Tell Wall St.: Time to Pay Back the 99 Percent
This from BanksterUSA.org .
When reckless trading on Wall Street crashed the global economy, American taxpayers bailed out the Big Banks to the tune of $4.7 trillion. That is trillion with a “T”.
Today, Wall Street is booming. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo executives are earning just as much as they did before the financial crisis. In 2010, the CEOs of these three banks made $52 million dollars combined.
Yet on Main Street family incomes are tanking, job creation has stalled, and 42 million people are living in poverty, more than at any other time in the last 50 years.
We have done our part, now it’s time for Wall Street to do more – through a tiny sales tax on each Wall Street trade called a financial speculation tax. (Click here to sign a petition telling Wall Street it’s time to start Paying US Back!) Read the rest of this entry »
Nurses Tell Chamber, Politicians: Time to Cure America
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Carrying signs saying “Heal America! Tax Wall Street!” more than 1,000 nurses, union members and community allies today called on President Obama, the Chamber of Commerce and Congress set a new course to heal the nation.
After a short rally this morning in front of the White House, the crowd marched enthusiastically across the street to the Chamber. There were so many marchers that they covered an entire city block on both sides of the street. Traffic on busy “H” Street, a main thoroughfare in the nation’s capital, was blocked for several minutes as marchers crossed the street to reach the Chamber. All the time they chanted “Hey Chamber you can’t hide. We have seen your greedy side” and “They say cut back. We say fight back.”
Judy Cooperrider, a nurse from Cape Cod, Mass., summed up why she and the others are marching: Read the rest of this entry »
Federal Reserve Should Bail Out Main Street, Not Wall Street
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The Federal Reserve’s announcement this week that it will purchase $600 billion of Treasury debt, also known as “treasuries,” to help stimulate the economy should be a wake-up call to lawmakers that government needs to spend more, not less, to create jobs, economists say.
Here’s Josh Bivens, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI):
[The Fed purchase] is a welcome acknowledgement that the economy needs more help.…Congress should follow the Fed’s lead and provide this needed support, starting with an extension to unemployment benefits that are set to expire at the end of this month.
The Rich Are Different. They Have Jobs
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Goldman Sachs, one of the Wall Street firms that got the H1N1 flu shot well ahead of millions of America’s school children, sent this health tip in a memo to its pampered, out-of-touch execs: “Resist the urge to open your own car door; let your driver do it.”
Yo, Jeeves. While you’re at it, dust around the edges of those massive CEO pay packages. Because according to a report released today by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), top executives at four companies that jettisoned their employee pension plans received $49.5 million in retirement and severance benefits in the years before the companies filed for bankruptcy, while retirees saw their benefits cut by as much as two-thirds.
Yet Wall Street bankers are making that cash flow keeps coming: Yesterday, writes David Dayen, Senate Republicans bowed low before their corporate masters and delayed a move by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) to immediately take up a bill that would freeze all credit card rates, charges and fee increases.
Working America Takes Us to Main Street
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Take a stroll down Working America’s new Main Street…Main Street Blog that is.
The just-launched blog by the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate for workers who don’t have a union, features news and information about the issues that Working America’s 2.5 million members say they are most concerned about—the economy, health care, jobs, education, retirement security, the mortgage and housing crisis and other issues.
10 Reasons to Support the U.S. Auto Industry
Chances are the upcoming holiday get-togethers will provide plenty of encounters with relatives and friends who are against helping out the auto industry. Opponents of a bridge loan have plenty to say. And we should, too. Here’s a quick list of reasons for countering arguments by Uncle CEO and Cousin It.
1. Unlike the taxpayer giveaway to Wall Street, the funds for the auto industry are loans. These loans have to be paid back. The Big Banks who got our $700 billion get to keep it.
2. It’s cheaper to support the auto industry than to let it die. Anderson Economic Group and BBK Ltd. determined that over a two-year period, a $30 billion bridge loan with only half of the amount repaid would result in a $16.4 billion cost to taxpayers in lost sales, taxes and jobs, while a bankruptcy would cost $65.9 billion when costs for pensions, unemployment insurance, loan losses and professional and other fees are added.
