Hat tip to daytrip for sending this along:
SAN FRANCISCO – It was a slow-moving Occupy Wall Street protest, but it was an effective one. A dozen senior citizens calling themselves “the wild old women” succeeded in closing a Bank of America branch in Bernal Heights Thursday.
The women, aged 69 to 82, who live at the senior home up Mission street from the Bernal Heights Bank of America branch, decided to hold their own protest by doing what they called a “run on the bank.”
Tita Caldwell, 80, who led the charge of women with walkers and wheelchairs, said that they’re demanding the bank lower fees, pay higher taxes, and stop foreclosing on, and evicting, homeowners.
Click on the link and go to the podcast of the ladies being interviewed!
“Tita Caldwell, 80, who led the charge of women with walkers and wheelchairs, said that they’re demanding the bank lower fees, pay higher taxes, and stop foreclosing on, and evicting, homeowners.”
Adorable little old ladies who do not seem to have a clue.
Dodd-Frank’s attempt to regulate fees just created fees in other areas. Business does not survive without revenue.
Higher taxes paid by a bank? That money comes from in large part from fees. Will they be fine with higher fees if it all goes to taxes?
Allowing the government to confiscate wealth from corporations through taxes either requires the employees, the shareholders, or the customer to take it in the shorts. Contrary to popular opinion banks do not print money. And, corporations do not operate in some sort of financial vacuum where actions have no consequences.
One wonders if there will be counter protest by the seniors not living in assisted housing who rely upon higher interest rates on certificates of deposits or dividends which BAC has no paid in quite a while.
As they are in San Francisco, it would have been far more interesting to see them march on Nancy Pelosi’s office.
Agreed, these spunky old ladies are publicity hounds more than anything.
The first lady interviewed on the podcast, 82-year old Polly Taylor, said “it gets worse and worse. My social security went up, but my food stamps went down and my rent went up”.
Where’s the connection to BofA?
After Pelosi’s they should swing by Feinstein’s office too.
IF one was to protest DiFi it would be a much better view to do it at her home. I am just guessing but a house like this must put her in the ‘notorious’ one-percent.
http://articles.sfgate.com/2006-01-29/bay-area/17277038_1_homeland-security-presidio-terrace-real-estate
Wait, they don’t want people to pay back the mortgages they agreed to pay? Don’t they know that their deposits at the bank are used to leverage mortgages?
Well, I’ve got a little way to go before I’m 69, but if I can remember decades of 5% interest on my deposits WITHOUT fees for every deposit, withdrawal or saying hello to a teller, I bet these women can too. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to take time off to demonstrate with them and the Occupy folks. Guess that’s why the 1% want to keep me working until I drop dead.
I couldn’t agree more with comments 1-4. I found it interesting that the article credited Tita Caldwell as the organizer but the audio credited Polly “all I have is SS….oh, and food stamps and subsized senior housing” Taylor as the leader.
Google Tita Caldwell and you’ll soon find that she’s a long time professional lefty scold. Or you can just take my word for it.
Hoocoodanode?
I don’t begrudge seniors their benefits except when they think it’s somebody else who’s not paying “their fair share”. 😡
The connection with BofA is that BofA committed a massive amount of fraud and then got a massive taxpayer bailout. Without that massive taxpayer bailout, BofA wouldn’t exist today.
I find it interesting that the NCCSilverSpoon/ParisHilton/KimKardashian crowd that posts here is fine with taxpayer money being used to bail out giant, criminal organizations but gets all huffy when a little tiny sliver of taxpayer money is used to ensure that mema doesn’t starve.
BofA got bailed out and the people got sold out while the Silver Spoon Set cheered on the criminality and bailouts.
Thanks for the insult, and the history lesson Tony.
Do you have a blog we can visit for more of your insight?
Dave,
I think you are missing something, life experience. They know how to share the pain, and they don’t see it happening.
“Adorable little old ladies who do not seem to have a clue.
Dodd-Frank’s attempt to regulate fees just created fees in other areas. Business does not survive without revenue.”
Many of these little old ladies know what used to work. They bought war bonds. They used local banks that were purchased by the now Mega’s.
They lived in a time where companies paid dividends, and many industries were regulated, and had regulated profits (10% on energy providers anyone?)
They live in times where taxes were higher, there were no credit cards, and interest was paid by the bank.
What’s changed… GREED. People at the top are GREEDY. Mine. Mine. Mine.
That’s where the profits are going. They are not going to the shareholders in the form of dividends…
The banks and markets are no longer in the capitalization of new and existing business, They are in the professional gambling business.
BofA did not commit any fraud. You can argue that Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch, the two companies they rescued from bankruptcy, did have malfeasance as a prime reason that lead to BofA taking them over and then dragging BofA down, but that’s about it. Until Countrywide & Merrill executives are held responsible in a meaningful way, hold the venom against BofA.
@La Jollan
It seems you would like to be added to my list of people that do not have a clue.
I will politely skip over your inability to reason well as demonstrated by your logical fallacy. You do not know me and you do not have enough information to state with any degree of certainty what my life experience may or may not be.
I will, however, note your apparent lack of understanding of banking and investment opportunities in the current environment.
There are still locally owned banks. There are also credit unions. These institutions provide many fine options if you have some aversion to your so called “mega” banks. You will also find that each of these institutions have accounts that actually do pay interest. It may not be an amount that makes you happy but since you don’t want banks charging much for loans and not collecting fees I am afraid you are stuck.
Companies from Kraft to Intel to Proctor & Gamble to AT&T pay dividends (some of which are the highest in the market). At least fifteen companies (including PepsiCo, Harley-Davidson, and Union Pacific) increased their dividends in 2011.
On an aside I have no idea what having credit cards have to do with anything. I am also quite pleased that taxes are lower now. I happen to believe that I am better able to decide how to spend my money rather than having if confiscated by the IRS to support adorable little old ladies with food stamps and subsidized housing.
Next, I will show you a little trick I like to call math. These adorable little old ladies range in age from 69 to 82. Presuming none was born in the first week of January that would mean they were born between 1929 and 1942. Perhaps you might believe that a sixteen-year-old (born in 1929) was buying bonds in 1945 but it would be a real stretch to think that anyone born in 1942 was buying war bonds.
One might also postulate that those that learned disciplined investing by buying war bonds would have saved enough to take personal responsibility for themselves and not live their retirement years dependent on subsidized housing and food stamps.
So, there are local banks that pay interest and there are many companies that pay dividends. This has, in fact, not changed.
As to your final point – I don’t know what “greed” is. I understand it is used by those envious of others. I know it is a handy, emotional buzzword. Most often people say it has to do with people that have “too much” money or wealth. That is not for anyone else to decide. What is appropriate for me is my call, not yours.
If money or wealth was acquired through theft, fraud, larceny, or misappropriation then call it what it is.
If you think a CEO should not be paid what he is paid then buy stock and vote in a board of directors that will fire him and hire someone cheaper. Or, if he is paid too much and you don’t like it, sell the stock and buy something that is congruent with your beliefs on how society should work.
There is no reasonable or sane explanation how someone having more of something that they earned than you do hurts you. There is also no sane or reasonable explanation as to why those that have earned need to be dragged down so as to suffer with those that have not achieved.
The only person I ever saw that had an excellent comment on greed was the brilliant Milton Friedman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A and he called it a virtue.
“There is no reasonable or sane explanation how someone having more of something that they earned than you do hurts you. There is also no sane or reasonable explanation as to why those that have earned need to be dragged down so as to suffer with those that have not achieved.”
Sure there is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
A little greed by one, and then another, and another, can destroy the whole system.
“If you think a CEO should not be paid what he is paid then buy stock and vote in a board of directors that will fire him and hire someone cheaper. Or, if he is paid too much and you don’t like it, sell the stock and buy something that is congruent with your beliefs on how society should work”
One problem with this, is that it seems that as long as the company is doing OK, everyone board their CEO is above average, so they get an above average increase. That is an unsustainable system.
Not to mention that the boards are you stoke my phallus, I’ll stroke yours.
Thank you LaJollan.
Your reference of Wikipedia (relying on a radical ecologist in an article in which he admits his own fundamental mistakes) is more amusing than sane or rational. As such I think we will put this in your column of errors which includes local banks, dividend paying companies and war-bond-buying three year olds.
I also noted you used the word greed again.
It is very sad that you see scarcity. I see abundance. I see opportunity. I see the amazing brilliance of man that will use ever improving technology to ensure every generation leads a better life than the one before it.
Life is not a zero-sum-game. My having wealth is not because of your lack of wealth. Confiscating wealth through taxes from those that have achieved may satisfy some desire to see those who are successful punished but unless you are an adorable little old lady, sucking at the tit of the entitlement programs of a liberal government by taking food stamps and enjoying subsidized housing, your life is not made better.
I am sure you would have been warning whoever would listen of Boston going black in the 1890s as whale oil became difficult to obtain. People found this black goo in Pennsylvania. It was oil. They refined it (which created an entire industry and supporting industries that had not existed) to create kerosene and Boston remained well lit. Oh . . . at the time . . . a byproduct of kerosene – that was gasoline and you should see what they did with that when a man named Henry Ford got going in (another industry) in the early 1900s.
Arguably, the most important technological achievement is that of the computer chip. It makes everyone’s life better in numerous ways. It is made of silicon which is basically sand. I do not fear for the scarcity of sand
When wealth is created and everyone is better for it. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have done far more to improve the human condition than Mother Teresa or the Dalai Lama.
Based on your own opinion, one might surmise that if a company is doing “OK” the shareholders are pleased to pay the CEO whatever compensation he negotiated. If they are like you and unhappy with just “OK” success they are free to sell their shares. That is the splendid joy of the free market and Capitalism.
Because you FEEL this is wrong doesn’t make it so. You are still free to invest only in companies that reflect your rather odd view of how life should be.
I, on the other hand, am very pleased to have CEOs that want the value of their options to go up because when they win I win and I am not at all bothered with them taking a piece of the action.
You are free to FEEL however you wish about the free market. You even have the opportunity to voice your OPINION in this blog as do I (Thanks Jim). But your feelings and opinions are not facts and to that point the only thing really scarce is a leg on which to stand.
Life is abundant and wonderful and you do not have to drive a tiny car, or wear sweaters instead of heating your house, or give up indoor plumbing to enjoy it.
Cheers!
Dave, I have some money to donate to your campaign, if you ever wish to run for President.