June, 12 2018, 12:00am EDT
Bank Heist: Wall Street Banks Get Huge Trump-GOP Tax Cuts
On top of bailouts, big banks rewarded with huge tax windfalll.
WASHINGTON
America's big Wall Street banks and financial firms, profiting handsomely from the new Trump-GOP tax law, are using the bulk of their huge tax-cut savings to further enrich their already wealthy shareholders and executives while sharing little or nothing with their rank-and-file workers, according to a new Americans for Tax Fairness analysis of corporate filings and other data.
The nation's Big 6 Wall Street banks--Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo--are among the biggest winners from the Trump-GOP tax cuts, collectively saving an estimated $14 billion in 2018 alone. [See table below] That's 25 times more than three of the six banks have promised to give their workers in pay raises and one-time bonuses purportedly related to the tax cuts. The other three big banks have not publicly announced that they will share any of their tax cuts with their employees.
In the first three months of 2018 alone, the Big 6 received a tax-cut windfall of $2.9 billion. That's enough to give all of America's 3.2 million full-time public-school teachers a raise of more than $300 for each of those three months. Yet only Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo have announced plans to pass along any of that bounty to their employees. The $550 million in estimated wage increases and one-time bonuses represent only a small fraction of the industry's tax savings, and they pale in comparison to what the banks are showering on their shareholders and executives.
Ten years ago, many of these same banks were at the center of the financial crisis that caused $6 to $14 trillion in economic losses in the U.S. alone, cost millions of jobs and led to millions of American families losing their homes. The big Wall Street banks caused the crisis by taking irresponsible risks, using deceptive and fraudulent practices to sell "toxic" mortgage securities to investors, and exploiting home buyers through exploitative mortgage loans. Yet they were bailed out by the government--to the tune of $160 billion for the Big 6--and their executives paid no personal price. Now they are being rewarded by the Trump Administration through massive tax breaks and deregulation.
In this year's first quarter, the Big 6 distributed nearly $23 billion to their shareholders, made up of more than $16 billion in net stock buybacks (the value of shares repurchased minus the value of new stock issued) plus another $6.8 billion in stock dividends. Big-bank stockholders are getting 41 times more in just three months than workers have been promised in one-time bonuses and pay raises this year. The tax cuts have fueled a surge in buybacks, with corporations announcing $457 billion in new planned stock buybacks since the tax law was passed. In May alone, a record-breaking $200 billion on stock buybacks were announced.
Dividends and buybacks overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, including CEOs, because rich people own most corporate stock: the wealthiest 10% of American households own 84% of all shares, the top 1% own 40%. Buybacks also embellish CEOs job performance by reducing the number of shares outstanding, leading to higher earnings per share--Wall Street's favorite measure of success--without the burdensome necessity of increasing profits. Buybacks can also artificially inflate share prices, making corporate executives and other shareholders even wealthier and increasing inequality even more.
Among big banks, there's already a huge discrepancy between bloated executive compensation and the pay of everyday workers. Last year, the CEOs of the Big 6 banks enjoyed annual pay packages averaging a hefty $22 million. The average ratio of CEO pay to median worker pay among the Big 6 was 272 to 1.
The banks' lopsided tax-cut payouts to executives and investors will only widen the economic gap with most employees. And it's not just happening in the financial industry: the structure of the Trump-GOP tax cuts, and the way corporations are using their resulting tax savings, are worsening economic inequality across America.
"Contrary to the rosy projections of the new tax law's authors, corporate tax cuts are not "trickling down" to workers but instead are pooling at the top benefiting CEOs and the richest 1%. That is sure to continue in future years--you can bank on it." - Frank Clemente, ATF Executive Director
For more information on how the big banks and other corporations are using their tax cuts, visit https://americansfortaxfairness.org/trumptaxcuttruths/.
Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) is a diverse campaign of more than 420 national, state and local endorsing organizations united in support of a fair tax system that works for all Americans. It has come together based on the belief that the country needs comprehensive, progressive tax reform that results in greater revenue to meet our growing needs. This requires big corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, not to live by their own set of rules.
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EPA Bans Known Carcinogens Used in Dry Cleaning, Other Industries
"Both of these chemicals have caused too much harm for too long, despite the existence of safer alternatives," said one environmental campaigner.
Dec 09, 2024
The Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced a permanent ban on a pair of carcinogenic chemicals widely used in U.S. industries, including dry cleaning services and automative work.
According to the Washington Post:
The announcement includes the complete ban of trichloroethylene—also known as TCE—a substance found in common consumer and manufacturing products including degreasing agents, furniture care and auto repair products. In addition, the agency banned all consumer uses and many commercial uses of Perc—also known as tetrachloroethylene and PCE — an industrial solvent long used in applications such as dry cleaning and auto repair.
Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, applauded the move but suggested to the Post that it should have come sooner.
"Both of these chemicals have caused too much harm for too long, despite the existence of safer alternatives," Kalmuss-Katz.
The EPA's decision, reports the New York Times, was "long sought by environmental and health advocates, even as they braced for what could be a wave of deregulation by the incoming Trump administration."
The Timesreports:
TCE is known to cause liver cancer, kidney cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and to damage the nervous and immune systems. It has been found in drinking water nationwide and was the subject of a 1995 book that became a movie, “A Civil Action,” starring John Travolta. The E.P.A. is banning all uses of the chemical under the Toxic Substances Control Act, which was overhauled in 2016 to give the agency greater authority to regulate harmful chemicals.
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Environmentalists celebrated last year when Biden's EPA proposed the ban on TCE, as Common Dreamsreported.
Responding to the news at the time, Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said the EPA, by putting the ban on the table, was "once again putting the health of workers and consumers first."
While President-elect Donald Trump ran on a having an environmental agenda that would foster the "cleanest air" and the "cleanest water," the late approval of EPA's ban on TCE and Perc in Biden's term means the rule will be subject to the Congressional Review Act (CRA), meaning the Republican-control Senate could reverse the measure.
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U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday announced his opposition to an annual military policy bill that would authorize a Pentagon budget of nearly $850 billion, a sum that the progressive senator from Vermont characterized as outrageous—particularly as so many Americans face economic hardship.
"We do not need to spend almost a trillion dollars on the military, while half a million Americans are homeless and children go hungry," Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian after the House and Senate released legislative text for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025.
Sanders continued:
In this moment in history, it would be wise for us to remember what Dwight D. Eisenhower, a former five-star general, said in his farewell address in 1961: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." What Eisenhower said was true in 1961. It is even more true today.
I will be voting against the military budget.
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The U.S. currently spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined, and military spending accounts for more than half of the nation's yearly discretionary spending, according to the National Priorities Project.
Sanders wrote Sunday that "very few people who have researched the military-industrial complex doubt that there is massive fraud, waste and cost over-runs in the system." One analysis estimates that over 50% of the Pentagon's annual budget, the subject of aggressive industry lobbying, goes to private contractors.
"Defense contractors routinely overcharge the Pentagon by 40%—and sometimes more than 4,000%," Sanders continued. "For example, in October, RTX (formerly Raytheon) was fined $950 million for inflating bills to the DoD, lying about labor and material costs, and paying bribes to secure foreign business. In June, Lockheed Martin was fined $70 million for overcharging the navy for aircraft parts, the latest in a long line of similar abuses. The F-35, the most expensive weapon system in history, has run up hundreds of billions in cost overruns."
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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a statement that the legislation includes language that would "permanently ban transgender medical treatment for minors" and other provisions that are expected to draw Democratic opposition.
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement Saturday that "anti-equality House Republican leaders are hijacking a defense bill to play politics with the healthcare of children of servicemembers."
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The director of one of the few partially functioning hospitals in northern Gaza said Sunday that Israeli attacks have put the facility's remaining patients—including more than a dozen children—in grave danger and pleaded with the international community to intervene.
"Following the recent attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital, which involved over 100 shells and bombs indiscriminately targeting the facility, the damage has been severe," Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital's director, said in a statement. "As of now, one of the hospital buildings remains without electricity, oxygen, or water. The shelling continues to occur randomly in the vicinity, preventing us from conducting repairs on the oxygen, electricity, and water networks."
Abu Safiya said the overwhelmed and under-resourced hospital is currently treating 112 wounded patients, including six people in intensive care and 14 children.
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The hospital director's statement came after Israeli attacks near the facility killed scores of people on Friday. Photos taken from the scene showed bodies on the ground amid building ruins.
(Photo: AFP via Getty Images)
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According toDrop Site, the boy "was struck as he entered the X-ray department."
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