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More than 8,000 Set for Virtual March on Wall Street—Join Us Today
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This Thursday, April 29, some 10,000 union members, community activists from National People’s Action (NPA) and other groups will march on Wall Street. Our message to the Big Bankers: Americans are angry that their reckless greed made a mess of the economy and destroyed jobs—and it’s time they pay to restore those jobs. If you can’t make it in person, join the more than 8,000 people who have signed up to be taken to the march virtually.
To join the virtual march and demand an end to Wall Street’s reckless practices and insist on real Wall Street reform, click here. We’ll print your name on a sticker that one of the marchers will carry. You can add your personal message to the sign that the marcher will carry in your name. Let the Big Bankers know you’re fed up with their shenanigans and that you want real change. The march and rally, which begin at 4 p.m. EDT, is part of the AFL-CIO’s Good Jobs Now! Make Wall Street Pay mobilization.
It’s more important than ever to speak out for Wall Street reform. Yesterday, in the Senate, all the Republicans and one Democrat blocked an effort by Senate Democrats to reform Wall Street. It’s clear the Republicans are standing up for Wall Street and not Main Street.
And Americans want real reform. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that some two-thirds of Americans support stricter regulations on the way banks and other financial institutions conduct their business.
Despite overwhelming opposition to business as usual, Big Banks are spending $1.4 million a day in lobbying and political expenses to fight reform, according to Heather Booth, executive director of the coalition Americans for Financial Reform.
Also this week, Working America, the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate, is holding satellite events at Big Banks in eight cities, where working people are sending in ”We’re not your ATM” pictures from those events. For more information, click here. Working America also will deliver 70,000 fliers about Wall Street reform to homes around the country and collect 10,000 handwritten letters to members of Congress.
More than 1,000 people in San Francisco will rally at the Wells Fargo shareholder meeting on Tuesday. Hundreds of retirees, family farmers and workers from across the heartland will march on the financial district in Kansas City, Mo., and demand Bank of America divest from payday lending. On Wednesday, hundreds of veterans, clergy members and working families will march to rally at the Bank of America annual shareholder meeting in Charlotte, N.C. Union leaders, community activists, small business owners, economists and working families who have lost their jobs, homes and credit will engage in a major demonstration in Chicago’s financial district, demanding Wall Street banks pay to rebuild jobs and the economy they helped destroy.
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6 Comments
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Sure, we need to look at Wall Street and their industry of money strategies.
But we also need to look inward at our fascination with cheap goods in abundance and profit that insures us a comfortable retirement.
Are we willing to pay more and consume less, so we can guarantee that whoever made it has a decent living wage? Yes, bring back the manufacturing jobs, but be prepared to pay more for them, keep them longer and buy less in quantity.
It’s time for even the middle class to look at our own investments, our pension funds, 401K’s and anything else that we are depending on for a comfortable retirement. I’m a CA state employee who has good health care at a rock-bottom payroll deduction, but my public pension fund is heavily invested in Wellpoint ($67 Million in shares), the parent-profiteer of Anthem/Blue Cross. You’ll remember this is the company, who might raise rates on individual subscribers 39%. In essence, I am profiting off a strategy that could make health care unaffordable for another part of our society.
When was the last time you saw an article about the comparative growth of what I call “paper wealth” or unearned income vs. “labor wealth”, the real wages part of our compensation for work done?
It’s time for us all to have a public discussion and decide where we place our values, behind the dollar-sign and our retirement or the vitality and well-being of our labor force.
Sea Star raises a very good, and way over-looked, point. Most of us who have any sort of savings are invested one way or another in the very corporations (and Wall Street system) that is raping us on a daily basis. This is especially true for 401K type retirement accounts where most of us have very few choices in what funds we can invest in, and those funds have next to no transparency about them. Pension plans can be no better but at least are more diversified so that we know at least some of our money is going in to investments like local redevelopment or bonds (fed, state and local) – stuff that isn’t so directly and immediately counter to our own interests.
The movement to privatize and “individualize” retirement is not only geared towards increasing the profits of Wall Street but also to make the interests of Wall Street OUR interests! If our retirements depend on the fortunes of Wall Street then we will be less apt to support policies that rein in the excesses of the markets. Oh no, that new regulation caused the markets to drop! Those criminal charges against that bank caused the Dow Jones to dive! Can’t have any of that now, can we?
As for our pensions which are managed by our unions, or state or local boards, we rely on professional managers to do the right thing by us. But its not hard to see the conflicts of interest that start to arise. How does a union take a truly strong stand against Wall Street when its own money is so tied up in it? Some say that we can use that leverage to change those corporations or even Wall Street but I haven’t seen much evidence of that happening (CalPERS being one exception I can think of).
So what can we do? Personally, I’m moving out of all mutual funds entirely and into government bonds (of course, treasury bonds go to fund War so there’s no perfect answer) and micro lending. We should all be pushing our unions to do the same with our pension funds. It’s time we stop funding the means of our own destruction.
It’s great to see democracy in action. I think it’s great when people band together to fight for causes that they believe in. However, this march needs a clear message. I’m confused with what’s wrong with a bank just because it’s big. It would be nice to read this article list specifically what they want the law to do. Also, how are they going to help their members have access to credit? thanks.
This is a great event. I don’t recall seeing it mentioned on the national news tonight… Seems like it would have been a fitting addition to all the press given to the GS debacle.
I am so glad that people who are all union brothers and sisters are coming out in favor of the working people in this country! we never get any tax breaks like the rich people do but we should because we made this country the great place it is today! We need an independent group overseeing these financial institutions who take our money and invest it without our knowledge! i am tired of paying for these bank bailouts, what about the working people in this country? Don’t they deserve a financial bailout as well?
1) There is no question reform is needed, almost everyone would agree with that. We certainly do. We are calling for a) Goldman Sachs to appoint a “Chief Compliance Officer” in accordance with SEC regs, and b) for the indictment of Richard Fuld for the “Hudson Castle” fraud, as reported by The New York Times. We supported shutting down Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac – because they had all gotten grossly out of control, largely due to derivatives, also mortgage fraud, but largely derivatives.
2) Regarding what is on the table now, while well intentioned no doubt, it contains some provisions that could be very dangerous to America’s financial interests. And I don’t mean the interests of the financial services industry, a.k.a. “Wall Street”, but the interests of America generally. What I am referring to is the centralized guaranty of derivatives by exchanges. The exchanges do not have the financial ability to do this, and what actually needs to be done first is designating derivatives as securities, putting them under the SEC umbrella instead of the Department of Agriculture, and assigning them CUSIP (securities registration) numbers so that a long term data capture efforts can commence. This is a very important point. >>> The exchanges do not have the financial capability to guaranty the derivatives industry, <<< and frankly I have no clue what it would mean if they signed a law into effect saying that would have to happen. What does need to happen is deeming them securities, assigning a CUSIP nummber to each contract, requiring trading of them through SEC-licensed exchanges, and then after some legitimate data gathering and seeing generally how it goes with them trading on the exchanges – what else needs to be done. But don’t put a law on the books, like you are getting ready to, saying that the exchanges will guaranty the derivatives – because you could cause the exchanges to fail, and I’m talking about the NYSE and CBOE, not some computer in a basement somewhere. The exchanges do not have the financial capacity to guaranty the contracts.
3) Also, with regard to the so-called “Volcker Rule” in the proposed new legislation —- parts of it are ok, but you don’t want to prohibit banks from maintaining bond portfolios. Bonds are just loans, and banks should be encouraged toward growth and best-practices in regard to lending, and that includes owning bonds. You don’t want to cripple America’s banks, because longer term, and even today, we have to be mindful that America must compete with banks from China, the Arabic nations, Russia, and Europe —- and we don’t want to have a situation develop where America’s bankers are riding around on tricycles and the foreign banks are driving tanks. The banks also have to be able to deal in interest rate swaps.
If you want to do something really helpful, get derivatives defined by law as securities, and do not try to make the exchanges guaranty them as part of the clearing process, because you could collapse both the NYSE and the CBOE, and believe me that would not be good.
And, p.s. Wall Street interests, while President Bush was in office, would not let G.M. go under, and it was a close call. Not that we’re UAW members, but that would probably have been the end of the UAW, and President Bush said “No” to that, and so did we.
Matt Lechner – CFP, CRPS, FRM
Chairman – WSSIG, the Wall Street Special Interest Group
“supporting and growing America’s interests in the global capital markets”