Are the American people finally starting to stand up to Wall Street?
Shareholder Revolt
Some of Goldman Sach's biggest shareholders are demanding that executive compensation be reduced. As the Wall Street Journal notes:
Their complaints in private conversations with the company and at analyst meetings show how anger over its big-money culture is spilling into the ranks of investors who typically shy away from debates over Wall Street pay.
Protests
There were the protests outside of the Bankers Association meeting in Chicago. See this, this, this, this, this and this.
If you don't think that more - bigger - protests are coming, you haven't been paying attention.Debtor's Revolt
Debtors are revolting against exorbitant interest rates and fees and other aggressive tactics by the too big to fail banks. See this, this, and this.
Congresswoman Kaptur advises her constituents facing foreclosure to demand that the original mortgage papers be produced. She says that - if the bank can't produce the mortgage papers - then the homeowner can stay in the house.
Portfolio manager and investment advisor Marshall Auerback argues that a debtor's revolt would be a good thing.
And even popular personal finance advisor Suze Orman is highlighting the debtors revolt phenomenon on her national tv show.
Congress Is Starting to Get the MessageThe American people are shouting so loud at their congress members and Senators, that even some of the most pro-Wall Street congressman are starting to get it.
For example, the Congressional Black Caucus has been hearing so much about how congress is failing to address the crisis of unemployment from their constituents, that the CBC delayed Barney Frank's proposed financial reform.
The House Financial Services Committee received so many phone calls from constituents that it approved the Ron Paul/Alan Grayson bill to audit the Fed and defeated the trojan horse alternate bill written by Mel Watt. Indeed, I have heard from congressional sources that the only calls to support the Watt alternate bill were from the Fed itself. And see this.
The Committee also approved Congressman Grayson's bill to rein in foreign currency swaps.
Both Geithner and Summers are coming under increasing pressure to resign due to their being in bed with Wall Street.
Even Bernanke's re-appointment is no longer certain.
And Obama's approval ratings have now dipped below 50%, largely due to his mishandling of the economic crisis.
As Congressman Peter DeFazio notes:
Are the American people are finally starting to awaken?There were a lot of Democrats who were "upset and nervous with" the handling of the economy by the administration.
"It is pretty embarrassing for a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress to be identified with total attention to Wall Street and nothing for Main Street and jobs," he said. "There are a lot of Democrats who... want to see something more effective done to create employment."
DeFazio insisted that President Obama and, by extension, the Democratic Party were hampered by Geithner's policies for economic recovery. He pointed to the inability of the administration to spur small business lending and the lack of effective TARP oversight as particularly egregious examples of mismanagement. More than anything else, the Oregon Democrat deemed it untenable for the president to continue employing his current economic team given the taint of Wall Street that clings to many of those advisers.
"I have had a number of people say to me, 'I feel the same way you do but I'm not going to say it.' People are worried it will rub off on the president who still enjoys popularity," he said. "I tell them I still support the president. I just think he is being poorly served by his economic team."
"The truth of the matter," DeFazio added, "is that we have not changed the way the money is being used. It is not being used for the purpose it was supposed to be used for. We are not creating jobs and we have not aggressively taken on the culture of Wall Street"...
One of his chief concerns was that the president appeared enamored with the lords of finance. "The administration has, thus far, not threaded the needle here," he said. "They have taken care of Wall Street but not the rest of the country."
We've been down this road before
Shown worse devils to the door
Throw off our chains of slavery
Now is the time to set ourselves free
And reclaim our liberty ...
They bought the politicians and the news
They've got all the weapons (which they like to use)
But they are few and we're billions strong
We are the giant ... been sleeping for too long
Time to wake up and sing our victory song
- The Voice
The elites hate to acknowledge it, but when large numbers of ordinary people are moved to action, it changes the narrow political world where the elites call the shots. Inside accounts reveal the extent to which Johnson and Nixon’s conduct of the Vietnam War was constrained by the huge anti-war movement. It was the civil rights movement, not compelling arguments, that convinced members of Congress to end legal racial discrimination.
- PhD Economist Dean Baker
Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.
- Sivananda
The power of an aroused public is unbeatable.
- Dr. Helen Caldicott
The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.
-Ferdinand Foch
In times of danger large groups rise to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, courage and sacrifice . . . Mankind will be refashioned and history rewritten when this law is understood and obeyed.
-Helen Keller
You let one ant stand up to us - then they all might stand up. Those puny little ants outnumber us a 100 to one. And if they ever figure that out, there goes our way of life.
- Hopper (a grasshopper who is the leader of the gang of thugs who are stealing from the other bugs, speaking to fellow grasshoppers in the Disney/Pixar movie A Bug's Life)
So lemme get this right... Minch signs a contract... contract says she gets a card with an unsecured line of credit... says the bank can alter the rate at will, with notice... bank changes the rate... she calls up and whines.
ReplyDeleteI have a better deal. How about Minch pays off that card or declares bankruptcy, and we stop giving the banks money and buying their phoney, fraudulent mortgages via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
You have made my morning! Thanks so much for this post.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the reasons I've been getting more bullish on the economy and the market. Recessions tend to breed their own recoveries as companies and households improve their productivity. Our financial industry and its captive regulators have been insulated from these types of forces for too long, and its over. We are finally going to get a better banking system, and its going to be good for us. Thanks for this post.
ReplyDeleteWhy jump thru their hoops and mirrors , just mail them the card back with a little note. When you do right by me I'll do right by you. Several million showing up on Monday morning will do the trick don't you think.
ReplyDeleteThe don't play by the rules why should we??
Rise like Lions after slumber
ReplyDeleteIn unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Here are some ways we can all fight back...
ReplyDelete1) Vote against the problem Senators who serve on the Senate Banking Committee... not very difficult to figure out who they are!
2) Consider boycotting big banks, investment banks, etc.
3) Take responsibility for your investments... consider factors other than just making profits.
4) Think in terms of supporting your local economy when making purchases.
5) Stop using your credit cards and pay cash when possible.
I believe it's time again to share details of finding my already privatized Social Security account at Fidelity Investments.
ReplyDeleteSocial Security only ignores the questions but the simple fact is, I have absolute proof, on Social Security's own pay sheet that two accounts, an A and an HA exist in my name. One of them paid somewhere for over eleven years, but it did not pay me.
Top that with finding an account at Fidelity that I never had knowledge of, had never received any statements about and that no company will claim opening...
It's an already privatized Social Security account.
It's at Fidelity... who is known as " too big to fail". There is not another entity like Fidelity.
Incidentally, I have been harassed to the point of leaving of my home....
Let me get this straight--a credit card company agrees to loan a customer an amount not to exceed X, at Y interest. Customer does their part of the contract, borrowing money and paying interest. Credit card company decides to jack the interest rate to Y + the moon but only gives the customer notice, not the chance to go back in time and decide to borrow less now that they know the interest rate will be Y + the moon. Who broke the contract?
ReplyDeleteA POETIC INTERLUDE
ReplyDeleteThe people is a beast of muddy brain
That knows not its own force, and therefore stands
Loaded with wood and stone, the powerless hands
Of a mere child guide it with bit and rein.
One kick would be enough to break the chain;
But the beast fears, and what the child demands,
It does; nor its own terror understands,
Confused and stupefied by bugbears vain.
Most wonderful! with its own hands it ties
And gags itself – gives itself death and war
For pence doled out by kings from its own stores.
It own are all things between earth and heaven,
But this it knows not; and if one arise
To tell this truth, it kills him unforgiven.
Tomasso Campanella
From the Italian poem, "The People"
Translated by John Addington Symonds
---excerpted from A New View on Money
http://www.concordresolution.org/column.htm
Go Ants!
Of course we are Fed up! Haha Feds up my rear in in our faces shreading our civil rights and US constitution, Bill of Rights each minute to inact global enslavement, micromanagement and death and destruction.
ReplyDeleteObama is a tool of The House of Rothschild. He met them at Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School. He became mesmeized by their power, and they embraced him, as a useful, historic tool. The rest, is history. He is no different from his forty-four predecessors in the Oval Office. If The House of Rothchild decides he has become irrelevant, or worse, a liability, they will assassinate him, as they have done to seven of his predecessors, four by gunshot, three by poisoning. Please, do not be surprised whey they strike. Obama is doomed, as manifested by the intrusion at a stated dinner at the White House for India's Prime Minister Singh. That was a dry run for what will happen to Obama, when they choose. I cannot prove it, but this is my prediction.
ReplyDeleteI just took a Wall Street Tour and i was so impressed with what i saw there on slow motion as it was a walking tour, that i forgive those guys for our ruined economy. Or not.
ReplyDelete