Bank of America is Main Target of Economic and Environmental Groups

SAN FRANCISCO - January 20 - Today, Bank of America will be at the center of attention as the country protests the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, including major Occupy Wall Street West actions in San Francisco. Hundreds are expected for a Bank of America ‘Tour of Shame’ Friday morning, visiting main branches in San Francisco’s Financial District.

The tour, led by Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), intends to issue the bank with ‘arrest warrants’ highlighting a major critique over corporate personhood that has surfaced with theCitizens United debate.

“Bank of America leads the country in home foreclosures and investments in environmentally destructive projects, such as coal-fired power plants. We are urging customers to stop doing business with Bank of America, closing their accounts and boycotting ATMs, until the bank stops gambling with the health and safety of our economy and our environment. If Bank of America would like to regain the trust of the 99 percent, it must start by adopting sound economic and environmental policies that reflect the values of its customers,” said Amanda Starbuck, Rainforest Action Network’s Energy and Finance Campaign Director.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2012/01/20-6

Danny Schechter - DEGRADE THIS: Wall Street’s Ratings Agencies Undermine Europe’s Attempt at Recovery Acting Like Financial Terrorists

We live in an increasingly degraded country.

Our politics are degraded and a laughing stock to the word. Our military is demoralized and degraded with soldiers urinating on dead civilians and awaiting deployment orders for the next illegal intervention. 

Our education system has been degraded with standards falling and pervasive defunding. Our transportation system, ditto.

I could go on, but I don’t have to. We are all living the decline with downward mobility, jobless and foreclosures, to cite a few trends that make life so miserable for so many.

Read More:

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/14-4

Matt Taibbi - Everything You Need to Know About Wall Street, in One Brief Tale

If there was ever a news story that crystalized the moral dementia of modern Wall Street in one little vignette, this is it.

Newspapers in Colorado today are reporting that the elegant Hotel Jerome in Aspen, Colorado,  will be closed to the public from today through Monday at noon.

Why? Because a local squire has apparently decided to rent out all 94 rooms of the hotel for three-plus days for his daughter’s Bat Mitzvah.

The hotel’s general manager, Tony DiLucia, would say only that the party was being thrown by a "nice family," but newspapers are now reporting that the Daddy of the lucky little gal is one Jeffrey Verschleiser, currently an executive with Goldman, Sachs.

At first,  I couldn't remember how I knew that name. But then I looked it up and saw an explosive Atlantic magazine story, published last year, called, "E-mails Suggest Bear Stearns Cheated Clients Out Of Millions." And then I remembered that piece, and it hit me: Jeffrey Verschleiser is one of the biggest assholes in the entire world!

The story begins at Bear Stearns, where Verschleiser used to work, up until the company exploded, in large part because of him personally.

Back in the day, you see, Verschleiser headed Bear’s mortgage-backed securities operations. Toward the end of his tenure, his particular specialty began with what at the time was the usual industry-wide practice, putting together gigantic packages of crappy subprime mortgages and dumping them on unsuspecting clients.

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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-wall-street-in-one-brief-tale-20120113

David DeGraw - Full-Blown Civil War Erupts on Wall Street: As Reality Finally Hits the Financial Elite, They Start Turning on Each Other

Finally, after trillions in fraudulent activity, trillions in bailouts, trillions in printed money, billions in political bribing and billions in bonuses, the criminal cartel members on Wall Street are beginning to get what they deserve. As the Eurozone is coming apart at the seams and as the US economy grinds to a halt, the financial elite are starting to turn on each other. The lawsuits are piling up fast. Here’s an extensive roundup:

As I reported last week [4]:

Collapse Roundup #5: Goliath On The Ropes, Big Banks Getting Hit Hard, It’s A “Bloodbath” As Wall Street’s Crimes Blow Up In Their Face

Time to put your Big Bank shorts on! Get ready for a run… The chickens are coming home to roost… The Global Banking Cartel’s crimes are being exposed left & right… Prepare for Shock & Awe…

Well, well… here’s your Shock & Awe:

Read More:

http://www.truth-out.org/full-blown-civil-war-erupts-wall-street/1326382750

Michael Thomas - Wall Street has destroyed the wonder that was America.

by Michael Thomas  | December 26, 2011 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/12/25/wall-street-has-destroyed-the-wonder-that-was-america.print.html

Imagine a vast field on which a terrible battle has recently been fought, the bare ground cratered by fusillade after fusillade of heavy artillery, trees reduced to blackened stumps, wisps of toxic gas hanging in the gray, and corpses everywhere.

A terrible scene, made worse by the sound of distant laughter, because somehow, on the heights commanding the dead zone, the officers’ club has made it through intact. From its balconies flutter bunting, and across the blasted landscape there comes a chorus of hearty male voices in counterpoint to the wheedling of cadres of wheel-greasers, the click of betting chips, the orotund declamations of a visiting congressional delegation: in sum, the celebratory hullabaloo of a class of people that has sent entire nations off to perish but whose only concern right now is whether the ’11 is ready to drink and who’ll see to tipping the servants. The notion that there might be someone or some force out there getting ready to slouch toward the buttonwood tree to exact retribution scarcely ruffles the celebrants’ joy.

Occupy Wall StreetAh, Wall Street. As it was in the beginning, is now, and hopes to God it ever will be, world without end. Amen.

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