Ohio’s tenacious Congressman grills CEO of Bank of America Ken Lewis as he came to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. It’s good to know we still have some representatives we can count on.
If you think Bank of America is curbing their predatory practicies now that they’ve ousted Ken Lewis as chairman, think again. Check out this ad I came across:
SHORT SALE!
Have You Had Difficulty Negotiating A Short Sale With Your Lender?
To approve a Short sale of your primary home, did the Lender make you sign a note or letter stating you must repay the difference between your loan and the sale amount, even if you never refinanced your home?
Did the Lender force you into Foreclosure and Bankruptcy?
We are a group of individuals (not attorneys) concerned with the way certain Banks have treated troubled borrowers and are investigating their practices, especially in light of the billions of dollars banks have received in TARP Monies. Some of these ill-advised business practices may even be illegal under California law, and costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
This is not a solicitation of business. We want to hear from you. Confidentiality assured.
Please call 1-866-981-8781 and leave a confidential message. Thank you.
What prompted this ad is that Bank of America has apparently been screwing over troubled mortgage borrowers who are attempting to negotiate short sales on their homes. Borrowers who can’t afford to keep their homes have to work out a deal with their bank, selling short on their home at whatever the market value is currently in order to avoid foreclosure altogether. Bank of America, however, is forcing these troubled borrowers to sign deficiency letters, meaning the borrower has to repay the difference between the sale price and the remainder of the existing loan on the property, which could easily force borrowers into bankruptcy.
What’s odd is that banks get far less in foreclosure than in short sales, so it would be in their best interest to work something out. What’s more, Bank of America recently announced it was easing its policy on short sales, requiring 5 percent of short sale proceeds instead of 10 percent. But this ad makes it sound like Bank of America is still having it both ways with troubled borrowers.
In California, Bank of America’s predatory behavior might be violating the law, since they are refusing to bless a short sale if the borrower does not sign a deficiency letter, even when the borrower’s home has not been refinanced. If you know anyone, particularly in California, who has had difficulty negotiating a short sale, urge them to call 1-866-981-8781 and leave a confidential message. Bank of America has already taken tens of billions in our taxpayer money through the bailout; we can’t allow them to continue screwing homeowners at every turn.
Wednesday marked the beginning of what could be a stockholders revolution as Bank of America CEO Kenneth D. Lewis was ousted as chairman of the board.
A coalition of unions, community groups, pension funds, and angry stockholders forced Lewis to step down over his acquisition of Merrill Lynch at $15 billion loss and decision to give out $3.6 billion in bonuses to Merrill Lynch’s executives. His loss of the chairmanship is most likely a precursor to him being forced to leave as CEO as it was for Wachovia’s Kennedy Thompson and Washington Mutual’s Kerry Killinger.
A coalition called Take Back the Economy, composed of organized labor, religious groups, community organizations and Moveon.org, had been calling for Lewis’ ouster for several months. Brave New Films produced a video narrated by former Labor secretary Robert Reich outlining the corruption occurring at Bank of America . Through a grassroots and netroots-driven campaign, over 100 events were held across the nation against Bank of America and more than 90,000 taxpayer proxy cards were collected calling for Lewis’s ouster for his corruption and greed.
“Bank of America’s in a spiral, this greed’s going viral!” That was the chant from protesters outside Bank of America’s shareholders meeting today. It was the culmination of dozens of demonstrations across the country led by Take Back the Economy and SEIU to Fire Ken Lewis, Bank of America’s loathsome CEO. They delivered over 90,000 signed “taxpayer proxy cards,” which called on BofA to can Lewis, commit to genuine financial reform, curb predatory lending, provide workers affordable healthcare, and stop lobbying against Employee Free Choice. And the result? Ken Lewis is out as chairman!
This is a huge win for progressives, myself included, who have been up in armsfor months over BofA’s decision to continue its shamelessly greedy, predatory practices after receiving tens of billions in bailout funds. This outrage spilled onto YouTube, where Brave New Films put together a video narrated by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, documenting all of the reasons why Lewis deserved to be fired. As The NY Times reported today:
That message has resonated with some big shareholders of Bank of America. Calpers, the huge California public pension fund, said Tuesday that it was voting against re-electing Mr. Lewis and the rest of the bank’s board. The fund joins Calstrs, the California teachers retirement fund, and several other state and union pension funds in opposing Mr. Lewis.
Two influential investor advisory groups, the RiskMetrics Group and Glass Lewis, have also recommended voting against Mr. Lewis.
Now it seems like all of this work, all the ranting and protesting, is finally starting to pay off as we see a major black eye for Lewis and corporate America. Lewis will remain BofA’s CEO, but according to the AP, angry shareholders voted to separate that job from chairman, which will go to board member Walter Massey. This may not be as exciting as if BofA had ousted Lewis altogether, but it proves we can hold these bailed banks accountable for their ruthless ways. We can make examples of their CEOs–the poster boys of greed–as we demand re-regulation and the end to an era of corporate excess.
The economic crisis is out of control, as Bank of America and the corrupt corporate elite continue to wage class warfare. It’s time we hit back hard. It’s time we fire CEO Ken Lewis.
Our good friends at SEIU have been courageously leading this fight. We need to follow their lead and encourage everyone to demand the resignation of Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis. After all, Lewis works for us now. Tens of billions of our taxpayer dollars went toward bailing out Bank of America, but what have we received in return? More predatory lending, billions wasted on exorbitant salaries and executive bonuses, and corporate lobbying against Employee Free Choice.
Watch the video narrated by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, and see for yourself why we must fire Ken Lewis.
Send this video to your friends and family, spread the word and Digg it. Tell them to join us Tuesday, April 28, in demonstrations across the country to fire Ken Lewis. And when you protest, make sure to yell loud and clear. Otherwise, Bank of America and other Wall Street firms will continue their economic rampage, obliterating our country’s working class.
As blogger Marcy Wheeler suggests, we need to fire Ken Lewis for over $3 billion in bonuses Merrill Lynch execs received after Bank of America took them over. We need to fire him for Bank of America’s continued predatory lending, soaring credit card fees, abhorrent mistreatment of workers, and for standing in the way of Employee Free Choice. We need to fire him for being the poster boy of corporate greed.
“There’s literally billions of reasons to fire Ken Lewis,” said SEIU’s Stephen Lerner, slamming the controversial Bank of America CEO yesterday on CNBC’s “Power Lunch.” Just what are these billions of reasons? Well, there’s over $5 billion Bank of America dished out in executive bonuses while receiving $45 billion in taxpayer bailout funds. There’s the $10 billion Bank of America collected from raising overdraft and interest fees. Not to mention the hundreds of billions Bank of America caused shareholders to lose when its stock plunged after the Merrill Lynch acquisition. No wonder Lerner and the SEIU are leading the charge to Fire Ken Lewis.
Now that Rick Wagoner is out at GM, my money is on Lewis as the next corporate CEO on the chopping block. As David Sirota pointed out recently, it will be a tragic double standard if the White House doesn’t call for Lewis’s resignation at this point. Bank of America’s bailout abuses, continued predatory lending, and other wasteful corporate practices have been so atrocious that the best defense Thad Woodard, CEO of the N.C. Bankers Association, could muster for Lewis to keep his job was, “I can tell you right now that Ken Lewis is not Satan.” That bit of praise was by far the most amusing moment from yesterday’s “Power Lunch,” though a close second was when Woodard ganged up with the show’s hosts to twist calls for Lewis’s resignation into an attack on unions.
And since they brought it up, Bank of America has spent millions lobbying against the Employee Free Choice Act. That, coupled with Bank of America’s decision to lay off up to 35,000 employees in the coming years and its refusal to provide workers adequate wages or affordable healthcare (saving the company billions more and thus adding to Lerner’s billions of reasons), means we’re dealing with a company bent on hurting its own employees as much as it cripples the US economy.
The bottom line, as Lerner suggested, is the American people need to see some accountability and responsibility from our banks. That’s right, “our banks,” since tens of billions of our tax dollars went into saving Bank of America, thereby making the government (and us) a major shareholder. Check out SEIU’s Fire Ken Lewis campaign, and stay tuned as populist outrage over corporate excess fuels a national day of demonstrations next week, calling on Bank of America to kick Lewis to the curb.
Thank heavens for the Tea-baggers. If not for them, who would protect the country’s wealth and power disparities? Not to mention its level of denial.
The FOX News channel and the well funded folks at FreedomWorks would have you believe that the country’s wealthiest 5 percent are a beleaguered vulnerable minority.
The truth is, however, while wages and benefits have been going down for most Americans, more U.S. Chief Executives (CEOs) got pay raises than had their pay cut in 2008, according to an AFL-CIO survey released this week.
It’s understandable. Taxpayers are tired of bailouts. They are craving the head of an ineffectual CEO, and General Motors Corp.’s Rick Wagoner was handy.
But the real question is, why not force out Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America — the guy who has been effectively obstructing an investigation into bonuses paid out to Merrill Lynch prior to its sale?
Why not the head of Citicorp, a company in which taxpayers now officially own a large stake?
Sure, there have been a few heads rolling on Wall Street, such as those of executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and AIG. But the golden parachutes they received, after driving their firms into ruin, really did little to extinguish the justifiable populist anger. In fact, the deferential manner in how we treat ousted Wall Street executives has done nothing but fuel the fire. Continue reading →
The Associated Press reports that “General Motors Corp. Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner will step down immediately at the request of the White House, U.S. administration officials said Sunday.” I’m not sure that’s a good or bad thing, but I am curious about why the White House would make such a bold demand of a car company the federal government is lending to, but not a similar demand of the banks the federal government partially owns?
What I mean is – how is it that the White House is requesting the resignation of GM’s CEO while not doing the same of, say, Bank of America’s CEO? In fact, not only is the president not demanding the resignation of bank CEOs, he’s actually hosting them for photo ops at the White House. Sure, I know some bank CEOs resigned a few months ago under shareholder pressure, but the Obama administration has never publicly demanded such resignations of the current management that is making the problems worse, nor the resignation of management at the biggest firms (Goldman Sachs, BofA, etc.) that are still in place.
This is what I meant when I wrote in my column last week about a “government of men, not of laws.” It just doesn’t seem like there’s “equal protection under the law” – that is, it doesn’t sem like the same standards are being enforced from the White House onto different parts of the economy. In this case, it looks like a real double standard, especially when you consider the White House wants to give away more cash to banks, but may refuse to lend more money to GM and Chrysler.
So here’s the question: Can anyone explain the differing treatment of auto companies and Wall Street firms? Is it just that there are far more Wall Street worshipers like Tim Geithner and Larry Summers in the Obama administration than auto industry representatives? Or is it something else?
I’m genuinely asking this question, and not in a way aimed at defending Rick Wagoner. I just want to know what possible public explanation there could be as to why the White House would push auto company CEOs around while coddling banking CEOs?
I appeared yesterday at the top of Neil Cavuto’s Fox News show to discuss the potential for financial industry nationalization. You can watch the clip here. I tried to use the opportunity to float a fairly simple – and old-fashioned – concept: If something is “too big to fail,” then it’s too big to be in private hands.
The term “too big to fail” is a euphemism for any institution that is so important to the entire nation’s most basic well being, that society cannot let that institution fail. This is why one of the foundational principles of civilized society has always been nationalization – ie. government control – of the institutions that are “too big to fail”: institutions like the military, whose failure would mean a basic loss of national security; law enforcement, whose failure would mean a basic loss of civil order; and infrastructure construction, whose failure would mean the crumbling of commerce. The government, as the most powerful representative of society as a whole, runs these institutions/services because they are too important to be allowed to fail.
Unfortunately, the hard-right and center-right ideologues who ran the government for the lat 30 years gutted the basic laws and enforcement mechanisms (financial regulations, anti-trust prosecutions, etc.) that prevented a myriad of financial institutions from becoming “too big to fail.”
