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Departments National Issues Let's protest big banks at their Columbus branches 
Oct 20 ----If Occupy DC is doing this, why aren’t we ? About 25 activists shut down a branch of Citibank on K Street this afternoon amid the high-rise offices of lobbyists. People in expensive business suits walked past as we chanted, “ Hey, Citibank, stop all foreclosures. Hey CEOs, pay all your taxes…”
Management there apparently instruct their staff to shut down during protests in order to prevent persuaded customers from closing their accounts. And closing accounts is exactly what we intend to get an increasingly greater number of people to join us in doing, whether it’s here in D.C. or in Columbus. Three days before we vote down SB-5, there will be an international Move Your Money day of action. “ As consumers we have a choice about where to put our money, said Johnnie Kranz from Buffalo, NY. 
“Why would you put your money into a bank that is going to use it to lobby against the financial reforms that are desperately needed for all of us. They’re going to use your money to pay their CEOs top dollar and put their money into accounts across the world to hide from paying their taxes,” said Kranz. He said if our government won’t break up the banks that are “too big to fail,” we should do it ourselves. “Take your money out. Put it into a local credit union or a community bank where they’re not going to have all this overhead for lobbying and stupid marketing, and instead they’re going to directly put it back into better services for you---less fees, better interest rates and putting money back into the community thru volunteer work and donations,” Kranz said. Leah Bolger of Oregon has been camping out on Freedom Plaza since Oct 6, and participating in protests such as this one at Citibank. 
“Citibank just posted third quarter record profits-- 3.8 billion---which is a 74 percent increase over last year. Their CEO makes $ 9.5 million a year while their tellers are making $12.65 an hour. They have 427 tax shelters in foreign countries, including 90 post office boxes in the Cayman Islands. They paid zero in corporate income taxes during the past 4 years because of these tax shelters.” The person leading the chants during this protest was Tighe Barry of Code Pink. 
“We’re here at Citibank because they took billions of dollars of bailouts and they give high salaries to their CEOs yet they’re wanting to foreclose on people who don’t have enough money because they’ve lost their jobs,” Barry said. And a key cause of that are the decisions made by Wall Street elites, said Barry. “We need to step in as the American public and tell them this is the end of this kind of activity, where they steal from us, give it to the banks, and expect us to pay for it again and again.” Barry said we should tax the rich, end bank bailouts, and end foreclosures. He said banks have not repaid the bailout money and that the bailout did not go to small banks. “There was a Senate hearing yesterday in the Senate Small Business Committee. They have not gotten anything out of this bailout.” Barry suggests we get more involved with the uncut strain of our movement to defeat corporate rule. “It’s an international organization that has been shutting down banks for a year or more.” As for the occupations, the next step is occupying Congress, said Barry. |
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