Time for End of the Year Million Dollar Bonuses

Christmas time is coming followed quickly by the new year. For high paid executives it means a big end of the year bonus – Merry Christmas!

Big bank executives can expect $143 billion in bonuses this year. While roughly 25 million Americans still struggle to find a full-time job. In the last decade median pay actually declined two percent but corporate profit soared 70%. It is time for everyday people to move our money out of the big banks. Move Our Money reports at least $55 million has left big banks.

Even more is leaving through the 99 percent movement’s efforts to switch to credit unions.

The nation’s 10 biggest banks could stand to lose as much as $185 billion in deposits in the next year due to customer defections, according to cg42, a Wilton, Conn.-based management consulting firm that has conducted research for several of the nation’s top banks. The top 10 banks hold a total of $2.04 trillion retail deposits (deposits made by consumers and small businesses), according to data from cg42, which is based on each bank’s annual report [...]

Out of all the big banks, Bank of America is the most vulnerable and could lose up to 10% of its customers and $42 billion in consumer deposits in the next year, the survey found. The bank’s total retail deposits stand at $407 billion (while total deposits, including corporate deposits and deposits from other financial institutions, amount to nearly $1 trillion, according to FDIC data).

Big banks are undoubtedly getting uncomfortable with the awakening of the middle class. Americans cannot be happy as the industry that brought the economy to its knees and forced millions of people out of their jobs, now stands to “earn” billions in bonuses. According to the New Bottom Line the billions of dollars could create 3.6 million jobs, extend unemployment insurance for another seven months, yet it will go into the wallets of some of richest people in the country.

This year, you are expected to rake in multi-million bonuses while leaving American families stuck picking up the tab for the crisis you caused. A tab that includes 9 million foreclosed homes and nearly $2 trillion in lost homeowner wealth due to foreclosure, including the largest drop ever in generational wealth in communities of color. We’ve lost 11 million jobs and continued record-high unemployment.  You must forgo your bonus this year and start working to build a new bottom line-an economy that works for everyone.

This is one of the reasons why communities are even leaving the big banks and utilizing a community bank. You can learn more on organizing a divestment resolution in your community.  New York Communities for Change rallied municipalities around the state to divest millions in taxpayer money away from Chase.

Further developments in the movement against big banks now includes occupying foreclosed homes in an attempt to save them for the families. The actions recall the days of the Great Depression when neighbors stood up for neighbors and refused the eviction process. Occupy groups around the country started protesting home foreclosures early last month and culminated last week in a nationwide event. Occupy Minneapolis saved one home and did their best to help an adjunct professor last month. Occupy Chicago has participated in multiple events including camping out at an old hotel a south side church wants to purchase to turn into a community center.

Banks are scared of a populist uprising. It is just beginning to brew with the occupy movement. As a result Bank of America issued a memo last week in regards to the occupying of homes. They claimed safety of their staff and third party contractors…oh and could not forget about protecting the property of so-called investors.

As a matter of normal course of business, when we are alerted to activities that may affect our real estate owned properties, we inform our third party contractors.  This is standard operating procedure.  The safety of our associates and third party contractors is our first priority. It is the bank’s policy to protect and secure our properties for the investors who own them.  Bank of America is committed to helping our customers with home retention solutions and other foreclosure avoidance programs.  Foreclosure is always our last resort.

Standard operating procedure for these banks rests on garnering as much profit as possible. Working with current homeowners or families in the foreclosure process should be in that interest. Instead they runaway from a community desperate to stay afloat. They runaway from an active citizenry seeking answers to how workers suffered the consequences instead of the bankers.

The answer comes to us when we look at the millions of dollars spent on lobbying the very people who regulate the industry. Congress oversees the laws that would place restrictions on the banking industry but the people elected to Congress need millions of dollars to wage their election fights. The never ending cycle hurts the 99 percent of us who do not have the voice of money behind us.