Global revolution is imminent.

[Nordic]

Wow. That is extremely cool. This is what I've been hoping for for years now, I hope this spreads everywhere and finally shuts down Wall Street.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/07/e ... rs-office/

[eyeno]

[eyeno]

Let it rip, #MakeWallstPay 600 homeowners have shut down DC Bank of America branch









http://bankofamericasuck.com/03/07/make ... ica-branch

[eyeno]

Activists Hold Wall Street Accountable for Economic Crisis
Monday 07 March 2011
by: Mike Ludwig, t r u t h o u t | Report

Progressive groups threw a one-two punch at the nation's richest banks on Monday. A coalition of watchdogs and activists released a new report revealing how the wealthiest bailed-out banks have caused the current economic crisis by dodging taxes, and hundreds of demonstrators rallied in Washington, DC, to demand the attorneys general of all 50 states file criminal charges against banks that are suspected of committing foreclosure fraud during the nation's housing crisis.

At least 600 demonstrators gathered outside the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) spring meeting to demand tough settlements on foreclosure fraud cases resulting from a NAAG investigation into several banks' practice of signing foreclosure documents without checking for accuracy - a practice the NAAG calls "robo-signing."

The demonstrators - many of them homeowners - also occupied and successfully shut down a Bank of America branch before occupying the offices of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Click here for scenes from the protests.

NAAG launched the investigation in October 2010, but has yet to take action against banks like Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase that were suspected of systematically robo-signing foreclosure documents before the scandal made headlines.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller led the investigation, and the National Peoples Action (NPA) and other groups have since met with Miller to demand state attorneys general file criminal charges against banks guilty of robo-signing foreclosure documents and secure restitution for Americans who have already lost their homes in illegal foreclosures.

NPA affiliated activist Keya Hicks said that, in earlier meetings with activists, Miller agreed to file criminal charges against banks that issued illegal foreclosure documents. During the rally, Hicks and other community activists entered the NAAG spring meeting in hopes of talking with Miller about the results of the robo-signing investigation, but the activists were told several times that Miller was not available.

A NAAG spokesperson did not respond to an inquiry from Truthout, but Hicks said NAAG representatives have signaled that the results of the investigation should be available soon.

Independent journalism is important. Click here to get Truthout stories sent to your email.

The rallies outside of the NAAG meeting and outside nearby bank branches coincided with the launch of the Make Wall Street Pay campaign. The campaign released a new report detailing how the nation's richest banks dodged taxes and caused $300 billion in tax revenue shortfalls in federal and state governments that could have helped average Americans during a time when politicians are aggressively cutting funding to the public sector.

The report, released on Monday by the NPA and the watchdog group the Public Accountability Initiative, reveals startling figures on the same super-rich Wall Street firms that received billions in federal stimulus monies when the economic crisis began.

Among the report's key findings:

Bank of America operates 371 tax-sheltered subsidiaries, more than any other big bank studied, and 204 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands alone, according to its latest regulatory filings. Seventy-five percent of Goldman Sachs's foreign subsidiaries are incorporated in offshore tax havens.

This year, Bank of America is receiving the "income tax refund from hell" - $666 million for 2010, according to its annual report filed in late February 2011. This is following a $3.5 billion refund reported in 2009. Bank of America's federal income tax benefit this year is roughly two times the Obama administration's proposed cuts to the Community Development Block Grant program ($299 million).

Wells Fargo reportedly received a $4 billion federal income tax refund on $18 billion in pre-tax income in 2009, and paid 7.5 percent of its pre-tax income of $19 billion in 2010 in federal taxes. Its net federal income tax benefit for 2009 and 2010 combined, $2.5 billion, is equal to the Obama administration's proposed cuts of 50 percent to the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.


http://www.truth-out.org/activists-hold ... risis68286
Six banks - Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley together paid income tax at an approximate rate of 11 percent of their pre-tax US earnings in 2009 and 2010. Had they paid at 35 percent, what they are legally mandated to pay, the federal government would have received an additional $13 billion in tax revenue. This would cover more than two years of salaries for the 132,000 teacher jobs lost since the economic crisis began in 2008.

The banks' private banking arms protect the wealth of rich clients from taxation through offshore investment strategies. Bank of America's wealth management arm encourages clients to register their yachts in foreign jurisdictions for tax reasons.

Closing special tax loopholes on the financial sector and implementing sensible revenue-raising initiatives such as the Financial Speculation Tax could generate over $150 billion in federal tax revenue each year.

[DevilYouKnow]

Now would be a good time for WikiLeaks to release what they have on the BoA.

[Nordic]

Now would be a good time for WikiLeaks to release what they have on the BoA.

[eyeno]

Has this BOA protest been totally ignored by Cnn/Fox?

[Stephen Morgan]

Now would be a good time for WikiLeaks to release what they have on the BoA.

Have we seen any actual evidence yet that they have anything?

[DevilYouKnow]

Now would be a good time for WikiLeaks to release what they have on the BoA.

Have we seen any actual evidence yet that they have anything?

Nothing beyond the words of Julian Assange and the obvious nervousness of the BoA (as evidenced in the HBGary leak).

[DevilYouKnow]

Wikileaks: Saudi princes engage in sex, drug parties
By JPOST.COM STAFF
12/08/2010 21:03

According to leaked diplomatic cables, secret, underground parties involving alcohol, prostitutes are "thriving, throbbing."

United States diplomats have described a world of "sex, drugs and alcohol" in which the official religious individuals of Saudi Arabian loyalties engage in, according diplomatic cables recently published by Wikileaks on Wednesday.

According to the leaked dispatches, officials from the Jeddah consulate detailed an underground Halloween party in which alcohol and prostitutes were readily available. The party, attended by over 150 Saudi men and women mostly in their twenties and thirties, was organized by a member of the Saudi royalty, a wealthy prince from the Al Thunayan family.

The party was held in a heavily secured villa and some of the funding was contributed by a US energy drink. The diplomat recommended the prince's identity remain secret.

The dispatch was signed off by Martin Quinn, the consul in Jeddah.

"Alcohol, though strictly prohibited by Saudi law and custom, was plentiful at the party's well-stocked bar," explained the cable. "The hired Filipino bartenders served a cocktail punch using sadiqi, a locally-made "moonshine". It was also learned through word-of-mouth that a number of the guests were in fact 'working girls', not uncommon for such parties."

American party attendees added that, "Though not witnessed directly at this event, cocaine and hashish use is common in these social circles."

Secret, underground parties protected by Saudi royalty and accessible only to the wealthy, were described as "thriving and throbbing" in the dispatch.

"The scene resembled a nightclub anywhere outside the Kingdom: plentiful alcohol, young couples dancing, a DJ at the turntables, and everyone in costume," the dispatch continued.

"Over the past few years, the increased conservatism of Saudi Arabia’s external society has pushed the nightlife and party scene in Jeddah even further underground," a prominent Saudi was quoted in the dispatch as saying.

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=198583

[Stephen Morgan]

Now would be a good time for WikiLeaks to release what they have on the BoA.

Have we seen any actual evidence yet that they have anything?

Nothing beyond the words of Julian Assange and the obvious nervousness of the BoA (as evidenced in the HBGary leak).

Could all be a big bluff. I mean, obviously BoA have got a lot to be nervous about, the question is whether wikileaks have actually got anything they can pin on them.

[DevilYouKnow]

Of course it could be a bluff. It could be that they (WL) are waiting to release the BoA docs/email/whatever it is so as to not take attention away from the the leaks that are being released pertaining to the Middle East, or it could be that they realize they have oversold the importance of what they have... Noone knows until they release it.

[eyeno]

I guess when you steal for a living, the masses hit you where you live, obviously. As if this would be unexpected? This article gives the impression that protestors are terrorists. The protestors would most likely say their target is a terrorist. Matter of perception I guess. Obviously collateral damage is fine for one class of people and not for another. This is not an opinion, just an observation.

What's really behind SEIU's Bank of America protests?





(FORTUNE) -- Every journalist loves a peaceful protest-whether it makes news, shakes up a political season, or holds out the possibility of altering history. Then there are the ones that show up on your curb--literally.

Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that -- in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action -- makes his family fair game.

Waving signs denouncing bank "greed," hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer's steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer's teenage son Jack -- alone in the house -- locked himself in the bathroom. "When are they going to leave?" Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.

Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly "outed" him, and slipped through his front door.

"Excuse me," Baer told his accusers, "I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened."

When is a protest not a protest?
Now this event would accurately be called a "protest" if it were taking place at, say, a bank or the U.S. Capitol. But when hundreds of loud and angry strangers are descending on your family, your children, and your home, a more apt description of this assemblage would be "mob." Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise, and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that arrests might "incite" these trespassers.

What's interesting is that SEIU, the nation's second largest union, craves respectability. Just-retired president Andy Stern is an Obama friend and regular White House visitor. He sits on the President's Fiscal Responsibility Commission. He hobnobs with those greedy Wall Street CEOs -- executives much higher-ranking than my neighbor Baer -- at Davos. His union spent $70 million getting Democrats elected in 2008.

In the business community, though, SEIU has a reputation for strong-arm tactics against management, prompting some companies to file suit.

Now those strong-arm tactics, stirred by supposedly free-floating (as opposed to organized) populist rage, have come to the neighborhood curb. Last year it was AIG executives -- with protestors met by security guard outside. Now it's any executive -- and they're on the front stoop. After Baer's house, the 14 buses left to descend on the nearby residence of Peter Scher, a government relations executive at JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500).

Targeting homes and families seems to put SEIU in the ranks of (now jailed) radical animal-rights activists and the Kansas anti-gay fundamentalists harassing the grieving parents of a dead 20-year-old soldier at his funeral (the Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on the latter). But that's not a conversation that SEIU officials want to have.

When I asked Stephen Lerner, SEIU's point-person on Wall Street reform, about these tactics, he accused me of getting "emotional." Lerner was more comfortable sticking to his talking points: "Millions of people are losing their homes, and they have gone to the banks, which are turning a deaf ear."

Okay, fine, then why not continue SEIU protests at bank offices and shareholder meetings-as the union has been doing for more than a year? Lerner insists, "People in powerful corporations seem to think they can insulate themselves from the damage they are doing."

Other reasons why SEIU might protest
Bank of America officials dispute Lerner's assertion about the "damage they are doing," citing the success of workout programs to help distressed homeowners, praise received from community groups, the bank's support of financial reform legislation, and the little-noticed fact that Bank of America exited the subprime lending business in 2001.

SEIU has said it wants to organize bank tellers and call centers -- and its critics point out that a great way to worsen employee morale, thereby making workers more susceptible to union calls, is to batter a bank's image through protest. (SEIU officials say their anti-Wall Street campaign has nothing to do with their organizing efforts.) Complicating this picture is the fact that BofA is the union's lender of choice -- and SEIU, suffering financially, owes the bank nearly $4 million in interest and fees. Bank of America declined comment on the loans.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/19/news/co ... t.fortune/

[eyeno]

Students Protest Bank of America
Saturday, November 17, 2007
by MARTHA SADLER

Closely observed by two Bank of America employees who drove up from Los Angeles, three protestors arrived at an ATM on the UCSB campus at about 10 a.m. on Friday, November 16, plunked down a bag of charcoal, and festooned it with yellow caution tape which read “Global Warming Crime Scene.” The three then spent the next four hours trying to educate fellow students as to Bank of America’s role in financing coal mining operations and the construction of new coal-fired power plants, which emit significant amounts of the global warming culprit carbon dioxide. BofA is the second largest investor in coal plants after Citibank, which has no branches or ATMs near UCSB.

Other protests took place across the nation on Friday, designated a National Day of Action by the Rainforest Action Network. In San Francisco-Bank of America’s birthplace-protestors released banner-bearing helium balloons inside Citibank and Bank of America branch offices, and they also shut-down ATMs, though the UCSB protestors chose not to go that route. “We didn’t want to make people angry,” said Chrissy Elles, a third-year student active with the Campus Democrats, and the UCSB event’s organizer. In the course of four hours, the UCSB students gathered 75 signatures on a petition asking CEO Kenneth Lewis, at the Bank of America’s Charlotte, North Carolina headquarters, to stop funding coal power and invest more in renewable energy sources. Afterward, Elles and her co-conspirators approached the two bank officials and thanked them “for letting us demonstrate,” she said. “It was kind of rewarding that they were concerned enough to send someone up from L.A.” Elles expressed some disappointment but not much surprise at having persuaded only about 50 percent, by her estimate, of passing students to sign the petition. “We are kind of an apathetic bunch,” she said, of her generation of college students. “But those who did sign were upset to learn that Bank of America invests so heavily in coal.”

Bank of America spokesperson Colleen Haggarty said that the bank has had a number of dialogs with RAN about their concerns, and had worked with them on various “green opportunities.” She added that 50 percent of America’s electricity comes from coal. “We are challenged as a nation to develop and use more renewable energies,” she said. As for the bank itself, she added, “We will [continue to] invest in coal and power companies, and we’re working toward investments that will help these companies use cleaner and renewable sources of energy.” Haggerty noted the bank’s commitment, announced in February, of $20 billion to assist borrowers of all kinds to reduce climate change through the use of green building and technologies.

http://independent.com/news/2007/nov/17 ... k-america/

[eyeno]

Protest stops eviction by Bank of America

By Kris Hamel
Detroit
Published Jun 7, 2009 8:56 PM
A militant demonstration on May 29 outside Bank of America in downtown Detroit stopped the scheduled June 1 eviction of Michelle Hart and her elderly mother. Countrywide Home Loans, which is owned by Bank of America, refused to modify Hart’s subprime, adjustable rate mortgage as required by federal law. The demonstration, as well as phone calls from around the country to BOA president Kenneth Lewis at the bank’s headquarters in Charlotte, N.C., forced the lender to adjourn the eviction.


Vanessa Fluker
WW photo: Alan Pollock

Hart’s attorney, Vanessa G. Fluker, told Workers World: “She tried since January 2008, for almost a year and a half, to get a loan modification from Countrywide. By the time the lender got around to looking at the papers, they said it was ‘too late’ to modify because the sheriff’s sale already took place. In reality a simple affidavit of expungement would have allowed them to modify her loan.”

Like millions of homeowners, Hart fell behind on her mortgage when the interest rate adjusted upward while she was experiencing a job loss. According to Fluker, Hart was able to get work through a temp agency, but Countrywide told her that the income from those jobs “didn’t count” for purposes of loan modification.

Countrywide and BOA are required under federal contract to do loan modifications. But they still refuse to help many homeowners and instead move forward on foreclosures and evictions. They would rather force families onto the streets than work out terms that would allow the bank to receive payment and the borrowers to save their home.

“Both Countrywide and Bank of America have received billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded bailouts,” said Fluker. “On top of that, the federal government actually pays banks to do what they are required to do under laws like the Making Home Affordable Program: work with lenders to modify mortgages so that people can keep their homes. Anyone can go online to www.financialstability.gov/docs/agreements and read the contracts. You’ll see that Countrywide receives $1,864,000,000 and Bank of America gets $798,900,000 to modify loans.”

Countrywide told Fluker on May 29 that the eviction of Hart and her mother, who suffers from pancreatic cancer, was “adjourned while they review the file.” In the meantime, no promise to modify Hart’s loan has been forthcoming and the eviction is still pending.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions, which organized the May 29 demonstration on less than two days’ notice, urges Hart’s supporters to keep up the pressure on Countrywide and Bank of America. Call Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis at 704-386-5687 and tell him to modify Michelle Hart’s loan. Her home is located at 27685 Sutherland, Southfield, Mich.; loan no. 138009372.

http://www.workers.org/2009/us/stops_eviction_0611/