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FINAL WEEK TO SUBMIT
Break Up The Big Banks Green Screen Challenge
Want to put your editing skills to the test and help put a stop to the big banks? It’s the Break Up The Big Banks green screen challenge. Just take the video, add whatever you want, and our favorites will be featured at moveyourmoney.info and breakupthebigbanks.com. Got something to say? Say it! Go to town, and make this video a tool to get people to break up with their bank.
To enter, download the video here, apply your brilliant idea to it, and email a link to your submission to breakupthebigbanks@gmail.com by March 1st.
Thanks to singer/songwriter/guitar player Sky Seals and to videographer Tom Phillips and his colleagues as the American Movie Company and Digital Alchemy for…
Congress Needs to Clip Goldman’s Wings
Cross posted from Bankster
By Mary Bottari
The New York Times’ front page expose on the role that Goldman Sachs has played in the Greek tragedy unfolding in Europe right now raises a huge number of concerns, both for the U.S. economy and the financial reform proposals now in Congress.
To recap, Greece and a number of other European Union (EU) countries are dangerously in debt. EU rules say member countries cannot have budget deficits that exceed three percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Greece’s debt is closer to 12 percent. Other countries including Spain, Ireland, Italy and Portugal are also in trouble. These countries are “too big to fail.” A default by any one of them would put an end to the nascent…
Break Up With Your Bank
Valentine’s Day is approaching, and we should all, especially in these difficult times, show our significant others all the affections we feel for them. We say “especially in these difficult times” only because that is when an extra smile, or kiss, or other sign of affection can mean so much. We all need a little extra boost these days, and that can arise just from the recognition triggered by these feelings about what is really important in life.
And, let us not forget those who not only visited these tough times upon us, but also used our money provided to rescue them in their moment of need to lobby Congress against reforms to prevent them from ever darkening our days again.…
My Big Fat Greek Bailout
Cross posted from Bankster
By Mary Bottari
While Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was on the talk shows reassuring America that the economy is healing, developments in Europe threatened to cut the legs out from under a U.S. recovery.
The short story is that Greece and a number of other European Union (EU) countries are in debt, deep in debt. EU rules say member countries cannot have budget deficits that exceed three percent of GDP. Greece’s debt is closer to 12 percent.
They have been hiding it for years, in part relying on major U.S. banks and so-called “cross-currency swaps,” complex financial instruments that allow governments to hide their debts and push their liabilities into the future. The German magazine Der Spiegel broke the story that Greece did a…
18 Ways to Break the Bank
Cross posted from The New York Times
Many economists say the nation’s banks are too big. Writing in The New York Times, author Henry Alford offers his ideas for some ways to break them up:
1. Have the bank marry Larry King or Elizabeth Taylor.
2. Encourage the banks to develop a messianic relationship with Yoko Ono.
3. Carom the cue ball off the bank’s proprietary trading desks.
4. Have the bank’s chairman saunter into the living room at 11:02 p.m. and start idly vacuuming.
5. Have Paulie of “Rocky” pull one bank asset off another while yelling, “Break it up and come out punching clean!”
6. Sprinkle the banks with gaily colored, diversionary “accent pieces” like ottomans and love seats.
7. Tell the bank’s hedge fund investors,…
Why Are We Donating $2,000 Per Family to Wall Street Bonuses?
Cross posted from Huffington Post
By Les Leopold
President Obama won’t tell us in his State of the Union address. The deficit hawks won’t crow about it. Don’t expect the Tea Party or Rush and Beck to highlight our generosity either. But the sad fact is this: During the worst year since the Great Depression, with 30 million people out of work or forced into part-time jobs, Wall Street is awarding itself $150 billion in bonus money…..and it comes from us!
That’s $500 for every man, women and child in the country — $2,000 for a family of four. (Maybe we should try deducting it from our income taxes as a charitable donation.)
Had we not bailed out the financial sector, there would be…
Wall Street’s Stranglehold on the Economy Is Choking Americans
Cross posted from Money Morning
BY SHAH GILANI
America’s Founding Fathers were afraid of any concentration of power in the republic. They were particularly afraid that banking interests could hijack our fledgling democracy.
And yet today, 234 years later, our Founding Fathers’ worst fears have come true. Wall Street’s stranglehold on the economy threatens our very prosperity, and the future of a truly democratic republic.
It’s high time we address the truth about Wall Street’s tyranny and set a course for a more secure economic future – one that’s anchored by a safe banking system, not a system rigged by banks.
Banks Are the Gamblers … But You’re Taking the Risks
The credit crisis and Great Recession are the unintended consequences of Wall…
Obama to Wall Street: “You want to fight? I am ready.”
Cross posted from Bankster
By Mary Bottari
Obama’s throwdown comes hard on the heels of Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts in which public outrage over the bank bailout and the state of the staggering economy played a major role. As we reported yesterday, Republican Scott Brown seized the democratic stronghold by billing himself as a man of the people and using public dismay with the Wall Street bailout to his advantage on the campaign trail. On Thursday, Obama showed he got the message.
For the first time, the President’s narrative directly blamed Wall Street for the crisis and proposed a major structural reform to business as usual. After freeing former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker from the closet he had been stuffed in at…
Scott Brown Successfully Capitalized on the Bailout Blues
Cross posted from Bankster
By Mary Bottari
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley lost her special-election for the Senate seat vacated by the untimely passing of U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy. Much has been said about the role of health care reform in the race. Apparently everyone in Massachusetts has health care and reasonable doubts about an expensive national plan that might not improve their services.
But in the final days — lagging in the polls — the race was less about health care and more about the Wall Street bailout and the state of the economy. Her opponent, Scott Brown, successfully capitalized on the bailout blues and Coakley pulled out the big guns and resorted to a theme she perhaps should have emphasized throughout,…
A Call for Fiscal Responsibility (with a twist)
You’ve heard all the dire statistics: the current national debt is equal to $35,000 for every man woman and child in America. At the rate we are going, in just a few years, the whole of the federal government’s annual tax revenues will be insufficient to finance, let alone pay down our debt. China could crush our economy tomorrow simply by refusing to lend any more.
If anything is clear, it is that maintaining our current course will lead to ruin.
So I am calling today for a renewed focus on fiscal responsibility in Washington. However, before my small govt’ readers get too excited, I say we must recognize our obligations (not our limitations) and take decisive action to create the financial…
