tagged w/ jp morgan chase
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Yes, America has a psychopath problem: the Koch Brothers, Mitt Romney, Jamie Dimon, and Robert Murray to name a few.
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"...these people almost never think they have enough. The Koch brothers are in their seventies, with $44 billion dollars, and yet spend all day, every day, scheming ways to get their hands on your social security ... we should view them the same as the people on the TV show Hoarders."
http://veracitystew.com/?p=49120Yes, America has a psychopath problem: the Koch Brothers, Mitt Romney, Jamie Dimon,... more
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As if Whataburger wasn’t populist enough already—every Texan’s favorite fast food chain is now striking a blow on behalf of every working stiff who has been subject to excessive and repeated calls from an immense collection agency.
As Patrick Danner of the San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle first reported:
Exasperated officials at the San Antonio-based burger chain have gone to court in an attempt to stop persistent collections calls made to its corporate headquarters to get an unidentified employee to pay up on a debt allegedly owed.
Whataburger last week sued NCO Financial Systems Inc., saying the collection efforts of one of the nation’s largest debt collectors “amount to a campaign of harassment against Whataburger that is unreasonable … and reckless.”
In the lawsuit, Whataburger says the calls from NCO have kept coming despite a July 16 cease-and-desist letter to the company. More than 50 calls from NCO have been made to the restaurant company’s toll-free number since June, the suit says.
Full Story: http://www.tmdailypost.com/article/food/what-employerAs if Whataburger wasn’t populist enough already—every Texan’s... more
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WATCH as Teapublican Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) asks the Fox how to better guard the hen house as protesters give Mr. Jamie Dimon a public lashing...
http://veracitystew.com/?p=37384WATCH as Teapublican Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) asks the Fox how to better guard the hen... more
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POSTED: May 30, 10:59 AM ET | By Julian Brookes
Recently in Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi detailed how Wall Street lobbyists, with a big assist from congress and the White House, are rolling back the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Dodd-Frank, designed to rein in banking fraud and recklessness and prevent another cataclysmic financial crisis, "turned out to be like the fish reeled in by Hemingway's Old Man," Matt wrote, "no sooner caught than set upon by sharks that strip it to nothing long before it ever reaches the shore."
To get the word out about Wall Street's anti-reform push and stiffen spines in congress, we're trying out Thunderclap, a cool new technology that lets groups of people tweet a single message together at the same time, breaking through the din and reaching a potentially massive audience. (Learn more here.) But we need your help!
Here's how it works: Go here and click to "join" Matt Taibbi's Thunderclap. On June 6 at 12 pm, together with hundreds of other Twitter users, you will automatically tweet a message –".@senjohnsonsd @stabenowpress Hear our voices and stop the rollback of Dodd-Frank http://thndr.it/JBZD9Z" – to Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, the chairman of the Senate banking committee and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, chair of the Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over financial derivatives.
We need 500 people to join the Thunderclap by June 6 or the tweet won't be sent, so please join today and help Matt stand up to the Wall Street lobbyists.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/help-matt-taibbi-stand-up-for-wall-street-reform-20120530#ixzz1wh2WWN00POSTED: May 30, 10:59 AM ET | By Julian Brookes
Recently in Rolling Stone, Matt... more
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Comedian and Professor Julianna Forlano hits the headlines! Progressive Satire for CurrentTV.Comedian and Professor Julianna Forlano hits the headlines! Progressive Satire for... more
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The only TV outlet that was allowed in the BJ Morgan Chased Bank Stockholders Meeting was WHACKO-TV. We slipped a security guard a Benjamin and got to sit in the front row. We shot the whole report on a cell phone camera. People are outraged. People are angry. But will anything really happen? Most of the experts say the Congress is too afraid of bankers to pass laws that hinder their evil ways. But after this report, we are sure you will have more faith in the banking system than ever before. After all, they have our money.The only TV outlet that was allowed in the BJ Morgan Chased Bank Stockholders Meeting... more
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The Dodd-Frank Rules, so hated by the banks and by Republicans, would have saved JP Morgan from a $2 billion loss. Mr. Romney, will you now support Dodd-Frank and the Volcker Rule? Will you do all you can to protect the American economy from the reckless practices of the financial sector? Like bugs mesmerized by the light, it seems they can’t help themselves.
http://veracitystew.com/?p=35263The Dodd-Frank Rules, so hated by the banks and by Republicans, would have saved JP... more
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The biggest U.S. bank by assets said on Thursday that it had lost $2 billion on bad bets on credit derivatives, made by a London trading desk, run by a man other traders have alternately dubbed “The London Whale” and “Voldemort.” The office is intended to hedge the giant bank’s credit risk, not increase it.
http://veracitystew.com/?p=35122The biggest U.S. bank by assets said on Thursday that it had lost $2 billion on bad... more
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Humanity faces a daunting battle against corporate forces that have historically proved willing to employ any means necessary to preserve an evil system. The police brutality and corporate funding aimed at crushing Occupy Wall Street hint of the savagery unleashed by corporations in countries around the world over the past 150 years. Yet the recent crackdown has provided our rebellion with an extraordinary public relations weapon by demonstrating the veracity of our charges against a ruthless system that despises democracy and justice.
The movement sweeping America is our link to a world-wide chain of rebellion. The majority of the world’s population, which for half a century has borne the brunt of neoliberal policies, is finally determined to stop the onslaught of global capitalism, which is the force sustaining most brutal systems on the planet, from the military dictatorships in the Middle East to the neo-feudalist societies now permeating industrial nations.
Since World War II the United States has expanded its ever-present imperial quest to entail global domination. Our government has used nearly every method imaginable to ensure a world order that benefits big multi-national corporations. It dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even though officials such as General Eisenhower knew Japan was about to surrender, to send a message. That message was the same as the one sent in Vietnam—do as we say or suffer a holocaust... Continue reading: http://thebloodycrossroads.com/464/occupy-wall-street-and-the-history-of-corporate-fascism/Humanity faces a daunting battle against corporate forces that have historically... more
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In many ways, it stands to reason. If you’re a big bank or investment conglomerate, who has just spent the last decade tanking the economy of an entire nation, not to mention the entire world, on a psychopathic whim, you know you ain’t gonna be popular, and if the people rise up against your criminal behavior, as they’re starting to do now, you also know that you’re going to need a security force in place to protect you from 99% of the people you’ve just royally screwed.
http://veracitystew.com/2011/10/11/conflict-of-interest-big-banks-buying-nypd-protection-from-protesters-video/In many ways, it stands to reason. If you’re a big bank or investment... more
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PRESENTATION
W: We’re going to hear from Steve Lerner next, of SEIU, the Architect of the Justice for Janitors campaign. Currently, he’s working on partnering with unions and groups in Europe and South America, it’s building campaigns to hold financial institutions accountable.
S. Lerner: It seems to me that we’re in a moment where we need to figure out in a much more, through direct action, much more concrete way how we really are trying to disrupt and create uncertainty for capital, for how corporations operate. And it may sound like that’s a crazy thing that in a moment of weakness we could deal with it, but the thing about a boom and bust economy, it is actually incredibly fragile, because it’s not based on real way, well, it’s based on gambling and all of that. And so there are actually extraordinary things that we could do right now that would start to de, destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement. And for example, 10% of homeowners, going back to where you started, who are under, a quarter of all people who own a home are under water. Right? Their home is under water, they’re paying more for it than it’s worth. Ten percent of those people are now in strategic default, meaning they’re refusing to pay but they’re staying in their homes. That’s totally spontaneous. Right? They figured out it takes a year to kick me out of my home because the mort, the foreclosure’s backed up. I’m going to say I won’t pay. It’s just what business does, it’s a good, a good business decision. If you could double that number, you would make banks, put banks on the edge of insolvency again.PRESENTATION
W: We’re going to hear from Steve Lerner next, of SEIU, the... more
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We've all heard it over and over again, "September 11th changed everything". The turmoil in the Middle East is about to make us eat those words. From that day forward America has been spiraling down a path of self destruction and "our chickens are coming home to roost". Wars that we entered over lies, taking from the poor and giving to the rich, psy-ops and propaganda on American citizens and dignitaries, mercenaries for hire and more wars that create more wars. All across the world people are saying "we've had enough". Protests and regime changes are happening all across the Middle East and now we're seeing the unrest in America. Gas prices will rise and as they rise so will the price of eveything else and so will the crime rates.
When we invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq we opened up a hornet's nest that is proving impossible to exterminate. Like dominoes, American and CIA supported dictators are toppling one after another. This is due to a combination of factors. First, our prescence alone and every insurgent or civilian death just creates more anger and more terrorism. Second, the expense of these wars caused the destruction of the American economy which then destroyed the World's economy. Greed is the reason for all of this.
In April 2010 I was hired as a roaming photographer for a J.P. Morgan Chase high roller meeting at Keeneland Race Track in Lexington. I was just supposed to take some pictures of the event. The decorations and then each person separatedly for a take home souvenir was supplied. None of the staff could speak English except for the bankers and their hosts.
I'm not sure if I was supposed to come in during the lecture but I stood in the back of the room and nobody seemed to pay any attention to me. Besides, I don't think they expected the photographer to understand what they were talking about. A man named Stu Schweitzer was the guest speaker for the day.
Mr. Schweitzer spoke for about an hour but the parts you'll be interested in will make you mad. He claimed that the bailout was unnecessary because the banks weren't in need of money. We took from the poor and gave to the rich. The "crash" was by design, he said, and the crowd all laughed. He also stated that the reason they are calling it a "jobless recovery" was that the banks were fine but the jobs would not return. Again, the room filled with laughter. He then asked a Texas banker to explain to everyone how his branch was now turning to large corporate loans because housing loans and the middle class would not return. You got it, plenty of laughter. He then talked about the yearly retreat and explained how it had to be moved from the normal five star resort out west to a hotel in Times Square. This was done so the American public wouldn't know they had been deceived, he stated. He noted, however, that it was still a five star hotel. This gained him the most laughter of the night.
Wiki-leaks recently announced that Saudi Arabia may have overstated their oil reserves by 40%. This caused an immediate rise in oil prices.
Yesterday, America announced that, after discussions with NATO, sanctions would be enforced on Libya. Again, prices of oil are spiking.
These higher gas prices will hamper the global economy. A bad economy doesn't always mean higher crime rates. The San Fernando Valley and others have seen some of the lowest crime rates in decades. Crime rates fell about one third between 1934 and 1938 while the nation was struggling to emerge from the Great Depression and weathering another severe economic downturn in 1937 and 1938. However, we are facing a tsunami of issues beyond gas prices, high food prices and the failing economy.
Read the rest of the story at the link: http://www.examiner.com/courts-in-lexington/turmoil-libya-will-increase-crime-rates-lexington-ky-and-more
MonkeyFilms aka Christopher HigniteWe've all heard it over and over again, "September 11th changed... more
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Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners | Rolling Stone
The foreclosure lawyers down in Jacksonville had warned me, but I was skeptical. They told me the state of Florida had created a special super-high-speed housing court with a specific mandate to rubber-stamp the legally dicey foreclosures by corporate mortgage pushers like Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan Chase.Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners | Rolling Stone
The foreclosure lawyers... more
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March 19 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve Board must disclose documents identifying financial firms that might have collapsed without the largest U.S. government bailout ever, a federal appeals court said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled today that the Fed must release records of the unprecedented $2 trillion U.S. loan program launched primarily after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The ruling upholds a decision of a lower-court judge, who in August ordered that the information be released.
The Fed had argued that disclosure of the documents threatens to stigmatize borrowers and cause them “severe and irreparable competitive injury,” discouraging banks in distress from seeking help. A three-judge panel of the appeals court rejected that argument in a unanimous decision.
The U.S. Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, “sets forth no basis for the exemption the Board asks us to read into it,” U.S. Circuit Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote in the opinion. “If the Board believes such an exemption would better serve the national interest, it should ask Congress to amend the statute.”
The opinion may not be the final word in the bid for the documents, which was launched by Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, with a November 2008 lawsuit. The Fed may seek a rehearing or appeal to the full appeals court and eventually petition the U.S. Supreme Court.
Right to Know
If today’s ruling is upheld or not appealed by the Fed, it will have to disclose the requested records. That may lead to “catastrophic” results, including demands for the instant disclosure of banks seeking help from the Fed, resulting in a “death sentence” for such financial institutions, said Chris Kotowski, a bank analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York.
“Whenever the Fed extends funds to a bank, it should be disclosed in private to the Congressional oversight committees, but to release it to the public I think would be a horrific mistake,” Kotowski said in an interview. “It would stigmatize the banks, it would lead to all kinds of second-guessing of the Fed, and I don’t see what public purpose is served by it.”
Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, said the decision was a “major victory” for U.S. taxpayers.
“This money does not belong to the Federal Reserve,” Sanders said in a statement. “It belongs to the American people, and the American people have a right to know where more than $2 trillion of their money has gone.”
Fed Review
The Fed is reviewing the decision and considering its options for reconsideration or appeal, Fed spokesman David Skidmore said.
“We’re obviously pleased with the court’s decision, which is an important affirmation of the public’s right to know what its government is up to,” said Thomas Golden, a partner at New York-based Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and Bloomberg’s outside counsel.
The court was asked to decide whether loan records are covered by FOIA. Historically, the type of government documents sought in the case has been protected from public disclosure because they might reveal competitive trade secrets.
The Fed had argued that it could withhold the information under an exemption that allows federal agencies to refuse disclosure of “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential.”
Deep Crisis
Oscar Suris, a spokesman for Wells Fargo, JPMorgan spokeswoman Jennifer Zuccarelli, Bank of New York Mellon spokesman Kevin Heine, HSBC spokeswoman Juanita Gutierrez and RBS spokeswoman Linda Harper all declined to comment. Deutsche Bank spokesman Ronald Weichert couldn’t immediately comment. Bank of America declined to comment, Scott Silvestri said. Citigroup spokeswoman Shannon Bell declined to comment. U.S. Bancorp spokesman Steve Dale didn’t return phone and e-mail messages seeking comment.
Bloomberg, majority-owned by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, sued after the Fed refused to name the firms it lent to or disclose loan amounts or assets used as collateral under its lending programs. Most of the loans were made in response to the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Lawyers for Bloomberg argued in court that the public has the right to know basic information about the “unprecedented and highly controversial use” of public money.
“Bloomberg has been trying for almost two years to break down a brick wall of secrecy in order to vindicate the public’s right to learn basic information,” Golden wrote in court filings.
Potential Harm
Banks and the Fed warned that bailed-out lenders may be hurt if the documents are made public, causing a run or a sell- off by investors. Disclosure may hamstring the Fed’s ability to deal with another crisis, they also argued.
Much of the debate at the appeals court argument on Jan. 11 centered on the potential harm to banks if it was revealed that they borrowed from the Fed’s so-called discount window. Matthew Collette, a lawyer for the government, said banks don’t do that unless they have liquidity problems.
FOIA requires federal agencies to make government documents available to the press and public. An exception to the statute protects trade secrets and privileged or confidential financial data. In her Aug. 24 ruling, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in New York said the exception didn’t apply because there’s no proof banks would suffer.
Tripartite Test
In its opinion today, the appeals court said that the exception applies only if the agency can satisfy a three-part test. The information must be a trade secret or commercial or financial in character; must be obtained from a person; and must be privileged or confidential, according to the opinion.
The court said that the information sought by Bloomberg was not “obtained from” the borrowing banks. It rejected an alternative argument the individual Federal Reserve Banks are “persons,” for purposes of the law because they would not suffer the kind of harm required under the “privileged and confidential” requirement of the exemption.
In a related case, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in New York previously sided with the Fed and refused to order the agency to release Fed documents that Fox News Network sought. The appeals court today returned that case to Hellerstein and told him to order the Fed to conduct further searches for documents and determine whether the documents should be disclosed.
“We are pleased that this information is finally, and rightfully, going to be made available to the American public,” said Kevin Magee, Executive Vice President of Fox Business Network, in a statement.
Balance Sheet Debt
The Fed’s balance sheet debt doubled after lending standards were relaxed following Lehman’s failure on Sept. 15, 2008. That year, the Fed began extending credit directly to companies that weren’t banks for the first time since the 1930s. Total central bank lending exceeded $2 trillion for the first time on Nov. 6, 2008, reaching $2.14 trillion on Sept. 23, 2009.
“It’s gratifying that the court recognizes the considerable interest in knowing what is being done with our tax dollars,” said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Arlington, Virginia.
“We’ve learned some powerful lessons in the last 18 months that citizens need to pay more attention to what’s going on in the financial world. This decision will make it easier to do that.”
The case is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 09-04083, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (New York).
To contact the reporters on this story: David Glovin in New York at dglovin@bloomberg.net; Bob Van Voris in New York at vanvoris@bloomberg.net.March 19 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve Board must disclose documents identifying... more
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Racketeering: The federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) (18 USC §§ 1961-1968) prohibits (1) acquiring, establishing, or operating an enterprise with illegally derived income, (2) acquiring or maintaining an interest in or control of an enterprise through illegal activity, and (3) using an enterprise to commit illegal acts (Extortion, Blackmail, Etc. , 31A Am Jur 2d).
As fearless nonviolent protestors occupy the corporate office of a life-threatening and violation-ridden mountaintop removal operation in the Coal River Valley, West Virginia this morning, hundreds of thousands of American citizens are jamming the social media networks today, calling on JP Morgan Chase to end their financing of arguably criminal mountaintop removal coal mining operations in Appalachia.
Al Gore may have called mountaintop removal “a crime and ought to be treated as a crime,” but God bless veteran activists Mike Roselle, Joseph Hamsher, and Tom Smyth and the footslogging Climate Ground Zero nonviolent campaigners who are willing to put their lives on the line to stop mountaintop removal mining.
God bless the Rainforest Action Network and their broad alliance of citizens groups and environmental organizations that are bringing the deadly realities of mountaintop removal–from forced removal of American citizens, devastated communities and economies, poisoned watersheds, and unacceptable levels of blasting and fly rock–to the Wall Street bankers that earn millions of dollars every year from the sacrifice zones in the Appalachian coalfields.
Last year, RAN and other organizations effectively convinced Bank of America to stop lending money to mountaintop removal outlaws.
Daring and effective groups like RAN and Climate Ground Zero deserve as much financial support as possible–write and tell Chase Community Giving to make a huge donation to their work.
In the meantime, these activists and organizations follow a long line of great American patriots willing to stand up to unscrupulous corporate activity. An old coal miner in eastern Kentucky, who had once been beaten and left for dead by coal company thugs in his attempt to form a union in the 1930s, told me this story many years ago: As a young banker during the Civil War, JP Morgan purchased 5,000 defective rifles (Hall carbines) from an arsenal, and then resold them back to Union forces for a 5-fold increase in profits, despite knowing that the defective rifles often blew off the thumbs of the American soldiers.
Howard Zinn added in his classic, A People’s History of the United States, “A congressional committee noted this in the small print of an obscure report, but a federal judge upheld the deal as the fulfillment of a valid legal contract. Morgan had escaped military service in the Civil War by paying $300 to a substitute.”
The Appalachian coal miner was proud of the fact that his ancestors, like many mountain communities in the South, had served in the Union forces during the Civil War–that Appalachians, in fact, had been in the forefront of the anti-slavery movement. Instead of blowing off the thumbs of soldiers, Appalachians patriots are now contending with outside financiers and bankers like JP Morgan Chase bankrolling the criminal and civil violations of absentee coal companies that are blowing off the tops of mountains.
According to RAN:
JP Morgan Chase is the biggest US financier of mountaintop removal coal mining. According to Bloomberg, JP Morgan Chase maintains ongoing financial relationships with 5 of the top 10 corporate producers of mountaintop removal coal. These 5 companies: Massey Energy, International Coal Group, Arch Coal, CONSOL Energy, and TECO Energy were responsible for mountaintop removal mining nearly 38 million tons of coal in 2008 – the most recent year with complete data. Imagine if JP Morgan Chase took this money and invested it in renewable energy alternatives!
Massey Energy, in particular, appears to revel in its violations of laws and regulations.
According to an intent to sue legal notice filed last month by various citizens groups:
Between April 1, 2008, and March 31, 2009, Massey violated its effluent limits at its various operations at least 971 times, and accrued 12,977 days of violation during that 12-month period. The U.S. government’s lawsuit against Massey, which resulted in the $20 million settlement, alleged more than 60,000 days of violations over a six-year period, or about 10,000 days of violations per year.
Massey’s violations are both civil and criminal. As I wrote last year on the battle at Coal River Mountain, where the protesters are currently halting blasting:
With 19 Appalachian mining operations valued at $2.6 billion in 2008, parent company Massey had demonstrated a merciless coveting for coal at any expense. In a haunting parallel to the Tennessee coal ash disaster, a Massey subsidiary in eastern Kentucky had been responsible for the largest coal slurry spill in 2000, leaking over 300 million gallons of toxic sludge into the area’s waterways and aquifers. Massey’s political connections in the Bush administration, however, resulted in a slap-on-the-wrist fine and the firing of one of the industry’s veteran whistle-blowers. Not that Massey altered its policies. By 2008, it had been forced to pay $20 million in penalties for dumping toxic mine waste into the region’s waterways; before the year was out, Massey shelled out a record $4.2 million for civil and criminal fines in the death of two coal miners in West Virginia.
For more information on today’s Chase Social Media Day of Action, go to Dirtymoney.org
And to follow the nonviolent protest on Coal River Mountain, go to Climategroundzero.orgRacketeering: The federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)... more
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In light of last week's EPA ruling giving the go ahead to another mountaintop removal coal mine, and the subsequent report from a group of eminent scientists saying, in essence, that no remediation is ever enough to repair the damage mountaintop mining causes, it's worth reminding people that it's not just coal companies that stand to profit from the practice. Banks like JPMorgan Chase also are making a pretty penny from destroying Appalachia, as Gloria Reuben points out in an op-ed for Huffington Post:
Environmental & Social Destruction Funded
In the past two decades alone, mountaintop removal coal mining has destroyed roughly 470 mountains in the region. The debris from these blasts is dumped into surrounding valleys, destroying what were once serene and lush hollows. Or it's dumped into local rivers and streams, literally burying 1,200 miles of waterways.
Communities are decimated, as poverty has driven families out, leaving ghost towns where there used to be thriving homes, schools and businesses. Many who refuse to leave, because their families have been there for generations--or who are stuck in the vicious cycle of accepting very little, because they've been left with nothing--lead lives that are filled with high rates of cancer, asthma and other life-threatening illnesses. And they are witness to friends and loved ones who succumb to premature death.
So how does JPMorgan Chase profit from this? By funding six of the eight companies responsible for mountaintop removal coal mining, including $1 billion to Massey Energy, the largest MTR mining company.
Chase's Rhetoric Better Than Actions
Bank of America and Wells Fargo have severed ties with Massey, so why not Chase?
After all, Chase touts including environmental practices into their sustainable business model, but apparently fails to see the disconnect between that and funding practices and companies which continually destroy mountains and pollute rivers.In light of last week's EPA ruling giving the go ahead to another mountaintop... more
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's_strongest_supporters_suffering_the_most_in_recession,_while_elites_thrive
I guess 'change' meant change in our pockets!'s_strongest_supporters_suffering_the_most_in_recession,_while_elites_thrive
I... more
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