03.02.12 - 4:30 PM A Giant, Raging Hurricane of Theft and Fraud

by Abby Zimet




A new citizen action campaign, F* (for foreclose, they say) the Banks is taking aim at the Bank of America in a series of actions starting March 15. Opening salvos include a call to action from Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi to "allow failure - ie BofA - to fail," and a move by Public Citizen to force the feds to break it up.
"There are two things every American needs to know about Bank of America. The first is that it’s corrupt. This bank has systematically defrauded almost everyone with whom it has a significant business relationship, cheating investors, insurers, homeowners, shareholders, depositors, and the state. It is a giant, raging hurricane of theft and fraud, spinning its way through America and leaving a massive trail of wiped-out retirees and foreclosed-upon families in its wake.
The second is that all of us, as taxpayers, are keeping that hurricane raging.
Bank of America is not just a private company that systematically steals from American citizens: it’s a de facto ward of the state that depends heavily upon public support to stay in business.
In fact, without the continued generosity of us taxpayers, and the extraordinary indulgence of our regulators and elected officials, this company long ago would have been swallowed up by scandal, mismanagement, prosecution and litigation, and gone out of business.
This gigantic financial institution is the ultimate symbol of a new kind of corruption at the highest levels of American society: a tendency to marry the near-limitless power of the federal government with increasingly concentrated, increasingly unaccountable private financial interests."
- Matt Taibbi



A Giant, Raging Hurricane of Theft and Fraud | Common Dreams