Occupy continues weekly bank protests
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EUGENE, Ore. - Though the Occupy Movement has faded from the daily public spotlight, the protests have not stopped.
Every Friday afternoon, men and women of all ages meet on a sidewalk in front of a Bank of America branch in downtown Eugene with homemade signs to protest the actions of Wall Street and the biggest banks of the nation.
“What we’re doing is making the public aware of the indiscretions of these banks,” a protestor named Reagan said. “It’s about letting the people know they’re being taken advantage of and have the ability to take the power back from the corporations.”
Since the inception of the Occupy Movement in late 2011, protests, sit-ins and camp outs have occurred across the United States and have spread to every continent except for Antarctica. Locally, Occupy Eugene has staged protests of banks, police actions, the treatment of homeless citizens, the use of GMOs, and many more issues that affect both Oregonians and people worldwide.
This particular weekly protest targets the biggest banks in the United States, including Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and KeyBank. “Our issue is that through their insatiable greed, they have brought real suffering down on the people, all in the name of profit,” Reagan explained. “The ability to use money to make more money off the American taxpayer is the worst kind of economic injustice you can have.”
These sentiments aren’t new to followers of the Occupy Movement, and are shown on the signs of the eight protestors at the event. Handwritten block letters tell passing drivers, “You are not a loan/ Resist debt slavery” and “Who would Jesus foreclose on?” The adage of “We are the 99%” is also prevalent, as well as calls to action to move money and follow the Occupy Movement on social media.
Though the protestors aren’t always the same individuals, the protest has been staged weekly since April 2012, and no end seems to be in sight. The men and women have remained through rain, freezing temperatures and darkness, and haven’t been dissuaded from their beliefs and their mission. As one protestor put it, “Until the social inequality brought on by this corporatist system is eased, we’ll be out here doing this.”
The banks are getting away with nothing short of bilking the daylights out of the average person. The strange thing in all this that I can't quite get hold of is that these protestors are protesting against the very people they helped put into office, "Progressives" Like Barney Frank, Dodds, DeFazio, and the rest of them. Just like the frog, they are being cooked by the progressives and don't even realize it. Please someone prove me wrong, and do it with facts not internet left wing blither. I am tired of hearing it was all the conservatives fault, I want proof, verifiable proof and not spin. I can live with the truth, always have, but will not accept someones agenda driven bunk, conservative or liberal.
Lots of folks in the media think Occupy is dead, but it's just getting started.
@Tim Brown Lol. Well that's a bit of an exaggeration. I'd say it's on life support at this point.Â
http://www.antarcticaedu.com/occupyant.jpg
It was in Antarctica, too...
âThe ability to use money to make more money off the American taxpayer is the worst kind of economic injustice you can have.â
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Tell that to your fat cat government employee labor union supporters with their sweet taxpayer-funded pensions and medical insurance, kid.
And check out the "one percenter" wealthy taxpayer-funded CEO who now is in charge of your beloved Obama's Interior Department:
http://www.kval.com/outdoors/Source-Sally-Jewell-CEO-of-REI-to-lead-Interior-Department-190018321.html
What hypocrites. Just more ignorant Democrat tools slavishly serving their political masters.
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On a side note.... Â Bank of America got 45 billion on TARP Loans. Â They have paid it all back PLUS paid 4.566 BILLION in interest and earnings...... Â Wells Fargo got 25 billion and paid it all back PLUS paid 2.281 BILLION in interest and earning. Â JP Chase got 25 billion and paid it all back plus 1.731 BILLION in interest and earnings. Â US Bankcorp got 6.599 billion and paid it all back PLUS 334 MILLION in interest and earnings. Â KeyCorp got 2.5 billion and paid it all back PLUS 367 MILLION in interest and earnings. Â So, of the five banks being targeted by the occupiers, they got almost 105 billion in TARP loans and have paid it all back PLUS over 9 BILLION in interest and earnings......
Source: projects.propublica.org/bailout/list
The main folks who have NOT paid back monies are Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae along with General Motors. Â Maybe you should go protest a car dealer.....
@JJ97477 The GAO reported that 48% of the banks that repaid did so with money they received from other federal programs. They paid back the Capital Purchase Program with money they got from the Community Development Capital Initiative and the Small Business Lending Fund, both of which have borrowing terms more favorable to the banks than the CPP.Â
Referenced citation would help. Which banks are you referring to? There were 100's of banks in the TARP bailouts. But the "big 5" that the occupiers are targeting may not be in your 48%. If you look at the link I provided, many of the smaller banks have not paid back much, if any. I narrowed my response to the 5 banks referenced by the occupiers. How do THEY fare in your GAO report?
Thanks for the thoughful discussion. So many of them are negative between folks. I especially dislike the Register guard comment sections as they are simply not very nice to each other over there, with the name calling and heavy partisanship, etc.
@JJ97477Â I don't tend to like or agree with the occupiers. They do focus on the wrong things and make it seem worse than it is.
PS...  I don't bank with large banks, and have not for quite a while.
I'm still torn on whether it was a good thing or not overall. But I see the occupiers as making it look so extreme and so bad, when it wasn't (isn't) as bad as they are portraying. We'll likely never know if it was a sucess or failure since we didn't have a lot of banks fail, which likely would have happened. Still, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are the biggest takers and not re-payers of all. Unlike the banks, i feel thier failure would have had much more drastic repercussions.
@JJ97477Â I'm not debating that most of CPP has been repaid. I'm just saying that a huge chunk was paid back with subsidies. Of course, I have a problem with the whole thing anyway since our government was never meant to act as a central bank.
Initially looking at your link, it seems that the CPP Section was part of TARP, and of the 205 billion paid out, 211 billion has been returned. There still is 16 billion of the original amount out there, so that means that of 189 billion given out it was all paid back, plus 22 billion in interest and earnings. Of course, there are going to be some that can't pay that went under, etc. But overall, a pretty good scorecard.
Thank you. I'll look more into it. I wonder if any subsidies already were in place and this is nothing new, or if indeed it simply is pushing things around. If they ARE loans and not true freebies, then I still have no heartburn with teh structure.
@JJ97477Â http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-301
The big 5 have massive annual subsidies to help repay CCP. http://www.diw.de/documents/dokumentenarchiv/17/diw_01.c.373267.de/fin11_ueda_wederdimauro.pdfÂ
And here's a horribly bias source that at least talks about that last source in plain English... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-18/dear-mr-dimon-is-your-bank-getting-corporate-welfare-.htmlÂ
The big ones are also in the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. It would have been nice if our government didn't create an alphabet soup of programs to help out banks, but they did. It's not as straight forward as just the CCP.
@JJ97477
iberals HATE facts, they get in the way of their message. Shame on you for presenting, not only factual information, but backing it with a source! The very nerve!! =)
@flor3nc3Â Too bad it's not the full picture.
yeah.. Â Â a whole gang of 8... Â Â Remember, it takes a "Gang of Nine" to get anything done around here.....
This article reads just like a typical big corporation PR release. How ironic!
So, each person does what? 1-2 Friday afternoons per month holding a sign? Wow, what dedication!