After a great meeting last week at the Left Forum, the OWS Alternative Banking Working Group is back at our usual time and place.
Sunday 3-5 P.M.Columbia U. International Affairs Building, 420 W. 118th St.), Room 402.
http://www.nycga.net/events/ows-alternative-banking-weekly-meeting-19/
If you can’t make it this Sunday, come another time. We are there every week.
This weekend the OWS Alternative Banking Group will be meeting for about the 80th straight week. However, instead of our usual Sunday, we will be meeting Saturday June 8th from 3:40 – 5:20 at the Left Forum at Pace University. Of course, there is a lot of other good stuff going on at the Forum you shouldn’t miss. http://www.leftforum.org/
Also check out our facebook page.
If you can’t make the special Saturday meeting, we will be back at Columbia for our usual Sunday meetings June 16th, June 23rd, June 30th, July 7th …
Wow, a judge concerned about justice. What a good idea.
The last time we checked in on this subject, HSBC admitted to a decade of money-laundering to drug cartels and state sponsors of terrorism. Despite this, the Department of Justice had seen fit to let them off with a slap on the wrist because they were too big to jail. They also let all the executives off for unspecified reasons (we suspect that HSBC hiring a senior DoJ official had something to do with it).
But now, a judge is questioning the deal
We hope for the best.
Hat tip to Marni for letting us know.
Occupy Economics in London is doing wonderful things to keep “break up the banks” at the top of the agenda. One of their members discusses it in the Guardian “Big Banks are Still Gaming the System: Who’s Got the Courage to Say it?”
The piece is excellent, but I think lots of people are saying it, including the archbishop or Canterbury, Bank of England officials, US Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and the entire US Senate. The question now is “Who’s Going to Override the Bank Lobby and Do Something?”
The answer seems clear, no one until we get out in the streets and make them. Occupy Economics is working on this, too.
Keep up the fight.
I don’t have time to write a blog post.but these articles are better than I could write, anyway.
Dodd Frank Defanged, or Why Occupy the SEC is so badly needed
Please join some Alt-Banking members and others protesting the Bank of America Shareholder meeting tomorrow — Wed. May 8th..
You don’t need to be in NYC. There are lots of protests around the country.
We will be at the Bank of America Tower at 6th Avenue and 42nd St starting at noon. If you are willing to log into Facebook (please be cautious) more info here.
Info about past protests on our blog, the LA Times and elsewhere.:
The “Fantastic performance artist” will appear as the Ethical Fiscal Fairy. Not to be missed.
It poured rain but a “small but fierce” crowd showed up including the Ethical Fiscal Fairy, of course!
Here are a couple of photos
This Sunday’s Times magazine has an article that unintentionally illustrates a big problem with the political/economic system today. The “respectable” debate — that is, the debate Obama and others in power listen to — is restricted to one between the failed ideas of W Bush and the only slightly better Clinton policies.
This article holds a debate between Glenn Hubbard, adviser to Bush and Romney, and Larry Summers, Treasury Sec. under Clinton and adviser to Obama.
It is surprising, and appalling, that Hubbard gets any respect at all. He is the “architect” of Bush’s failed policies. Haven’t we had enough of that? Unfortunately cutting taxes on the rich is a policy that will never die. Quelle surprise, as Yves Smith would say.
Summers isn’t quite as discredited. Not everything went wrong in the Clinton years. But Summers was a prime mover in squelching regulation of derivatives and getting rid of Glass-Steagall. He was also instrumental in the earlier rounds of bank bailouts — remember the “Committee to Save the World”.
Even the principals in the merger that killed Glass-Steagall, John Reed and Sandy Weill agree that was a mistake.
The problem is that we keep going back to the old, failed ideas. There is a mystique that only the bankers and business people know how to run the economy. Well they know how to run it to their own benefit but it is not working for the 99%. Their arguments have all the substance of the Emperor’s New Clothes.
Hey Adam Davidson, if you like sports analogies, shouldn’t we look for a coach with a new playbook. There are lots of people out there with new, better, ideas. How about James Galbraith or Dean Baker?
Our protest of the Citigroup shareholders meeting was our best attended and definitely the most noticed by the media.
Financial Times: Banks got bailed out, we got sold out
Marni got the most notice, well done.
Dealbreaker: Spandex-clad roller-girl
Huffington Post: Fantastic Performance Artist.
They were also interviewed by the Associated Press and Korean and Dutch news agencies. Will post as they are published.
This week, a climate change expert will give a talk on the History of CO2: Past, Present and Future.
1. Carbon Cycle and Phanerozoic History of CO2
2. Climate history over last 11,000 years (recent paper from Science)
3. Link between CO2 and T (Vostok Ice Cores, paleo records, Berner)
4. Where we’re headed with CO2 and climate (not so bad now, but look at RCP 8.5)
5. The bathtub: avoiding overflow (MIT psych paper)
6. Extreme Weather Events and Loaded Climate Dice (Hansen et al)
It will be Sunday from 2-3 PM. Followed by our regularly weekly Alternative Banking meeting.
Details here:http://www.nycga.net/events/event-edit/?action=edit&event_id=93
Cathy O’Neil, mathbabe, data scientist, former Wall Street quant will explain how private information is collected, stored, sold, and used in Internet models including e-scores (electronic credit scores), advertisements, and other fun stuff.
Sunday, March 31 2-3 PM: Will be followed at 3 pm by the regular weekly meeting of OWS – Alternative Banking working group.