Showdown in Chicago: Thousands Protest Bankers
UPDATE: Check out photos and a video from today’s rally.
More than 5,000 people are packing the streets of downtown Chicago this morning, chanting, marching and rallying against Big Bankers and financial institutions that have taken taxpayer money and are using it to give big bonuses to CEOs and to lobby against financial reforms that would ensure they don’t go back on the public dole.
The crowd is marching to the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, site of the American Bankers Association meeting, to protest the banking industry’s greed and irresponsibility that crippled our economy, leaving millions of workers behind.
After the house of cards they built collapsed, bankers and the financial industry took $700 billion in taxpayer funds for a bailout. But rather than reform their failed practices, they want to go back to business as usual—with the chance of again precipitating another financial collapse and need for taxpayer bailout in coming years.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who is joining union members and allies at today’s events, has a clear message to bankers: You work for us.
Showdown in Chicago
 |
|
I’m in Chicago for the American Bankers Association meeting. Oddly, I haven’t been invited to the Roaring ’20s dance party I hear they’re having.
Why wouldn’t they celebrate the era of wild money and hot times (which slid into the Great Depression)? After all, the bankers are doing well these days.
They’re doing well because after financial institutions caused the global economic crisis, we bailed them out, to the tune of some $700 billion.
Now they’re in good enough shape to pay the suits $7 billion in bonuses for driving working families and our economy to our knees—to the verge of a second full-fledged depression.
Things might be turning around for the bankers, but for the rest of us, unemployment heads toward 10 percent and home foreclosures continue to devastate families and communities. Working families have lost health care, pensions and savings—and in exchange we’ve gotten predatory lending, outrageous overdraft fees and sky-high credit card interest rates.
Wall Street Won’t Do Right. Now They Have To
 |
|
So, Wall Street CEOs didn’t figure out on their own that when they take taxpayer money, they have a moral obligation to help the overall economy with their $700 billion public-funded bailout rather than single-mindedly line their own pockets with billions of dollars in salaries, bonuses and other ego-inflating perks.
Funny how “moral obligation” and “Wall Street” tend to be mutually exclusive terms.
Wall Street CEOs wouldn’t do it on their own. So now they have to.
Dancing with Jay and Daisy
 |
|
When you’re a member of the American Bankers Association (ABA) meeting in Chicago amid the worst U.S. jobless crisis and most disastrous economy since the 1930s Depression, what’s the logical move to make?
Dress up in a Roaring ’20s costume and party like it’s 1929.
Proving yet again that not only do taxpayer-bailed-out CEOs have no shame, word has it that they plan to flaunt their taxpayer-fueled wealth in our faces, the ABA is sponsoring its Roaring ’20s party in conjunction with its Oct. 27–29 meeting.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will lead thousands of mad-as-hell Americans in a rally outside the ABA meeting on Oct. 27, demanding financial reform and re-regulation that will allow us to rebuild our communities, our lives and our economy.
(If you’re in Chicago, join us Oct. 27 at 10:30 a.m. CST. The march departs from the corner of East Wacker Drive and Stetson Avenue. After about a 15-minute march, the rally will be outside the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers at 301 E. North Water St.)
Because when they’re not stocking up on Jay and Daisy attire, Big Bankers and financial institutions are using the $700 billion in taxpayer bailout money to attack proposals like the Consumer Financial Protection Agency that would actually help working people while decreasing the chance of another Big Bank-fueled financial meltdown. Of course, they’re not using all of our money to fight reform. Some of it—about $7 billion—is going to bonuses for top CEOs.
Here’s Why U.S. Job Loss Worse, Wider Than Previous Recessions
The current economic downturn is the worst since the Great Depression and has led to more job loss than the previous two recessions. Just as in the 1930s, today’s economic crisis was triggered by a banking failure created in large part by financial degregulation. Both jobs and a stronger financial system must be addressed to prevent future problems, say two union leaders key to solving the crisis.
In a recent interview with National Public Radio (NPR), AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, a member of President Obama’s White House Economic Recovery Advisory Board, pointed out that the current recession is worse than the recessions of the mid-1970s and early 1980s when it comes to job losses. Says Trumka:
This recession began in December of 2007, and we’ve already lost more jobs as a percentage of total employment than in the entire ‘73 or ‘80-’81 recessions.
Disaster: Unemployment at 7.2 Percent. Real Rate 13.5 Percent
The jobless numbers out today are worse than even the most pessimistic analysts imagined: 524,000 jobs lost in December, pushing the nation’s unemployment rate to 7.2 percent. Under the Bush administration, 2008 has become the worst year for job loss since 1945, with nearly 2.6 million jobs lost last year alone. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 11.1 million of America’s workers are unemployed.
December was the 12th straight month of job loss and included a loss of 21,400 jobs in auto and parts industries. From Bloomberg:
Manufacturing, which makes up 12 percent of the economy, shrank in December at the fastest pace in 28 years, Institute for Supply Management figures showed. Payrolls at builders dropped by 101,000 after decreasing 85,000. Financial firms reduced payrolls by 14,000, after a 28,000 loss the prior month. Service industries, which include banks, insurance companies, restaurants and retailers, subtracted 273,000 workers after a decline of 402,000.
