Bailout 10: Make Banks Accountable

Today's news reports that the Governor of Illinois has threatened to suspend state business with Bank of America. B of A is the bank which cut off credit to a window and door factory that has announced it will close, leading workers to sit in at the factory to demand the company pay them for accrued time.

Now the Governor of Illinois may in part be trying to distract attention from his other problems, such as being arrested on corruption charges today. However, it is about time leaders make this kind of decision to stand up to the banks which have become beneficiaries of one of the greatest wealth redistributions ever known. Public servants need to serve the public interest. Tax dollars are for the public interest. When tax dollars are provided to a private corporation in order to further the public interest in stabilizing the economy, then those private corporations must be held accountable.

That is why I wrote to my Representative, David Price, today to ask for increased oversight over banks and financial institutions who received "bailout" funds from the Department of the Treasury. The accountability was left too vague, and executives are retaining their expense accounts and euphemistically renamed "bonuses" while autoworkers are being demonized as overpaid for getting middle-class salaries, health care benefits, and retirement. I asked him to demand repayment from banks that refuse to make these funds available to support industry and jobs in the economy. If dramatic change can be demanded of GM, and I am all for that, then it can be demanded of Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Goldmon Sachs, J. P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and others.

Get rid of the $10 million Wells Fargo (see Bailout 9 post) severance package for one Wachovia executive and you can pay annual salary and benefits for over 100 of the better paid GM autoworkers who have mortgages to pay and families to support. Okay, let the Wachovia guy have the same amount as an autoworker. Bank of America's bailout money would be much better used if provided directly to struggling industrial producers.