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Big Banks, Big Insurance, Big Pharma & Big Housing: Corporate America Is Burying Us in Fees

August 27, 2020December 16, 2019 by Pamela Powers Hannley

Working for a living is hard. You have to get out of bed early, get dressed… maybe even put wear a silly uniform that you were required to purchase… drop the kids off at school, drive around to find parking or sit on a bench waiting for the bus, rush to work to be on … Read more

House Speaker Paul Ryan maligns the CFPB days after it discloses major fraud scandal at Wells Fargo Bank

September 14, 2016 by AZ BlueMeanie

So the GOP’s alleged boy genius, Ayn Rand fanboy Paul Ryan, “the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin, ” recently posted this on Twitter.

Note the date of this tweet: September 12, 2016. Matt O’Brien of the Washington Post mocks, And now, a case of really bad Republican timing.

Ryan’s tweet is just days after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) scored one of the biggest consumer fraud victories in its short history against a bankster of Wall Street. 5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired over 2 million phony accounts:

Everyone hates paying bank fees. But imagine paying fees on a ghost account you didn’t even sign up for.

That’s exactly what happened to Wells Fargo customers nationwide.

On Thursday, federal regulators said Wells Fargo employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts — without their customers knowing it — since 2011.

The phony accounts earned the bank unwarranted fees and allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales figures and make more money.

“Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses,” Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a statement.

Public Banking & the Nonpartisan League: Is It Time for a Financial Revolution?

May 1, 2016May 1, 2016 by Pamela Powers Hannley

In early 1900s, progressives from both political parties joined forces to create the Non-Partisan League. This led to creation of North Dakata's public bank. (Cartoon published in the Non-Partisan Leader in 1912.) — In early 1900s, progressives from both political parties joined forces to create the Nonpartisan League and fight for progressive reform. (Cartoon published in the Nonpartisan Leader in 1912.)

During this political season, we have heard a lot about too-big-to-fail banks, corporate greed, politicians on the take, bad trade deals, inequality and … starting a revolution to save the middle class.

Just over 100 years ago, at the dawn of the first American Progressive Era, the same conditions sparked a revolution which spread from North Dakota throughout the prairie states.

In the early 1900s, family farms were under attack. Railroad robber barons charged farmers exorbitant prices to ship their grain, and if the farmers fell behind on loan payments, Wall Street banks stepped in—not to save the farmers but to foreclose on them.

As one farm family after another lost its land, politicians, who were in the pocket of big money interests, accepted the lobbyists’ cash and stood idly by.

Discontent grew among the farmers. In 1915, failed flax farmer A.C. Townley and his friend Fred Wood sat down at Fred’s kitchen table and drew up a progressive agenda to help the people of North Dakota. This blueprint for reform included regulating railroads and controlling fees, organizing farming cooperatives, and creating a state bank, which would make investments for the common good, instead of foreclosing on family farms. This was the birth of the Nonpartisan League (NPL).

Bernie Sanders on Austerity: From Greece to Puerto Rico to Arizona? (video)

August 22, 2015August 21, 2015 by Pamela Powers Hannley

On Democracy Now today, Amy Goodman reported on an economic panel assembled by Vermont Senator and Democratic Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders. Goodman excerpted a section of Sanders’ speech on the failure of austerity policies in Greece and around the world. He said that although his comments focused primarily on Greece (and Puerto Rico), “Governments around … Read more

Boo Hoo… Wall Street Says Elizabeth Warren Doesn’t Understand Global Banking

June 16, 2015 by Pamela Powers Hannley

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon thinks Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren doesn’t “understand global banking system”.

So, Dimon and Warren don’t have a basic disagreement on how banks should be managed and regulated. Now we know that Liz is just stupid. Obviously, if she fully understood what Dimon and his band of thieves were doing, she wouldn’t be fighting them so hard. Ironically, in recent weeks, President Obama also called Warren’s opinions on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ignorant. In March, Berkshire Hathoway CEO Warren Buffet she is too “angry” and “violent” in her critiques of Wall Street. It pisses me off as a woman, as a progressive, and as a banking reform advocate that Dimon, Obama, and Buffet resorted to personal smears rather than honestly debating Wall Street’s gambling operation and actually doing something about it– like busting up the too-big-to-fail banks or (better yet) taking control of the US money supply out of the hands of privately owned banks.

Warren didn’t take Dimon’s insult lying down.