Crashing Bank of America's Party
By Y. Brody at Mar 09, 2011 |
|
Yesterday two outraged citizens, including myself with a camera, put on suits and fake badges and snuck into the Bank of America shareholders' conference at the Plaza Hotel in NYC.
Then we stood up:
Two-thirds of US corporations do not pay taxes. BofA is the largest American bank and, according to Simon Johnson and James Kwak's bestseller 13 Bankers, holds assets worth 16% of GDP. According to Forbes, last year they paid zero in taxes and even received a $1.9 billion refund from the IRS.
Contrary to the refrain in the dominant news media, the USA actually has plenty of money for everything we need. It's just being managed poorly. Half of the federal budget goes to military spending, about equal to the rest of the world's military expenditures combined. And while artificial corporate persons grow in profitability and electoral power, real people are being told they need to accept deep cuts to basic services, like education, family health care, and non-profit journalism. Counter-actions, however small, are necessary.



Fox News apparently thought the action was worthy enough to denigrate.
By Brody, Y. at Mar 14, 2011 22:59 PM
Conveniently left out was the part about having to fire teachers and firefighters. The panelists offered the usual corporate/tea party propaganda conflating the responsible payment of income tax by megacorporations with "Marxism."
My favorite quote: "This stuff has been rampant in Europe for years, is it coming here now? Are more boards of directors' and shareholders' meetings going to be disrupted by the crazies that we just saw on the screen?"
Here's the Fox segment, with discussion after commercial:
http://www.criticalmention.com/components/url_gen/play_flash.php?autoplay=1&clip_info=1886173560|0|59^1886177136|0|59^1886178359|0|59^1886179643|0|59^1886180837|0|59^
Reply this comment