Skip to content

Banking

One Bank Is Finally On Trial For The Financial Crisis

March 19, 2015 David Dayen, www.newrepublic.com ,
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 , , ,
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 , ,
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.

Thousands To Protest ECB Austerity

March 15, 2015 Blockupy International Coordination, www.blockupy.org , , ,
Frankfurt, Germany - Just few days left to the inauguration of the new building of the ECB. Great participation is expected from all over Europe: social movements, activists, migrants, precarious and industry workers, trade-unions and parties will come to Frankfurt to say no to austerity and contest the authority of ECB and the other EU institutions. A new phase of European politics is opening up, a phase of uncertainty and confusion brought about by the Greek government which is challenging the doctrine of “there is no alternative to austerity”. The Greek example is for us a signal of hope: there is still space in Europe for asserting the importance of solidarity, democracy and commons against competitiveness and neoliberal order. We will be in Frankfurt, bringing together many networks, workers, trade unions, to say that we are the alternative: we want another Europe, a Europe which is not subservient to the capital, a Europe which does not use monetary policies in order to establish precarity and to cut social rights, welfare benefits and democracy.

#OccupyBanking #ReturnWithFreedom

March 5, 2015 RETORNENLIBERTAT, www.coopfunding.net , , ,
We want to finance the team that is already working on the launch of the #OccupyBanking campaign with the intention of placing at the center of public debate the total lack of democracy of the European Central Bank (ECB) and large private banks who control the monetary system, and especially the creation of money. A perverse system based on debt with these institutions – who have never been voted in democratically – hijacking our sovereignty. The #OccupyBanking campaign also wants to be the spearhead for creating the conditions that allow the #ReturnWithFreedom of the activist Enric Duran. The current crisis / fraud perpetrated by the financial and banking system in recent years has uncovered one of the problems that have long been highlighted by many activist groups: from the anti-globalization demonstrations in Seattle up until today, the effects of globalized capitalism have been exposed around the world. . .

Corporate Debt To Society: $10,000 Per Household, Per Year

February 24, 2015 Paul Buchheit, www.commondreams.org , , , ,
Over half (57 percent) of basic research is paid for by our tax dollars. Corporations don't want to pay for this. It's easier for them to allow public money to do the startup work, and then, when profit potential is evident, to take over with applied R&D, often with patents that take the rights away from the rest of us. All the technology in our phones and computers started this way, and continues to the present day. Pharmaceutical companies have depended on the National Institutes of Health. The quadrillion-dollar trading capacity of the financial industry was made possible by government-funded Internet technology, and the big banks survived because of a $7 trillion public bailout. A particularly outrageous example of a company turning public research into a patent-protected private monopoly is the sordid tale (here) of the drug company Gilead Sciences.

Iceland Jails Some Bankers

February 18, 2015 Jón Benediktsson, www.grapevine.is , ,
The former CEO of Kaupþing, former chairman of the board of Kaupþing, former CEO of Kaupþing Luxembourg and former owner of 10% of Kaupþing all got sentenced to prison today by the supreme court of Iceland, reports Kjarninn. Former CEO Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson recieved five and a half years, minus time already spent in custody. Magnús Guðmundsson former CEO of Kaupþing Luxembourg and Ólafur Ólafsson former 10% owner of Kaupþing got harsher senteces than in Reykjavík District Court, both getting four and a half years. Former chairman of the board Sigurður Einarsson, hower, got four years.

Obama’s Foreclosure Program Designed To Help Bankers

February 16, 2015 David Dayen, www.billmoyers.com , , , ,
President Obama will carry several legacies into his final two years in office: a long-sought health care reform, a fiscal stimulus that limited the impact of the Great Recession, a rapid civil rights advance for gay and lesbian Americans. But if Obama owns those triumphs, he must also own this tragedy: the dispossession of at least 5.2 million US homeowner families, the explosion of inequality, and the largest ruination of middle-class wealth in nearly a century. Though some policy failures can be blamed on Republican obstruction, it was within Obama’s power to remedy this one — to ensure that a foreclosure crisis now in its eighth year would actually end, with relief for homeowners to rebuild wealth, and to preserve Americans’ faith that their government will aid them in times of economic struggle.
«123456»