Huge Protests Planned for Showdown on Wall St. and at Banks Across the U.S. to Demand Financial Refo

[Jefferson23]

A coalition of groups plan multi-city protests at the end of April as public outrage rises over banks' return to massive profits and obscene bonuses.
April 22, 2010

Good thing Goldman Sachs reported its first-quarter profits on the popular pot holiday April 20. Because you had to be totally stoned to appreciate the sheer, corrupt elegance of its nearly $3.5 billion earnings.

It's hopefully Goldman's last outrageous ripoff. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed fraud charges as recently as last week against the rapacious vampire squid of a bank. "People are angry and frustrated with how the big banks drove our economy into the ditch, took billions in taxpayer funded bail-outs, and are now doing nothing to help fix the mess they created," said Liz Ryan Murray, senior policy analyst at National People's Action, which is marshaling thousands with the help of the AFL-CIO, PICO National Network and more to launch the "Showdown on Wall Street!" protest on April 29.

While we struggle with the foreclosures and unemployment their reckless and greedy behavior caused, they're back to huge profits and obscene bonuses," Murray said. "We're sending a message to these banks that enough is enough. The American people aren't going to stand for it anymore, and we will continue to keep the pressure on until they change their behavior. We're also sending a message to Congress that we've had enough of them putting the profits of Wall Street ahead of the needs of Main Street. We know the Senate will be listening and watching as thousands of American voters take to the streets to demand real reform.

The NPA is also working with local community organizers to protest Wells Fargo's April 27 shareholders meeting in San Francisco, Bank of America's shareholders meeting on April 28, and more. These progressive showdowns coincide with a growing stream of dissent against lending institutions and their political enablers, adding proof to the thesis that the people are as mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore. Their more overt protests are mirrored by establishment actions like the SEC's suit, or retiring Senator Chris Dodd's Wall Street reform bill, which begins doubtlessly charged congressional debate this month. Or the Agenda Project's open letter to Senator Harry Reid and Senator Mitch McConnell, which argues that Dodd's legislation needs strengthening and is signed by economic heavyweights like Robert Reich, Robert Kuttner, Jim Chanos and more.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/146571/huge_protests_planned_for_showdown_on_wall_st._and_at_banks_across_the_u.s._to_demand_financial_reform?page=entire

[Democrats_win]

1. Yes! (Will the Tea Phonies participate?)

Right place, right time, right cause!

[Jefferson23]

2. I wonder about that too, the phonies vs those who do want meaningful reform.

[happy_liberal]

4. this is clearly something they don't want us to unite around

There as been a concerted effort to divide us because if we all started marching together against these injustices they would not be able to control us.

[Skidmore]

3. Good. Right after the speech, Chris Matthews had some guy interviewing

a trader/WS exec and that guy was squealing like a stuck pig about how bad it is to regulate and that it's bad for bidness. I broke out my tiny little violin and played him a dirge. And then I smiled, because this is what needs to be done.

[xchrom]

5. More of this please. Nt

[Jefferson23]

9. Yes, and I hope all who can attend the events, will do so. n/t

[amborin]

6. this is good to see; hope people realize there's no real reform until derivatives and swaps are bann

ed

[jxnmsdemguy65]

7. Where are Bonnie and Clyde when you need them?

Sometimes I think that the banksters will never be brought under control until certain people start arming themselves with BARs again... :sarcasm:

[amborin]

8. ps: there's no real reform until naked shorting is banned:

"Senator Blanche Lincoln’s Derivatives Reform Bill Must Pass
Thursday, 04/22/2010 - 9:45 am by L. Randall Wray | Post a Comment

Randall Wray echoes Senator Lincoln’s calls for splitting up the risky derivatives business from commercial banks which ought to be serving the public good.

While most reformers are dithering around with trying to bring derivatives onto formal exchanges, Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) has got the right idea: get banks like Goldman out of the business of betting against their own customers. Indeed, she rightly argues that “naked shorting” (using derivatives to bet against assets you don’t hold) is just like buying life insurance on your neighbor’s house-and then setting it afire. As we know, that is exactly what Goldman has been doing for years: marketing debt instruments to customers, and then using credit default swaps (CDSs) to bet that the debt will go bad-all the while helping to ensure that debts will go bad (through, by example, letting a hedge fund run by John Paulson’s hedge fund to pick the trashy subprimes that would go into the debt instruments sold to customers). Senator Lincoln is right: it is not sufficient to bring these practices into the light of day of formal exchanges-instead they should be prohibited practices for any financial institution that receives government support, which includes all chartered banks.

What neither Wall Street nor Washington yet understands is that all chartered banks are really public-private partnerships: they receive Treasury-supplied FDIC insurance, and they have access to the Fed as lender of last resort when things go bad. FDIC insurance makes bank deposits as good as cold, hard, government-supplied cash. Effectively, it allows banks to play with “house money“. At most, banks put up 8% of their owners’ money, and the Treasury kicks in 92% that the banks use to buy assets or to make bets. It is as if you went to Las Vegas and Uncle Sam provided 92 cents of every dollar you gambled. And if you still manage to run into trouble, Uncle Ben Bernanke stands ready to bail you out with free cash. Quite a deal! And a gamble you literally cannot lose.

Now this can be justified only if banks serve the public purpose. That is the quid-pro-quo for the sweet deal Uncle Sam and Uncle Ben provide. Banks are supposed to provide deposit services to customers, and to carefully examine credit-worthiness of borrowers. There is no other justification for bank charters. If they do not make and hold loans, and provide deposits, they have no business holding a bank charter.

It is presumed that private loan officers can do a better job at this than civil servants can do. That seems plausible, at least on the surface. But banks have gradually jettisoned that function–deciding they’d rather “originate and distribute”–originate loans but then push them onto someone else’s balance sheet. Worse, they decided that there is actually no reason to ever assess credit-worthiness since someone else will take the loss if NINJA loans go bad. Indeed, banks decided they could make even more money if they originated loans sure to go bad, packaged the very worst stuff into securities and sold these to pension funds, then used CDSs to bet the junk would crater. Jimmy Stewart thrifts they ain’t.

Goldman and other large banks serve no public purpose. The claim that they “do God’s work” is simply repugnant. Only a singularly rapacious individual who sees himself as a modern-day divinely-chosen monarch could possibly make such a statement.

To be sure we are only talking about the top ten or dozen banks-where all the derivatives are. There are literally thousands of banks all across America that still make loans, issue deposits, and have never seen a derivative. Virtually all derivatives bought or sold, held or pushed like bad heroin are the responsibility of a handful of “too big to fail” thoroughly corrupt institutions that feed at the trough of Uncles Sam and Ben. Indeed, in an ironic twist of fate, these risky and toxic institutions get the best deal of all: because they are the favorites of Uncles Sam and Ben they enjoy the lowest costs of issuing liabilities (that is to say, borrowing). Remember that 8 cents of your own money you take to Las Vegas? You pay more for that than the top gamblers-who not only get Uncle Sam to provide 92 cents of every gambled dollar, but the 8 cents of their own money put into play is cheaper for them to raise because even that is believed to be backed by our Uncles in Washington. In other words, the Washington Uncles subsidize that 8 cents, so that the biggest institutions get an unfair advantage over the thousands of institutions that reside in cities and towns all across American.

This is why firms like Goldman are said to be “backstopped” by Washington — no losses or prosecutions for fraud will be permitted. Yet hundreds and even thousands of smaller institutions will be allowed to fail during this crisis created by the likes of Goldman. They don’t get the backstop.

The recent charges against Goldman have shaken that belief, just as Senator Lincoln’s bill has Wall Street shaking in its penny loafers. Here is the choice she offers: you can continue with your derivatives, acting against the public interest, or you can be a bank. You cannot be both. Take your choice: blood-sucking vampire squid? Or, serve the public interest. If you go for squid, you lose all public protection. In that case, you go “free market” with all that entails-higher costs of borrowing, 100% downside risk, and prosecution when you lie and deceive. Go ahead and bet against your customers–they will vote with their feet if they do not like that treatment and will sue you when you screw them. Burn down houses and go to jail for arson. Your choice.

Or. Take a bank charter, and you will be protected but constrained. No activities that run against the public purpose will be permitted. Go ahead, make loans–but you will hold them on your balance sheet, and thereby take any risks associated with folly. If you make bad bets, you will wipe out the owners. Go ahead, issue deposits and your Uncles will guarantee them. But access to the public trough comes with a cost: no more derivatives, of any kind-traded, untraded, transparent

snip

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