Main Street

Wall Street Needs a Reminder: We’re Not Your ATM

It’s clear, in case you had wondered, that big corporations are not going to be changing their executive pay practices any time soon. The Washington Post reports:

When the Obama administration imposed restrictions on executive pay last year at some of the largest companies the government had bailed out, officials said they were aiming to set a new standard for compensation across corporate America that would discourage risky business practices.

But as firms begin to disclose last year’s bonuses ahead of annual shareholder meetings, it is becoming clear that companies across a wide range of industries are paying executives in ways that officials worry will not discourage the kind of excessive short-term risk-taking that led to the financial crisis.

You can see this in just about any industry. But one of the most infuriating has to be the financial industry. You know, the ones who got not so much more than the $700 billion bailout we think about most readily; according to Nomi Prins and Chris Hayes,

TARP was but a small fraction (roughly 4 percent) of the full $17.5 trillion bailout and subsidization of the financial sector.

It’s not just the official bailout recipients, in other words, being underwritten by all of us and causing problems for all of us. It’s the whole industry and the way of doing business. As Prins and Hayes wrote (in September 2009),

Finally, our tale shows how fully the banking industry has relied on the government to keep it afloat. This is a crucial point because many banks want to argue that once they’ve paid back their TARP money, they have discharged their obligations and are private entities again, unbeholden in any way to taxpayers.

Right on schedule, that’s what we’re hearing. They’re profitable, they tell us! We have to leave them alone! This is as they fight tooth and nail against regulatory reform that would prevent their worst abuses and protect consumers and taxpayers.

So that’s a fun context for reading that Wells Fargo “more than tripled the cash salary this year of chief executive John Stumpf.”

And it’s why Working America has been fighting for financial reform. Our Final Notice campaign sent 140,000 faxes and emails to the country’s biggest banks calling on them to stop fighting regulatory reform including a Consumer Financial Protection Agency and a financial responsibility fee. Of course, we didn’t really expect them to listen, so we also CC’d senators on that. But we did get their attention – Wells Fargo faxed us back our own members’ letters to them, and Bank of America called and demanded we stop. (We didn’t.)

We talked about those issues to 100,000 people on a series of tele-town halls that featured Senators Al Franken and Bob Casey, Gov. Ted Strickland, Representatives Tim Walz and Harry Teague, and Colorado State Senate President Brandon Shaffer, along with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt-Baker, AFL-CIO Deputy Chief of Staff Thea Lee, and consumer educator Gerri Detweiler.

We printed 70,000 flyers asking people to call and leave voicemail messages to be delivered to the big banks; those are in the field going to people in neighborhoods across the country. And we launched Not Your ATM – pictures of people letting Wall Street know just that: We’re Not Your ATM. Unemployed workers need jobs more than CEOs need multimillion dollar bonuses, and we need laws and regulations that reflect that and make it a reality.

You can join in – post a picture of yourself at NotYourATM.com. We’ve got pictures of people in front of banks, people at home, people at work. Pictures we took in the field and pictures people submitted online, all posted to tell the banks—and lawmakers—that something’s got to change. While you’re there, you can take action in campaigns calling for jobs and financial reform legislation.

We know that if we’re going to get the balance the economy, level the playing field, and reduce inequality, we need to get Wall Street in check. We know that if we’re going to create good jobs, we need an economy that emphasizes actual work and production over derivative swaps. Take action and add your picture to let Wall Street know you won’t be their ATM

Tags: financial regulation, Wall Street