Banking

U.S. Must End Predatory Payday Loans, Create “Public Option” Banking

June 29, 2015 Ira B Dember, www.occupy.com Create! Banking, Exploitation, Poverty

By Ira B Dember in Occupy - In March, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed rules to crack down on predatory payday lenders. These rules would prevent many payday lending abuses and give consumers a way out of lenders’ debt trap. Under the CFPB’s new rules, borrowers would first have to show they could cover their basic living expenses while repaying loans. Lenders could skip "means testing" and instead limit each person’s total borrowing to $500 – with a single finance charge and no repeated charges. Gone would be auto title loans: if you can’t repay, lenders can't grab your car. (Workers often lose their jobs when they lose their wheels, a "death spiral" that spreads personal and financial chaos.) A couple of months after the CFPB published its proposed rules, TheHill.com reported financial industry blowback.

Greeks Will Default As Central Bank Turns On Government

June 19, 2015 Mehreen Khan, www.telegraph.co.uk Educate! Banking, Finance and the Economy, Greece

By Mehreen Khan in Telegraph - The Greek government has admitted it will become the first developed country in history to default on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if its creditor powers fail to strike a deal with the Leftist government over its eurozone future in the coming days. With just 13 days before the country’s bail-out programme officially expires, finance ministers will gather in Luxembourg on Thursday to discuss whether to finally give their assent to release bail-out cash and stave off an unprecedented default. Before the 11th hour attempt to secure a deal, Athens’ chief negotiator said his government had run out of cash to make a €1.6bn payment to the IMF, also on June 30. "At the moment we haven’t got the money," said Oxford-educated minister Euclid Tsakalotos.

Banks & Racist Policies Shaped Segregation, Police Brutality

June 19, 2015 Richard Rothstein, www.salon.com Educate! Banking, Housing, police brutality, Racism, Segregation, wealth inequality

By Richard Rothstein in Salon - Housing equity is Americans’ most important source of wealth. Average black family income is now about 60 percent of white family income, but black household wealth is only about 5 percent of white household wealth. This disparity is almost entirely attributable to federal policy that prohibited black families from accumulating equity during the suburban boom and thus from bequeathing that wealth to children, as whites have done. We don’t have what is commonly termed “de facto” segregation—primarily resulting from private prejudice, income differences, preferences to live separately, or demographic trends. Our segregation is “de jure,” resulting mostly from racially explicit public policies designed to create residential patterns we too easily accept as natural or accidental.

Fighting Against Foreclosure Fraud & Courts’ Abuse Of Power

June 5, 2015 Senka Huskic, www.occupy.com Educate! Banking, Foreclosure, Housing, Law

By Senka Huskic in Occupy - Our Constitution contemplates a federal system of governing where states share in power that limits the federal government’s powers. Those powers which are not given to the federal government are reserved to the states. The Constitution contemplates each state will have sovereignty over its own territory. There is no core sovereignty more fundamental than that of the state to control the distribution of land within its borders. Typically, the federal Constitution and federal laws trump state constitutions and statutes. But state laws governing the distribution of land within the state are within the core sovereignty of the states and beyond the authority of Congress to regulate. The Supremacy Clause is very specific that only federal law, i.e. statutes and treaties enacted pursuant to the Constitution’s enumerated powers, are supreme.

The Banks Are Felons That The Government Refuses To Stop

May 29, 2015 Portie Crowe, www.businessinsider.com Educate! Banking, Criminal Justice, Finance and the Economy, Government, Law

This week, five Wall Street banks pleaded guilty to felony charges related to interest rate rigging and foreign exchange manipulation. The guilty pleas mean the banks are literally felons, and it's a distinct shift in the way law enforcement has dealt with Wall Street in the past. Lawsuits and legal fees are nothing new for the banks: since the financial crisis, they have essentially become the cost of doing business on Wall Street. Now, apparently, that cost includes both legal fees and criminal charges. The thing is, no one seems to be fazed. This case has nothing to do with the financial crisis. Rather, a couple years ago, traders from a handful of banks manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate, an important interest rate used around the world as a benchmark for mortgages and other loans. Other traders manipulated the prices at which banks bought or sold currencies.

Targets Matter — Why A Small Action Group Won Vs. Mighty Bank

May 16, 2015 George Lakey, www.wagingnonviolence.org Strategize! Banking, Capitalism, Direct Action

After writing about Earth Quaker Action Team’s recent success in forcing PNC Bank to stop financing mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia, I received a number of strong reactions. Mingled with the congratulations, based on my involvement in the campaign, was a tone of surprise: How can a small group take on the seventh-largest bank in the country and win? Underneath that, I sensed the despair that unconsciously dims people’s sense of power in the United States. Americans can express rage or righteousness by protesting, but most don’t really expect to change anything. The reactions made me realize I left out an important part of the story that proves the victory was no fluke and that U.S. activists can actually be producing far more victories in the current political landscape.

Banks Did More Damage To Baltimore Than So-Called Rioters

May 13, 2015 Emily Foster, www.ourfuture.org Educate! Baltimore, Banking, Housing, Structural Violence

The death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore is not just a story of police brutality or the lack of socioeconomic mobility for the urban poor. It’s also a story of how deregulation allowed corporate banks to strip middle-class families of their financial stability and walk away, leaving behind payday lenders and check-cashing stores to plunder low-income and minority communities. To better understand and communicate that story, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Economic Policy, and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform took their Middle Class Prosperity Project to Baltimore on Monday. It was the latest in a series of forums that started in February to focus “congressional and public attention on challenges faced by the middle class.”

Arrests Made After Protesters Occupy Bank In Cardiff City

May 3, 2015 Philip Dewey, www.walesonline.co.uk Resist! Austerity, Banking

Demonstrators shouted ‘the banks caused the crisis’ and ‘say no to austerity’ while handing out leaflets to staff members. Graffiti saying ‘Tax HSBC’ was written in pink chalk on a poster. Around nine or ten police vehicles were called to the scene to deal with the protesters and the bank was shut early for the day “due to unforeseen circumstances”. The event was a celebration of International Workers’ Day and a protest against austerity and cuts by the coalition government. President of the Cardiff Trades Council, Katrine Williams, said: “We’re bringing together not just trade unions but people in our community who are angered by the cuts we are facing. “Our trade unions and the people of Cardiff want an end to austerity and cuts and they want to see more jobs created. “The richest 1% carry on getting richer while people are living in poverty and going to foodbanks. “There is £123bn in unpaid tax which could be used to fund the NHS and public services while creating a future for young people.”

Newsletter – We Demand Accountability

April 18, 2015 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Banking, Climate Change, Corporatism, Corruption, Democracy, Empire, fast track, killed by police, Police abuse, Taxes, TPP, Wages, Wealth Ineqaulity, World Bank

On Tax Day, April 15, 61 year old Doug Hughes, a mailman from Florida, landed a gyrocopter on the Capitol lawn to deliver 535 letters to members of Congress in order “to spotlight corruption of Congress and to present a solution to legalized bribery.” Hughes told the Tampa Bay News that "I'd rather die in the flight than live to be 80 years old and see this country fall." He has been released on bond with home detention and returns to court on May 8th to face charges of operating an unregistered aircraft and violating restricted airspace, facing a total of four years incarceration. On Saturday, April 11, 22 year old Leo Thornton shot and killed himself in front of the Capitol. He had a sign taped to his hand that read, “Tax the 1%.” The media ignored him, some called him an extremist and did not report his "radical" message of fair taxes. Protests by individuals and groups become impactful when they ignite others to join, to mobilize in support of the call. We urge you to support protests by participating, spreading the word and mobilizing in whatever way you can.

Bank Workers: Stop Making Us Sell Shady Products To Poor People

April 16, 2015 Alan Pyke, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! Banking, Law, wealth inequality

The newest line of criticism for the banking industry is coming from within, as a group of rank-and-file banking employees prepare to demand that their employer stop ordering them to use predatory sales tactics and start treating them as a valued piece of the workforce. A group of tellers, loan officers, and customer service representatives from the country’s largest commercial banks will rally Monday outside office towers in Minneapolis to call attention to their own low pay and to consumer-harming sales policies they say are imposed on them by management. As part of the demonstrations, workers will ask to meet with executives at Wells Fargo to deliver a petition calling for the bank to do away with high-pressure sales quotas for its customer service staff.

On the Lam With Bank Robber Enric Duran

April 8, 2015 Nathan Schneider, www.vice.com Create! Banking, Law, Surveillance

Being underground is not a condition Enric Duran always takes literally, but one night in late January he went from basement to basement. At a hackerspace under a tiny library just south of Paris, he met a group of activists from across France and then traveled with them by bus and Métro to another meeting place, in an old palace on the north end of the city. On the ground floor it felt like an art gallery, with white walls and sensitive acoustics, but the basement below was like a cave, full of costumes and scientific instruments and exposed masonry. There, Duran arranged chairs in a circle for the dozen or so people who'd made the journey. As they were settling in and discussing which language they'd speak, a woman from upstairs, attending an event about open licenses, peeked in through the doorway.

The New Asian Bank & A New World Order

March 30, 2015 Teymoor Nabili, www.aljazeera.com Educate! Asia, Banking, Capitalism

It's usual these days that every policy statement coming out of Beijing is minutely scrutinised and commented on by the English language media, so the absence of any alarm bells on and after February 3 came as something of a surprise. The 13th Meeting of Russia, India and China's foreign ministers should have merited at least passing mention - but not a single major western newspaper covered it. There was no reporting of the final communique; no editorial comment was made and no reaction sought, from Washington or London. The relevant comment was short, and buried within 30 other paragraphs of much more conciliatory language; nonetheless it was punchy. . .

One Bank Is Finally On Trial For The Financial Crisis

March 19, 2015 David Dayen, www.newrepublic.com Educate! Banking, Finance and the Economy

The trial of the century—a long-awaited determination of the damage perpetrated by Wall Street institutions in the financial crisis—began Monday in New York. But it’s only happening because one bank—unlike Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup, and Bank of America—refused to settle out of court. The Japanese firm Nomura stands accused of lying to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about the quality of mortgages pooled into securities during the housing bubble. The case will finally reveal hard data on just how much money Nomura, and the rest of the industry, made through fraud. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, sued 18 of the biggest banks in the world in 2011.

10,000 Blockupy European Bank, 350 Arrested

March 19, 2015 DW, www.dw.de Resist! Banking, Europe, European Central Bank, Protest

Several police cars have been set on fire, with windows being smashed and demonstrators throwing stones at police ahead of the massive demonstration on Wednesday. Authorities say at least one officer has been injured by a stone hurled by an activist, near the city's opera house. Up to 350 people were detained by police. Organizers have accused the police of sparking the violence, saying they set up a "civil war type scenario" to provoke demonstrators. "This is not what Blockupy planned," spokesman Hendrik Wester said. Video footage has shown riot police running through the city, with at least one protester being dragged away.

Rage Against The ECB: What’s Blockupy Against?

March 18, 2015 DW, www.dw.de Resist! Banking, Europe, Germany

The Frankfurt-based European Central Bank (ECB) had scheduled Wednesday as a festive day to commemorate the official opening of the 185-meter (202-yard) tall skyscraper that will serve as its new headquarters building - a big glass tower that took five years and 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) to build. But the anti-capitalist Blockupy network has other plans. It's gearing up for a day of protest and blockade, speeches and street theater. Blockupy's goal: To draw attention to ECB policies which, they say, have favored the rich over the poor, the banks over the people, the creditor class over debtors - policies that have amounted to bailing out irresponsible financiers at the expense of ordinary citizens.

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