A 'striking lack of diversity' at the Fed distorts economic policy in ways most people don’t consider
A 'striking lack of diversity' at the Fed distorts economic policy in ways most people don’t consider
In a new report from the liberal-leaning Fed Up, a coalition of community groups advocating for continued low interest rates from the Fed with a view to helping the country's poorer families enjoy...
In a new report from the liberal-leaning Fed Up, a coalition of community groups advocating for continued low interest rates from the Fed with a view to helping the country's poorer families enjoy some of the benefits of the recovery, the group says a lot of work remains to be done despite recent progress on diversity under Yellen's tenure.
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New York City Council Passes Free Legal Counsel for Poor Immigrants Facing Deportation
Latin Post - June 30, 2014, by Michael Oleaga - New York Assemblyman Francisco Moya, author of the state's DREAM Act, told Latin Post, "The New York City Council's decision to create the nation's...
Latin Post - June 30, 2014, by Michael Oleaga - New York Assemblyman Francisco Moya, author of the state's DREAM Act, told Latin Post, "The New York City Council's decision to create the nation's first public defender system for immigrants facing deportation is a bold move for justice and I am proud to say that I was an early supporter of this initiative on the state level. One of my proudest accomplishments this year is that I was able to secure funds in the state budget for the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project."
"Facing a judge without counsel provides an unreasonable barrier to justice," Moya added. "If you wind up in immigration court and must defend yourself against trained attorneys, it's almost impossible to avoid deportation. Providing counsel for those facing deportation is about justice and family unity. No one should have to lose a family member to deportation just because they couldn't afford an attorney. I applaud the efforts of the New York City Council and look forward to taking up my bill to expand this program statewide again next year."
New York City became the first jurisdiction in the United States to provide free legal counsel to detained undocumented immigrants facing deportation. New York City's Council passed the $4.9 billion program known as the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP) after a "successful" yearlong trial.
The NYIFUP's funding from the City Council grants legal representation for nearly 1,380 detained immigrants in the city.
The program is also the result of a five-year study by the Center for Popular Democracy, the Immigrant Justice Clinic of Cardozo Law School, Make the Road New York and the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights (NMCIR). According to the Vera Institute of Justice, more than 7,000 U.S. citizen children in New York City lost a parent to deportation between 2005 and 2010. Sixty-seven percent of detained immigrants in the city continue their deportation hearings without legal counsel, and only 3 percent find success. Vera noted immigrants with legal representation are 10 times more likely to find a successful outcome in immigration court.
"In addition to the financial hardship caused by the loss of a primary breadwinner, these children have been shown to suffer significant emotional and psychological effects," said Vera, which administered the initial one-year-pilot program and sought to increase "court effectiveness and decrease detention times" and would save taxpayer dollars.
"In time, NYIFUP would become a model for other jurisdictions that value their immigrants and counterbalance overtly hostile immigration policies enacted in states like Arizona and Alabama," NMCIR stated. "New York State has an opportunity to lead by making resources available to address a critically important unmet need and to keep New York families together."
NMCIR Executive Director Angela Fernandez acknowledged deportation proceedings do not require the government to provide lawyers since it is considered a "civil" matter rather than criminal.
"However, to the immigrants who are held in county jails, shackled and forced to litigate in one of our most complex arenas of law against trained government attorneys, the civil designation is cold comfort," Fernandez said.
"New York City's investment in the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project will not only help those who receive legal representation in decisions that will profoundly affect their lives, but it will also send a clear message that the city values and protects all families," Make the Road New York's Immigration Project's Cesar Palomeque said in a statement.
"The City Council should be congratulated for its leadership in ensuring that no detained New Yorker will be deported without an opportunity to show that she or he is entitled to remain in the country," Vera Director of the Center on Immigration and Justice Oren Root said.
Credit for the NYIFUP has been given to City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Councilmembers Carlos Menchaca, Julissa Ferreras and Daniel Dromm.
On a federal level, House Democrats have proposed the Vulnerable Immigrant Voice Act (VIVA) (H.R. 4936) legislation that would provide legal representation to unaccompanied minors and mentally disabled individuals during immigration proceedings. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), nearly 90,000 children will immigrate to the U.S. without an adult by the end of 2014.
"Currently, thousands of these children are stuck in a legal limbo as they seek a brighter future in the United States and most will not have legal representation," National Immigration Forum's Executive Director Ali Noorani told Latin Post.
The National Immigrant Justice Center's Executive Director Mary Meg McCarthy, Senate and House immigration reforms such as S. 744 and H.R. 15 provides legal representation to undocumented people for immigration court, but both bills have stalled in Congress.
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Statement from the Fed Up coalition on Philadelphia Fed’s Announcement of a New President
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 2, 2015
Contact:Ricardo A. Ramírez, rramirez@populardemocracy.org, 202-464-...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 2, 2015
Contact:Ricardo A. Ramírez, rramirez@populardemocracy.org, 202-464-7376
Statement from the Fed Up coalition on Philadelphia Fed’s Announcement of a New President
In response to this morning’s announcement of a new president for the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, Kendra Brooks of Action United in Philadelphia put out the following statement today on behalf of the Fed Up coalition:
“As the nation’s central bank, the Federal Reserve System’s governance and decision-making processes should reflect the values of transparency and public accountability. The process that was used to select Patrick Harker as the new President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia failed to do that. Despite repeated requests from community, consumer, labor, and academic organizations and public officials within the region, the Philadelphia Fed refused to create any mechanisms for engagement with the public. Instead, the process was entirely opaque: nobody outside of the Federal Reserve knew who the candidates were or what the criteria was for selection. This process did a disservice to the Federal Reserve System and the people of the Philadelphia region.
“We congratulate President Harker on his appointment and look forward to working with him to build a strong economy for Philadelphia and the region. For too many families within the Third District, the economy still isn’t working: the so-called recovery has featured stagnant wages and not enough good jobs. We are eager to partner with President Harker to change that reality, and to build a Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia that is accessible to public input and responsive to the public’s needs.”
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“Fed Up” is a national coalition of community-based organizations, unions, and policy advocates calling for the Federal Reserve to adopt policies that create a full employment economy with rising wages and good jobs for everyone and for a reformed Federal Reserve that is transparent and accountable to the public. The Coalition recently met with Fed Chair Janet Yellen and three Fed Governors to discuss its priorities.
The Resistance Now: Star Wars, 'aliens' and Leonardo DiCaprio join the fight
The Resistance Now: Star Wars, 'aliens' and Leonardo DiCaprio join the fight
It seems the Earth has a sense of irony. “Record-breaking heat” is possible at the People’s Climate March in DC on Saturday, where thousands of people are planning to protest against the president...
It seems the Earth has a sense of irony. “Record-breaking heat” is possible at the People’s Climate March in DC on Saturday, where thousands of people are planning to protest against the president’s climate change policies on his 100th day in office. Trump’s initiatives include, but are not limited to, a 31% cut in the Environmental Protection Agency and potentially leaving the Paris climate agreement.
Among those suffering in the heat will be former vice-president Al Gore and, apparently, Leonardo DiCaprio. It is likely to take a titanic effort to change the other Wolf of Wall Street’s mind, however, as Trump has repeatedly said that the inception of climate change had nothing to do with mankind. Only 1,361 more days of this to go!
Read full article here.
Fed Up Campaign Celebrates Victory for Working Families as Fed Holds Off on Rate Hikes
“This is a victory for the working families who stepped up with innovative organizing to send the Fed a clear message: Our voices belong in the debate about our economy,” said Ady Barkan, Campaign...
“This is a victory for the working families who stepped up with innovative organizing to send the Fed a clear message: Our voices belong in the debate about our economy,” said Ady Barkan, Campaign Director for Fed Up. “With the recovery still far too weak in too many communities, it would have been economically devastating – and immoral – to slow the economy.”
“We applaud Chair Yellen and the Federal Reserve for resisting the pressure being put on them to intentionally slow down the economy. Weak wage growth proves that the labor market is still very far from full employment. And with inflation still below the Fed’s already low target, there is simply no reason to raise interest rates anytime soon. Across America, working families know that the economy still has not recovered. We hope that the Fed continues to look at the data and refrain from any rate hikes until we reach genuine full employment for all, particularly for the Black and Latino communities who are being left behind in this so-called recovery.
The campaign held a rally outside the building where Chair Janet Yellen made the announcement this afternoon. Fifty workers gathered to tell their stories and call on the Fed not to intentionally slow down the economy. They were joined by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who introduced today the Full Employment Federal Reserve Act of 2015, which would enhance the Fed’s full employment mandate.
Throughout late 2014 and 2015, the Fed Up campaign has elevated the voices of working families, meeting with four of the five Fed Governors and six of the twelve regional Fed presidents. Workers across the country have talked about the tremendous racial and economic disparities that still afflict the economy, and the need for genuine full employment that creates rising wages and more jobs for all communities. It has enlisted the support of economists like Nobel Laureate Joe Stiglitz, the involvement of four of the nation’s largest progressive digital advocacy organizations, and over 120,000 supporters around the country.
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The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.
Advocates of minimum wage hike raise more than $1.4 million
Advocates of minimum wage hike raise more than $1.4 million
Proponents of hiking the state’s minimum wage have already collected more than $1.4 million to put the issue on the November ballot and convince voters to support it.
But there’s no word on...
Proponents of hiking the state’s minimum wage have already collected more than $1.4 million to put the issue on the November ballot and convince voters to support it.
But there’s no word on how much the Arizona Restaurant Association has spent so far trying to keep Proposition 206 from ever getting to voters.
New campaign finance reports due Friday show donations of $1,357,509 to Arizonans for Fair Wages and Health Families, with another $100,000 on loan from campaign consultant Bill Scheel. Most of those dollars — about $900,000 — were spent hiring paid circulators to put the issue on the ballot.
But the secretary of state’s office said Friday it has yet to get a spending report from foes. In fact, spokesman Matt Roberts said foes have not even filed to form a campaign committee, a legal prerequisite for spending any money for or against ballot measures.
There clearly has been some spending.
The restaurant association hired attorneys and filed suit on July 14 in a legal bid, unsuccessful to date, to have the measure removed from the November ballot. And the report due Friday is supposed to cover all expenses through Aug. 18.
Neither Steve Chucri, president of the restaurant group, nor Chiane Hewer, its spokeswoman, returned repeated calls seeking comment.
Roberts said his office has no legal opinion on whether the money spent in court over ballot measures has to be reported. But the legal expenses incurred by initiative supporters are listed, with their report saying the group paid $70,000 to the Torres Law Group to defend them in the lawsuit brought by the restaurant association.
Proposition 206, if approved in November, would immediately hike the state minimum wage from $8.05 an hour now to $10. It would hit $12 an hour by 2020, with future increases linked to inflation.
It also would require companies to provide five days of paid sick leave a year; small employers would have to offer three days.
There is one thing missing, however, from the report by the pro-206 group.
The report shows $998,684 of the donations coming from Living United for Change in Arizona.
But Tomas Robles, former director of LUCHA who is now chairing the campaign, said some of those dollars came from elsewhere. He said the organization has been the beneficiary of funds from groups like the Center for Popular Democracy and the United Food and Commercial Workers union.
Robles said, though, that the way Arizona law has been amended by the Republican-controlled legislature does not require detailing the specific donors or the amounts they gave.
While any spending by the restaurant association to date is unknown, the campaign is likely to be overshadowed, at least financially, by the fight over Proposition 205.
That measure would legalize the recreational use of marijuana by all adults; current law limits use of the drug to those who have certain medical conditions, a doctor’s recommendation and a state-issued ID card.
So far the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol has amassed more than $3 million in donations.
Of that, $778,950 comes from the Marijuana Policy Project, the national group that funded the successful 2010 campaign for medical marijuana. A separate Marijuana Policy Project Foundation kicked in another $236,572.
Virtually all of the other five- and six-figure donations come from existing medical marijuana dispensaries. Proposition 205 would give them first crack at getting a license for one of the fewer than 150 retail outlets that would be allowed until 2021.
So far the campaign has spent nearly $2.6 million.
The opposition Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy reported collected $950,011 but has spent less than $294,000.
The Arizona Chamber of Commerce is the largest single source of funds for the anti-205 campaign, so far putting in $114,000.
There’s also a $100,000 donation from T. Sanford Denny. He’s the chairman of United National Corp., which Bloomberg says is a privately owned holding company for First Premier Bank.
Another $100,000 was chipped in by Randy Kendrick, wife of Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick.
The new reports also show that a branch of the Service Employees International Union spent $2.1 million in its ill-fated attempt to put a measure on the ballot to cap the compensation of non-medical hospital executives at $450,000 a year. Proponents gave up after a lawsuit was filed contending that many of the people who circulated petitions had not complied with state law, voiding any of the signatures they collected.
By: Howard Fischer
Source
Can New CEO Tim Sloan Fix Scandal-Plagued Wells Fargo’s Corporate Culture?
Can New CEO Tim Sloan Fix Scandal-Plagued Wells Fargo’s Corporate Culture?
Scandal-plagued Wells Fargo’s recent selection of long-time bank insider Tim Sloan to replace John Stumpf as its CEO has done little to mollify critics, given Sloan’s central management role...
Scandal-plagued Wells Fargo’s recent selection of long-time bank insider Tim Sloan to replace John Stumpf as its CEO has done little to mollify critics, given Sloan’s central management role during more than a decade of consumer and community complaints.
Sloan has largely escaped scrutiny during the thumping Wells Fargo has taken from Congress, the media, and bank reform activists for boosting its own stock price by secretly creating more than two million unauthorized checking and credit-card accounts. As lawmakers and state and federal regulators line up to investigate the bank following Stumpf’s resignation, Sloan now replaces him on the hot seat. Sloan’s role as a member of the bank’s inner circle at a time when Wells Fargo stood accused of reckless and discriminatory practices is sure to interest investigators.
“I remain concerned that incoming CEO Tim Sloan is also culpable in the recent scandal, serving in a central role in the chain of command that ought to have stopped this misconduct from happening,” said House Democrat Maxine Waters, of California, in a statement. Waters is the ranking Democratic on the House Financial Service Committee, which is investigating Wells Fargo, as are the Senate Banking Committee, the Justice Department, the Labor Department, and the attorneys general of several states.
Paulina Gonzalez, executive director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, a consumer watchdog group, also has singled Sloan out for special criticism. There are “a lot of unanswered questions as to when and what Tim Sloan knew about these fraudulent consumer accounts,” says Gonzalez, who has called on the new CEO to help mend public trust by ending Wells Fargo’s practice of forcing former employees and fraud victims into arbitration to get their grievances resolved.
Sloan recently acknowledged that Wells Fargo had made serious mistakes regarding the phony accounts scandal, including placing too much of the blame on branch employees. “We failed to acknowledge the role leadership played and, as a result, many felt we blamed our team members,” Sloan told an audience of 1,200 Wells Fargo employees at the Knight Theater in Charlotte on October 26. "That one still hurts, and I am committed to rectifying it.” He said that the bank has ended the aggressive sales goals that led its employees to create the phony accounts, and pledged to rehire some rank-and-file employees who were fired for creating those accounts, though it’s unclear how many.
“Getting an apology when the company is backed into a corner doesn’t fix how Wells Fargo’s predatory, high-pressure sales goals hurt millions of working people and their customers,” says Erin Mahoney, a spokesperson for the Committee for Better Banks, a nationwide coalition of bank employees and community groups. “If Sloan really wants to rebuild trust within the company, he should start paying frontline workers a fair wage and working with them to collaboratively to improve working conditions and serve the best interests of employees and customers.”
The nation’s leading home mortgage lender, Wells Fargo has already agreed to pay $185 million in settlements with the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (a federal bank regulator), and the City of Los Angeles, which sued Wells Fargo on behalf of its victimized customers. Those fines are a drop in the bucket compared with Wells Fargo’s 2015 profits of $20 billion, note consumer watchdogs spearheading their own investigations and lawsuits.
Sloan, 56, was a key member of Wells Fargo’s upper echelon throughout the period leading up to the falsified-accounts scandal.
Sloan, 56, was a key member of Wells Fargo’s upper echelon throughout the period leading up to the falsified-accounts scandal. Having started his climb up Wells Fargo in 1987, Sloan headed the bank’s corporate real estate and social responsibility divisions before being named senior executive vice president and Chief Financial Officer in 2011. That’s the year Wells Fargo started firing some 5,300 low-level employees for opening the fraudulent accounts and quietly refunding millions of dollars to customers.
Last year, Sloan was promoted to Chief Operating Officer, a post that made him the executive responsible for Wells Fargo’s Community Bank and Consumer Lending divisions—ground zero in the current scandal. Among other duties, Sloan was in charge of supervising Carrie Tolstedt, who ran the Well Fargo’s community-banking division at the center of the current firestorm. Tolstedt was forced to resign last month. Under pressure from Congress and shareholders, Wells Fargo’s board withdrew Tolstedt’s severance and bonus pay as well as all of her $19 million worth of unvested stock awards. She also agreed not to exercise about $34 million in stock options. Even so, she left owning more than $43 million worth of stock that she had accumulated during her career with the bank.
Although Sloan is relatively unknown nationally, this is not the first time he has faced public scrutiny. In 2012, California bank reform activists picketed his home to protest Wells Fargo’s efforts to evict a wheelchair-bound homeowner who had missed a few mortgage payments due to a health crisis.
The owner of the residence in question, a tiny, 949-square-foot house in the gritty, working class Los Angeles suburb of South Gate, was Ana Casas Wilson, a court interpreter who had lived there since she was 12 years old. Wilson lived in the house with her husband James (a school janitor), her mother Becky (a retired factory worker who worked as a home health aide), and her teenage son Anthony.
In 2009, Wilson was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy. She also suffered from cerebral palsy and was confined to a wheelchair. Her husband quit his night job as a security guard to care for her, reducing the family’s income. During her hospitalization and chemotherapy, the family fell behind on its mortgage payments, and Wells Fargo started to foreclose on Wilson’s property.
Wilson sought to resume payments once the family’s financial situation stabilized, but Wells Fargo refused to accept the Wilsons’ checks and pursued foreclosure and eviction. A feisty disability rights activist, Wilson fought back, contacting the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), a community organizing group on the front lines of the foreclosure crisis that is known for confronting banks through negotiations, protests and civil disobedience to draw attention to their abuses of consumers and communities.
In October of 2011—a month after the Occupy Wall Street movement had started in New York City and started spreading to cities across the country—ACCE members lodged their first protest outside Sloan’s house, a $5 million, eight-bedroom Spanish-style mansion on a cul-de-sac in San Marino, one of California’s wealthiest suburbs. It’s only 10 miles from Wilson’s South Gate home, but it might as well be a world away.
After Wilson and her supporters picketed outside Sloan’s house, the five-member San Marino City Council adopted a new law that requires protesters to remain 150 feet away from a target residence, or 75 feet from the curb adjacent to the home, whichever is further.
“The purpose of the ordinance is not to reduce picketing, but to protect the people who are the victims of picketing,” San Marino city manager John Schaefer said at the time. “We’re a prime target. We have a lot of people who fit the profile to be the victim of this type of crime.”
The following April, after Wells Fargo continued to refuse to help the Wilsons stay in their house, Wilson and about 100 supporters from ACCE and the Service Employees International Union showed up carrying signs and chanted “Wells Fargo, shame on you!” in the street in front of Sloan’s house. Wilson even brought a check for her mortgage payment, and crossed a police cordon in her wheelchair to deliver it to Sloan. She knocked several times, but nobody answered the door.
“He's embarrassed,” Wilson told The Los Angeles Times. “That's why he won't come out. ... He knows that what they are doing is wrong.” About 90 minutes into the demonstration, police formed a line around the home, declared the assembly illegal and ordered the group to move 75 feet up the street.
Wilson refused to go and, under San Marino’s anti-protest ordinance, was arrested and taken to San Marino police headquarters.
In September 2012, as Wells Fargo was trying to evict Wilson from her home, Sloan chaired a fundraising ball for the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, an elite San Marino institution housed in the former estate of one of America’s best-known robber barons, railroad titan and real estate speculator Henry Huntington. A local newspaper published a photo of Sloan in his tuxedo, smiling for the camera. It reported that the menu by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck included “filet of beef topped with shrimp scampi, sauteed spinach, pommes puree and baby heirloom tomatoes,” and a dessert of chocolate soufflé “with spun sugar, whipped cream and berries and panna cotta with tangerine sorbet.”
The event drew 380 supporters and raised $300,00—almost twice the value of Ana Wilson’s house.
WILSON’S CASE IS ONLY ONE of many customer abuse controversies that must undoubtedly have been known to Sloan as a member of Wells Fargo’s executive inner circle. Long before the phony accounts scandal erupted, bank reform activists had raised the alarm about the San Francisco-based bank’s racially discriminatory lending practices and aggressive foreclosures.
Wells Fargo has been repeatedly sued by consumer watchdog groups around the country, as well as by Baltimore and other cities, for allegedly violating laws against racist mortgage lending. Activists have testified before Congress, state legislatures and City Councils demanding that they investigate the bank’s practices. Like Wilson and her supporters, they’ve occasionally picketed at the homes of the bank’s top executives, and at its offices and shareholder meetings. Wells Fargo has been so concerned about these demonstrations that it has taken to playing cat and mouse by moving its annual shareholder meeting to a new location every year in a bid to evade protestors.
In 2006, before the subprime bubble started to burst, Wells Fargo originated or co-issued $74.2 billion worth of subprime loans, making it one of the top subprime lenders in the country.
In 2006, before the subprime bubble started to burst, Wells Fargo originated or co-issued $74.2 billion worth of subprime loans, making it one of the top subprime lenders in the country. By June, 2010, Wells Fargo had $17.5 billion worth of foreclosed homes on its books, making it one of the nation’s three top banks in foreclosure activity. Despite getting a $37 billion taxpayer bail out, Wells Fargo resisted kicking and screaming before reluctantly agreeing to participate in the federal government’s Home Affordable Modification Program. Even so, it helped few of its borrowers who were eligible for loan modifications designed to keep families in their homes.
Wells Fargo has also been forced to make huge settlement agreements with government agencies for engaging in a variety of predatory practices. In 2010, the Federal Reserve Board levied an $85 million fine on Wells Fargo for steering borrowers inappropriately into subprime loans and falsifying income information on loan applications. This was the largest civil consumer enforcement fine ever imposed by the Fed.
In 2012, in a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, Wells Fargo agreed to pay at least $175 million to redress blatant discrimination against African American and Hispanic borrowers. In cities across the country, brokers working with Wells Fargo steered minority borrowers into costlier subprime mortgages with higher fees when white borrowers with similar credit risk profiles received regular loans. Furthermore, while its mortgage lending to white borrowers increased, the bank’s lending dropped dramatically for African American and Hispanic borrowers. Wells Fargo has been sued many times for charging abusive mortgage default fees, submitting false and misleading court documents, processing unlawful foreclosures, mortgage appraisal and origination fraud, charging military veterans with hidden and illegal fees, robo-signing of mortgage documents, and other illegal acts.
In April, in another settlement with the Justice Department, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $1.2 billion and admitted responsibility for engaging in mortgage fraud. Between 2001 and 2008, the bank falsely claimed that many home mortgage loans were eligible for Federal Housing Authority (FHA) insurance, forcing the federal government to pay FHA insurance claims when some of those loans defaulted.
Last month, a few weeks after the fake accounts settlement was announced, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) assessed a $20 million civil money penalty against Wells Fargo for violating the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. According to the OCC, between 2006 and 2016, the bank illegally made loans over the law’s 6 percent interest rate limit, and sought to evict service members from their homes without disclosing to courts that they were on active duty.
Wells Fargo has also been deeply involved in the payday lending business that preys on cash-strapped families by providing short term loans with exorbitant fees and annual interest rates (typically around 400 percent) that trap people in a cycle of debt, particularly borrowers in poor and minority neighborhoods. Wells Fargo provided financing for nine payday companies that operate one-third (32 percent) of the entire industry, whose storefronts are concentrated in African American and Latino neighborhoods.
Sloan is only one of two new leaders taking over for Stumpf as Wells Fargo enters a new phase of damage control. Stumpf had been both the bank’s chairman and its CEO. Now, those two jobs will be divvied up between Sloan as CEO and Stephen Sanger, a former CEO of General Mills, as chairman of the Wells Fargo board. The bank’s purpose with these and other moves may be to signal a clean slate.
But Sloan is the ultimate insider, not only at Wells Fargo, but as part of the nation’s corporate ruling class, which also exercises influence through its overlapping ties with business, foundation, and charitable organizations. Sloan not only serves on the Board of Overseers of the Huntington Library, he’s also a member of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business Advisory Board and a trustee of Ohio Wesleyan University, the California Institute of Technology, and (ironically, in light of Wilson’s condition) City of Hope, a well-known hospital dedicated to researching and treating cancer.
A major political donor, Sloan has made more than $235,000 in political contributions in the past five years, most of its to Republican candidates and committees.
Since the Occupy Wall Street movement emerged in 2011, Wells Fargo has donated over $10 million in campaign contributions to presidential and congressional candidates and paid $21.3 million to lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Sloan and the bank he now runs will need all the political clout they can muster to repair the serious damage done to Wells Fargo’s reputation and stockholder confidence. California’s state treasurer, John Chiang, suspended the state’s ties with Wells Fargo, including the lucrative business of underwriting California municipal bonds, citing the bank’s “venal abuse of its customers.” Illinois and Ohio quickly followed suit. Ohio’s Republican Governor, John Kasich, has barred Wells Fargo for one year from “participating in future state debt offerings and financial services contracts initiated by state agencies” under his authority.
San Francisco city treasurer Jose Cisernos kicked Wells Fargo out of its Bank On program, which helps low-income people or those with credit problems open checking and savings accounts. Chicago has banned Wells Fargo from participating in bidding for bond underwriting and other types of business. Local Progress (a network of municipal officials), the Center for Popular Democracy (a federation of local community organizing groups), and the Committee for Better Banks (a coalition of unions and consumer groups) are pushing other cities to follow suit and stop doing business with Wells Fargo until it cleans up its act. Even the Better Business Bureau pulled its accreditation from Wells Fargo, citing the more than 4,000 complaints it has received about the bank over the last three years.
One silver lining of the scandal is that it has strengthened support for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
One silver lining of the scandal is that it has strengthened support for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the federal agency that helped uncover the bank’s abuses. The brainchild of Massachusetts senator and anti-Wall Street Democrat Elizabeth Warren, the CFPB was created as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform bill over heavy banking industry opposition. Since then, banking lobbyists and their GOP allies on Capitol Hill have sought to undermine the agency by reducing its budget and authority. But the recent Well Fargo settlement may make it more difficult for bank lobbyists and Republicans in Congress to attack the CFPB, according to a recent article in American Banker. Hillary Clinton recently touted the CFPB’s “forceful response” to the Wells Fargo scandal, adding that it was “a stark reminder of why we need a strong consumer watchdog to safeguard against unfair and deceptive practices,” a sentiment echoed by Wall Street watchdog groups like Americans for Financial Reform.
Unfortunately, the CFPB could do little for Ana Wilson, so she found a different way to make her voice heard. In addition to her family’s protest on the front lawn of Sloan’s mansion in 2012, she and her supporters also set up an encampment outside Wilsons’ home. Family members said they would refuse to leave if the bank tried to arrest Wilson. The publicity generated by these protests—including TV and newspaper stories, and support from a popular morning pop radio disc jockey—brought Wells Fargo to the negotiating table.
The bank ultimately offered to sell Wilson’s house to a nonprofit group, HomeStrong USA, that promised to rent it back and give the family an option to repurchase it after the Wilsons had reestablished their credit. Tired from fighting the bank and fighting her stage four breast cancer, Wilson reluctantly agreed to the arrangement. A few weeks later, in December 2012, Wilson died at the age of 50. HomeStrong has kept up its end of the bargain. The group made major improvements to the house. Wilson’s husband James, son Anthony, and mom Becky still live there and pay an affordable rent.
Meanwhile, as he takes over as Well Fargo’s CEO, Sloan may have to sell his San Marino mansion and move to the Bay Area to be closer to the bank’s San Francisco headquarters. Now that he is in the CEO, Sloan can be certain that activists will find out where he lives and visit his new home if he doesn’t change Wells Fargo’s corporate culture and deal with its abuse of employees and consumers alike.
By PETER DREIER
Source
Hundreds march on Capitol Hill to call for a DACA replacement
Hundreds march on Capitol Hill to call for a DACA replacement
The Trump administration's decision to end the DACA program means thousands of undocumented individuals are on the verge of being deported, despite having lived in the US for years. On Wednesday,...
The Trump administration's decision to end the DACA program means thousands of undocumented individuals are on the verge of being deported, despite having lived in the US for years. On Wednesday, protesters took to DC to call for the DREAM Act, which would build on DACA, creating a multi-phase process that would lead to permanent residency.
Read the full article here.
Pittsburgh police, community absorb news of Dallas shootings
Pittsburgh police, community absorb news of Dallas shootings
Though far from Dallas, Minnesota or Louisiana, leaders here recognized on Friday the historic nature of a chain reaction of police-community tragedies and sought to minimize the risk of more...
Though far from Dallas, Minnesota or Louisiana, leaders here recognized on Friday the historic nature of a chain reaction of police-community tragedies and sought to minimize the risk of more violence.
A shooting such as the one in Dallas “knocks us out of our complacency,” said Howard Burton, chief of the Penn Hills police department. Although most people support officers and appreciate their protection, he said, “We know there’s a group of people out there that move in that direction, that move [aggressively] toward law enforcement.”
Such concerns led Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto to call for a peace gathering next week of law enforcement, church, activist, foundation, labor, corporate and government leaders.
Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 1 president Robert Swartzwelder, who is a city officer, said he has authorized the lodge’s three-member funeral detail to go to Dallas. Normally, the lodge would be represented at funerals in Pennsylvania and adjoining states, but the extent of the tragedy in Dallas warrants a presence, he said, adding that it’s “extremely important to the law enforcement community and the family of the police officers” that they see support.
He added that the ambush will be “in the mind of very police officer that’s working” for some time.
Five law enforcement officers were fatally shot Thursday night in Dallas, with seven others injured. That was broadly interpreted as a deranged reaction to the deaths of Louisiana’s Alton Sterling and Minnesotan Philando Castile in encounters with police.
Leaders of both political parties decried all three tragedies.
“We have to ask ourselves, is this the type of country we want? I believe the answer is no,” said Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat. “When incidents like those in Louisiana, Minnesota and Dallas happen, it raises concerns and questions, and we must demand change and action.”
Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican, wrote in a statement that the “disgusting attack has no possible justification.”
He also cited a Dallas police spokesman’s account that the violence there “was motivated by recent police shootings. Such incidents — including the shocking and disturbing videos from Minnesota and Louisiana — must be investigated thoroughly, and if any official is found to have violated the law, he should be severely punished.”
At a police accountability protest Downtown, officers escorting the marchers seemed “nervous, and that’s understandable, but they were very helpful and cooperative,” said Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, which organized the demonstration. “They’ve allowed us to do the march we envisioned, and we appreciate that.”
Pittsburgh police Chief Cameron McLay noted that concerns for lives of police officers and black citizens “are not mutually exclusive at all.”
Some suburban Allegheny County chiefs said they were running their departments as usual, and others declined to say whether they had made changes. None of those contacted by the Post-Gazette reported any threats to their officers.
Voices of the civil rights community said they want intensified attention to police-community problems — but not through violence.
“This is not going to happen in Allegheny County, because we’re going to be meeting with the young folks,” said Constance Parker, president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the NAACP. The message: “Before you get angry, think, because there’s costs you pay when you get very angry. If you don’t pay it with the law, you pay it with your body.”
By Rich Lord
Source
Who’s truly rebuilding the Democratic Party? The activists.
Who’s truly rebuilding the Democratic Party? The activists.
In June 2010 I made a very bad tweet that I came to regret. (Hard to imagine, I know.) I yelled at the disability rights group Adapt.
I’d come to DC to attend a conference of progressive...
In June 2010 I made a very bad tweet that I came to regret. (Hard to imagine, I know.) I yelled at the disability rights group Adapt.
I’d come to DC to attend a conference of progressive leaders, “America’s Future Now.” And while I knew a lot about financial reform, I didn’t know enough about politics, activism, or the Democratic Party.
Read the full article here.
3 days ago
3 days ago