Chicago to Wall Street: Pay Us Back!
source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/chicago-wall-street-protest_b_1006777.html
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While the Occupy Wall Street movement is sweeping the country and peaceful arrests are mounting, Chicagoans took to the streets this week to hold the big banks accountable for crashing the economy and to demand city, state and federal policies that work for working families.
For many, the goal was stopping the foreclosure mill, creating jobs, and telling the big banks it was time to pay us back for the $4.7 trillion bailout. For others, the demands focused on the fallout from the financial crisis, including contentious contract negotiations with the administration of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel.
For most, the range of issues were inextricably linked.
Emanuel Goes to Bat for the Big Banks
At the height of the financial crisis in March of 2009, a new president was grappling with an unprecedented meltdown. Huddled with his closest advisers, his instincts were sound.
As described in Ron Suskind's riveting new book, Confidence Men, Obama wanted to restructure the largest insolvent banks to "strike a blow for prudence" and "change the reckless behavior of Wall Street to show accountability flows in both directions."
His economic advisers chewed it over, discussing the pros (Larry Summers and Christina Romer) and cons (Tim Geithner) of breaking up a big bank, but when the President left the room for a moment, his chief of staff spoke up.
"Listen, its not going to fucking happen. We have no fuckin' credibility. So give it up. The job of everyone in this room is to move the President, when he gets back, to a solution that works," said Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel's last foray into the global economy was as President Clinton's point man on NAFTA, a trade agreement that cost the United States some 700,000 manufacturing jobs.
After this display of tough love and a subsequent trillion dollar bailout, Wall Street bonuses are bouncing back. The U.S. economy, however, remains in a in a dead stall with zero job creation, massive foreclosures and rapidly rising poverty.
Take Back Chicago!
Now Rahm Emanuel is Mayor of Chicago his team is working hard to balance budget deficits on the back of public workers. Rahm and his CEO of Chicago Public Schools (really, that's his title) want the teachers union to forgo a contractual raise and do 30 percent more time for the same salary.
Why create sweatshops abroad when you can do it at home?
On Monday, 10,000 Chicagoans marched in the streets to tell Emanuel and his friends on Wall Street that enough is enough. Under the rubric of "Take back Chicago," community, labor and faith groups rallied for jobs, homes and schools. Occupy Chicago voted to endorse the march and were smart to target the big money at a futures trading conference.
More @ link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/chicago-wall-street-protest_b_1006777...
For many, the goal was stopping the foreclosure mill, creating jobs, and telling the big banks it was time to pay us back for the $4.7 trillion bailout. For others, the demands focused on the fallout from the financial crisis, including contentious contract negotiations with the administration of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel.
For most, the range of issues were inextricably linked.
Emanuel Goes to Bat for the Big Banks
At the height of the financial crisis in March of 2009, a new president was grappling with an unprecedented meltdown. Huddled with his closest advisers, his instincts were sound.
As described in Ron Suskind's riveting new book, Confidence Men, Obama wanted to restructure the largest insolvent banks to "strike a blow for prudence" and "change the reckless behavior of Wall Street to show accountability flows in both directions."
His economic advisers chewed it over, discussing the pros (Larry Summers and Christina Romer) and cons (Tim Geithner) of breaking up a big bank, but when the President left the room for a moment, his chief of staff spoke up.
"Listen, its not going to fucking happen. We have no fuckin' credibility. So give it up. The job of everyone in this room is to move the President, when he gets back, to a solution that works," said Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel's last foray into the global economy was as President Clinton's point man on NAFTA, a trade agreement that cost the United States some 700,000 manufacturing jobs.
After this display of tough love and a subsequent trillion dollar bailout, Wall Street bonuses are bouncing back. The U.S. economy, however, remains in a in a dead stall with zero job creation, massive foreclosures and rapidly rising poverty.
Take Back Chicago!
Now Rahm Emanuel is Mayor of Chicago his team is working hard to balance budget deficits on the back of public workers. Rahm and his CEO of Chicago Public Schools (really, that's his title) want the teachers union to forgo a contractual raise and do 30 percent more time for the same salary.
Why create sweatshops abroad when you can do it at home?
On Monday, 10,000 Chicagoans marched in the streets to tell Emanuel and his friends on Wall Street that enough is enough. Under the rubric of "Take back Chicago," community, labor and faith groups rallied for jobs, homes and schools. Occupy Chicago voted to endorse the march and were smart to target the big money at a futures trading conference.
More @ link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/chicago-wall-street-protest_b_1006777...
