Bank of America’s Unconscionable Debit Card Fee Grab
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The Big Banks still don’t get it. Bank of America recently announced that it will start charging its customers $5 per month to use their debit cards. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase are considering similar fees on their customers.
For many workers, debit cards have replaced credit cards as a more affordable way to make purchases with their money. Unlike credit cards that carry high interest rates on their balances, debit card transactions transfer money directly from customers’ bank accounts like writing a check.
The Big Banks claim that these new fees are necessary because the Federal Reserve cut the amount that banks can charge merchants each time their customers swipe a debit card. These so-called “swipe fees” are passed on to customers in the form of higher prices. Read the rest of this entry »
Auto Industry Resurgent After Government Aid
Two years ago, the U.S. auto industry was on the verge of collapse. General Motors Corp. (GM) had filed for bankruptcy and had just begun to reorganize with $30 billion from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Chrysler, also with TARP support, reached a partnership deal with Fiat and began its climb from bankruptcy.
Just last week, Chrysler repaid the last of its $8.5 billion in loans the Obama administration made to the troubled carmaker and GM posted its biggest profit since 2000. Since both firms emerged from bankruptcy, car companies have added 115,000 jobs.
A new White House report—”The Resurgence of the American Automotive Industry“—highlights the jobs created in the auto industry and its supply chain, the turnaround of the companies that are now profitable and how entire communities have been revitalized by a strengthened auto industry.
The report says that the decision to save Chrysler and GM “was about more than those two companies.”
It was about standing behind the countless workers, communities, and businesses—large and small—that depend on the automotive industry.
Chrysler Repays Bridge Loan, Adds Jobs
Today, six years ahead of schedule, Chrysler Corp. repaid the last of its $8.5 billion in loans the Obama administration made to the troubled carmaker in April 2009 to help keep Chrysler afloat and save the jobs of tens of thousands of Chrysler workers and workers in the supply chain.
In less than two years, the financial aid from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) helped Chrysler emerge from bankruptcy and keep workers on the line. The loan to Chrysler drew heavy criticism at the time—especially from those who said the government had no business investing in jobs. Said President Obama in a statement today:
Supporting the American auto industry required making some tough decisions, but I was not willing to walk away from the workers at Chrysler and the communities that rely on this iconic American company. I said if Chrysler and all its stakeholders were willing to take the difficult steps necessary to become more competitive, America would stand by them, and we did.
In a conference call this morning with former Democratic governors, Jennifer Granholm (Mich.) and Ted Strickland (Ohio), UAW President Bob King said the Obama administration’s willingness to invest in Chrysler and GM with TARP funds shows a major difference between Democratic and Republican strategies on manufacturing.
We’re bringing many manufacturing jobs into this country because Democrats under the president’s leadership understand the importance of manufacturing to the U.S. The Republican Party is doing nothing for the manufacturing base.
Read more at Talking Points Memo.
Wall Street’s Russian Roulette Isn’t the American Way
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Last week, after AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka led 2,000 people on a march to a Philadelphia Bank of America branch as part of the Good Jobs Make Wall Street Pay mobilization, Dan Pedrotty, director of the AFL-CIO Office of Investments, told the national syndicated radio show “Building Bridges“:
We really sensed that was the beginning of something. There is a sense that we can really make changes in this country but also that we need to hold accountable those people who gambled with our economy and gambled with our future.
Hosts Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash asked Pedrotty what was behind the Good Jobs campaign, and he put it this way:
Millions of people are out of work today because Wall Street played Russian roulette with our economy and our future and we are now learning that unregulated greed and letting the markets govern themselves really failed our economy.
Senate Passes Jobs Bill, Obama Signature Next
The U.S. Senate today passed a jobs bill that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka calls a ”good start” in helping the nation’s workers climb out of the 11-million-deep jobs hole dug by the Wall Street greed that propelled the economy’s nosedive.
But he says the bill—which is on its way to the White House for President Obama’s signature—must be the first step of a broad and intensive effort to rebuild the economy.
Much more needs to be done. We need to restore the jobs that were lost to the financial debacle, and Wall Street should pay to create them. We must invest in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and in the green jobs of the future. We have to maintain funding for vital services by state and local governments and prevent destructive cuts in education, police and fire protection and more.
Solis: Let’s Roll Up Our Sleeves and Work Together to Get America Back to Work
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Creating good jobs that offer affordable health care and retirement security is the Obama administration’s top priority, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis today told members of the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in Orlando, Fla.
Solis, who met with some of the workers who spoke at a forum Monday night, said:
I wake up every morning worried about the millions of Americans out of work—about the millions of Americans who have given up even looking for the jobs that aren’t there. None of us expected this and we did not create this crisis—but each and every one of us is called to do more.
Poll: Public Supports Stimulus Provisions
As Congress considers new jobs legislation, a new poll shows a large majority of the public supports the basic provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The latest CNN poll, taken in mid-January, shows four of five Americans (80 percent) favor government spending on roads and bridges, and 83 percent approve of aid to unemployed workers. Seven in 10 support the idea of spending some of the stimulus money on tax cuts, and 62 percent think it’s a good idea to increase spending on mass transit projects. Check out the poll results here.
And there is growing evidence that the stimulus strategy is working. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the administration’s economic stimulus program created nearly 600,000 jobs in the past three months of 2009.
Jobs, Anyone?
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When will the lawmakers in Washington, D.C., figure out that putting America’s unemployed workers back to work means there actually needs to be jobs available? And that means creating them. The AFL-CIO’s five-point jobs plan includes job-creating measures, such as rebuilding the nation’s roads, schools and infrastructure, and lending Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) funds directly to small and medium-sized businesses via community banks. If small businesses can get credit, they will create jobs. The U.S. House passed a good jobs bill last month, but, as usual, the Senate is sitting back in its privileged chambers and doing nothing. Time to act. Now.
- There are now 6.4 unemployed workers for every ONE job in the United States. New data out today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show there were 12.9 million more unemployed workers than job openings in November, an increase from 6.1 percent in October.
Unemployment Insurance Extended, But States Face UI Disaster
In the “good news, bad news” category:
President Obama on Saturday signed an extension of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits that were set to expire Dec. 31. The two-month extension of the emergency UI also extends health insurance subsidies so that individuals now have 15 months to pay the reduced premiums related to the COBRA extension.
The only reason the bill made it to his desk without being blocked by anti-worker (i.e., the majority of) Senate Republicans is because the extensions were included in the fiscal year 2010 defense appropriations bill.
Now the bad news:
The recession’s jobless toll is draining unemployment-compensation funds so fast that according to federal projections, 40 state programs will go broke within two years and need $90 billion in loans to keep issuing the benefit checks.
Currently, 25 states have run out of unemployment money and have borrowed $24 billion from the federal government to cover the gaps. By 2011, according to Department of Labor estimates, 40 state funds will have been emptied by the jobless tsunami.
To Create Jobs, Let’s Help Small Business, Not Just Big Banks
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When our banking system was in crisis last year, Congress acted with lightning speed to bail out banks—but although Wall Street and the banksters have seen a recovery, working families are still facing a crisis of disappearing jobs.
One of the best ways to make sure our economy is creating new jobs is to take funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and rather than using them to just bail out the big banks, direct the funds to their intended purpose: restoring lending and credit to put people to work and our economy on the right track. That’s one of the key elements of the AFL-CIO’s five-point plan for job creation.
TARP, unfortunately, bailed out Wall Street and big banks without helping Main Street. Billions of dollars have gone to these big banks—but too often those dollars turned into executive pay and bonuses and Capitol Hill lobbying, not lending to spur economic growth. Even before the economic crisis, lending by banks to small and medium businesses was declining—and bank bailouts have not restored this critical lending.
