Public Radio Programming Pushes Commercial Banking in Poor Communities

Last Saturday I heard a disgusting segment of Marketplace Money (produced by American Public Media) on "Vermont's NPR Station": Banking on the previously unbanked, praising the opening of commercial bank branches in the poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

Just the kind of feel-good/do-gooder programming that would appeal to Vermont Public Radio's successful, smug, elite listener and donor base: we know better, so let's help the poor people who don't!

But the copy was was straight from the marketing departments of commercial banks. No matter what their public relations people will tell you, Bank of America and Wells Fargo (featured in the segment) are not caring institutions; they want to make a profit and will do anything to attract customers, even by using deceptive marketing in lower class neighborhoods.

A few telling quotes from the program: "He found that lots of banks simply don't think they can make money in these neighborhoods."

"But I think that often the banks find it very difficult to visualize a whole bunch of low-income consumers as being a vibrant market, but in fact they can be."

"The mayor's office says its goal is to add 10,000 people to the banking system and get them away from predatory lenders, like check-cashing storefronts, payday loan outfits and even liquor stores.."

"Predatory lenders" indeed! More like "Pot calling the kettle black."

There was neither a mention of small town, neighbourhood "community banks" nor of credit unions.

VPR should review its purchase of this kind of programming from American Public Media. But like most NPR affiliates, it won't. Its stations receive 31% of funding from local business underwriting and rely heavily on underwriting from Chittenden Bank. (Vermont's largest full-service bank - now owned by a Connecticut bank - bankrolled the establishment of VPR Classical.) In 2007, then VPR president Mark Vogelsang praised Chittenden in the bank's community newsletter, "With Chittenden’s help, we've created a resource for the community that connects neighbors across the state." To VPR, neighbors = bank customers, wealthy retirees and "summer" contributors. So naturally, this NPR affiliate continues to run programs that look positively on corporate bank scum like Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Chittenden.

A recommendation: Peace Tree readers - of any economic class - in Vermont who want to keep their money in the state - away from corporate banks - should join Vermont Bank Users Strike.

Money, Families, Wall Street, Dr. Wicklund, Humanitarian, Darfur, Iraq/Afghanistan, Veterans

 1.

Tell your Senators to pass the "Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act"

2.

Tell Congress -- no more money for banks until they tell us where it has all gone. 

3.

CNBC: Hold Wall Street accountable!

4.

Thank Dr. Wicklund...Thanks to the tireless work of Dr. Susan Wicklund, an abortion provider, Montana’s women and their families have choices. She’s provided abortion care for more than 20 years, and she frequently goes to work in a bullet-proof vest and often faces a mob of protesters.

Take a moment to write a thank-you note to Susan Wicklund and her dedicated staff.  -Your letters will be compiled and delivered to her directly.

5.

Help Restore Humanitarian Aid to Millions in Darfur...

 6.

Can you take a minute to help Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America with their newest television advertisement before they release it to the public?

...Don't bank on it...

Please Sign the Petition

Bailout Fiasco: Billions to Banks, Zilch to Small Business! How One Small Business is Fighting Back!

The news is consumed with talk of our failing economy, Bailouts and Stimulus packages. From Wall Street to Bank Bailouts, the Senate is busy working out the details of the various plans. One example: It has been reported Bank of America received $20B in US government aid and $118B worth of guarantees against bad assets. Meanwhile, small businesses are collapsing across the nation. Will the Stimulus plan now in Congress also include plans for Small Business and Main Street Americans?

Here is the story of how One Small Business is Struggling to stay in business and is Fighting back:
Rogelio Castro is the American born son of Pedro and Lucy Castro who immigrated to the US in 1945. His parents founded La Guadalupana Company in Chicago, specializing in tamales and other home-made products. Over the decades their business grew and prospered. In 1992 Rogelio expanded production and opened a USDA-approved plant, making La Guadalupana products available across the Midwest. By 2003, La Guadalupana had sales of more than $1.5 million. It was no wonder LaSalle Bank (later merged with Bank of America) came calling to win their business. The Bank was full of promises, with offers of loans to help them expand nationally. The wooing worked and Castro switched Banks. The bank’s sales tactics were compelling. Grow, Buy, Borrow to your heart’s content. The Castro’s were convinced to extend themselves beyond their previously set limits and attempted to purchase another business in Ohio. Through this time, the bank merged with Bank of America. As small bank written promises were broken by uncaring national Bank’s policies, not only did the Ohio sale fall through, but the National Bank attempted to foreclose on their business, sending letters to clients and suppliers alike, informing them of their financial woes, disparaging their brand. The bank’s actions violated their agreement, but beyond that, caused the Castro’s to lose market-share from 80% to 50%.
While many small businesses might fold under such pressure from the mighty National Banks, the Castro’s decided to fight back! They took the big National Bank to court and demanded the Bank cease and desist their tactics. An Emergency Temporary Restraining Order Hearing is set for Monday, 2-9-09, at 2:30 central at the Daley center.

This is not the end to this story. Perhaps Castro will be successful in court or perhaps not and his business will fail. His fate, as all of ours, lies not only in the judgement of the courts or in the halls of Congress, but most significantly, in our Country's ultimate economic destiny.

JUST WHEN I THOUGHT...

-Just when I thought that headlines might not piss me off and begin to make a modicum of sense:

Soldiers choose war over bleak economy ...Pentagon officials report strongest recruiting season in four years

The headline should be,

"Citizens choose war over bleak economy..."

(not Soldiers!)
No! It should be "Citizens choose enlistment in the military over bleak economy"!

-Just when I thought there might be a chance at peace:

Rice flies to India to ease tension with Pakistan

What the-?

By simply flying there Rice is able to ease tension with Pakistan?

What would have happened had she traveled by boat?

(I mean besides the fact that she would have arrived too late,

which ultimately may prove to be for the best as far as India and Pakistan are both concerned…)

-Just when I thought the goddamned scare tactics might vanish from headlines:

Report: WMD Attack Inevitable Before 2013

O! For the love of all things decent!

I suppose I should have expected

such a “timely” report to emerge

just as the Bush regime is taking its final bow,

but for fucks sake,

“WMD”, “Inevitable”, and “2013”

all in the same damn headline!

(Too bad we don’t hold elections

every four to eight years for our Press…)

-Just when I thought Fox, having been snubbed by Obama, might try a different tactic:

No Colorblind Pick for Obama Seat?

And this is a problem, for whom exactly?

The will of the people of Illinois?

Or the will of those that would rather have an all white senate?

-Just when I thought CEO’s were supposed to have business sense... or lose their damn job:

US carmakers publish rescue plans

Where were these grand plans as you were being paid ungodly sums of money,

When you were receiving ungodly grand bonuses and partying on some monstrous yacht in the Caribbean?

Huh?

Now? Now you've a- Now!

Now you have a measly, godforsaken plan?

Isn’t that convenient;

now that you’ve failed miserably,

now that you’ve proven you’re not worth the millions you “earned” or deserving of the corporate jets you fly in,

now that you’ve been found to be incompetent,

that we the people are going to have to bail your sorry asses out

because you’ve been producing shit-sputtering-gas-guzzling-forest-tapping-air-destroying-hunk-assed-chunks-of-friggin'-metal that you call “automobiles”!

Damn it! Just when I thought it was over...they pull me back in!

My Friends...

Naomi Klein has a take on the bail out...

Free market freak-out

If Bush can intervene to save corporations, why not Americans facing foreclosure?

By Naomi Klein
from NOW Magazine

Expand the post +/-

Free market freak-out

If Bush can intervene to save corporations, why not Americans facing foreclosure?

By Naomi Klein

Whatever the events on Wall Street mean, nobody should believe the overblown claims that the current market crisis signals the death of “free market” ideology.

Free market ideology has always been a servant to the interests of capital, and its presence ebbs and flows depending on its usefulness to those interests.

Rest assured: the ideology will come roaring back when the bailouts are done. The massive debts the public is accumulating to bail out the speculators will then become the rationale for deep cuts to social programs, and for a renewed push to privatize what’s left of the public sector.

We will also be told that our hopes for a green future are, sadly, too costly.

What we don’t know is how the public will respond.

If the state can intervene to save corporations that took reckless risks in the housing markets, why can’t it intervene to prevent millions of Americans from imminent foreclosure?

By the same token, if $85 billion can be made instantly available to buy the insurance giant AIG, why is single-payer health care – which would protect Americans from the predatory practices of health-care insurance companies – seemingly such an unattainable dream?

Now that it’s clear that governments can indeed act in times of crisis, it will be much harder for them to plead powerlessness in the future.

Another potential shift has to do with market hopes for future privatizations.

For years, the global investment banks have been lobbying politicians for two new markets: one that would result from privatizing public pensions and the other from a new wave of privatized or partially privatized roads, bridges and water systems.

Both of these dreams have just become much harder to sell: Americans are in no mood to trust more of their individual and collective assets to the reckless gamblers on Wall Street.

With the World Trade Organization talks off the rails, this crisis could also be the catalyst for a radically alternative approach to regulating world markets and financial systems.

Already, we’re seeing a move toward “food sovereignty” in the developing world, rather than leaving access to food to the whims of commodity traders. The time may finally have come for ideas like taxing trading, which would slow speculative investment, as well as other global capital controls.

And now that nationalization is no longer a dirty word, the oil and gas companies should watch out: someone needs to pay for the shift to a greener future, and it makes most sense for the bulk of the funds to come from the highly profitable sector that is most responsible for our climate crisis. It certainly makes more sense than creating another dangerous bubble in carbon trading.

But the crisis we are seeing calls for even deeper changes than that. The reason these junk loans were allowed to proliferate was not just because the regulators didn’t understand the risk. It is because we have an economic system that measures our collective health by GDP growth alone. So long as the junk loans were fuelling economic growth, our governments actively supported them.

What is really being called into question by the crisis is the unquestioned commitment to growth at all costs. Where this crisis should lead us is to a radically different way for our societies to measure health and progress.

None of this, however, will happen without huge public pressure and the kind of direct action that ushered in the New Deal in the 1930s. Without it, there will be superficial changes and a return, as quickly as possible, to business as usual.

naomiklein.org

NOW | September 24-October 1, 2008 | VOL 28 NO 4