They jump up and down and deny it when it’s pointed out, but the Observer has always sucked up to Bank of America, as well as its predecessors, all the way back to the pre-NCNB days of Commercial National Bank. The latest example was last week’s story that told readers how the new corporate bonuses at BofA were “a plus for the local economy.” Try telling that to the man or woman whose small business went belly-up because BofA wouldn’t give him/her a small business loan last year.
So it’s funny that the daily paper didn’t run anything today about yesterday’s launch of a national “Make Wall Street Pay” campaign in Washington, D.C. It’s funny because Bank of America was targeted in the protest; in fact, a Pennsylvania Ave. branch of BofA was essentially shut down by demonstrators who poured into the bank. They were protesting investment banks’ part in the national financial meltdown, and banks’ use of tax loopholes to avoid paying taxes. The National People’s Action group, which started the Make Wall St. Pay protests, says banks’ financial duplicity makes it imperative that they contribute to the government revenue stream in order to avoid cutting programs for ordinary Americans.
The group’s website is interesting, and urges readers to calculate the income they’ve lost since the financial crisis began in 2008, then send their own bill to their representatives in Washington. Here is a short video of the protest in D.C. yesterday.
This article appears in Mar 8-14, 2011.
People may be making less money but that is nothing compared to losing money. This is why BofA payed no taxes in 2009.
Fran:
It was an accounting loophole, not a real loss.
“A decision by Bank of America Corp. to restate eight quarters of reports to regulators to reflect a $20.3 billion write-down due to deteriorating credit and new regulations over the past two years,” according to today’s Wall Street Journal.
“As a result, the entire U.S. banking industry’s 2009 net income swung to a $10.6 billion loss from a $12.5 billion profit, the FDIC said,” the newspaper reported.”