Tag Archives: Wall Street

At the first Richard Cordray confirmation hearing last week, the two Republican senators (out of ten on the committee) who showed up indicated that their party had every intention of obstructing Cordray’s confirmation to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Many Republicans are insisting on structural changes to CFPB, which would render the bureau ineffective and allow greed and corruption to prevail over consumer protection, before they say they’ll even consider confirming a nominee for director.

One way or another, the corporate Right is determined to stop the CFPB from doing the important job it was created to do. We need to break through this obstruction!

Please join the nearly 20,000 activists who have already signed our petition urging the the confirmation of Richard Cordray!

www.pfaw.org
— Ben

Original Message:

Tell the Senate: Give the CFPB the authority to protect consumers! Confirm Richard Cordray as CFPB director!

WWW.PFAW.ORG

Dear PFAW supporter,

Today, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs is holding a hearing on the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). It’s the beginning of what will be a very big fight.

Wall Street and Republicans don’t want CFPB oversight and have made clear their intentions to sabotage this important agency in any way to prevent it from protecting consumers. Since the CFPB requires a permanent director in order to operate with full authority, Senate Republicans see defeating the nomination of Richard Cordray as priority #1 in crippling the Bureau.

Please sign our emergency petition to CONFIRM RICHARD CORDRAY now.

We need to keep significant pressure on Senate Democrats to stand unified and use every tool they can to confirm Cordray. And we need to keep grassroots pressure on Republicans to challenge the financial industry’s iron grip on their party and do the right thing for American consumers.

Cordray was picked by Professor Elizabeth Warren to be one of her top deputies in setting up the CFPB. As Ohio’s attorney general, Cordray earned a reputation of being tough on the financial industry. He was among the first attorneys general to take action in the nationwide foreclosure investigation into the mishandling of paperwork and successfully sued AIG, exposing banks’ use of hidden fees and other consumer exploitations.

Urge your senators to stand up for consumers and CONFIRM RICHARD CORDRAY.

After you sign the petition, please call your senators’ office to back up the message.

www.pfaw.org

This will be a sustained campaign that could call for various actions and constituent contacts, but the petition is the way we want to register support for Cordray first and foremost. If we can get enough Americans to sign, we’ll be able to make a splash on Capitol Hill when we deliver the signatures to the Senate.

Help us get the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau working! Help to confirm Richard Cordray as its director. www.pfaw.org

— Ben Betz, Online Strategy Manager

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

AFL – CIO

09/09/2011 Nativegrl77

President Obama took an important and necessary step last night: He started a serious national conversation about how to solve our jobs crisis.Now, Congressneeds to get to work.Tell Congress—particularly congressional Republicans—to stop playing politics and get to work to create jobs.

Did you watch President Obama’s speech last night? He showed working people he is willing to go to the mat to create new jobs on a substantial scale. His speech should energize the nation to come together and get serious about jobs.

We call on Congress to act and look forward to working with the president and Congress on all elements of this proposal. As the president explained, we no longer can delay putting Americans back to work rebuilding our nation’s schools, roads, bridges, transit, ports, rail, communications and energy systems. And we need to help state and local governments avoid layoffs that are dragging down the economy—rejecting the myth that the only way to end a crisis Wall Street started is to punish firefighters, teachers and others who perform critical public services.

Tell Congress: It’s time to get moving on jobs. Start with President Obama’s proposals and then keep going.

The plan announced by President Obama to create jobs is only the opening bid in a national conversation we’ve needed to have for a long time. In the coming weeks and months, we expect to see more proposals from the president and Congress to put America back to work.

President Obama understands this economic crisis was not created overnight, and it will not be solved overnight. The middle class has been under attack for decades. He understands we need to rebuild our economy for the 21st century and rebuild our middle class.

But doing this will require a revolution in the way Washington takes on these questions. Republicans are going to have to stop blocking bills that sustain or create millions of jobs and start offering and accepting credible solutions. As the president explained last night, we can delay no longer.

Tell Congress America wants to work. Add your name, then spread the word to your friends and family.

America isn’t broke—we’re the richest country in the world. We will only go broke if our leaders fail year after year to create jobs and turn our economy around. We can’t let that happen.

Politicians need to recognize that America’s best days are still before us. We cannot accept the disappearance of the American middle class or several more years of crisis-level joblessness. We can and must solve the jobs crisis—and we must start now. Please take action to help us make this happen.

In Solidarity,

Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO

P.S. Some politicians claim cuts to our social safety net, deregulation and lower taxes for the rich will fix our problems. But they’re flat wrong. If we continue down this road, it only will destroy more jobs and send us into a vicious downward spiral. Our country is too good and too rich to weaken our commitment to safety net protections such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and unemployment insurance.

We don’t have time to waste on the same old failed policies that drove our economy off a cliff in the first place. Tell Congress: Working families will judge our elected leaders by whether they act with integrity and energy to create good jobs now.

To find out more about the AFL-CIO, please visit our website at www.aflcio.org.

Click here to unsubscribe.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Join the Next Big Fight to Protect Consumers …Ben Betz, People For the American Way

09/06/2011 Nativegrl77

After you sign the petition, please call your senators’ office to back up the message.

Help us get the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau working! Help to confirm Richard Cordray as its director. www.pfaw.org

— Ben Betz, Online Strategy Manager

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

AG McKenna: Oppose the unfair robo-signing settlement

09/01/2011 Nativegrl77

Dear Washington MoveOn member,

Reports are circulating that a settlement of the robo-signing case between the big Wall Street banks and the 50 state attorneys general will be announced as soon as next week. Early indications are that the settlement will amount to yet another unconscionable giveaway to the banks.

The settlement will provide too little money to homeowners, require only trivial financial penalties for the banks, distributehuge amounts of money to individuals who were NOT fraudulently foreclosed upon, and will not have sufficient enforcementmechanisms to ensure that the money banks are supposed to pay actually gets paid—all while falling far short ofcompensating actual victims for the losses they wrongfully sustained. Worst of all, early reports indicate that the settlementgrants civil and criminal immunity to the Wall Street banks and their executives.

That’s why I created a petition to Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna on SignOn.org, which says:

Oppose any settlement of the robo-signing case that provides civil or criminal immunity to banks or their executives. Instead,create a program that helps Washington state homeowners damaged by fraudulent bank processes to sue banks for full recoveryof damages and punitive awards.

Will you sign the petition? Click here to add your name, and then pass it along to your friends:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=267289&id=32771-17809870-OUgF%3Dvx&t=2

Thanks!

–Linda Brewster

The text above was written by Linda Brewster, not by MoveOn staff, and MoveOn is not responsible for the content. Thisemail was sent through MoveOn’s secure system, and your information has been kept private.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Big bad Banks

09/01/2011 Nativegrl77

The banks behind the mortgage crisis are looking for a way out, and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wants to hand them one.¹

Three years after the housing collapse that crashed the world economy, not a single Wall Street executive has faced real punishment for the fraud, corruption, and greed that caused it. And those same big banks continue handing out massive bonuses and dividends while homeowners struggle.²

Now there’s a deal in the works that would let Wall Street banks get away scot-free, giving them immunity from investigation and prosecution of crimes like falsifying documents, encouraging bad loans, and lying to investors. In return they’d pay $20 billion—a fraction of what they could truly owe—and regulators would lose their leverage to help homeowners.³

This deal only works if it stays behind the scenes. If we can get enough people behind this petition, we can embarrass Geithner and the Obama administration into backing down. So we’re joining with MoveOn.org to send a strong message that can’t be ignored.

Tell Treasury Secretary Geithner, “No more sweetheart deals for Wall Street. Let states investigate and prosecute the crimes that crashed our economy.”

The world economy lost $7.7 trillion thanks to the big banks pushing bad loans and risky investments as sound financial planning. And millions of Americans lost houses and jobs. But Wall Street banks got nearly $2 trillion in loans to rebuild, while Main Street Americans are still working to get back on their feet.⁴

If we want to save the American Dream we need to show that big banks will be held accountable for these crimes, and a few state attorneys general are doing just that. Eric Schneiderman and Beau Biden, the attorneys general of New York and Delaware, have said they won’t settle with the banks without doing a real investigation into the fraud and corruption.⁵

Standing with homeowners against bullying by big banks is part of what the American Dream Movement is about. We can stand up and stand behind the state attorneys general who are fighting to expose the crimes that caused the collapse.

Tell Treasury Secretary Geithner, “No more sweetheart deals for Wall Street. Let states investigate and prosecute the crimes that crashed our economy.”

Toward an America that works for all,

–Natalie, Van, Ian, Billy, and the rest of the Rebuild the Dream team

Sources:

1. “New York Attorney General Kicked Off Government Group Leading Foreclosure Probe,” The Huffington Post, August 23, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=263396&id=30464-17809870-86VbHcx&t=4

2. “Biggest Fish Face Little Risk of Being Caught,” The New York Times, February 25, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=263413&id=30464-17809870-86VbHcx&t=5
“Banks Poised to Pay Dividends After 3-Year Gap,” The New York Times, January 13, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/business/14dividend.html

3. “Obama Goes All Out For Dirty Banker Deal,” Rolling Stone, August 24, 20110
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=263395&id=30464-17809870-86VbHcx&t=6

4. “U.S. Subprime Crisis Costs World $7.7 Trillion Dollars,” The Huffington Post, February 15, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=263403&id=30464-17809870-86VbHcx&t=7
“Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Secret Loans,” Bloomberg News, August 22, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=263394&id=30464-17809870-86VbHcx&t=8

5. “New York Attorney General Kicked Off Government Group Leading Foreclosure Probe,” The Huffington Post, August 23, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=263396&id=30464-17809870-86VbHcx&t=9