OCCUPY WALL STREET

[atomiczombie]

By Pat Garofalo, Think Progress
08 October 11

The Occupy Wall Street protests that began in New York City more than three weeks ago have now spread across the country. The choice of Wall Street as the focal point for the protests - as even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said - makes sense due to the big bank malfeasance that led to the Great Recession.

While the Dodd-Frank financial reform law did a lot to ensure that a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis won't occur - through regulation of derivatives, a new consumer protection agency, and new powers for the government to dismantle failing banks - the biggest banks still have a firm grip on the financial system, even more so than before the 2008 financial crisis. Here are eleven facts that you need to know about the nation's biggest banks:


Bank profits are highest since before the recession ...: According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., bank profits in the first quarter of this year were "the best for the industry since the $36.8 billion earned in the second quarter of 2007." JP Morgan Chase is currently pulling in record profits.


... even as the banks plan thousands of layoffs: Banks, including Bank of America, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, and Credit Suisse, are planning to lay off tens of thousands of workers.


Banks make nearly one-third of total corporate profits: The financial sector accounts for about 30 percent of total corporate profits, which is actually down from before the financial crisis, when they made closer to 40 percent.


Since 2008, the biggest banks have gotten bigger: Due to the failure of small competitors and mergers facilitated during the 2008 crisis, the nation's biggest banks - including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo - are now bigger than they were pre-recession. Pre-crisis, the four biggest banks held 32 percent of total deposits; now they hold nearly 40 percent.


The four biggest banks issue 50 percent of mortgages and 66 percent of credit cards: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup issue one out of every two mortgages and nearly two out of every three credit cards in America.


The 10 biggest banks hold 60 percent of bank assets: In the 1980s, the 10 biggest banks controlled 22 percent of total bank assets. Today, they control 60 percent.


The six biggest banks hold assets equal to 63 percent of the country's GDP: In 1995, the six biggest banks in the country held assets equal to about 17 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product. Now their assets equal 63 percent of GDP.


The five biggest banks hold 95 percent of derivatives: Nearly the entire market in derivatives - the credit instruments that helped blow up some of the nation's biggest banks as well as mega-insurer AIG - is dominated by just five firms: JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo.


Banks cost households nearly $20 trillion in wealth: Almost $20 trillion in wealth was destroyed by the Great Recession, and total family wealth is still down "$12.8 trillion (in 2011 dollars) from June 2007 - its last peak."


Big banks don't lend to small businesses: The New Rules Project notes that the country's 20 biggest banks "devote only 18 percent of their commercial loan portfolios to small business."


Big banks paid 5,000 bonuses of at least $1 million in 2008: According to the New York Attorney General's office, "nine of the financial firms that were among the largest recipients of federal bailout money paid about 5,000 of their traders and bankers bonuses of more than $1 million apiece for 2008."
In the last few decades, regulations on the biggest banks have been systematically eliminated, while those banks engineered more and more ways to both rip off customers and turn ever-more complex trading instruments into ever-higher profits. It makes perfect sense, then, that a movement calling for an economy that works for everyone would center its efforts on an industry that exemplifies the opposite.

Link: http://www.readersupportednews.org/n...-biggest-banks

[tapu]

My, my. Talk about "with a bullet."


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011...rotests-mount/

[BBinNYC]

On Saturday, I left Yom Kippur services after we read Isaiah chap 8 which talks about not oppressing workers while observing the fast. It's a reading about Yom Kippur and economic justice. I went down to OWS for a few hours and then returned to services. Here are the pics I took:

[SoNotHer]

Martin Luther King, Jr.:

"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped." —Speaking on right-to-work laws in 1961

Dwight D. Eisenhower:

"Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice."

Jimmy Carter:

"Every advance in this half-century: Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education... one after another - came with the support and leadership of American Labor."

Molly Ivins:

"Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts."

Recall Walker and Stand Up for Wisconsin:

"Screw us, and we multiply."

[Shadowboi2010]

I was glad to read the opening creed on this thread. I'm glad to know what this is all about. I've been out of town for the past week, so I've just been getting the spin the news puts on it.

Some of the opening points I agree with, some I don't. I reckon its like anything else.

Thank you for posting it!

[Cin]

5 Conservative Economic Myths Occupy Wall St. Is Helping Bust

1. Business does everything better than government.

2. Rich people are “job creators.”

3. Government and taxes take money out of the economy.

4. Regulations Kill Jobs

5. “Protectionism” hurts the economy.

Here's the article:

http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst...t/?page=entire

[PumaJ]

Dance break during Occupy Portland/OWS

[Cin]

I've been wondering what path those with power will take to sabotage OWS. I mean this can't go on unchecked. Unless, as Heart alluded to in an earlier post, the timing of this will be seen as a way to ensure a republican victory in 2012. I suppose plants that challenge the police and cause confrontations will be part of the plan. Escalating the violence perpetrated against the protestors by the police using plants to instigate will work well and will allow mainstream america to shrug it off as the protestors getting what they deserve. Hopefully nothing too drastic will take place, but if it does let's hope they employ exceedingly stupid infiltrators like this assistant editor of the American Spectator who could not keep his mouth shut about his actions and the reasons behind them.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/11-3

[Novelafemme]

Originally Posted by PumaJ

Dance break during Occupy Portland/OWS

This is awesome, PumaJ!! I would totally be out there bustin' a move with them

[ruffryder]

Occupy Wall Street goes global. Arrests in Rome as people fight with the police. hmmm. . I am wondering if people are just using all this Occupy protesting as a way to show their anger on everything they are upset about and cause violence. no bueno.