Posts tagged Wall Street
Obama To Accept UNLIMITED Corporate Cash Donations From Wall Street
Dec 8th
Obama is loving him some Wall Street right about now
After the most expensive campaign in U.S. history, President Obama is dropping his principled objection to some forms of political fundraising to help pay for the post-election party.
ABC News has learned that the Presidential Inaugural Committee will accept unlimited corporate donations to help fund Obama’s inauguration festivities next month, reversing a voluntary ban on the money he imposed on the inaugural four years ago and during the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
Obama will also allow individuals to contribute up to the legal maximum for the 2013 inauguration – $250,000 – lifting a $50,000 cap he voluntarily imposed in 2008, sources said.
The shift appeared to be driven by fundraising challenges in the wake of a multi-billion dollar campaign. Obama and GOP nominee Mitt Romney each raised north of $1 billion for the election cycle – historic highs – according to Federal Election Commission filings released Thursday.
Obama’s 2009 inaugural celebration cost $47 million. source – Yahoo News
As We Predicted, George Soros’ Occupy Movement Turns Violent
Nov 3rd
Occupy Oakland in flames: Cops use tear gas and protesters are run over on violent night as they shut-down busy shipping port
Riots: Occupy Oakland protesters pass a burning rubbish heap during a confrontation with police
Occupy Oakland protesters claimed victory after they shut down one of the nation’s busiest shipping ports – escalating a movement whose tactics had largely been limited to marches, rallies and camps.
In a five-hour stand-off protesters vandalised businesses and smashed bank windows, as they tried to shut down the city – and police appeared to respond using tear gas and flash bang grenades.
The California demonstrators blocked operations at the city’s port and stopped traffic on Wednesday in protests against economic inequality and police brutality, marred by scattered vandalism.
Violence: Occupy Oakland protesters vandalised businesses and smashed bank windows on Wednesday
Police in riot gear arrested dozens of protesters who had marched through downtown to break into a vacant building, shattering windows, spraying graffiti and setting fires along the way.
‘We go from having a peaceful movement to now just chaos,’ protester Monique Agnew, 40, said.
Around 3,000 people converged on the Port of Oakland, the nation’s fifth-busiest harbour, swarming the area and blocking exits and streets with illegally parked vehicles and chain-link fences.
Port officials said they had to cease maritime operations, citing concerns for workers’ safety – but hope to resume operations on Thursday and that their workers can get to their jobs safely. source – Daily Mail UK
Vatican Sides With Occupy Wall Street Movement
Oct 25th
Vatican sides with anti-capitalist protesters and attacks global financial system
The Vatican aligned itself with anti-capitalism protesters around the world on Monday when it condemned “the idolatry of the market” and called for a radical shake-up of the global financial system.
By demanding that the worst excesses of global capitalism be reined in, the Holy See echoed the message of protesters encamped outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London, the indignados of Spain and the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US.
In a forthright statement, the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace called for an end to rampant speculation, the redistribution of wealth, greater ethics and the establishment of a “central world bank” to which national banks would have to cede power.
Such an authority would have “universal jurisdiction” over governments’ economic strategies.
Existing financial situations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund were outdated and no longer able to deal with the scale of the global financial crisis, which had exposed “selfishness, greed and the hoarding of goods on a grand scale”.
The global financial system was riddled with injustice and failure to address that would lead to “growing hostility and even violence”, which would undermine democracy.
Wealthy countries should not be allowed to wield “excessive power” over poorer nations, the Vatican said.
Cardinal Peter Turkson, the head of the pontifical council, said banks needed to question whether they were “serving the interests of humanity” in the way they operated.
The proposal was short on specific detail, beyond calling for a new tax on international financial transactions.
The Vatican hardly has an exemplary record on financial transparency and propriety.
Last year the Vatican Bank, known officially as the Institute for Religious Works, had €23m (£20m) of its assets frozen by Italian authorities as part of an investigation into suspected money-laundering.
After years of resisting calls for greater openness, the scandal forced the bank to adopt international norms on transparency. The Holy See’s murky financial past has included, most notoriously, its involvement in the bankruptcy of Italy’s biggest private bank, the Banco Ambrosiano, in the early 1980s.
Its president, Roberto Calvi, who was nicknamed “God’s Banker”, was found hanged beneath Blackfriars Bridge, with investigators unable to rule whether he had committed suicide or had been murdered.
Thomas J Reese, a Vatican analyst at Georgetown University in the US, said the “radical” proposals put forward on Monday aligned the Holy See with the Occupy Wall Street movement and meant that the Vatican’s views on the economic crisis were “to the Left of every politician in the United States”.
He said the proposals reflected many of the encyclicals and addresses issued by Benedict XVI on the global economy during the last six years of his papacy. source – Telegraph UK
Click here to read related story…
Occupy Movement Says ‘Violence Will Be Necessary to Achieve Our Goals’
Oct 12th
Making Bill Ayers and Obama proud
Citizen journalist Ringo captured this speaker at the Occupy Los Angeles camp a few days ago letting the cat out of the bag: After dismissing nonviolence as a dead end, he admits that for the Occupiers to achieve their goals, violence and bloodshed will be necessary:
Occupy L.A. Speaker: “One of the speakers said the solution is nonviolent movement. No, my friend. I’ll give you two examples: French Revolution, and Indian so-called Revolution.
Gandhi, Gandhi today is, with respect to all of you, Gandhi today is a tumor that the ruling class is using constantly to mislead us. French Revolution made fundamental transformation. But it was bloody.
India, the result of Gandhi, is 600 million people living in maximum poverty.
So, ultimately, the bourgeoisie won’t go without violent means. Revolution! Yes, revolution that is led by the working class.
Long live revolution! Long live socialism!”
Crowd: [Cheers.]
Incredibly, he praises the massacres of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror rather than Gandhi’s nonviolent philosophy.
And the crowd laps it up.
Every single day, more videos emerge from the Occupy movement showing people saying things that, if they had been said by a Tea Partier, would have been front-page news for weeks and discredited the movement forever. But since it’s the Occupy Wall Street movement, darlings of the media and Democratic politicians, they get a pass. source – PJM
Organized Labor Joins Swelling Ranks Of Rabid Liberal Protesters On Wall Street
Oct 5th
Occupy Wall Street protests grow in size
Representatives from some of the most powerful labor unions in the country have arrived to march alongside the protesters, and students from New York universities joined the demonstrations this afternoon.
The protests today — which were expected to be the largest yet — began at 3 p.m. Eastern, when protesters in Zuccotti Square marched a mile north to Foley Square, met community and labor leaders, and then marched back at 4:30 p.m. The march was largely peaceful, and metal barriers and police kept the demonstrations from blocking traffic.
Many protesters carried signs or joined in chants about economic injustice, including: “Wall St. can’t you see we want a fair economy!”
The protests have also garnered support from Lupe Fiasco, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Russ Feingold, and former White House adviser Van Jones, who suggested that the Wall Street protesters were the tea party-like movement liberals needed right now.
The reinforcements have added both size and credibility to the movement, which began Sept. 17 with a few dozen camped-out college students, and has voiced opposition against everything from corporate greed and bank foreclosures to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and unemployment. A full list of the protesters demands can be found here.
Unions join Wall Street protests from The New York World on Vimeo.
Among the labor unions that marched today are representatives of the Chinatown Tenants Union, the Transit Workers Union, MoveOn.org, Working Families Party, United NY. source – Wash Post
Who Is Behind The Arab Spring-Style American Protests That Have Mysteriously Started?
Oct 1st
Arab Spring anyone?
Just a guess, mind you, but I’m betting that it’s Obama, Soros…and the Muslim Brotherhood.
“New York City police are bracing for a weekend of mayhem in lower Manhattan with thousands expected to risk arrest as the Occupy Wall Street protest moves into its third straight week.
United: Demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street campaign sit in the plaza in front of the New York Police Department headquarters on Friday
More than 1,000 demonstrators speaking out against corporate greed and social inequality took their protest to the New York Police Department (NYPD) headquarters yesterday.
The Occupy Wall Street protesters camping out in lower Manhattan marched several blocks north yesterday and demonstrated there for about two hours against the police response to the downtown protest, which is in its second week.
Critics have accused officers of being heavy-handed, saying they have roughed up people who did nothing wrong, the NYPD has disputed that claim. Protesters also say they’re upset about reports from The Associated Press that an NYPD intelligence unit has sought to infiltrate the city’s Muslim community.
The movement, whose members have vowed to stay through the winter, are protesting issues including the 2008 bank bailouts, foreclosures and high unemployment. And the increasing presence of more affluent-looking demonstrators is fuelling questions over whether this is the moment a frustrated middle America is uniting for a national uprising.
The protest encampment in Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan is festooned with placards and anti-Wall Street slogans. There is a makeshift kitchen and library, and celebrities from filmmaker Michael Moore to actress Susan Sarandon have stopped by to show solidarity. Grungy youths sleeping on the street, topless women waving signs stating ‘I love this country’, and ageing hippies have won their share of national headlines for their cries of rebellion.
But among these protesters are also men wearing suits and mothers who have driven in from the suburbs.
Julien Harrison, an aspiring teacher, was among the frustrated masses, travelling from Portland, Maine to voice his frustration. Mr Harrison, who said his student debt amounts to $50,000, has only been able to find only manual labour since getting his master’s degree.
He told VOA News: ‘Of course, they’re laying off teachers all over the country,’ he said. ‘It’s getting more and more competitive. I just came from Portland. There’s people with Ph.Ds, masters, undergraduate degrees competing to be a barista at a coffee shop.’ source – Daily Mail UK
Global Meltdown As Investors Are Dumping Nearly Everything
Sep 22nd
With no solution in sight for Europe and new fears of a global recession, investors dumped stocks and commodities and ran to the safety of U.S. Treasurys.
The dollar was also a beneficiary of a massive fear trade that sent U.S. stocks sharply lower, on the heels of steep sell-offs in equities markets around the globe. The worst performing stock market sectors mirrored the sell-off in global commodities markets, with materials down 4.6 percent and energy stocks down 4.1 percent. source – CNBC
