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Protesters in Chicago March on Offices of Goldman, Wells Fargo
CHICAGO - Hundreds of union members and organizers descended on the streets of downtown Chicago on Monday morning to picket the offices of Goldman Sachs Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co.
A large crowd of protesters march outside the American Bankers Association annual convention in Chicago, Illinois October 26, 2009. (REUTERS/Frank Polich) The
group, which included supporters from community group National People's
Action and the Service Employees International Union, has organized the
protests to coincide with the annual meeting of the American Bankers
Association. The group is demanding that "banks end their over-reliance
on greed and profits and commit to using their taxpayer bailouts and
backstops to help America's economy recover," said a news release from
the Service Employees International Union.
The protests, similar to ones that have flared up in other cities throughout the financial crisis, pick up on popular sentiment that big banks are partly to blame for the financial crisis. Last week, a government pay czar proposed slashing compensation for bank executives whose companies received government bailout money.
People inside the American Bankers Association meeting said the anger directed at that group was misplaced, since the association mostly represents community banks.
"You did not make any abusive subprime loans; you did not take big bonuses for products that later blew up," ABA President Edward Yingling said during his opening remarks.
Most of the protesters on the Chicago streets Monday appeared to be with a union and many of them were brought in on yellow school buses from across the Midwest. The message was one of ire at bank executives' large bonuses, bank foreclosures and predatory lending.
"I'm here basically for my grandchildren," said Peggy Sower Knoepfle, a protester who traveled in on a bus from Springfield, Ill., with National People's Action. "If we don't stop these foreclosures we're not going to have a country left."
Another protester, Garry Klicker, who is with the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, took time away from harvesting his corn and soybeans in Bloomfield, Iowa, to voice his anger.
"This is not a financial system," he said. "This is a financial disaster."
Protesters carried effigies of bank executives, including John Stumpf, chief executive of Wells Fargo, and former Bank of America Chief Executive Ken Lewis. Some clutched "Wanted" signs bearing the faces of bank executives deemed "Wall Street Robber Banker[s]." They carried signs with slogans such as "No Bonuses for Big Banks" and chanted sayings like "Bust up big banks!"
The morning protests started at the Chicago offices of Goldman Sachs. A woman on a megaphone shouted, "We're here to tell Goldman Sachs, shame on you! Shame on you for helping bring this country to the brink of a depression!" The crowd, in turn, chanted "Shame on you!" An organizer yelled a list of demands for Goldman Sachs, including that the bank support calls for a consumer-finance protection agency and that it donate the money set aside for bonuses to loan-modification programs.
The group also asked to meet with Goldman's chairman and chief executive officer, Lloyd Blankfein "within the next 30 days." At one point the group tried to enter the Goldman Sachs lobby to hand-deliver a letter to Mr. Blankfein but was held back by police and security. Instead, a representative was sent down to pick up the letter. That person shook hands with some of the protesters.
A spokeswoman at Goldman Sachs said the bank's security office in Chicago had received a copy of the letter. She didn't comment further.
The group then marched down the street to the Chicago offices of Wells Fargo. There they also attempted to hand-deliver a letter to Mr. Stumpf, the Wells Fargo CEO. Officials at Wells Fargo couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Around noon, the group boarded a fleet of yellow school buses that took them to the American Bankers Association convention.
At the convention, speeches by Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair and Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan weren't disrupted by the protests amid tight security.
Ms. Bair, who had earlier addressed protesters, told the audience of community bankers that there was still work to be done in assuaging public concerns over banks' policies on fees.
She drew applause when she said lax regulation of nonbank financial entities had been a "key gap that was exploited," pledging with Mr. Dugan to crack down on lenders that had cost traditional banks market share.
-Doug Cameron contributed to this article.
8 Comments so far
Show AllGood show. Next step: reenact Glass Steagall--separate banks from investment houses. Reenactment will allow investment banks to fail (due to their own reckless casino gambling instincts)--and the taxpayers are not going to bail them out.
After that, get rid of these so-called "investment houses," like Goldman Sachs. They produce nothing, they simple flip papers and sell worthless Ponzi schemes and fraudulently turn garbage subprime mortgages into AAA rated securities, all the while recklessly gambling with your tax dollars--safely secure in knowing that they are too big to fail and that taxpayers will come to their rescue!
"...demanding that "banks end their over-reliance on greed..."
Right. Like demanding a drug addict put down the needle and get a damn job already...
Instead of wasting our time protesting the 1% who could give a flying f@#k, we should be demanding the NIH begin work immediately on locating the biological/chemical causes for Severe Greedism Disorder and a way to cure it.
They got a hangover pill, an anti-cocaine pill, a whole f@#king slew of happy pills and happy-penis pills - if we don't find a Prozac that brings the uber-greedy back to Earth, we're all simply f@#ked, and we all know it...
AlterNet
Showdown Against the Greedy Bankers in Chicago
By Rob Johnson, NewDeal 2.0
Posted on October 26, 2009, Printed on October 26, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/143517/
Editor's Note: As David Moberg of In These Times writes, "Just as the showdown over financial reform is heating up in Congress and the media, a coalition of dozens of community organizations, unions, religious groups and other progressive organizations are mobilizing their own “Showdown in Chicago” during the American Bankers Association convention. ... The protest, with thousands expected, follows a week of progress in taming an out-of-control financial system." Sunday saw the kickoff of the protests, described by Rob Johnson below.
Opening night at the Showdown in Chicago. Senator Durbin from Illinois gave a rousing speech about unfairness, bailouts, credit care usury and bonus audacity. He emphasized the need to be respectful but unyielding in our demands for balanced reform. He spoke of how each marcher is there and represents the pain and hopes of individuals who were abused by foreclosure, subprime treachery and more.
THE ONLY SURPRISING ELEMENT WAS THE MUTED APPLAUSE FOR THE POTUS.
Only on the third time that Durbin referenced the name Obama to arouse the crowd did he get the applause he was looking for.
SHEILA BAIR, FDIC chairperson, will address the crowd tomorrow. That is great to see.
After watching the great episode on PBS Frontline entitled "The Warning" about OTC derivatives, I AM BEGINNING TO WONDER IF THE ESSENTIAL REFORM WE ARE SEEKING IS:
TO HAVE ONLY WOMEN REGULATE FINANCE.
Imagine if Janet Yellin had run the Fed, Elizabeth Warren ran the CFPA, Sheila Bair stayed in place at the FDIC and Brookley Born had stayed to run the CFTC. (Though Gary Gensler is doing great work at the CFTC now) They are all highly competent and god knows we would be better off. Every one of these people is first rate competent and does not seem to be missing the capacity of judgment that so many of the men have lacked in the last 20 years.
The question most asked here is "how long can this go on? Bailouts for the ones who created the mess, bankers acting like they earned it, foreclosures and bankruptcies and unemployment rising, and the Congressional Committees pretending to reform the financial regulatory system while they load up on money from the financial lobbyists.
My answer is that no one knows how long. We know that it will change. We will not see a nation that lives on 30 percent credit card rates. We will not see Wall Street wages forever at a 40 percent premium to wages throughout the economy adjusted for skill and experience. We will not pretend that only financial repackagers work hard and are deserving.
The question is when and how, not if, it will change. What hangs in the balance is how much blood will be spilt, disruption needs to occur, homes will be lost, jobs will be lost and municipal functions will be closed down before our political system becomes responsive. We are seeing an ugly chapter in our country, one that Herman Melville in his poem Clarel foresaw as a dark age of democracy. As one of our great theologians once exclaimed,
But today, because we have so cruelly separated freedom from virtue, because we define freedom in a morally inferior way, our country is stalled in what Herman Melville call the "Dark Ages of Democracy," a time when as he predicted, the New Jerusalem would turn into Babylon, and Americans would feel "the arrest of hope's advance." (William Sloane Coffin)
I am grateful that the Showdown in Chicago is happening. What I wish is that professional financiers and economists would join Dean Baker, Bob Kuttner and myself here. This is not left and right, this is right and wrong. Financiers and economists can all see that something is terribly wrong with the financial system. We have embarked on an era of Wall Street Protectionism. Government cronyism conferring gifts upon the Too Big to Fail. While they are not in Chicago the voices of Paul Volcker, George Soros, Mervyn King, and even Alan Greenspan are speaking out. I am grateful for their efforts and courage. Others with financial experience and expertise can see that the market system is being abused. It is time to give up on rational apathy, as Mancur Olson called it in Logic of Collective Action and contribute to the solution.
A series of demands need to be formulated as the pressure rises.
My first cut would look like this:
Bailouts and TBTF
You get bailed out and the public dilutes your equity and top management compensation evaporates. Letters of resignation are given to the authorities. No negotiated terms. Mandatory equity dilution. If you get rescued the public owns some upside. No crony deals between Fed or Treasury officials and management. Anything less is taxpayer abuse.
Foreclosure Modification
Recognize reality. Principal reductions. Burden sharing. 20 percent is less than the costs of foreclosure.
Usury and Credit
As the Industrial Areas Foundation says, 10 percent is enough.
Derivatives Reform
Simple transparent and exchange traded. Regulated capital levels on exchanges.
The efforts that will be required to overcome this Babylon might as well get started here and now. It is my hope that there will be showdowns in Cleveland, Detroit, Miami, Denver, Oakland and more. Things will change. Finance has seen its peak. The question is when and how the change will occur.
Rob Johnson is the Director of the Economic Policy Initiative at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and is a regular contributor to the Institute’s blog NewDeal2.0. He serves on the UN Commission of Experts on Finance and International Monetary Reform.
© 2009 NewDeal 2.0 All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/143517/
==============
note: there is a CNN article that explores the question:
"THE REAL SAVIORS OF the GLOBAL ECONOMY: WOMEN".
think about it :
we are alive only because of a MOTHER - she is called EARTH.
who has been so generous.
and we have disrespected the giver of life.
We have many examples of women in political and private leadership around the world, and none of these acted differently than men in their postions. There are good ones and bad - mostly, like men, bad.
See Paul Craig Roberts's article at the Counterpunch web site.
Geithner, Paulson and Summers are criminals. They are gaming the system from the top. They don't care about the general US population. The writer of the artcle is a republican who was assistant Treasury secretary during the Reagan administration. He knows what he is talking about. Until these criminals are fired AND arrested, there is no hope of anything but a Hobbs meets Malthus cruel status quo.
Why doesn't Ron Paul , Sanders or Kucinich call for impeachment and criminal charges against Geithner? It's all well and good to talk about how much the middle class is suffering and in danger of disappearing. News Flash: We know that. We used to have laws against fraud, embezzlement and grand larceny in this country. How about it, congress critters? Hey Senator Leahy, you used to be a prosecutor. WTF happened? Did a cat bite your tongue? Fifteen hundred guardsmen from Vermont just left for, what for some of them, is a one way ticket to Afghanistan. Sure, it keeps Vermont unemployment low but at what ultimate cost to our country and our planet? McKibben, are you reading this? You should be raising hell about this war bullshit in Vermont. And yes, it IS the same subject as financial thievery. It's all of a piece; a Wall Street piece. Our senators and congressmen have made peace with Wall Street. Consequently, we need to make war with congress. McKibben, get with it!
The Black Bush Administration is behind the banks lock, stock and barrel, so there's nothing protesters can do.
What people CAN do is take their money out of banks and transfer it to credit unions. I have a free checking at Chase and after I use their free services to pay my bills online I never leave more than 5 dollars for those criminals to fool around with. Chase's a criminal enterprise of the greatest order.
Protesting bank malfeasances without bringing rifles--lol.