Wells Fargo investment update
Submitted by Nastarana on Wed, 03/22/2017 - 9:23am
https://www.thenation.com/article/these-cities-are-divesting-from-the-ba...
It started in Seattle. Divestment has now spread to San Francisco, Santa Monica and Davis, CA. And is pending in Albuquerque and Raleigh, N.C. Who would have thought this movement would go to NC?
Better yet, in some cities it is not just divestment from Wells, but an ethical filter for all city investments.
This continues to look like activism done right. Decentralized, town by town, no apparent billionaire funding, no beltway cocktail parties, no piggybacks--immigrant rights, e.g.--polite but determined.
Comments
Rock on.
Appears to be a good thing.
And safe -
No targets on the streets to get their heads bashed in.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Indeed.
I wouldn't want to say street demonstrations should be abandoned altogether, but it is beginning to look like they shouldn't be the automatic first choice of tactic.
Mary Bennett
Cool. And that brings up yet another public-private issue:
Why the hell does one city, Seattle in this case, have $3 billion dollars worth of taxpayer dollars invested in a single privately-owned financial institution?
Because
they have not yet figured out that we need public banks, such as the one in North Dakota. I don't know if even Seattle takes in enough tax revenue to capitalize its' own bank.
Mary Bennett
This is something I've been saying for years.
Divide and conquer.
I took shit from GOS many times over this. I've always advocated taking down the TBTF banks one at a time, Wells being worst of the worst and should be the first to go.
We should be parlaying this into a one by one battle. Destroy Wells, then B of A. Remember the $5 fee they wanted to foist upon us on our debit cards just after the world wide collapse? "Just like cash", what bullshit.
This CAN morph into a movement of wallets, all working in unison.
As dkmich noted above, no more heads getting bashed in, no more mace or pepper spray, or, for Christ's sake, no more rocket launchers pointing at Native Americans (DAPL).
CREDEXIT. We can do this.
Hobble Walmart. Stop buying Chinese crap from them. Don't shop there.
This is great news. Lets build upon it.
It's a personal issue of genuine integrity.
IMHO.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
I absolutely agree about
not buying from Walmart.
I am curious, what pushback did you get from GOS (GOS is also TOP?)? I would think self described 'progressives' would be in favor of reining in the yuuge private banks.
Mary Bennett
Great Orange Satan, same as The Other Place
or Dks
I'm currently banned from there because I blamed Hillary Clinton for the 2016 debacle.
On the issue of divide and conquer, the pusback came in many forms. Not the least of which was being labled a Bernie Bro,or a dreamer that could never get enough support. Despite the success of the anti apartheid movement that brought integration to South Africa, I was still dismissed as a pie in the sky dreamer and it would hurt average people.
I have since come to realize that the remaining inhabitants over there are upper middle class people like rich doctors, lawyers, and professionals who are heavily invested in the market. Of course they will protect their stock prices. Remember, there are over 11 million millionaires in America. That is one huge voting bloc that worships the Dow.
IMHO.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
And stop giving $ + personal data to Facebook, Amazon, or Google
Whatever the target, boycotts, divestment, and sanctions work. Fight efforts by politicians and university administrations to make organizing or advocating for such measures punishable or otherwise off-limits.
Raleigh NC
is the capital of NC and the home of NC State. Most importantly, it is one of three cities (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill) that comprise the Research Triangle. Raleigh is located in Durham County which is considered the most liberal county in NC. So it is not a stretch that the city council of Raleigh might consider divestment, especially since there was an activist populace involved.
BTW, the South and its cities are not monolithic at all. The Peace vigil I participated in was one of the longest lasting in the US since the start of the Iraq War. It was located in a small town in western NC. Again, it was the result of a group of older activists.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Thank you for
eduating me about SC.
Mary Bennett
Seems to me to be a potentially massive instrument vs. the Banks
All that money collected by municipalities has to go somewhere, and that in a nutshell is where we have to look to really impact the all-powerful dominant control the Wall St Economic Terrorists have over our lives, by not not allowing it to be turned over for investment to these proven scammers, predators and pillagers.
Very bold action (passed by unanimous vote in Seattle city council). That's amazing. And there's a blueprint there. Typically, none of those elected folks want to get on board with something like this. But activists packed the town hall meetings, held protests at the bank and demanded their elected officials pass this. The pressure won out. And why not? There's nothing written in stone that says all cities have to do business with the big monopoly banks. Put the money far away from the discredited Wolves of Wall St and into more responsible places, like credit unions or small banks.
This can be duplicated elsewhere.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Thank you for the response.
One caution, however. I think the Seattle divestment was successful because it was not presented as a plan to take down all banks, but rather as a plan to simply not do business with one particular egregious bad actor.
One hopes this growing movement will convince non-targeted banks to clean up their business practices.
Mary Bennett
Yes, the reaction of non targeted banks would be
for them to put on their "I'm a good guy" clothes and spend tens of millions of dollars in ad campaigns touting as much.
You know the routine. They donate $1 million to some charity, and spend $10 million in advertising patting themselves on the back. It's sickening.
But it works.
The beauty of my plan is not to go after all the TBTF banks at the same time, but to divide and conquer ONE AT A TIME. Just like they do to us.
Start with Wells Fucko. There's really no way to stop us. IMHO.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
I pretty much agree
with you, but one must proceed carefully. An all out assault on all banks, however richly deserved, would frighten millions of people who have savings in those banks. I would like to see public banks, savings accounts for people who have modest amounts at post offices--like is done in Europe, and investment banks, entirely separate, for the rich.
The way I envisage this, all public money, tax receipts, fines, tarrifs, etc., would be required to be deposited in public banks only.
Mary Bennett
Wells Fargo; what a horrid company
I've just created an account on this site - because I just had to comment on this article. Things like participation in the DAPL is nothing new for Wells Fargo corporation, My dealings with this company go back 40 years and, hands down, it is the worst that I ever had no choice but to deal with. Below are just a couple of examples
It had a practice of buying accounts from other companies, then conveniently losing the most important documents. The result is that it cheated many businesses out of their purchases, by claiming them to be a lease with no option to purchase. In reality, every such transaction either offered an option to purchase, or had been paid for outright. Like now, Wells Fargo back then was nothing more than a bunch of criminals.
On a personal level, Wells Fargo's mortgage bought the remaining mortgage that a friend had on her house. From month number one, her custom was to pay extra each month so that, overall, she would pay far less interest than that calculated into her original 30 year mortgage. Her goal was to pay the mortgage off in 15 years or less. So, when Wells Fargo bought the remaining amount on the mortgage, she requested an amortization schedule, to make sure that Wells Fargo was applying the extra payment in the right manner. In violation of state law, Wells Fargo refused to supply that schedule. After months of trying and getting nowhere, she went to a local bank near where she lived. It's rates were so good that a personal loan for the remaining amount on the mortgage yielded a lower monthly payment than that of the mortgage. So, she took that loan, paid off the mortgage, made extra payments on the personal lone, kissed Wells Fargo goodbye and actually wound up paying off her home in just under a total of 14 years.
Needless to say, she will never deal with Wells Fargo again in any capacity.
Of course the foregoing also disregards the fraudulent account issue brought to light last year. Apparently, Wells Fargo thinks that it is still operating in the Wild, Wild West and, acting with impunity, can do whatever it wants, merely by pointing a 'rifle,' accompanied by a threat.
Some people have to learn the hard way. It's Wells Fargo's turn right now.