Saturday, February 26, 2011 from 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM
Where: Bank of America, 8551 US Highway 29 North, Charlotte, NC 28262
We pay taxes on the money we make in our state and in our nation. That money pays for our common defense, paves our streets and highways, affords police, fire, and other emergency responders, protects our air and water from pollution, and pays our teachers and builds our schools to educate our children. Ask yourself:
* Why are these corporate tax dodgers not also paying their fair share?
* How many more public sector workers will lose their jobs because of our state and federal budget deficits?
* How much more should you have to pay so the rich can get richer?
Click here to RSVP for this event on Facebook.
Saturday, February 26, 2011 from 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM
Peaceful Protest of Corporate Tax Evader Bank of America
Bank of America, 8551 US Highway 29 North, Charlotte, NC 28262
We pay our taxes. Why don’t they?
U.S. Uncut is a new progressive, people-powered advocacy organization whose aims include ensuring corporations pay their fair share of income tax on the revenue they make instead of hiding it offshore.
On February 26, demonstrations across the United States and the United Kingdom are taking place to bring awareness to the practices of these huge companies, including demonstrations at Bank of America, Target, Amazon, and Comcast:
Enjoying record profits and taxpayer-funded bailouts as the economy slowly recovers from a financial crisis, nearly two-thirds of US corporations don’t pay any income taxes, instead opting to abuse tax loopholes and offshore tax havens. According to this study from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, 83 of the top 100 publicly traded corporations that operate in the US exploit corporate tax havens. Since 2009, America’s most profitable companies such as ExxonMobil, General Electric, Bank of America and Citigroup all paid a grand total of $0 in federal income taxes to Uncle Sam. Tax havens alone account for up to $1 trillion in tax revenue lost every decade, money that could be invested in K-12 education, colleges, public health, job creation and hundreds of other worthy public programs.
You read that right. Charlotte-based Bank of America has paid ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH in federal income taxes since 2009, despite having received $45 billion in tax-payer supported income. Instead of paying taxes, BofA funneled its income to 115 separate offshore bank accounts while it lavished bank executives with bonuses.
Answer the call to Action in Charlotte on Saturday (2/26)
What: Peaceful Protest of Corporate Tax Evader Bank of America
When: Saturday, February 26, 2011 from 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM
Where: Bank of America, 8551 US Highway 29 North, Charlotte, NC 28262
We pay taxes on the money we make in our state and in our nation. That money pays for our common defense, paves our streets and highways, affords police, fire, and other emergency responders, protects our air and water from pollution, and pays our teachers and builds our schools to educate our children. Ask yourself:
* Why are these corporate tax dodgers not also paying their fair share?
* How many more public sector workers will lose their jobs because of our state and federal budget deficits?
* How much more should you have to pay so the rich can get richer?
Click here to RSVP for this event on Facebook.
April 28: Take on Bank of America at Shareholders Meeting
B of A is failing America
Workers, clergy, veterans, civic leaders, and community groups from the NC State AFL-CIO and NC United Power will converge for an important action at the Bank of America shareholders’ meeting in Charlotte on the morning of April 28th.
What: Rally and action at B of A shareholders meeting
When: Wed., April 28 at 9:15 AM (shareholders meeting) and at 11:30 AM (rally after shareholders meeting)
Where: Gathering place is First United Presbyterian Church, 406 N. College Street, Charlotte, NC 28802
Come out and demand accountability from B of A for its billions in taxpayer bailouts. Tell the bank to modify loans and save homes from foreclosure. Call on bank leaders to quit fighting financial reform that would protect consumers. Shame bank bosses for giving themselves fat bonuses with our hard-earned tax dollars.
Download the flyer for more information, including the agenda, and share it with your networks.
Time to hold Wall St accountable for destroying jobs
In an op-ed published in the Charlotte Observer last Thursday, NC AFL-CIO President, James Andrews, and national AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka, called for banks to pay their fair share to restore the jobs they destroyed in the 2008 collapse of the financial sector.
Workers, clergy, veterans, civic leaders, and community groups from the NC State AFL-CIO and NC United Power will converge for an important action at the Bank of America shareholders’ meeting in Charlotte on the morning of April 28th.What: Rally and action at B of A shareholders meeting
When: Wed., April 28 at 9:15 AM (shareholders meeting) and at 11:30 AM (rally after shareholders meeting)
Where: Gathering place is First United Presbyterian Church, 406 N. College Street, Charlotte, NC 28802
Come out and demand accountability from B of A for its billions in taxpayer bailouts. Tell the bank to modify loans and save homes from foreclosure. Call on bank leaders to quit fighting financial reform that would protect consumers. Shame bank bosses for giving themselves fat bonuses with our hard-earned tax dollars.
Download the flyer for more information, including the agenda, and share it with your networks.
Time to hold Wall St accountable for destroying jobs
In an op-ed published in the Charlotte Observer last Thursday, NC AFL-CIO President, James Andrews, and national AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka, called for banks to pay their fair share to restore the jobs they destroyed in the 2008 collapse of the financial sector.
“But unbelievably, after $700 billion in taxpayer bailout dollars, the big banks are back to business as usual. They are still not lending in their communities, and credit remains tight. They are fighting new taxes on financial speculation and excessive bonuses, even after handing out $145 billion in 2009 executive pay and bonuses. And they are pulling out all the stops to resist new financial rules that are so clearly necessary.”Read more the full op-ed by clicking here.
On the government's owners
By Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com, Oct. 10, 2009
The most revealing political quote of the last year came, in my view, from the second-highest ranking Democratic Senator, Dick Durbin, who told a local radio station in April: "And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." The best Congressional floor speech of the last year on the financial crisis was this extraordinarily piercing five-minute revelation from Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio on the Wall Street bailout and how the Congress is subservient to their dictates. And the single most insightful article on the financial crisis was written by former IMF Chief Economist and current MIT Professor Simon Johnson in the May, 2009 issue of The Atlantic, when he argued that "the finance industry has effectively captured our government" and detailed how the U.S. has become very similar to failed emerging-market nations in both its political and economic culture.
The most revealing political quote of the last year came, in my view, from the second-highest ranking Democratic Senator, Dick Durbin, who told a local radio station in April: "And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." The best Congressional floor speech of the last year on the financial crisis was this extraordinarily piercing five-minute revelation from Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio on the Wall Street bailout and how the Congress is subservient to their dictates. And the single most insightful article on the financial crisis was written by former IMF Chief Economist and current MIT Professor Simon Johnson in the May, 2009 issue of The Atlantic, when he argued that "the finance industry has effectively captured our government" and detailed how the U.S. has become very similar to failed emerging-market nations in both its political and economic culture.
All of that came together last night on Bill Moyers' Journal program, as Johnson and Kaptur together discussed the stranglehold which the financial industry exerts over the federal government and how that has produced a jobless recovery in which the only apparent beneficiaries are the bankers and other financial elites who caused the financial crisis in the first place. The discussion began with reference to this Associated Press article from last week, which examined Timothy Geithner's calenders, obtained through a FOIA request. Those documents show that Geithner spends an amazing amount of time on the telephone with the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Citibank and JP Morgan: "Goldman, Citi and JPMorgan can get Geithner on the phone several times a day if necessary, giving them an unmatched opportunity to influence policy." Other than the President, virtually everyone else -- including leading members of Congress -- are forced to leave messages. Kaptur and Johnson begin by discussing what that signifies in terms of the ongoing financial crisis and how government works.
I'll excerpt a few representative passages, but the entire segment is very worth watching:
[excerpt from Capitalism: A Love Story]: "MICHAEL MOORE: Do you think it's too harsh to call what has happened here a coup d'état? A financial coup d'état?
REP. MARCY KAPTUR: That's, no. Because I think that's what's happened. Um, a financial coup d'état?
MICHAEL MOORE: Yeah.
MARCY KAPTUR: I could agree with that. I could agree with that. Because the people here [pointing to the Capitol] really aren't in charge. Wall Street is in charge" . . . .
SIMON JOHNSON: Well, I think it really tells you how the system works. The system is based on access and is based on what on Wall Street shaping Washington's view of what's important.
It's the people who are very close to Mr. Geithner before when he was the head of the New York Fed. Before he became Treasury Secretary. These people have unparalleled access. And in a crisis, when everything is up for grabs, you don't know what's going on, the people who will take your phone calls, right, in government and people who are going to be standing in the oval office, making the key decisions. That's the heart of the system. That's the heart of how you get your agenda through, by changing their worldview. . . .
And Rahm Emanuel, the President's Chief of Staff has a saying. He's widely known for saying, 'Never let a good crisis go to waste'. Well, the crisis is over, Bill. The crisis in the financial sector, not for people who own homes, but the crisis for the big banks is substantially over. And it was completely wasted. The Administration refused to break the power of the big banks, when they had the opportunity, earlier this year. And the regulatory reforms they are now pursuing will turn out to be, in my opinion, and I do follow this day to day, you know. These reforms will turn out to be essentially meaningless. . . .
BILL MOYERS: Let me show you an excerpt from the speech President Obama made on Wall Street last month, September. Here is the challenge he laid down to the bankers.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses. Those on Wall Street cannot resume taking risks without regard for consequences, and expect that next time, American taxpayers will be there to break their fall.
BILL MOYERS: A reality check. Not one CEO of a Wall Street bank was there to hear the President. What do you make of that?
SIMON JOHNSON: Arrogance. Because they have no fear for the government anymore. They have no respect for the President, which I find absolutely extraordinary and shocking. All right? And I think they have no not an ounce of gratitude to the American people, who saved them, their jobs, and the way they run the world.
BILL MOYERS: In the scheme of things, it is the Congress, and the government that's supposed to stand up to the powerful, organized interests, for the people in Toledo, who can't come to Washington. Who are working or trying to keep their homes or trying to pay their health bills. What's happened to our government?
MARCY KAPTUR: Congress has really shut down. I'm disappointed in both chambers, because wouldn't you think, with the largest financial crisis in American history, in the largest transfer of wealth from the American people to the biggest banks in this country, that every committee of Congress would be involved in hearings, that this would be on the news, that people would be engaged in this. . . .
I've been one of the Members of Congress trying to increase by ten times the agents to get at the justice issues for the American people. For companies that have been hurt. For shareholders that have been hurt. Our government isn't doing it. That it's very easy to look at the budget of the F.B.I. in mortgage fraud and securities fraud and say, 'How serious is the government?' And until those numbers increase, we will not begin to get justice. . . .
BILL MOYERS: Well, and this is what we were talking about earlier, the system. I mean, President Clinton's Secretary of Treasury, Robert Rubin helps eliminate Glass-Steagall. And then leaves the government and goes to work for? Citicorp?
SIMON JOHNSON: Well Rubin's a fascinating character. He ran Goldman Sachs, he went into the Clinton White House, then he became Secretary of the Treasury, and it was on his watch that, first of all, Glass-Steagall began to really seriously crumble, and then it was completely swept away- replaced, abolished, really. And then, of course, Rubin goes on after he leaves Treasury, to be the senior guru type figure at Citigroup. And Citigroup is absolutely epicenter of everything that's gone wrong with our financial system.
BILL MOYERS: And wasn't it Robert Rubin the mentor, the guru to both Tim Geithner and Larry Summers?
SIMON JOHNSON: Absolutely. Both Geithner and Summers advanced to senior positions in the Treasury under Rubin was instrumental in bringing Larry Summers to be President of Harvard, after the Clinton Administration. And according to published new report, he was absolutely key person in making sure that Tim Geithner first went to a senior job at the IMF, and then became President of the New York Fed. And there are unconfirmed reports that Robert Rubin was an essential adviser to then candidate Obama in fall of last year, with regard to who he should bring on board as the leadership team on the economic side.
MARCY KAPTUR: And you know, looking at it from the heartland, when I look at Wall Street and all their connections into Washington, and I've been at it a while now, it's very disheartening to me, because I know they don't care about us out there. We're flyover country for them. And they're just out to make money. . . .
BILL MOYERS: So, Simon, what happens now? If we're going to avert a depression and the next calamity, what needs to be done?
SIMON JOHNSON: Well, I think you have to keep at it, Bill. I mean, that's the lesson from previous generations of Americans, who have really confronted entrenched power like this. You have to keep at it. And you mustn't be satisfied. When the Administration says, 'Okay, we fixed it. Don't worry. We did some technical tweaking on capital requirements, for example, in the banks.' You have to say, 'No, that's not true. Let's look at what's happening, let's follow it through.' . . . .
BILL MOYERS: Does President Obama get it?
MARCY KAPTUR: I don't think President Obama has the right people around him. The poor man inherited a total mess, globally and domestically. I think some of the people that he trusted haven't delivered. I urge him to get new generals. It's time.
SIMON JOHNSON: Louis the Fourteenth of France, a very powerful monarch, was famous for having many bad things, you know, happen under his rule. And people would always say, 'If only Louis the Fourteenth knew. I'm sure he doesn't know. If we could just tell him, he'd sort it out.' You know. I'm skeptical.
Neil Barofsky, the independent watchdog of the TARP program, recently said that while the Wall Street bailout did avert full-scale financial collapse, it plainly failed in its principal stated goal of increasing lending (because banks used the money to buy other institutions, create capital cushions, pay out bonsues, etc.). He detailed how the Treasury Department actually tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to coach the banks into refusing to provide Barofsky with information about how they used the TARP money they received. Worse, he said that the U.S. economy is more dependent than ever on these same "too-big-to-fail" financial institutions, which have grown in size, and the U.S. economy is thus more vulnerable than it was even a year ago to an actual collapse. Meanwhile, even the extremely modest Wall Street reforms Obama is advocating are meeting heavy resistance from those who Dick Durbin called the Owners of Congress.
As Kaptur said, given the size and scope of "the largest transfer of wealth from the American people to the biggest banks in this country," one would expect there to be massive public interest in what happened and why, and, more so, whether any of this is being fixed (it plainly isn't). One would particularly expect the Democratic Party -- which has long branded itself as being the populist party against Wall Street -- would be leading that charge, for political benefit if not for substantive reasons. But that's clearly not happening, and the primary reason why is because both political parties, as institutions, are dependent on and thus controlled by the very industry that is at the heart of it.
Among the two parties, there's no outlet for the populist anger that Kaptur understands and is voicing because each party is eager to serve the interests of those who fund them. And that's why Democrats have largely ceded the populist anger over Wall Street to GOP operatives who are exploiting the "tea party" movement as the only real organized citizen activism over these issues. See this article from last week: "Wall Street money rains on Chuck Schumer":
While the industry has scaled back its political spending in the wake of last year’s economic collapse, data from the Center for Responsive Politics show that it’s still investing heavily in the Senate, where it’s likely to have its best shot at stopping — or at least shaping — the crackdown on Wall Street that President Barack Obama has proposed.
And it’s clearly looking to Democrats to do it.
Of the $10.6 million the industry has given to sitting senators this year, more than $7.7 million has gone to Democrats.
This is hardly unique to the banking industry. This is how the political system works generally. Earnest, substantive debates over this or that policy are so often purely illusory, as the only factor that really drives that outcomes is the question of who owns and thus controls the political system. That central fact subsumes just about everything else.
Banks Paid $32.6 Billion in Bonuses Amid U.S. Bailout (Update4)
By Karen Freifeld, Bloomberg.com, July 30, 2009
Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and seven other U.S. banks paid $32.6 billion in bonuses in 2008 while receiving $175 billion in taxpayer funds, according to a report by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo analyzed 2008 bonuses at nine banks that received Trouble Asset Relief Program financing from the U.S. government. New York-based Citigroup and Merrill, which has since been taken over by Bank of America Corp., received TARP funding totaling $55 billion, Cuomo said.
“When the banks did well, their employees were paid well. When the banks did poorly, their employees were paid well,” Cuomo’s office said in the 22-page report. “When the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well. Bonuses and overall compensation did not vary significantly as profits diminished.”
The study, called “No Rhyme or Reason: The ‘Heads I Win, Tails You Lose’ Bank Bonus Culture,” comes as Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission examine whether to limit the compensation paid to top corporate executives.
“One senior bank executive noted recently that individual compensation should not be set without taking into strong consideration the performance of the business unit and the overall firm,” according to the Cuomo report.
Upside, Downside
“As this executive put it, ‘employees should share in the upside when overall performance is strong and they should all share in the downside when overall performance is weak.” But despite such claims, one thing is clear from this investigation to date: there is no clear rhyme or reason to the way banks compensate and reward their employees,” the report said.
Wall Street firms’ pay has traditionally been tied closely to performance of the companies, which is why employees receive most of their compensation at the end of the year after final results are known. Depending on seniority and performance, bonuses for traders, bankers and executives can be a multiple of their salaries, which range from about $80,000 to $600,000.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. paid out a total of $18 billion in bonuses in 2008 while receiving a combined total of $45 billion in taxpayer dollars through TARP. Together, the three firms earned $9.6 billion last year, Cuomo said.
Top Recipients
The top 200 bonus recipients at JPMorgan Chase & Co. received $1.12 billion last year, while the top 200 at Goldman received $995 million. At Merrill the top 149 received $858 million and at Morgan Stanley, the top 101 received $577 million. Those 650 people received a combined $3.55 billion, or an average of $5.46 million.
JPMorgan Chase had 1,626 employees who received a bonus of least $1 million last year, more than any other Wall Street firm, according to the report. Goldman Sachs had 953 employees who received $1 million or more in bonuses, while Citigroup Inc. had 738, Merrill Lynch & Co., 696, and Morgan Stanley, 428. Bank of America Corp. had 172, while Wells Fargo & Co. had 62.
Kristin Lemkau, a spokeswoman for JPMorgan Chase, Mark Lake, a spokesman at Morgan Stanley, Jeep Bryant, a spokesman for Bank of New York Mellon, and Michael DuVally, a spokesman at Goldman Sachs, all in New York, declined to comment. Carolyn Cichon, a spokeswoman for State Street, and Citigroup spokesman Stephen Cohen didn’t immediately return a call for comment.
Pay for Performance
Melissa Murray, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, declined comment on the report itself. She said the company has a “pay- for-performance” culture where staff are compensated on individual and business performance. “We implemented a say on pay policy this year and our shareholders approved the compensation of the Company’s named executives,” she said.
Citigroup and Merrill Lynch suffered losses of more than $27 billion at each firm, the report said. Yet Citigroup paid out $5.33 billion and Merrill $3.6 billion in bonuses.
“We have put forth guidelines to better link pay to long term performance and effective risk management,” said Travis Larson, a spokesman for the Washington-based Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. “That includes the ability to recover bonuses from employees if those bonuses turn out later to be improper.” The industry association put out its guidelines in June and member firms are working to incorporate them, he said.
Wall Street Pay
The report shows the more bonus-laden compensation styles of the four major Wall Street banks compared with retail banks such as Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America that employ far more people whose main compensation is typically salaries.
Bonuses averaged $160,420 for Goldman Sachs’s 30,067 employees, compared with $13,580 at Bank of America, employer of 243,000 people, the report said. Bonuses averaged $95,286 per employee at Morgan Stanley, $61,017 at Merrill Lynch and $38,642 at JPMorgan Chase & Co., which operates large retail and investment banking units.
At Wells Fargo, the fourth largest bank holding company after acquiring Wachovia Corp. last year, bonuses averaged $3,479 for the company’s 281,000 workers, according to the report.
Goldman produced the most in earnings per employee -- $77,228. In contrast, Merrill had the worst revenue performance, losing $467,797 per employee in 2008 while handing out an average bonus of $61,017, the third highest payout, the report said.
“The data that the attorney general has extracted is far more granular and detailed than anything that we might get from financial filings from these firms, so it’s extremely interesting in that respect,” said Paul Hodgson, a senior research associate for executive compensation at The Corporate Library in Portland, Maine. “The SEC may have a stronger platform to argue for disclosure of compensation for employees that earn in excess of a certain amount.”
TARP Pay-Back
Goldman and Morgan Stanley, credit-card lender American Express and custody banks State Street Corp., Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and Northern Trust Corp. paid back a combined $30 billion in TARP funds on June 17, in a step toward eliminating government restrictions on lending and compensation. JPMorgan Chase paid back $25 billion.
The U.S. House Financial Services Committee, led by Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, approved legislation two days ago that would let regulators ban incentive pay at banks and give shareholders a vote on bonuses in response to public outrage over Wall Street pay.
Egregious Behavior
The bill, which needs approval from the House and Senate, would allow banking agencies and the Securities and Exchange Commission to bar compensation practices that push financial companies to take “inappropriate risks.”
Frank said today in a telephone interview that the House tomorrow will consider his legislation to allow shareholders to hold an annual, non-binding vote on executive pay and require regulators to set pay restrictions that prevent excessive risk taking.
“Attorney General Cuomo’s report on executive pay at companies receiving taxpayer bailouts is shocking and appalling,” said House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Edolphus Towns, a Democrat from New York. “Companies that only months ago were facing bankruptcy and sought the help of the Federal government are now paying out billions in compensation -- and in some cases without reimbursing taxpayers. This egregious behavior proves that Wall Street still doesn’t get that times have changed and the old way of paying executives is long gone.”
Part of Their Lives
Towns said in a letter to Cuomo that he would hold a hearing after the August recess to examine the Obama administration’s reforms in pay practices at companies that received TARP funds.
In October, industry veterans including John Gutfreund, president of New York-based Gutfreund & Co. and the former chief executive officer of Salomon Brothers Inc., said Wall Street would insist on paying bonuses in the face of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, a taxpayer bailout and mounting political outcry.
Odds that Wall Street will forgo the payouts are “slim to none,” Gutfreund said in October. “They’re going to have to be a little bit sensitive because politicians, whether they like it or not, are part of their lives now.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Karen Freifeld in New York at kfreifeld@bloomberg.net.
Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and seven other U.S. banks paid $32.6 billion in bonuses in 2008 while receiving $175 billion in taxpayer funds, according to a report by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo analyzed 2008 bonuses at nine banks that received Trouble Asset Relief Program financing from the U.S. government. New York-based Citigroup and Merrill, which has since been taken over by Bank of America Corp., received TARP funding totaling $55 billion, Cuomo said.
“When the banks did well, their employees were paid well. When the banks did poorly, their employees were paid well,” Cuomo’s office said in the 22-page report. “When the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well. Bonuses and overall compensation did not vary significantly as profits diminished.”
The study, called “No Rhyme or Reason: The ‘Heads I Win, Tails You Lose’ Bank Bonus Culture,” comes as Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission examine whether to limit the compensation paid to top corporate executives.
“One senior bank executive noted recently that individual compensation should not be set without taking into strong consideration the performance of the business unit and the overall firm,” according to the Cuomo report.
Upside, Downside
“As this executive put it, ‘employees should share in the upside when overall performance is strong and they should all share in the downside when overall performance is weak.” But despite such claims, one thing is clear from this investigation to date: there is no clear rhyme or reason to the way banks compensate and reward their employees,” the report said.
Wall Street firms’ pay has traditionally been tied closely to performance of the companies, which is why employees receive most of their compensation at the end of the year after final results are known. Depending on seniority and performance, bonuses for traders, bankers and executives can be a multiple of their salaries, which range from about $80,000 to $600,000.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. paid out a total of $18 billion in bonuses in 2008 while receiving a combined total of $45 billion in taxpayer dollars through TARP. Together, the three firms earned $9.6 billion last year, Cuomo said.
Top Recipients
The top 200 bonus recipients at JPMorgan Chase & Co. received $1.12 billion last year, while the top 200 at Goldman received $995 million. At Merrill the top 149 received $858 million and at Morgan Stanley, the top 101 received $577 million. Those 650 people received a combined $3.55 billion, or an average of $5.46 million.
JPMorgan Chase had 1,626 employees who received a bonus of least $1 million last year, more than any other Wall Street firm, according to the report. Goldman Sachs had 953 employees who received $1 million or more in bonuses, while Citigroup Inc. had 738, Merrill Lynch & Co., 696, and Morgan Stanley, 428. Bank of America Corp. had 172, while Wells Fargo & Co. had 62.
Kristin Lemkau, a spokeswoman for JPMorgan Chase, Mark Lake, a spokesman at Morgan Stanley, Jeep Bryant, a spokesman for Bank of New York Mellon, and Michael DuVally, a spokesman at Goldman Sachs, all in New York, declined to comment. Carolyn Cichon, a spokeswoman for State Street, and Citigroup spokesman Stephen Cohen didn’t immediately return a call for comment.
Pay for Performance
Melissa Murray, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, declined comment on the report itself. She said the company has a “pay- for-performance” culture where staff are compensated on individual and business performance. “We implemented a say on pay policy this year and our shareholders approved the compensation of the Company’s named executives,” she said.
Citigroup and Merrill Lynch suffered losses of more than $27 billion at each firm, the report said. Yet Citigroup paid out $5.33 billion and Merrill $3.6 billion in bonuses.
“We have put forth guidelines to better link pay to long term performance and effective risk management,” said Travis Larson, a spokesman for the Washington-based Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. “That includes the ability to recover bonuses from employees if those bonuses turn out later to be improper.” The industry association put out its guidelines in June and member firms are working to incorporate them, he said.
Wall Street Pay
The report shows the more bonus-laden compensation styles of the four major Wall Street banks compared with retail banks such as Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America that employ far more people whose main compensation is typically salaries.
Bonuses averaged $160,420 for Goldman Sachs’s 30,067 employees, compared with $13,580 at Bank of America, employer of 243,000 people, the report said. Bonuses averaged $95,286 per employee at Morgan Stanley, $61,017 at Merrill Lynch and $38,642 at JPMorgan Chase & Co., which operates large retail and investment banking units.
At Wells Fargo, the fourth largest bank holding company after acquiring Wachovia Corp. last year, bonuses averaged $3,479 for the company’s 281,000 workers, according to the report.
Goldman produced the most in earnings per employee -- $77,228. In contrast, Merrill had the worst revenue performance, losing $467,797 per employee in 2008 while handing out an average bonus of $61,017, the third highest payout, the report said.
“The data that the attorney general has extracted is far more granular and detailed than anything that we might get from financial filings from these firms, so it’s extremely interesting in that respect,” said Paul Hodgson, a senior research associate for executive compensation at The Corporate Library in Portland, Maine. “The SEC may have a stronger platform to argue for disclosure of compensation for employees that earn in excess of a certain amount.”
TARP Pay-Back
Goldman and Morgan Stanley, credit-card lender American Express and custody banks State Street Corp., Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and Northern Trust Corp. paid back a combined $30 billion in TARP funds on June 17, in a step toward eliminating government restrictions on lending and compensation. JPMorgan Chase paid back $25 billion.
The U.S. House Financial Services Committee, led by Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, approved legislation two days ago that would let regulators ban incentive pay at banks and give shareholders a vote on bonuses in response to public outrage over Wall Street pay.
Egregious Behavior
The bill, which needs approval from the House and Senate, would allow banking agencies and the Securities and Exchange Commission to bar compensation practices that push financial companies to take “inappropriate risks.”
Frank said today in a telephone interview that the House tomorrow will consider his legislation to allow shareholders to hold an annual, non-binding vote on executive pay and require regulators to set pay restrictions that prevent excessive risk taking.
“Attorney General Cuomo’s report on executive pay at companies receiving taxpayer bailouts is shocking and appalling,” said House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Edolphus Towns, a Democrat from New York. “Companies that only months ago were facing bankruptcy and sought the help of the Federal government are now paying out billions in compensation -- and in some cases without reimbursing taxpayers. This egregious behavior proves that Wall Street still doesn’t get that times have changed and the old way of paying executives is long gone.”
Part of Their Lives
Towns said in a letter to Cuomo that he would hold a hearing after the August recess to examine the Obama administration’s reforms in pay practices at companies that received TARP funds.
In October, industry veterans including John Gutfreund, president of New York-based Gutfreund & Co. and the former chief executive officer of Salomon Brothers Inc., said Wall Street would insist on paying bonuses in the face of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, a taxpayer bailout and mounting political outcry.
Odds that Wall Street will forgo the payouts are “slim to none,” Gutfreund said in October. “They’re going to have to be a little bit sensitive because politicians, whether they like it or not, are part of their lives now.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Karen Freifeld in New York at kfreifeld@bloomberg.net.
Podcast Interview with Inspector General for TARP: Treasury Department Is Not Being Transparent
ABC News Political Punch Blog, July 22, 2009
ABC News' Jake Tapper and Huma Khan report:
On this week’s ABC News Shuffle podcast, we spoke to Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), who just this week released a report on the whopping potential federal obligation of the bailout and other programs to jumpstart the economy.
You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen to it HERE.
Barofsky told us that the Treasury Department “is not being transparent with respect to the TARP,” the $700 billion in funds (and more) the government is using as loans and bailouts to help stabilize the financial markets. “They’ve failed to adopt some very basic recommendations we’ve had toward transparency,” he said.
Called the “SIGTARP,” Barofsky appeared before Congress this week and told them that the government’s commitment to fix the financial system could potentially reach $23.7 trillion, and criticized the Treasury Department for calling his team’s estimate “inflated.”
“I think that the Treasury Department ought to read the report before they make comments, at least the spokesperson’s office,” Barofsky said. “Our methodology is laid out in black and white in the report. ... As far as the numbers being inflated, where do you think we got the numbers from? We got it from the Treasury Department, we got it from the Federal Reserve. ... If these numbers are inflated, it’s because they inflated them when they put them out in the public, not because of us.”
The inspector general defended the numbers outlined in his report, saying that all his team has done is to “gather the 50 programs, put them in one place, and told the American people what the government has said about the maximum of each of these programs.”
“Perhaps their criticism is that we dare to do math,” he said. He added that his team tried to convince the Treasury that they were wrong, and that recipients should be required to report on how they use the federal funds, and those should be shown to the American people so that they know it’s “not being thrown into a black hole.”
The government currently has about 50 different programs to fix the economy. Those programs include bailing out banks and automakers, and improving the housing market. Barofsky said the way his team came up with that figure is by looking at three different figures for each program.
“One, how much money is currently outstanding under the program. Two, what the high water mark has been since the inception of the bailout and then three, what is the total amount the federal government has said they’re willing to commit to each program. And at the end, we add them all up,” he explained. “That’s where the 23.7 trillion number comes from. It’s what the federal government has said would be the maximum number for each of the approximately 50 programs.”
Barofsky said “this recent attack on my report is really, in many ways, an attack on basic transparency -- of not wanting the American people in a certain way to see exactly what’s going on in their government as included in our report.” He said the Treasury Department “with respect to this program, they’ve not met their claims that this is going to be ‘unprecedented transparency,’” as President Obama suggested there would be.
We also spoke to Mr. Barofsky about whether taxpayers were misguided, on his independence being challenged by the Treasury and the personal toll of his job.
You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen to it HERE.
The podcast was produced by Huma Khan, with special thanks to Matt Jaffe.
-- Jake Tapper and Huma Khan
ABC News' Jake Tapper and Huma Khan report:
On this week’s ABC News Shuffle podcast, we spoke to Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), who just this week released a report on the whopping potential federal obligation of the bailout and other programs to jumpstart the economy.
You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen to it HERE.
Barofsky told us that the Treasury Department “is not being transparent with respect to the TARP,” the $700 billion in funds (and more) the government is using as loans and bailouts to help stabilize the financial markets. “They’ve failed to adopt some very basic recommendations we’ve had toward transparency,” he said.
Called the “SIGTARP,” Barofsky appeared before Congress this week and told them that the government’s commitment to fix the financial system could potentially reach $23.7 trillion, and criticized the Treasury Department for calling his team’s estimate “inflated.”
“I think that the Treasury Department ought to read the report before they make comments, at least the spokesperson’s office,” Barofsky said. “Our methodology is laid out in black and white in the report. ... As far as the numbers being inflated, where do you think we got the numbers from? We got it from the Treasury Department, we got it from the Federal Reserve. ... If these numbers are inflated, it’s because they inflated them when they put them out in the public, not because of us.”
The inspector general defended the numbers outlined in his report, saying that all his team has done is to “gather the 50 programs, put them in one place, and told the American people what the government has said about the maximum of each of these programs.”
“Perhaps their criticism is that we dare to do math,” he said. He added that his team tried to convince the Treasury that they were wrong, and that recipients should be required to report on how they use the federal funds, and those should be shown to the American people so that they know it’s “not being thrown into a black hole.”
The government currently has about 50 different programs to fix the economy. Those programs include bailing out banks and automakers, and improving the housing market. Barofsky said the way his team came up with that figure is by looking at three different figures for each program.
“One, how much money is currently outstanding under the program. Two, what the high water mark has been since the inception of the bailout and then three, what is the total amount the federal government has said they’re willing to commit to each program. And at the end, we add them all up,” he explained. “That’s where the 23.7 trillion number comes from. It’s what the federal government has said would be the maximum number for each of the approximately 50 programs.”
Barofsky said “this recent attack on my report is really, in many ways, an attack on basic transparency -- of not wanting the American people in a certain way to see exactly what’s going on in their government as included in our report.” He said the Treasury Department “with respect to this program, they’ve not met their claims that this is going to be ‘unprecedented transparency,’” as President Obama suggested there would be.
We also spoke to Mr. Barofsky about whether taxpayers were misguided, on his independence being challenged by the Treasury and the personal toll of his job.
You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen to it HERE.
The podcast was produced by Huma Khan, with special thanks to Matt Jaffe.
-- Jake Tapper and Huma Khan
Sticker Shock: $23.7 Trillion Bailout?
TARP Special Inspector Says Treasury Is Keeping Taxpayers in the Dark
By MATTHEW JAFFE and DEVIN DWYER, ABC News, July 21, 2009
Sitting down?
"The total potential federal government support could reach up to $23.7 trillion," says Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, in a report released today on the government's efforts to fix the financial system.
Yes, $23.7 trillion.
"The potential financial commitment the American taxpayers could be responsible for is of a size and scope that isn't even imaginable," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
"If you spent a million dollars a day going back to the birth of Christ, that wouldn't even come close to just $1 trillion -- $23.7 trillion is a staggering figure."
To be sure, we aren't there yet.
The government has about 50 different programs to fight the current recession, including programs to bail out ailing banks and automakers, boost lending and beat back the housing crisis. So far they've cost taxpayers around $4 trillion.
But Barofsky says if each federal agency spent the maximum potential amount involved in these initiatives, taxpayers could be on the hook for trillions more.
The staggering $23.7 trillion estimate elicited concern from members of Congress and a sharp rebuke from the Treasury Department after the report was leaked late Monday.
Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams called the estimate "inflated," saying it "does not provide a useful framework for evaluating the potential cost of these programs."
He said utilization of the department's financial rescue programs has begun to decline, and some banks have already repaid $70 billion in TARP funds.
Other financial experts also questioned the significance of Barofsky's potential TARP price tag.
"I'm not sure how you could come up with a number like [$23.7 trillion] without lots of assumptions involved," said Kevin Petrasic, a private financial services lawyer with broad government experience.
"Throwing out a number you can't provide a tremendous amount of insight about: what's in that? You just get a headline. Why do we even need to know that this number, in a worst case scenario, is the number? What is gained from that?"
In his appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, Barofsky insisted his report provides a valuable accounting of taxpayer dollars.
"We take offense to [Treasury's] comments," he said. "These numbers are from the government."
He said the $23.7 trillion figure in his quarterly report was derived from publicly available data on allocations to the government's various bailout programs.
"We've explained the number does include some programs that have terminated& and it isn't that the taxpayer is on the hook for $23.7 trillion - we don't say it, we don't suggest it," Barofsky said. "The actual potential for losses," he says, "is likely to be lower."
Barofsky: Treasury Should Require Banks to Report on Use of TARP Funds
The watchdog also warned today that hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars could be lost if the government does not increase the transparency of the TARP program, which he says has grown to an unprecedented scope and scale.
"TARP has become a program in which taxpayers are not being told what most of the TARP recipients are doing with their money, have still not been told how much their substantial investments are worth, and will not be told the full details of how their money is being invested," Barofsky says in the report.
"Does Treasury ask what TARP recipients do with the money?" Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., asked the special inspector general.
"No," replied Barofsky. "They say that information is not meaningful or reliable& But if it's meaningless, why do they do it in respect to Citigroup, Bank of America and AIG?"
Requiring TARP recipients to report on how government funds are used is among the recommendations urged by Barofsky. He also wants the department to report on the values of its TARP portfolio so taxpayers know about the value of their investments; disclose the identity of any TALF borrowers; and disclose tradings, holdings and valuations of assets of the public-private investment funds that will be buying toxic assets from banks.
"[Convicted financier Bernard] Madoff said 'Trust us. We have high returns,'" said Ranking Member Rep. Darrell Issa. "Treasury is now saying the same thing."
This public-private investment program is a key source of concern for the watchdog. In the program, a handful of selected funds will purchase toxic assets -- like mortgage-backed securities -- from banks in an effort to cleanse their balance sheets and help them increase lending.
In his last quarterly report in April, Barofsky cautioned that many aspects of the toxic asset program left it vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse, such as conflicts of interest for fund managers, collusion with fund managers, money laundering and misuse with the Fed's lending program, known as the TALF.
Since then, Treasury has incorporated many of the watchdog's recommendations, so now "the program has a significantly improved compliance and fraud-prevention regime than that initially proposed," Barofsky says. However, he warns that "there remain some significant areas in which Treasury's plan for PPIP falls short."
One such area is the lack of an informational barrier -- or a wall -- between fund managers making investment decisions on behalf of the program and employees of the fund management company who manage funds that are not part of the program. A fund manager, Barofsky warns, "could generate massive profits in its non-PPIF funds as a result of an unfair advantage."
Treasury has declined to put such a wall in place.
"Failure to impose a wall will leave Treasury vulnerable to an accusation that has already been leveled against it -- that Treasury is using TARP to pick winners and losers and that, by granting certain firms PPIF manager status, it is benefiting a chosen few at the expense of the dozens of firms that were rejected, of the market as a whole, and of the American taxpayer," Barofsky says.
"The reputational risk is not one that can be readily measured in dollars and cents, but is rather a risk that could put in jeopardy the fragile trust the American people have in TARP and, by extension, their government."
'Unprecedented Level' of Transparency?
Barofsky also wants the department to increase the disclosure of trading activities and holdings of the program's investment funds."
"Such transparency not only dissuades misconduct and promotes sound management but also promotes a better understanding of PPIP and thus enhances the credibility of PPIP and TARP more broadly," he says.
"Even more importantly, the most significant investors in each PPIF, the American taxpayers, have a right to know the status of their investments. The lack of transparency as to what use TARP funds were put by recipients in other TARP programs, in SIGTARP's view, has damaged the credibility of TARP and therefore may have threatened its viability. Treasury should not repeat that apparent error with PPIP."
However, the department, Barofsky says, plans to disclose "no more than the bare minimum required by statute."
With nearly $24 trillion potentially flying out of federal coffers, the watchdog wants the government to do a lot more than just "the bare minimum."
In a separate report released Monday, Barofsky said he obtained responses from banks on what they did with TARP funds, something that the Treasury Department has refused to do. Many of the banks, he said, used some funds to make investments, buy other banks and pay off debts.
"This administration promised an 'unprecedented level' of accountability and oversight, but as this report reveals, they are falling far short of that promise," Issa said in a statement. "In fact, the Treasury Department is actively obstructing transparency. The American people deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent -- especially considering they are the ones who are footing the bill."
The committee plans to invite Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to testify and explain why several SIGTARP recommendations have not been enacted. Chairman Edolphus Towns also says he may subpoena information about Treasury's TARP portfolio which has not been made public.
By MATTHEW JAFFE and DEVIN DWYER, ABC News, July 21, 2009
Sitting down?
"The total potential federal government support could reach up to $23.7 trillion," says Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, in a report released today on the government's efforts to fix the financial system.
Yes, $23.7 trillion.
"The potential financial commitment the American taxpayers could be responsible for is of a size and scope that isn't even imaginable," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
"If you spent a million dollars a day going back to the birth of Christ, that wouldn't even come close to just $1 trillion -- $23.7 trillion is a staggering figure."
To be sure, we aren't there yet.
The government has about 50 different programs to fight the current recession, including programs to bail out ailing banks and automakers, boost lending and beat back the housing crisis. So far they've cost taxpayers around $4 trillion.
But Barofsky says if each federal agency spent the maximum potential amount involved in these initiatives, taxpayers could be on the hook for trillions more.
The staggering $23.7 trillion estimate elicited concern from members of Congress and a sharp rebuke from the Treasury Department after the report was leaked late Monday.
Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams called the estimate "inflated," saying it "does not provide a useful framework for evaluating the potential cost of these programs."
He said utilization of the department's financial rescue programs has begun to decline, and some banks have already repaid $70 billion in TARP funds.
Other financial experts also questioned the significance of Barofsky's potential TARP price tag.
"I'm not sure how you could come up with a number like [$23.7 trillion] without lots of assumptions involved," said Kevin Petrasic, a private financial services lawyer with broad government experience.
"Throwing out a number you can't provide a tremendous amount of insight about: what's in that? You just get a headline. Why do we even need to know that this number, in a worst case scenario, is the number? What is gained from that?"
In his appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, Barofsky insisted his report provides a valuable accounting of taxpayer dollars.
"We take offense to [Treasury's] comments," he said. "These numbers are from the government."
He said the $23.7 trillion figure in his quarterly report was derived from publicly available data on allocations to the government's various bailout programs.
"We've explained the number does include some programs that have terminated& and it isn't that the taxpayer is on the hook for $23.7 trillion - we don't say it, we don't suggest it," Barofsky said. "The actual potential for losses," he says, "is likely to be lower."
Barofsky: Treasury Should Require Banks to Report on Use of TARP Funds
The watchdog also warned today that hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars could be lost if the government does not increase the transparency of the TARP program, which he says has grown to an unprecedented scope and scale.
"TARP has become a program in which taxpayers are not being told what most of the TARP recipients are doing with their money, have still not been told how much their substantial investments are worth, and will not be told the full details of how their money is being invested," Barofsky says in the report.
"Does Treasury ask what TARP recipients do with the money?" Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., asked the special inspector general.
"No," replied Barofsky. "They say that information is not meaningful or reliable& But if it's meaningless, why do they do it in respect to Citigroup, Bank of America and AIG?"
Requiring TARP recipients to report on how government funds are used is among the recommendations urged by Barofsky. He also wants the department to report on the values of its TARP portfolio so taxpayers know about the value of their investments; disclose the identity of any TALF borrowers; and disclose tradings, holdings and valuations of assets of the public-private investment funds that will be buying toxic assets from banks.
"[Convicted financier Bernard] Madoff said 'Trust us. We have high returns,'" said Ranking Member Rep. Darrell Issa. "Treasury is now saying the same thing."
This public-private investment program is a key source of concern for the watchdog. In the program, a handful of selected funds will purchase toxic assets -- like mortgage-backed securities -- from banks in an effort to cleanse their balance sheets and help them increase lending.
In his last quarterly report in April, Barofsky cautioned that many aspects of the toxic asset program left it vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse, such as conflicts of interest for fund managers, collusion with fund managers, money laundering and misuse with the Fed's lending program, known as the TALF.
Since then, Treasury has incorporated many of the watchdog's recommendations, so now "the program has a significantly improved compliance and fraud-prevention regime than that initially proposed," Barofsky says. However, he warns that "there remain some significant areas in which Treasury's plan for PPIP falls short."
One such area is the lack of an informational barrier -- or a wall -- between fund managers making investment decisions on behalf of the program and employees of the fund management company who manage funds that are not part of the program. A fund manager, Barofsky warns, "could generate massive profits in its non-PPIF funds as a result of an unfair advantage."
Treasury has declined to put such a wall in place.
"Failure to impose a wall will leave Treasury vulnerable to an accusation that has already been leveled against it -- that Treasury is using TARP to pick winners and losers and that, by granting certain firms PPIF manager status, it is benefiting a chosen few at the expense of the dozens of firms that were rejected, of the market as a whole, and of the American taxpayer," Barofsky says.
"The reputational risk is not one that can be readily measured in dollars and cents, but is rather a risk that could put in jeopardy the fragile trust the American people have in TARP and, by extension, their government."
'Unprecedented Level' of Transparency?
Barofsky also wants the department to increase the disclosure of trading activities and holdings of the program's investment funds."
"Such transparency not only dissuades misconduct and promotes sound management but also promotes a better understanding of PPIP and thus enhances the credibility of PPIP and TARP more broadly," he says.
"Even more importantly, the most significant investors in each PPIF, the American taxpayers, have a right to know the status of their investments. The lack of transparency as to what use TARP funds were put by recipients in other TARP programs, in SIGTARP's view, has damaged the credibility of TARP and therefore may have threatened its viability. Treasury should not repeat that apparent error with PPIP."
However, the department, Barofsky says, plans to disclose "no more than the bare minimum required by statute."
With nearly $24 trillion potentially flying out of federal coffers, the watchdog wants the government to do a lot more than just "the bare minimum."
In a separate report released Monday, Barofsky said he obtained responses from banks on what they did with TARP funds, something that the Treasury Department has refused to do. Many of the banks, he said, used some funds to make investments, buy other banks and pay off debts.
"This administration promised an 'unprecedented level' of accountability and oversight, but as this report reveals, they are falling far short of that promise," Issa said in a statement. "In fact, the Treasury Department is actively obstructing transparency. The American people deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent -- especially considering they are the ones who are footing the bill."
The committee plans to invite Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to testify and explain why several SIGTARP recommendations have not been enacted. Chairman Edolphus Towns also says he may subpoena information about Treasury's TARP portfolio which has not been made public.
First-of-Its Kind Study: Medicare for All (Single-Payer) Reform Would Be Major Stimulus for Economy
First-of-Its Kind Study: Medicare for All (Single-Payer) Reform Would Be Major Stimulus for Economy with 2.6 Million New Jobs, $317 Billion in Business Revenue, $100 Billion in Wages
California Nurses Association, Press Release
Establishing a national single-payer style healthcare reform system would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs, and infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues, with another $100 billion in wages into the U.S. economy, according to the findings of a groundbreaking study released today.
The number of jobs created by a single-payer system, expanding and upgrading Medicare to cover everyone, parallels almost exactly the total job loss in 2008.
"Through direct and supplemental expenditures, healthcare is already a uniquely dominant force in the U.S. economy," said Don DeMoro, lead author of the study and director of the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, the NNOC/CNA research arm.
"However, so much more is possible. If we were to expand our present Medicare system to cover all Americans, the economic stimulus alone would create an immense engine that would help drive our national economy for decades to come," DeMoro said.
Expanding Medicare to include the uninsured, and those on Medicaid or employer-sponsored health plans, and expanding coverage for those with limited Medicare, would have the following immediate impacts:
Healthcare for all far less than the Wall Street bailouts
Adding all Americans to an expanded Medicare could be achieved for $63 billion beyond the current $2.1 trillion in direct healthcare spending. The $63 billion is six times less than the federal bailout for CitiGroup, and less than half the federal bailout for AIG. Solely expanding Medicare to cover the 47 million uninsured Americans (as of 2006 data on which the study is based) could be accomplished for $44 billion.
The IHSP projections build from an econometric model of the current face of healthcare – applying economic analysis to a wide array of publicly available data from Medicare, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and other sources.
It is the first known study to provide an econometric analysis of the economic benefits of healthcare to the overall economy, showing how changes in direct healthcare delivery affect all other significant sectors touched by healthcare, and how sweeping healthcare reform can help drive the nation's economic recovery.
Healthcare presently accounts for $2.105 trillion in direct expenditures. But healthcare spreads far beyond doctor's offices and hospitals. Adding in healthcare business purchases of services or supplies and spending by workers, the total impact of healthcare in the economy mushrooms to nearly $6 trillion.
Overall, every direct healthcare dollar creates nearly three additional dollars in the U.S. economy. In current form, healthcare:
Medicare for all has numerous other benefits, of course, noted Jenkins, from a streamlined system with tens of billions less in private insurance administrative waste, guaranteed choice of physician and hospital, no loss of coverage when unemployed, and no one denied coverage due to age or health status.
"Only a single-payer, expanded Medicare-for-all approach ends the current disgraceful practice of insurance companies refusing to pay for medical treatment or engaging in rampant price gouging that discourages patients from going to the doctor, seeing specialists, or getting diagnostic procedures in a timely manner," said Jenkins.
The IHSP has conducted research for members of Congress and state legislatures as well as NNOC/CNA, and received international renown for research studies on cost and charges in the hospital industry, the pharmaceutical industry, hospital staffing, and other healthcare policy.
Robert Fountain, a frequent economics consultant for the California Public Employees Retirement System (Cal-PERS), served as a consultant on the study.
California Nurses Association, Press Release
Establishing a national single-payer style healthcare reform system would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs, and infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues, with another $100 billion in wages into the U.S. economy, according to the findings of a groundbreaking study released today.
The number of jobs created by a single-payer system, expanding and upgrading Medicare to cover everyone, parallels almost exactly the total job loss in 2008.
read the full study | view more charts"These dramatic new findings document for the first time that a single-payer system could not only solve our healthcare crisis, but also substantially contribute to putting America back to work and assisting the economic recovery," said Geri Jenkins, RN, co-president of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association, which sponsored the study.
"Through direct and supplemental expenditures, healthcare is already a uniquely dominant force in the U.S. economy," said Don DeMoro, lead author of the study and director of the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, the NNOC/CNA research arm.
"However, so much more is possible. If we were to expand our present Medicare system to cover all Americans, the economic stimulus alone would create an immense engine that would help drive our national economy for decades to come," DeMoro said.
Expanding Medicare to include the uninsured, and those on Medicaid or employer-sponsored health plans, and expanding coverage for those with limited Medicare, would have the following immediate impacts:
* Create 2,613,495 million new permanent good-paying jobs (slightly exceeding the number of jobs lost in 2008)Further, moving to the new system comes with an unexpectedly low price tag, given the economic benefits and the far-reaching consequences of genuine healthcare reform, DeMoro noted.
* Boost the economy with $317 billion in increased business and public revenues
* Add $100 billion in employee compensation
* Infuse public budgets with $44 billion in new tax revenues
Healthcare for all far less than the Wall Street bailouts
Adding all Americans to an expanded Medicare could be achieved for $63 billion beyond the current $2.1 trillion in direct healthcare spending. The $63 billion is six times less than the federal bailout for CitiGroup, and less than half the federal bailout for AIG. Solely expanding Medicare to cover the 47 million uninsured Americans (as of 2006 data on which the study is based) could be accomplished for $44 billion.
The IHSP projections build from an econometric model of the current face of healthcare – applying economic analysis to a wide array of publicly available data from Medicare, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and other sources.
It is the first known study to provide an econometric analysis of the economic benefits of healthcare to the overall economy, showing how changes in direct healthcare delivery affect all other significant sectors touched by healthcare, and how sweeping healthcare reform can help drive the nation's economic recovery.
Healthcare presently accounts for $2.105 trillion in direct expenditures. But healthcare spreads far beyond doctor's offices and hospitals. Adding in healthcare business purchases of services or supplies and spending by workers, the total impact of healthcare in the economy mushrooms to nearly $6 trillion.
Overall, every direct healthcare dollar creates nearly three additional dollars in the U.S. economy. In current form, healthcare:
* Generates 45 million jobs, directly and in other industries.All those numbers would rise dramatically through comprehensive healthcare reform. But a single-payer system would produce the biggest increase in jobs and wages. The reason, DeMoro said, is that "the broadest economic benefits directly accrue from the actual delivery and provision of healthcare, not the purchase of insurance."
* Accounts for 10.5 percent of all U.S. jobs and 12.1 percent of all U.S. wages.
* Totals 9.2 percent of the nation's Gross National Product.
* Contributes about 25 percent of all federal tax revenues. Federal, state, and local taxes from the healthcare sector in 2006 added up to $824 billion.
Medicare for all has numerous other benefits, of course, noted Jenkins, from a streamlined system with tens of billions less in private insurance administrative waste, guaranteed choice of physician and hospital, no loss of coverage when unemployed, and no one denied coverage due to age or health status.
"Only a single-payer, expanded Medicare-for-all approach ends the current disgraceful practice of insurance companies refusing to pay for medical treatment or engaging in rampant price gouging that discourages patients from going to the doctor, seeing specialists, or getting diagnostic procedures in a timely manner," said Jenkins.
The IHSP has conducted research for members of Congress and state legislatures as well as NNOC/CNA, and received international renown for research studies on cost and charges in the hospital industry, the pharmaceutical industry, hospital staffing, and other healthcare policy.
Robert Fountain, a frequent economics consultant for the California Public Employees Retirement System (Cal-PERS), served as a consultant on the study.
Government for Whom?
by Mumia Abu-Jamal, written May 2, 2009
click here to listen to audio column
As the economy tumbles like weeds in an old western, companies are getting bailouts in the double digit billions, while workers are being asked to "sacrifice."
Those at the top of the corporate wheel have not only lost little, they've not been asked to give anything back. Indeed, they've not even been asked what they're done with over $300 billion bucks!
The only thing certain is they've not done what they promised to do when they first began to beg for public monies!
But when automotive industries tried to get the kind of help that their brothers in banking got, they were kicked in the pills, and the political elites demanded that they use this economic crisis to whip up on the auto unions -- to fire more workers, cut pay, and rifle the pension envelopes of retirees!
And what of Pres. Barack Obama, who received the votes of millions of labor families?
If you listened instead of looked you might've thought Bush was back, judging by the rhetoric: "It will require unions and workers who have already made extraordinarily painful concessions to make even more.*
The UAW (United Automotive, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers Union, Intl.) has given up so much in the last few years that it ain't funny. Several years ago, management pushed for, and got, a two - tiered pay system, where new workers received about 1/2 the pay of other workers -- and temporary worker status.
How is it remotely fair that those who have less are being asked to give up more?
For decades, people have believed that Democrats were more beholden to labor, given their years of voting for that party. But can one still believe this after the debacle of NAFTA?
Is this what labor voted for?
Way back in 1990, a key Republican analyst, Kevin Phillips, described the Democrats as "history's second-most enthusiastic capitalist party." *
If you look at the top pay at the boards of American companies, you'll find dudes like GM's Lyle Wagoner, who pulled down a cool $23 million dollars when he split -- not to mention a $69 thousand annual pension.
If this is what people are voting for -- more betrayal -- why bother?
--(c) '09 Mumia Au-Jamal
[Source: *Zinn, Howard, A People's History of the United States: 1492 - Present
(N.Y.: Harpers Perennial [2003 ed. {orig. 1980} ], p. 579.)
===============
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090
If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
click here to listen to audio column
As the economy tumbles like weeds in an old western, companies are getting bailouts in the double digit billions, while workers are being asked to "sacrifice."
Those at the top of the corporate wheel have not only lost little, they've not been asked to give anything back. Indeed, they've not even been asked what they're done with over $300 billion bucks!
The only thing certain is they've not done what they promised to do when they first began to beg for public monies!
But when automotive industries tried to get the kind of help that their brothers in banking got, they were kicked in the pills, and the political elites demanded that they use this economic crisis to whip up on the auto unions -- to fire more workers, cut pay, and rifle the pension envelopes of retirees!
And what of Pres. Barack Obama, who received the votes of millions of labor families?
If you listened instead of looked you might've thought Bush was back, judging by the rhetoric: "It will require unions and workers who have already made extraordinarily painful concessions to make even more.*
The UAW (United Automotive, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers Union, Intl.) has given up so much in the last few years that it ain't funny. Several years ago, management pushed for, and got, a two - tiered pay system, where new workers received about 1/2 the pay of other workers -- and temporary worker status.
How is it remotely fair that those who have less are being asked to give up more?
For decades, people have believed that Democrats were more beholden to labor, given their years of voting for that party. But can one still believe this after the debacle of NAFTA?
Is this what labor voted for?
Way back in 1990, a key Republican analyst, Kevin Phillips, described the Democrats as "history's second-most enthusiastic capitalist party." *
If you look at the top pay at the boards of American companies, you'll find dudes like GM's Lyle Wagoner, who pulled down a cool $23 million dollars when he split -- not to mention a $69 thousand annual pension.
If this is what people are voting for -- more betrayal -- why bother?
--(c) '09 Mumia Au-Jamal
[Source: *Zinn, Howard, A People's History of the United States: 1492 - Present
(N.Y.: Harpers Perennial [2003 ed. {orig. 1980} ], p. 579.)
===============
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090
If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
Government for Whom
by Mumia Abu-Jamal, recorded May 11, 2009
re: Bank bailouts and the economy...
click here to listen to audio column
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
PLEASE CONTACT:
International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180
E-mail - icffmaj@aol.com
AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES!
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Submitted by: Sis. Marpessa
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
www.FreeMumia.com
re: Bank bailouts and the economy...
click here to listen to audio column
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
PLEASE CONTACT:
International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180
E-mail - icffmaj@aol.com
AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES!
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Submitted by: Sis. Marpessa
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
www.FreeMumia.com
Wed., April 29 & Fri., May 1: Protest at Bank Of America HQ in Charlotte, NC
On Wed., April 29 & Fri., May 1, 2009:
Join the protests at Bank Of America for Economic & Environmental Justice
Unite with labor, students, environmental, anti-war, anti-racist, community activists & others
Wed., April 29, 2009 at 9 AM
BOA Shareholders Meeting
Blumenthal Performing Arts Center
130 N. Tryon Charlotte, NC
*******************
May Day Rally for Jobs, Housing, Healthcare, Education, Workers, & Immigrants Rights at Bank Of America National Headquarters
YES to: Jobs, Housing, Pro-Worker Immigration Reform, Employee Free Choice Act & Money for the People!
NO to: Raids, Deportations, 287(g), Imprisonment, Forced migration, Labor export, Racism, Foreclosures, & Bank Bail Outs!
Friday, May 1, 2009
Noon
Bank Of America HQ
Trade St & Tryon St
Charlotte, NC
March to Charlotte Mecklenburg Government Center & Mecklenburg Co Jail - Central around 6:00pm
On May 1st, join us and help build a movement to fight for the rights of working people. Join billions around the world who also demonstrate on May Day to build a powerful global movement that fights against the dire economic and social crisis people face here and around the world.
To endorse, volunteer, or for more info email may1charlotte@gmail.com or see Immigrant & Workers Rights Project http://immigrantworkers.blogspot.com
DONATE - Support our work by sending donations to Action Center For Justice, 7100 Mapleridge Dr, Charlotte, NC 28210
Working people here and worldwide are facing a growing crisis.
Unemployment is reaching record levels; nearly 20 million people are unemployed or underemployed. Tens of thousands of people have been thrown out of their homes as the foreclosure and eviction crisis grows. State and local budgets are being slashed, with draconian cuts in education, housing, and h ealthcare, while tuition, and transit fares increase. Every day we hear news of a new round of layoffs.
What is often not reported is the growing movement among working people to demand a real bail out--not handouts to wealthy CEOs, but immediate relief for the people. On April 3 & 4, thousands converged on Wall Street, Los Angeles, Raleigh, N.C ., and Seattle, to demand “Bail out the people, not the banks and corporations.” (See http://bailoutpeople.org/april3report.shtml for a report and video on the Wall Street protest.)
What’s next? Come out on May 1! In 2006, immigrants and their supporters marched in record numbers. They held some of the biggest demonstrations seen in decades, demanding an end to the repressive Sensenbrenner bill which penalized immigrant workers.
Since 2006, workers have marched to commemorate May 1, International Workers Day, even as the crisis is growing among immigrant workers. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are on the rise. Families are being ripped apart as parents are hauled away to detention centers without legal rights or due process. Children are often left stranded at school when their parents are swept up in this terror campaign.
The horrific raids and deportations, the criminalizing of workers, the beatings and killings are meant to not just to terrorize immigrant workers but to divide us, when we should join together and build a united movement.
There is now a great opportunity for working and progressive people to help continue to revive the legacy of May Day in the spirit of unity and common interest. Now, more than ever, it is vital that we work to build on the growing success of previous May Day demonstrations.
As all workers face a growing crisis, now is the time to unite and organize in our own name and for our own interests.
We’ve already seen Washington and Wall Street’s economic plan: trillions of dollars in bailouts for banks and giant financial institutions, while working people get service cuts, unemployment, and homelessness.
If we’re going to reverse this trend, we need to come out in record numbers on May 1 and beyond. Protests will be held nationwide--in the East, West, North and South.
May 1 marks the first 100 days of the Obama administration. A united movement of people with documents and without, Black, Latin a/o, Asian, Arab, Native and white, employed and unemployed, youth and seniors, women, men, LGBT or straight, able-bodied and disabled, will send a clear message to Washington and to Wall Street.
After May Day, the Bail Out the People Movement will continue to help to build a united movement to fight for working people’s rights. On May 31, just before the June 1-3 UN General Assembly Global Financial Summit, we will hold a Peoples’ Summit to focus the discussion on the real crisis.
On June 14-17, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition in Michigan, a member organization of the Bail Out the People Movement, will hold a Peoples' Summit during the National Business Summit. Activists are planning a tent city and other events to confront the big-business CEOs and politicians gathering for the Business Summit.
In September, the G20 will meet in New York City, to coincide with the UN General Assembly’s annual meeting. We will not let this meeting of heads of state, finance ministers, and corporate lobbyists go unchallenged. Bail Out the People Movement is already preparing for protests then to demand a bail out for people, not banks.
And since this is strictly a grassroots movement, we need to appeal to you—our friends and supporters—to donate to help build this vital movement.
We hope to see you on May Day.
In solidarity and with our thanks,
The Bail Out the People Movement staff
************************
Action Center For Justice
www.charlotteaction.blogspot.com
To be added send an email to actioncenter-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
Join the protests at Bank Of America for Economic & Environmental Justice
Unite with labor, students, environmental, anti-war, anti-racist, community activists & others
Wed., April 29, 2009 at 9 AM
BOA Shareholders Meeting
Blumenthal Performing Arts Center
130 N. Tryon Charlotte, NC
*******************
May Day Rally for Jobs, Housing, Healthcare, Education, Workers, & Immigrants Rights at Bank Of America National Headquarters
YES to: Jobs, Housing, Pro-Worker Immigration Reform, Employee Free Choice Act & Money for the People!
NO to: Raids, Deportations, 287(g), Imprisonment, Forced migration, Labor export, Racism, Foreclosures, & Bank Bail Outs!
Friday, May 1, 2009
Noon
Bank Of America HQ
Trade St & Tryon St
Charlotte, NC
March to Charlotte Mecklenburg Government Center & Mecklenburg Co Jail - Central around 6:00pm
On May 1st, join us and help build a movement to fight for the rights of working people. Join billions around the world who also demonstrate on May Day to build a powerful global movement that fights against the dire economic and social crisis people face here and around the world.
To endorse, volunteer, or for more info email may1charlotte@gmail.com or see Immigrant & Workers Rights Project http://immigrantworkers.blogspot.com
DONATE - Support our work by sending donations to Action Center For Justice, 7100 Mapleridge Dr, Charlotte, NC 28210
Working people here and worldwide are facing a growing crisis.
Unemployment is reaching record levels; nearly 20 million people are unemployed or underemployed. Tens of thousands of people have been thrown out of their homes as the foreclosure and eviction crisis grows. State and local budgets are being slashed, with draconian cuts in education, housing, and h ealthcare, while tuition, and transit fares increase. Every day we hear news of a new round of layoffs.
What is often not reported is the growing movement among working people to demand a real bail out--not handouts to wealthy CEOs, but immediate relief for the people. On April 3 & 4, thousands converged on Wall Street, Los Angeles, Raleigh, N.C ., and Seattle, to demand “Bail out the people, not the banks and corporations.” (See http://bailoutpeople.org/april3report.shtml for a report and video on the Wall Street protest.)
What’s next? Come out on May 1! In 2006, immigrants and their supporters marched in record numbers. They held some of the biggest demonstrations seen in decades, demanding an end to the repressive Sensenbrenner bill which penalized immigrant workers.
Since 2006, workers have marched to commemorate May 1, International Workers Day, even as the crisis is growing among immigrant workers. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are on the rise. Families are being ripped apart as parents are hauled away to detention centers without legal rights or due process. Children are often left stranded at school when their parents are swept up in this terror campaign.
The horrific raids and deportations, the criminalizing of workers, the beatings and killings are meant to not just to terrorize immigrant workers but to divide us, when we should join together and build a united movement.
There is now a great opportunity for working and progressive people to help continue to revive the legacy of May Day in the spirit of unity and common interest. Now, more than ever, it is vital that we work to build on the growing success of previous May Day demonstrations.
As all workers face a growing crisis, now is the time to unite and organize in our own name and for our own interests.
We’ve already seen Washington and Wall Street’s economic plan: trillions of dollars in bailouts for banks and giant financial institutions, while working people get service cuts, unemployment, and homelessness.
If we’re going to reverse this trend, we need to come out in record numbers on May 1 and beyond. Protests will be held nationwide--in the East, West, North and South.
May 1 marks the first 100 days of the Obama administration. A united movement of people with documents and without, Black, Latin a/o, Asian, Arab, Native and white, employed and unemployed, youth and seniors, women, men, LGBT or straight, able-bodied and disabled, will send a clear message to Washington and to Wall Street.
After May Day, the Bail Out the People Movement will continue to help to build a united movement to fight for working people’s rights. On May 31, just before the June 1-3 UN General Assembly Global Financial Summit, we will hold a Peoples’ Summit to focus the discussion on the real crisis.
On June 14-17, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition in Michigan, a member organization of the Bail Out the People Movement, will hold a Peoples' Summit during the National Business Summit. Activists are planning a tent city and other events to confront the big-business CEOs and politicians gathering for the Business Summit.
In September, the G20 will meet in New York City, to coincide with the UN General Assembly’s annual meeting. We will not let this meeting of heads of state, finance ministers, and corporate lobbyists go unchallenged. Bail Out the People Movement is already preparing for protests then to demand a bail out for people, not banks.
And since this is strictly a grassroots movement, we need to appeal to you—our friends and supporters—to donate to help build this vital movement.
We hope to see you on May Day.
In solidarity and with our thanks,
The Bail Out the People Movement staff
************************
Action Center For Justice
www.charlotteaction.blogspot.com
To be added send an email to actioncenter-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
Gov’t giveaway plan: Trillions for Wall St., poverty for workers
By Fred Goldstein, http://workers.org
The so-called Public-Private Investment Plan, crafted and presented by Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, intends to make a trillion dollars available to the biggest banks, hedge funds, private equity funds and other investors, supposedly to get the banks to lend money to businesses and consumers again.
The essence of the plan has two sides to it. First, bribe hedge funds, private equity funds and others in the shadow banking system who have been sitting on the sidelines with trillions of dollars—by offering them government money and loan guarantees to purchase bad bank assets. Second, bribe the banks to sell investors these bad loans by offering to pay far more than they are worth.
So the rich get a deal from the Treasury both ways.
The banks are holding onto $2 trillion in bad loans resulting from their speculation on the great housing and real estate bubble. They don’t want to sell these bad loans at anywhere near their vastly reduced worth because they would have to declare them as big losses. Up to now they have been refusing to sell and have been holding out for more.
Meanwhile, hedge funds, private equity funds and other investors are holding onto trillions of dollars, which they keep in government bonds and other secure investments. They don’t want to lend this money to help workers or businesses or anybody. These moneybags are sitting on the sidelines, looking for mergers or buyouts, while clipping the interest coupons.
Geithner, Lawrence Summers—Obama’s chief economic adviser—and company came up with a brilliant modification of the plan to buy so-called “toxic assets” crafted by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson during the Bush administration.
Here is an illustration of one part of Geithner’s plan. “It works like this, according to the Treasury Department fact sheet: Imagine that a bank wants to sell mortgage loans with a $100 million face value. The FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] would auction the loans to private bidders. Suppose the winning bidder offered $84 million. The private investor would put up $6 million, Treasury would put up $6 million, and the FDIC would guarantee $72 million worth of loans.” (Washington Post, March 23)
No matter if things go well or bad—in other words, whether the assets can be sold at close to $84 million or if they completely fail and not a penny can be collected—the bank still gets its $84 million. If things go well, the investors make a killing on a $6 million investment. If things go bad, the government gets stuck with the loan to pay off, while the investors walk away with a minimum loss (which they will write off their taxes). In addition, the private fund managers get to retain control over the investment.
There is another type of deal in the plan in which the government matches the private investors dollar-for-dollar and also provides loans to go with it. This is for the bad mortgage-backed securities.
Make a trillion dollars subject to these giveaway terms and it is guaranteed to send the stock market through the roof—at least for a moment.
Giveaway vs. ‘nationalize’
There are so many problematical issues involved with this plan that its prospect for success, even on the terms projected by Geithner and his allies, seems highly doubtful to more cautious sections of the ruling class.
The giveaway plan represents a victory of the Geithner/Larry Summers faction over the “nationalization” current in the ruling class establishment. In this sense it represents a victory of the faction closest to the big banks on Wall Street that are in the deepest trouble.
The nationalization current, more properly described as those for receivership, is not so closely tied to the direct interests of these banks and has a broader view of the needs of their class and the financial system in this present crisis. Their views are sharply opposed to the Geithner/Summers adventure.
This current wants to stop pouring money indiscriminately into banks that are already insolvent, change the management, force them to declare losses, restructure them, take a stake in the banks and then hand them back to private owners and collect dividends. This view was recently propounded by Thomas M. Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, in a paper entitled “Too Big Has Failed.” It is easy to see how unpalatable such a view would be to Citigroup and other large banks.
It is the normal function of the capitalist state and the bourgeois political parties to protect the interests of the capitalist class as a whole and their system. This is the way the state has conducted itself, by and large, during previous lesser crises: the Latin American debt crisis, which endangered the U.S. banking system during the Reagan administration; the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s; and the 1995 Mexican bailout crisis, when U.S. investors were threatened by the collapse of the Mexican peso.
A ruling class consensus was arrived at on each occasion and the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve System took the necessary measures to deal with the situation and avert a collapse.
Crisis has deep roots
But the magnitude of this global crisis is so vast, and the power of the banks involved, the extraordinary deterioration of their financial conditions, and their desperation to save themselves at all costs is so great, that the Obama administration has been dragged into a most questionable scheme.
The administration has become entrapped by the narrow interests of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, AIG, Merrill Lynch and their ilk to the point of throwing trillions of dollars at them to keep these specific banks afloat, at the expense of using these funds to bolster the system as a whole.
This could have dire political consequences in the long run for President Barack Obama himself.
Not that any amount of funding could significantly turn this capitalist crisis around in the long run. It is fundamentally caused by a global crisis of capitalist overproduction, which has been aggravated and intensified by the financial crisis.
The present crisis is profound. It represents the end of a 70-year era of upward development of the productive forces by U.S. and world capitalism that was propelled by military spending, imperialist globalization, destruction of the standard of living of the workers of the world, technological attacks on jobs, devastation of the environment, plus massive credit and indebtedness. These forces have run their course and no bailout or stimulus package can change these fundamentals.
But a trillion dollars is a lot of money. It could fund measures to ameliorate the crisis to some extent if strategically placed—particularly if it were given directly to the masses, either as wages for a jobs program or as direct assistance or to cancel the mortgages of the millions facing foreclosure and to restore the foreclosed families to their homes.
What workers won in the 1930s
One need go back to the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt to get a sense of the kind of temporary relief for the workers that could be administered—even though Roosevelt was never able to solve the crisis of capitalist overproduction, except through war.
Economist James Galbraith in a Washington Monthly article of March 9, “No Return to Normal,” cites one study showing that the Roosevelt government “hired about 60 percent of the unemployed in public works and conservation projects that planted a billion trees, saved the whooping crane, modernized rural America, and built such diverse projects as the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, the Montana state capitol, much of the Chicago lakefront, New York’s Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge complex, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Yorktown. It also built or renovated 2,500 hospitals, 45,000 schools, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 7,800 bridges, 700,000 miles of roads, and a thousand airfields. And it employed 50,000 teachers, rebuilt the country’s entire rural school system, and hired 3,000 writers, musicians, sculptors and painters, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.”
No faction of any significance in the ruling class is debating this question for now because the class struggle is dormant and the masses have not yet risen up against their conditions as they did during the Great Depression. But that is because the crisis is only in its early stages. Roosevelt is known for his concessions to the workers because the workers won those concessions by mass struggle. Obama has no such situation right now and is hewing to a generally conservative line of approach. This could change.
In addition, the issue of the AIG bonuses has sharpened the political situation. Fearing the masses and because their own connections to the big banks are coming out, the Democratic Party politicians in the House of Representatives became hysterical in their denunciations of the bonuses to AIG executives, as did a significant number of Republicans. They all engaged in a public attack on corporate bosses and, by implication, on their own paymasters.
The situation may be quieted somewhat now that some of the executives are returning the bonuses. But this political outburst showed that the right-wing forces are straining at the bit to become champions of the “little people” and supposed adversaries of the “greedy bankers” as a way of getting at the Obama administration. They hope crisis will create an opening for a right-wing, racist revival. The working class must be on the alert for this and not be sucked in by any of this demagogy.
‘A dangerous year’
The entire government plan is predicated on a revival of the capitalist economy and the housing market. This is what will presumably make the bad assets go up in value, when people start buying houses again and bidding up the prices. In fact, an announcement that first-time housing sales went up helped fuel a buying frenzy on Wall Street.
But the Wall Street Journal of March 23 wrote about the rise in home sales that “nearly half of the sales occurred in the foreclosure/vulture market. So, home sales are up, but it’s heavily dominated by bottom fishing.”
More important was a statement by the head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, that 2009 would be a “dangerous year.” He said on March 21 that the global economy would shrink by 1 to 2 percent during the year: “We haven’t seen a figure like that globally since the end of World War II, which really means the Great Depression.” In addition the World Bank was projecting that global trade was set to slide the most in 80 years, a decline in exports of 2.1 percent, not seen since 1982. The European economy will shrink by 3.2 percent (raised from an earlier forecast of 2 percent). Japan’s economy is projected to shrink by 5.8 percent and the U.S. economy by 2.6 percent.
Of course these projections are always subject to correction, but they have been consistently revised in a negative direction. They are confirmed by a report about global manufacturing. In Europe industrial production is down 12 percent from a year ago. In Brazil it is down 15 percent, in Taiwan a staggering 43 percent. Manufacturing fell in India for the first time in years. China’s manufacturing is down by 25 percent.
The three largest imperialist economic blocs—Europe, Japan and the U.S.—are all predicted to shrink their economies. And three of the most populous countries in the world, representing two-fifths of the world’s population, are showing a decline in industrial output.
It is clear that, despite the momentary euphoria of the profiteers on Wall Street, this crisis is not about to be solved. Even if the banks were to start lending again, the population is in ruins. No one is credit worthy because they are in debt, losing their jobs, paying medical bills, paying student loans, paying their credit card loans and/or are behind in their mortgages.
The idea that it is necessary to give these banks trillions in order to solve the crisis is either a grand illusion or outright fraud. The bailout is calculated first and foremost to save the banks while the masses sink deeper into the real crisis—the crisis of unemployment, homelessness and poverty.
The only solution is a mass mobilization to fight back against the capitalist system that is robbing people of their incomes, their homes and their very lives. The sanctity of capitalist profits is what is at the bottom of bailouts, layoffs and foreclosures. It is time to say no to capitalism.
Published Mar 29, 2009 9:00 PM
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php
**********************
Bail Out the People Movement
http://www.bailoutpeople.org
But a trillion dollars is a lot of money. It could fund measures to ameliorate the crisis to some extent if strategically placed—particularly if it were given directly to the masses, either as wages for a jobs program or as direct assistance or to cancel the mortgages of the millions facing foreclosure and to restore the foreclosed families to their homes.There is nothing like the smell of a trillion-dollar bonanza to send the stock market through the roof. Wall Street has struck it rich with the Obama administration’s blatantly pro-banker, pro-investor program to revive the capitalist economy.
What workers won in the 1930s
One need go back to the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt to get a sense of the kind of temporary relief for the workers that could be administered—even though Roosevelt was never able to solve the crisis of capitalist overproduction, except through war.
Economist James Galbraith in a Washington Monthly article of March 9, “No Return to Normal,” cites one study showing that the Roosevelt government “hired about 60 percent of the unemployed in public works and conservation projects that planted a billion trees, saved the whooping crane, modernized rural America, and built such diverse projects as the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, the Montana state capitol, much of the Chicago lakefront, New York’s Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge complex, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Yorktown. It also built or renovated 2,500 hospitals, 45,000 schools, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 7,800 bridges, 700,000 miles of roads, and a thousand airfields. And it employed 50,000 teachers, rebuilt the country’s entire rural school system, and hired 3,000 writers, musicians, sculptors and painters, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.”
No faction of any significance in the ruling class is debating this question for now because the class struggle is dormant and the masses have not yet risen up against their conditions as they did during the Great Depression. But that is because the crisis is only in its early stages. Roosevelt is known for his concessions to the workers because the workers won those concessions by mass struggle. Obama has no such situation right now and is hewing to a generally conservative line of approach. This could change.
The so-called Public-Private Investment Plan, crafted and presented by Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, intends to make a trillion dollars available to the biggest banks, hedge funds, private equity funds and other investors, supposedly to get the banks to lend money to businesses and consumers again.
The essence of the plan has two sides to it. First, bribe hedge funds, private equity funds and others in the shadow banking system who have been sitting on the sidelines with trillions of dollars—by offering them government money and loan guarantees to purchase bad bank assets. Second, bribe the banks to sell investors these bad loans by offering to pay far more than they are worth.
So the rich get a deal from the Treasury both ways.
The banks are holding onto $2 trillion in bad loans resulting from their speculation on the great housing and real estate bubble. They don’t want to sell these bad loans at anywhere near their vastly reduced worth because they would have to declare them as big losses. Up to now they have been refusing to sell and have been holding out for more.
Meanwhile, hedge funds, private equity funds and other investors are holding onto trillions of dollars, which they keep in government bonds and other secure investments. They don’t want to lend this money to help workers or businesses or anybody. These moneybags are sitting on the sidelines, looking for mergers or buyouts, while clipping the interest coupons.
Geithner, Lawrence Summers—Obama’s chief economic adviser—and company came up with a brilliant modification of the plan to buy so-called “toxic assets” crafted by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson during the Bush administration.
Here is an illustration of one part of Geithner’s plan. “It works like this, according to the Treasury Department fact sheet: Imagine that a bank wants to sell mortgage loans with a $100 million face value. The FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] would auction the loans to private bidders. Suppose the winning bidder offered $84 million. The private investor would put up $6 million, Treasury would put up $6 million, and the FDIC would guarantee $72 million worth of loans.” (Washington Post, March 23)
No matter if things go well or bad—in other words, whether the assets can be sold at close to $84 million or if they completely fail and not a penny can be collected—the bank still gets its $84 million. If things go well, the investors make a killing on a $6 million investment. If things go bad, the government gets stuck with the loan to pay off, while the investors walk away with a minimum loss (which they will write off their taxes). In addition, the private fund managers get to retain control over the investment.
There is another type of deal in the plan in which the government matches the private investors dollar-for-dollar and also provides loans to go with it. This is for the bad mortgage-backed securities.
Make a trillion dollars subject to these giveaway terms and it is guaranteed to send the stock market through the roof—at least for a moment.
Giveaway vs. ‘nationalize’
There are so many problematical issues involved with this plan that its prospect for success, even on the terms projected by Geithner and his allies, seems highly doubtful to more cautious sections of the ruling class.
The giveaway plan represents a victory of the Geithner/Larry Summers faction over the “nationalization” current in the ruling class establishment. In this sense it represents a victory of the faction closest to the big banks on Wall Street that are in the deepest trouble.
The nationalization current, more properly described as those for receivership, is not so closely tied to the direct interests of these banks and has a broader view of the needs of their class and the financial system in this present crisis. Their views are sharply opposed to the Geithner/Summers adventure.
This current wants to stop pouring money indiscriminately into banks that are already insolvent, change the management, force them to declare losses, restructure them, take a stake in the banks and then hand them back to private owners and collect dividends. This view was recently propounded by Thomas M. Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, in a paper entitled “Too Big Has Failed.” It is easy to see how unpalatable such a view would be to Citigroup and other large banks.
It is the normal function of the capitalist state and the bourgeois political parties to protect the interests of the capitalist class as a whole and their system. This is the way the state has conducted itself, by and large, during previous lesser crises: the Latin American debt crisis, which endangered the U.S. banking system during the Reagan administration; the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s; and the 1995 Mexican bailout crisis, when U.S. investors were threatened by the collapse of the Mexican peso.
A ruling class consensus was arrived at on each occasion and the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve System took the necessary measures to deal with the situation and avert a collapse.
Crisis has deep roots
But the magnitude of this global crisis is so vast, and the power of the banks involved, the extraordinary deterioration of their financial conditions, and their desperation to save themselves at all costs is so great, that the Obama administration has been dragged into a most questionable scheme.
The administration has become entrapped by the narrow interests of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, AIG, Merrill Lynch and their ilk to the point of throwing trillions of dollars at them to keep these specific banks afloat, at the expense of using these funds to bolster the system as a whole.
This could have dire political consequences in the long run for President Barack Obama himself.
Not that any amount of funding could significantly turn this capitalist crisis around in the long run. It is fundamentally caused by a global crisis of capitalist overproduction, which has been aggravated and intensified by the financial crisis.
The present crisis is profound. It represents the end of a 70-year era of upward development of the productive forces by U.S. and world capitalism that was propelled by military spending, imperialist globalization, destruction of the standard of living of the workers of the world, technological attacks on jobs, devastation of the environment, plus massive credit and indebtedness. These forces have run their course and no bailout or stimulus package can change these fundamentals.
But a trillion dollars is a lot of money. It could fund measures to ameliorate the crisis to some extent if strategically placed—particularly if it were given directly to the masses, either as wages for a jobs program or as direct assistance or to cancel the mortgages of the millions facing foreclosure and to restore the foreclosed families to their homes.
What workers won in the 1930s
One need go back to the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt to get a sense of the kind of temporary relief for the workers that could be administered—even though Roosevelt was never able to solve the crisis of capitalist overproduction, except through war.
Economist James Galbraith in a Washington Monthly article of March 9, “No Return to Normal,” cites one study showing that the Roosevelt government “hired about 60 percent of the unemployed in public works and conservation projects that planted a billion trees, saved the whooping crane, modernized rural America, and built such diverse projects as the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, the Montana state capitol, much of the Chicago lakefront, New York’s Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge complex, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Yorktown. It also built or renovated 2,500 hospitals, 45,000 schools, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 7,800 bridges, 700,000 miles of roads, and a thousand airfields. And it employed 50,000 teachers, rebuilt the country’s entire rural school system, and hired 3,000 writers, musicians, sculptors and painters, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.”
No faction of any significance in the ruling class is debating this question for now because the class struggle is dormant and the masses have not yet risen up against their conditions as they did during the Great Depression. But that is because the crisis is only in its early stages. Roosevelt is known for his concessions to the workers because the workers won those concessions by mass struggle. Obama has no such situation right now and is hewing to a generally conservative line of approach. This could change.
In addition, the issue of the AIG bonuses has sharpened the political situation. Fearing the masses and because their own connections to the big banks are coming out, the Democratic Party politicians in the House of Representatives became hysterical in their denunciations of the bonuses to AIG executives, as did a significant number of Republicans. They all engaged in a public attack on corporate bosses and, by implication, on their own paymasters.
The situation may be quieted somewhat now that some of the executives are returning the bonuses. But this political outburst showed that the right-wing forces are straining at the bit to become champions of the “little people” and supposed adversaries of the “greedy bankers” as a way of getting at the Obama administration. They hope crisis will create an opening for a right-wing, racist revival. The working class must be on the alert for this and not be sucked in by any of this demagogy.
‘A dangerous year’
The entire government plan is predicated on a revival of the capitalist economy and the housing market. This is what will presumably make the bad assets go up in value, when people start buying houses again and bidding up the prices. In fact, an announcement that first-time housing sales went up helped fuel a buying frenzy on Wall Street.
But the Wall Street Journal of March 23 wrote about the rise in home sales that “nearly half of the sales occurred in the foreclosure/vulture market. So, home sales are up, but it’s heavily dominated by bottom fishing.”
More important was a statement by the head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, that 2009 would be a “dangerous year.” He said on March 21 that the global economy would shrink by 1 to 2 percent during the year: “We haven’t seen a figure like that globally since the end of World War II, which really means the Great Depression.” In addition the World Bank was projecting that global trade was set to slide the most in 80 years, a decline in exports of 2.1 percent, not seen since 1982. The European economy will shrink by 3.2 percent (raised from an earlier forecast of 2 percent). Japan’s economy is projected to shrink by 5.8 percent and the U.S. economy by 2.6 percent.
Of course these projections are always subject to correction, but they have been consistently revised in a negative direction. They are confirmed by a report about global manufacturing. In Europe industrial production is down 12 percent from a year ago. In Brazil it is down 15 percent, in Taiwan a staggering 43 percent. Manufacturing fell in India for the first time in years. China’s manufacturing is down by 25 percent.
The three largest imperialist economic blocs—Europe, Japan and the U.S.—are all predicted to shrink their economies. And three of the most populous countries in the world, representing two-fifths of the world’s population, are showing a decline in industrial output.
It is clear that, despite the momentary euphoria of the profiteers on Wall Street, this crisis is not about to be solved. Even if the banks were to start lending again, the population is in ruins. No one is credit worthy because they are in debt, losing their jobs, paying medical bills, paying student loans, paying their credit card loans and/or are behind in their mortgages.
The idea that it is necessary to give these banks trillions in order to solve the crisis is either a grand illusion or outright fraud. The bailout is calculated first and foremost to save the banks while the masses sink deeper into the real crisis—the crisis of unemployment, homelessness and poverty.
The only solution is a mass mobilization to fight back against the capitalist system that is robbing people of their incomes, their homes and their very lives. The sanctity of capitalist profits is what is at the bottom of bailouts, layoffs and foreclosures. It is time to say no to capitalism.
Published Mar 29, 2009 9:00 PM
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**********************
Bail Out the People Movement
http://www.bailoutpeople.org
Urgent: Release Wall Street Arrestees!
Release Wall Street Protest Arrestees Now!
Drop All Charges!
Arrest Criminal Bankers, Not Workers!
Sign the online petition
Back to the streets!
Saturday April 4 - Rally at 12:00 pm at Williams & Nassau (near Wall St.) Then march
RALLY
Gather with chanting, drumming and music: 12 Noon to 1:00pm on Nassau between Wall Street and Pine – over looking NY Stock Exchange and in front of the Federal Reserve and Chase Bank (map) Enter area at Pine and Broadway go East one SHORT block to Nassau This is just a block from the Friday Rally site.
We will join United for Peace and Justice as they come by at Pine and Broadway, about 1:00pm. One block further at Wall and Broadway the whole march will turn Left down Wall Street, turn Right at Broad Street and the NY Stock Exchange, then turn Right on Exchange and go back to Broadway. From there the march will proceed South to Battery Park.
Bail Out People will have a table, displays and literature at Battery Park, along Eisenhower Way, going West toward Castle Clinton. Be sure to come by our table.
SATURDAY Bus Drop-off:
Broadway, between Wall and Pine on the West Side of street (map)
SATURDAY Bus Parking and Pick-up
Water Street between Broad Street and Old Slip
This is about 3 blocks EAST of the ending site at Battery Park
Endorse April 3 & 4 | Find an Apr 3-4 Organizing Center Near You
Donate | Download BOPM Working Paper
Drop All Charges!
Arrest Criminal Bankers, Not Workers!
Sign the online petition
As we write (3:00 pm Friday), thousands of activists, students, youth, trade unionists, and community organizers are marching through the streets of the Wall Street financial district demanding "Bail Out the People - Not the Banks!"
Police have arrested 4 protesters so far, and they are being held at the 1st Precinct. All of them are members of the youth group FIST (Fight Imperialism Stand Together).
Please take action now to support the Wall Street protesters - demand that they be released and all charges dropped. The real criminals are in the executive offices and boardrooms of the banks and investment firms, not on the streets.
Here's how you can help:
1. Call the First Precinct at (212) 334-0611
2. Sign the online petition:
3. Please consider making an emergency donation at http://bailoutpeople.org/donate.shtml
Then...
Police have arrested 4 protesters so far, and they are being held at the 1st Precinct. All of them are members of the youth group FIST (Fight Imperialism Stand Together).
Please take action now to support the Wall Street protesters - demand that they be released and all charges dropped. The real criminals are in the executive offices and boardrooms of the banks and investment firms, not on the streets.
Here's how you can help:
1. Call the First Precinct at (212) 334-0611
2. Sign the online petition:
To: Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NYC City Council, NYPD
CC: NY Congressional Delegation, Congressional Leaders, the NY Legislature, President Obama, Attorney General Holder, members of the media
I am writing to demand the release of all individuals who were arrested at the Friday April 3 protest on Wall Street.
It is not a crime to demand that our money be spent on meeting people's needs, not for massive corporate bailouts. Marching for jobs and housing is not a crime!
The real criminals are in the boardrooms and executive offices on Wall Street, not the people marching for jobs, healthcare, and a moratorium on foreclosures.
Release ALL arrestees!
Drop the Charges!
Arrest Bankers Not Workers!
Sincerely,
Sign the petition online
3. Please consider making an emergency donation at http://bailoutpeople.org/
Then...
Saturday April 4 - Rally at 12:00 pm at Williams & Nassau (near Wall St.) Then march
RALLY
Gather with chanting, drumming and music: 12 Noon to 1:00pm on Nassau between Wall Street and Pine – over looking NY Stock Exchange and in front of the Federal Reserve and Chase Bank (map) Enter area at Pine and Broadway go East one SHORT block to Nassau This is just a block from the Friday Rally site.
We will join United for Peace and Justice as they come by at Pine and Broadway, about 1:00pm. One block further at Wall and Broadway the whole march will turn Left down Wall Street, turn Right at Broad Street and the NY Stock Exchange, then turn Right on Exchange and go back to Broadway. From there the march will proceed South to Battery Park.
Bail Out People will have a table, displays and literature at Battery Park, along Eisenhower Way, going West toward Castle Clinton. Be sure to come by our table.
SATURDAY Bus Drop-off:
Broadway, between Wall and Pine on the West Side of street (map)
SATURDAY Bus Parking and Pick-up
Water Street between Broad Street and Old Slip
This is about 3 blocks EAST of the ending site at Battery Park
Endorse April 3 & 4 | Find an Apr 3-4 Organizing Center Near You
Donate | Download BOPM Working Paper
Activists protest bailouts near Wall Street
By Christine Kearney, Reuters, April 3, 2009
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Several hundred demonstrators protested near Wall Street on Friday against the handling of the U.S. economic crisis, government bailouts of private banks and corporations and bonuses paid out at insurer AIG.
Members of worker rights, healthcare and anti-war groups gathered in the rain holding posters that read "Bail Out the Unemployed" and "No More $ For Wall St & War."
They also shouted demands for more jobs.
"This crisis is growing more dire everyday with so many people being kicked out of their home and jobs," said Dustin Langley, a spokesman for the 'Bail Out The People Movement', the main protest organizer that called for a moratorium on U.S. home foreclosures and the creation of a national jobs program.
Hundreds of protesters lined up on Broadway to march past the headquarters of American International Group and close to the New York Stock Exchange and financial giants Bank of America, Chase and American Express, but were not permitted on Wall Street.
The rally was held as the rate of unemployment in the United States soared to 8.5 percent, the highest in 25 years, after employers cut 663,000 jobs in March.
Michael Feinberg, 51, a rabbi who runs a nonprofit workers rights group, held a sign that read 'Regulate The Profiteers,' and argued that corporations who helped plunge the economy into recession should not have received bailout money.
"That money should have been used to put people to work, to create jobs and healthcare, not to reward greedy financial speculators," he said. "This has to be a wake-up call that we have to change our national priorities about the way we do business in this country."
Friday's protest follows hundreds of others held around the United States since the bailout of investment banks began last year. Another demonstration is planned for Saturday in New York by the same group.
"These bankers ought to be jailed," said David Sole, 60, a chemist who traveled from Detroit to express his anger over the bailouts granted as the U.S. economy continues to slump.
With tears in his eyes, Sole decried the high number of home foreclosures and job losses suffered by his neighbors in Michigan. "It's unbelievable this would have happened in my lifetime. It's like we are in the 1930s," he said.
(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Michelle Nichols and Anthony Boadle)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Several hundred demonstrators protested near Wall Street on Friday against the handling of the U.S. economic crisis, government bailouts of private banks and corporations and bonuses paid out at insurer AIG.
Members of worker rights, healthcare and anti-war groups gathered in the rain holding posters that read "Bail Out the Unemployed" and "No More $ For Wall St & War."
They also shouted demands for more jobs.
"This crisis is growing more dire everyday with so many people being kicked out of their home and jobs," said Dustin Langley, a spokesman for the 'Bail Out The People Movement', the main protest organizer that called for a moratorium on U.S. home foreclosures and the creation of a national jobs program.
Hundreds of protesters lined up on Broadway to march past the headquarters of American International Group and close to the New York Stock Exchange and financial giants Bank of America, Chase and American Express, but were not permitted on Wall Street.
The rally was held as the rate of unemployment in the United States soared to 8.5 percent, the highest in 25 years, after employers cut 663,000 jobs in March.
Michael Feinberg, 51, a rabbi who runs a nonprofit workers rights group, held a sign that read 'Regulate The Profiteers,' and argued that corporations who helped plunge the economy into recession should not have received bailout money.
"That money should have been used to put people to work, to create jobs and healthcare, not to reward greedy financial speculators," he said. "This has to be a wake-up call that we have to change our national priorities about the way we do business in this country."
Friday's protest follows hundreds of others held around the United States since the bailout of investment banks began last year. Another demonstration is planned for Saturday in New York by the same group.
"These bankers ought to be jailed," said David Sole, 60, a chemist who traveled from Detroit to express his anger over the bailouts granted as the U.S. economy continues to slump.
With tears in his eyes, Sole decried the high number of home foreclosures and job losses suffered by his neighbors in Michigan. "It's unbelievable this would have happened in my lifetime. It's like we are in the 1930s," he said.
(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Michelle Nichols and Anthony Boadle)
NYC protesters ask US to 'bail out the people'
AP, April 3, 2009
NEW YORK (AP) — Protesters asking the government to "bail out the people" are holding a rally on Wall Street. They say they should get some of the billions of dollars being spent to save big business.
The rally is starting in downtown Manhattan with a march down Broadway and ends at the iconic statue of a bull on Wall Street.
The men, women and children are protesting near the offices of financial giants like Fidelity, American Express, the Federal Reserve and the New York Stock Exchange.
They plan to repeat the protest Saturday, with chanting and drumming.
****************
Bail Out The People Movement
www.bailoutpeople.org
NEW YORK (AP) — Protesters asking the government to "bail out the people" are holding a rally on Wall Street. They say they should get some of the billions of dollars being spent to save big business.
The rally is starting in downtown Manhattan with a march down Broadway and ends at the iconic statue of a bull on Wall Street.
The men, women and children are protesting near the offices of financial giants like Fidelity, American Express, the Federal Reserve and the New York Stock Exchange.
They plan to repeat the protest Saturday, with chanting and drumming.
****************
Bail Out The People Movement
www.bailoutpeople.org
Protest Planned For Wall Street
Reported by Web Producer, Tristatehomepage.com, April 3, 2009
(New York, NY) -- Wall Street has seen its share of rallies, but one planned for today is different and won't take place on the floor of the stock market.
Hundreds of demonstrators will gather this afternoon at the corner of Wall Street and Broadway in New York City to protest the government's bailout of the banking sector.
The so-called "Bail Out the People Movement" is calling on Washington, DC to create a jobs program, and a put a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures.
Many demonstrators will later take their protest to the headquarters of bailed-out insurance giant American International Group.
***************
Bail Out The People Movement
www.bailoutpeople.org
(New York, NY) -- Wall Street has seen its share of rallies, but one planned for today is different and won't take place on the floor of the stock market.
Hundreds of demonstrators will gather this afternoon at the corner of Wall Street and Broadway in New York City to protest the government's bailout of the banking sector.
The so-called "Bail Out the People Movement" is calling on Washington, DC to create a jobs program, and a put a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures.
Many demonstrators will later take their protest to the headquarters of bailed-out insurance giant American International Group.
***************
Bail Out The People Movement
www.bailoutpeople.org
Financial Rescue Nears GDP as Pledges Top $12.8 Trillion (Update 1)
By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry, Bloomberg.com, March 31, 2009
The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.
New pledges from the Fed, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. include $1 trillion for the Public-Private Investment Program, designed to help investors buy distressed loans and other assets from U.S. banks. The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008.
President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met with the chief executives of the nation’s 12 biggest banks on March 27 at the White House to enlist their support to thaw a 20-month freeze in bank lending.
“The president and Treasury Secretary Geithner have said they will do what it takes,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein said after the meeting. “If it is enough, that will be great. If it is not enough, they will have to do more.”
Commitments include a $500 billion line of credit to the FDIC from the government’s coffers that will enable the agency to guarantee as much as $2 trillion worth of debt for participants in the Term Asset-Backed Lending Facility and the Public-Private Investment Program. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair warned that the insurance fund to protect customer deposits at U.S. banks could dry up because of bank failures.
‘Within an Eyelash’
The combined commitment has increased by 73 percent since November, when Bloomberg first estimated the funding, loans and guarantees at $7.4 trillion.
“The comparison to GDP serves the useful purpose of underscoring how extraordinary the efforts have been to stabilize the credit markets,” said Dana Johnson, chief economist for Comerica Bank in Dallas.
“Everything the Fed, the FDIC and the Treasury do doesn’t always work out right but back in October we came within an eyelash of having a truly horrible collapse of our financial system, said Johnson, a former Fed senior economist. “They used their creativity to help the worst-case scenario from unfolding and I’m awfully glad they did it.”
Federal Reserve officials project the economy will keep shrinking until at least mid-year, which would mark the longest U.S. recession since the Great Depression.
The following table details how the Fed and the government have committed the money on behalf of American taxpayers over the past 20 months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
===========================================================
--- Amounts (Billions)---
Limit Current
===========================================================
Total $12,798.14 $4,169.71
-----------------------------------------------------------
Federal Reserve Total $7,765.64 $1,678.71
Primary Credit Discount $110.74 $61.31
Secondary Credit $0.19 $1.00
Primary dealer and others $147.00 $20.18
ABCP Liquidity $152.11 $6.85
AIG Credit $60.00 $43.19
Net Portfolio CP Funding $1,800.00 $241.31
Maiden Lane (Bear Stearns) $29.50 $28.82
Maiden Lane II (AIG) $22.50 $18.54
Maiden Lane III (AIG) $30.00 $24.04
Term Securities Lending $250.00 $88.55
Term Auction Facility $900.00 $468.59
Securities lending overnight $10.00 $4.41
Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility $900.00 $4.71
Currency Swaps/Other Assets $606.00 $377.87
MMIFF $540.00 $0.00
GSE Debt Purchases $600.00 $50.39
GSE Mortgage-Backed Securities $1,000.00 $236.16
Citigroup Bailout Fed Portion $220.40 $0.00
Bank of America Bailout $87.20 $0.00
Commitment to Buy Treasuries $300.00 $7.50
-----------------------------------------------------------
FDIC Total $2,038.50 $357.50
Public-Private Investment* $500.00 0.00
FDIC Liquidity Guarantees $1,400.00 $316.50
GE $126.00 $41.00
Citigroup Bailout FDIC $10.00 $0.00
Bank of America Bailout FDIC $2.50 $0.00
-----------------------------------------------------------
Treasury Total $2,694.00 $1,833.50
TARP $700.00 $599.50
Tax Break for Banks $29.00 $29.00
Stimulus Package (Bush) $168.00 $168.00
Stimulus II (Obama) $787.00 $787.00
Treasury Exchange Stabilization $50.00 $50.00
Student Loan Purchases $60.00 $0.00
Support for Fannie/Freddie $400.00 $200.00
Line of Credit for FDIC* $500.00 $0.00
-----------------------------------------------------------
HUD Total $300.00 $300.00
Hope for Homeowners FHA $300.00 $300.00
-----------------------------------------------------------
he FDIC’s commitment to guarantee lending under the
Legacy Loan Program and the Legacy Asset Program includes a $500
billion line of credit from the U.S. Treasury.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Mark Pittman in New York at
mpittman@bloomberg.net;
Bob Ivry in New York at
bivry@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: March 31, 2009 14:20 EDT
The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.
New pledges from the Fed, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. include $1 trillion for the Public-Private Investment Program, designed to help investors buy distressed loans and other assets from U.S. banks. The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008.
President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met with the chief executives of the nation’s 12 biggest banks on March 27 at the White House to enlist their support to thaw a 20-month freeze in bank lending.
“The president and Treasury Secretary Geithner have said they will do what it takes,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein said after the meeting. “If it is enough, that will be great. If it is not enough, they will have to do more.”
Commitments include a $500 billion line of credit to the FDIC from the government’s coffers that will enable the agency to guarantee as much as $2 trillion worth of debt for participants in the Term Asset-Backed Lending Facility and the Public-Private Investment Program. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair warned that the insurance fund to protect customer deposits at U.S. banks could dry up because of bank failures.
‘Within an Eyelash’
The combined commitment has increased by 73 percent since November, when Bloomberg first estimated the funding, loans and guarantees at $7.4 trillion.
“The comparison to GDP serves the useful purpose of underscoring how extraordinary the efforts have been to stabilize the credit markets,” said Dana Johnson, chief economist for Comerica Bank in Dallas.
“Everything the Fed, the FDIC and the Treasury do doesn’t always work out right but back in October we came within an eyelash of having a truly horrible collapse of our financial system, said Johnson, a former Fed senior economist. “They used their creativity to help the worst-case scenario from unfolding and I’m awfully glad they did it.”
Federal Reserve officials project the economy will keep shrinking until at least mid-year, which would mark the longest U.S. recession since the Great Depression.
The following table details how the Fed and the government have committed the money on behalf of American taxpayers over the past 20 months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
===========================================================
--- Amounts (Billions)---
Limit Current
===========================================================
Total $12,798.14 $4,169.71
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Federal Reserve Total $7,765.64 $1,678.71
Primary Credit Discount $110.74 $61.31
Secondary Credit $0.19 $1.00
Primary dealer and others $147.00 $20.18
ABCP Liquidity $152.11 $6.85
AIG Credit $60.00 $43.19
Net Portfolio CP Funding $1,800.00 $241.31
Maiden Lane (Bear Stearns) $29.50 $28.82
Maiden Lane II (AIG) $22.50 $18.54
Maiden Lane III (AIG) $30.00 $24.04
Term Securities Lending $250.00 $88.55
Term Auction Facility $900.00 $468.59
Securities lending overnight $10.00 $4.41
Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility $900.00 $4.71
Currency Swaps/Other Assets $606.00 $377.87
MMIFF $540.00 $0.00
GSE Debt Purchases $600.00 $50.39
GSE Mortgage-Backed Securities $1,000.00 $236.16
Citigroup Bailout Fed Portion $220.40 $0.00
Bank of America Bailout $87.20 $0.00
Commitment to Buy Treasuries $300.00 $7.50
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FDIC Total $2,038.50 $357.50
Public-Private Investment* $500.00 0.00
FDIC Liquidity Guarantees $1,400.00 $316.50
GE $126.00 $41.00
Citigroup Bailout FDIC $10.00 $0.00
Bank of America Bailout FDIC $2.50 $0.00
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Treasury Total $2,694.00 $1,833.50
TARP $700.00 $599.50
Tax Break for Banks $29.00 $29.00
Stimulus Package (Bush) $168.00 $168.00
Stimulus II (Obama) $787.00 $787.00
Treasury Exchange Stabilization $50.00 $50.00
Student Loan Purchases $60.00 $0.00
Support for Fannie/Freddie $400.00 $200.00
Line of Credit for FDIC* $500.00 $0.00
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HUD Total $300.00 $300.00
Hope for Homeowners FHA $300.00 $300.00
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he FDIC’s commitment to guarantee lending under the
Legacy Loan Program and the Legacy Asset Program includes a $500
billion line of credit from the U.S. Treasury.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Mark Pittman in New York at
mpittman@bloomberg.net;
Bob Ivry in New York at
bivry@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: March 31, 2009 14:20 EDT
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