Forum Post: Want to be heard? Hit them where it hurts!
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 13, 2011, 9:32 a.m. EST by StarttheBan
(10)
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Let's start a financial services ban starting with Citibank. Move your checking accounts, savings accounts, etc. - basically take your business elsewhere, in particular to those banks that advocate personal banking as their bread and butter. Unions could do a week-long walkout letting garbage, etc. to pile up inside buildings. Do you think then they can refuse to recognize that the 99% count when their stock begins to plummet?
Why haven't we started doing this?
It's so important that as individuals within this group we begin to take action in promoting the values we are so vocal about via this thread and at protests like OWS. There are banks & companies out there that align with those values, that create a culture of social awareness and don't simply use it as a tax right off. Start sharing your experience with those types of businesses & banks here so others can start doing business with them, etc.!
It's not only the banks. Corporations and banks are keeping all profits for themselves by paying bonuses and huge salaries to their top people. Profits used to go to shareholders in the form of dividends for 401K's, pensions, etc. Now dividends are practically nonexistent and they know that most investors look at the stock/mutual fund value at the end of a quarter, but don't realize that they should be getting a dividend, also. People need to research the dividend payouts of their investments and pull investments from those that don't share profits with investors. It's easy to find out, just go to Yahoo Finance, type in the symbol, got to Historical Prices, and check "Dividends". I have nothing against capitalism-- and I think most people don't-- but the people at the top have decided to keep everything for themselves, as though they don't need the people at the bottom. Well, the people at the bottom do the jobs that put them up there and together we can take them down! I would urge people to leave their money where it is and just stop putting more into your investments for one quarter. I GUARANTEE you will see action!!
Kimmid - agreed, it's not just the banks however banks fund corporate interests and in turn advocate the exact behavior you outlined below. I'm not against capitalism either however our nation's corporations and banks advocated the mortgage crisis that in short left very few winners and primarily the 99% as the losers in a game they didn't even know they were playing. And to briefly touch on the Bear Stearns' out there that also fell, remember that they willingly chose to play the game, gambled and lost. The American families who were simply trying to fulfill their American Dream didn't have that luxury of opting in, they were tricked, etc.
In the end, something needs to change. A self-serving capitalistic system no longer works in allowing its citizens to realize the American dream. I believe that OWS and others want to save our country's heritage vs. letting it go extinct. We could adapt to the 1% centric greed but question is - do we want to?
Organizing this will be difficult as it's been difficult to find a uniform purpose for the efforts on Wall Street and throughout the world. Varying opinions, etc. could create conflict. This is an easier way to take action as an individual and in turn take action on behalf of the whole movement.
The run on banks worked so well in 1929 that we might as well try it again.
The run on banks worked so well in 1929 that we might as well try it again.
Do this today. Do it asap.
The movement is at its core about the loss of our American values and beliefs. The American Dream is on the brink of extinction and we can revitalize it by demanding that our nation react and work towards saving it.
Our values should extend to all facets of our lives including where we bank, where we works, etc. It's a message we need big money to not only hear but feel. Actions always speak louder than words.
Let's start the ban! I think folks believe it won't matter but that's why it's important we do it. Didn't they say that about OWS? Start small by moving your checking, savings, and then do a bit more by moving your mortgage and brokerage accounts and then even bigger by having union walkout or simply choosing to find a job at a bank that advocates your beliefs.
It's a watershed waiting to be opened.
We need millions of people nationwide closing their accounts and demanding cash. Move your accounts to small local banks or credit unions.
WIN THE PROTEST
Bush, Ashcroft etc are enemy combatants for their orders to rig the explosives that brought down the towers. I can show and explain the evidence they left and was filmed. To continue ignoring 911 is off the charts -- stupid and ignorant.
Quit piddling around with the facts. I have studied every detail of the evidence that are only clear facts -- nothing I will say is my opinion. It is the absolute conclusive probable cause. There will never be any crime that is filmed in its entirety. The pictures taken by the entire media capture the explosions. The pictures of the steel beams that were cut and blasted hundreds of feet away in a symmetrical pattern is the unequivocal evidence that explosives were rigged way before 911.
This is also something we all could participate in - not just those able to protest downtown. Take a risk - put your money where your mouth is!
untill the bigger banks get sorted out ..its credit unions for the most of us
I am amased at how Occupy works. Would like to have your input on the movement to understand it better. Could you answer 10 questions, please. Happy to share results if you are interested. Please, take some time for it: Thank you! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q3NF7QB
This isn't about regulation or bringing down a bank - it's about sending a message to banks that advocate a policy that the majority do not matter. We do matter and we'll show them we matter if we take our business elsewhere.
In short, isn't that a key reason why we're all here?
by Chana Cox
In Tuesday night’s Dartmouth debate, the Republican candidates were generally agreed on the need to repeal Dodd-Frank. That is all well and good, but banking does need regulation. For 70 years a cluster of New Deal laws, the Glass-Steagall laws, successfully prevented American banks from becoming “too big to fail.” Dodd-Frank should be repealed, and an updated Glass-Steagall should replace it.
In 1933, the Glass-Steagall Act introduced the FDIC which insured bank depositors for up to $10,000 in loss because such insurance was seen to be essential to the maintenance of the banking system. Once the taxpayers were on the hook for bank losses, Glass-Steagall severely restricted the risk to those taxpayers by restricting the scope of banks. The act separated commercial banking, the relatively low risk business of taking deposits and lending money from investment banking, the very high risk business of issuing securities and taking capital positions in businesses and in all manner of other investments. Commercial banks were insured by the federal government, but they were to be stiffly regulated and limited in geographic scope. No American bank would be allowed to do business in more than three states.
In contrast, investments banks were not restricted geographically and they were less regulated but they could not take deposits and their operations were not guaranteed or insured by the Federal Government. Taken together, these Depression-era statutes limited tax payer exposure and risk and limited the size of any one commercial bank. High risk investment banking could and did continue, but it was not federally insured. Furthermore investment banks were often formed as partnerships and the individual partners were personally liable for the firm’s debts.
The 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall was a disastrous game changer. Commercial banks were allowed and even encouraged to engage in high risk activities – particularly those supported by the politicians in power. The politicians used banks to advance their specific agendas, and the banks used the politicians to insure them against failure. At the same time, as the commercial banks became larger and larger, they became less and less effective as traditional lending institutions. In Oregon, we were better served by First Interstate than we are now being served by its successor Wells Fargo; we were better served by Washington Mutual than we are now being served by Chase; and Bank of America was a strong West Coast bank but it has become a very weak national bank.
After 1999 these newer, larger, freer commercial banks were finding it very profitable to take increasingly risky positions in other markets, like mortgage-backed securities and credit default positions. Under Glass-Steagall such investments would have been illegal for a commercial bank. Instead, commercial banks would have been lending money to local citizens and businesses. They would have been serving their communities as bankers. These riskier investments should be illegal for banks not because they are risky but because it is the taxpayers who are at risk. Our bankers are playing roulette with taxpayer money. If individual bankers win, they are rewarded with multi-million dollar bonuses that get paid out every year; if they lose, the taxpayers foot the bill. Mere months before the repeal of Glass-Steagall, Goldman Sacks, the quintessential investment bank, went public as a corporation and ceased to be a partnership. The partners were no longer liable for the debt – the corporation was. No one was personally liable. Goldman Sacks has now taken the further step and legally turned itself into a bank. Now, even the corporation is not liable – the Federal government and its taxpayers are Goldman Sacks debt. That has proven very expensive for the taxpayers.
In the 1990’s one argument offered for the repeal of Glass-Steagall was that America’s banking system, with its restricted local banks, was inferior to the far more powerful and monopolistic European banks. The banking industry preferred the European model. Ten years ago Deutsche Bank, through its own share position, was in control of much of the German economy. The European banks were far more powerful than the American banks and American bankers wanted that kind of power. In retrospect, we have come to understand that the major European banks have contributed greatly to the current European financial breakdown.
The Glass-Steagall laws successfully regulated the American banking systems. In crisis situations, like the savings and loan crises of the 1980s, the government could step in and save depositors. The problems were manageable. Once banks were allowed to go national and to go into virtually any and all investments, the problems became unmanageable and the moral hazard for both the bankers and co-dependent politicians became catastrophic. Banks were too big to fail and too unregulated to save. Dodd-Frank merely exacerbates those problems.
Bring back Glass-Steagall.
OMG not another one: It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.- Henry Ford
1)Move your checking accounts to where, the moon. there is no place you can move you funds that will not benefit the money changers. Except out of fiat paper money all together. 2) No garbage: then the 99% will live in a big dump. the 1% has enough money to hire a maid and bring the maid from as far away as China if need be and pay for all the customs and immigration BS. 3) The 1% "so called" dosen't worry about stock prices they manipulate them. and besides they have FOREX, and all that derivative crap to play with too. oh yea they can even move their " money" to another country. Your talking childs play.
Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws.- Mayer Amschel Rothschild(1744-1812)
actually I kind of agree with this. If we just refused to do banking with the "big" banks, moved our money to the little hometown "mom and pop" style banks, then what?
actually I kind of agree with this. If we just refused to do banking with the "big" banks, moved our money to the little hometown "mom and pop" style banks, then what?