Monday, May 11, 2015

Wells Fargo Continues Its Pillage of America - IS IT THE NATION'S NUMBER ONE BANK ROBBER?


THE RISE OF BARACK OBAMA and the FALL of AMERICA

HOW A SOCIOPATH CONNED A NATION CALLING IT “HOPE & CHANGE” AND THEN BECAME GEORGE BUSH’S THIRD & FORTH TERMS ON STEROIDS.





even after the 2008 meltdown, criminal banksters that destroyed billions in home values across the nation, are still fucking over the entire nation!



After L.A. lawsuit, Wells Fargo customers express anger over bank's practices

By ANDREW KHOURI AND JIM PUZZANGHERA

Lawsuit alleges Wells Fargo's high-pressure sales culture spurred workers to commit fraud to keep their jobs Wells Fargo opened accounts without customers' knowledge, lawsuit alleges
The city of Los Angeles' lawsuit against Wells Fargo & Co. unleashed an outpouring of anger from customers and current and former employees who said the nation's third-largest bank saddled clients with unwanted accounts, unwarranted fees and untold hardships.

From Florida to Montana and throughout California, they recounted Tuesday aggressive sales tactics that snared unwitting victims. Some customers who noticed problems said they found it difficult to correct the mistakes, much less recover all the charges.

The lawsuit, filed by City Atty. Mike Feuer, alleged that the bank's high-pressure sales culture set unrealistic quotas, spurring employees to engage in fraudulent conduct to keep their jobs and boost the company's profits.

"In its push for growth, Wells Fargo often elevated its profits over the legal rights of its customers," Feuer said Tuesday in announcing the suit.

Wells Fargo sued by L.A. city attorney for 'unlawful, fraudulent conduct'


Business owner Ken Wallman figures he was one of the luckier ones.

About two years ago, he went into a Wells branch in Marina del Rey to open one checking account, signing several documents to get it going. About six months later, he said, he learned he had a dozen additional accounts he never authorized, and some were dinged for monthly fees.

Wallman said that after many attempts to fix the problem, he eventually got the bank to "weed out the erroneous accounts and reverse some fees," but he's sure some charges slipped through "and cost me money."

The allegations against Wells Fargo could damage the bank's reputation and probably already are being looked into by regulators, said G. Michael Moebs, who heads industry research firm Moebs Services Inc.

"This is a fundamental reputation problem with any depository in the world. You don't want this happening," Moebs said.

Regulatory officials at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau declined to comment.

Wells Fargo declined to comment on specific stories from customers or former employees.
"We will vigorously defend ourselves against these allegations," the bank said of Feuer's lawsuit. "Wells Fargo's culture is focused on the best interests of its customers and creating a supportive, caring and ethical environment for our team members."

The bank said it provides training, audits and processes "that work together to support ... our commitment to customers receiving only the products and services they need and will benefit from."
Feuer launched his investigation after a December 2013 Los Angeles Times report based mainly on interviews with some three dozen current and former Wells employees and a review of internal bank documents and lawsuits filed against the bank.

This is a fundamental reputation problem with any depository in the world. You don't want this happening.- G. Michael Moebs, who heads industry research firm Moebs Services Inc.

The employees described how staffers, fearing disciplinary action from managers, begged friends and family members to open ghost accounts. The employees said they also opened accounts they knew customers didn't want, forged signatures on account paperwork and falsified phone numbers of angry customers so they couldn't be reached for customer satisfaction surveys.

Wells Fargo has long heralded its unrivaled success in selling additional accounts and services to customers. Last year, about 26% of the company's revenue was from fee income, including those from credit and debit card accounts, trusts and investments.

Fee income is a crucial part of banking revenue, Moebs said.

"You're looking at well over 85% of all depositories — banks, credit unions and thrifts — which, if they didn't have fee income, could easily go belly-up," he said.

The tactics described in the lawsuit could not only harm consumers but also damage their credit scores, Feuer and consumer advocates warned. Wells Fargo, for instance, put customers into collection when fees for unauthorized accounts went unpaid, the suit alleged.

Down the line, for instance, borrowers seeking mortgages or car loans could end up paying higher interest rates because the bank's actions could have lowered their credit scores, said Norma P. Garcia at advocacy group Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

"If you don't pay on time you risk a lot," she said. "There is a lot going on behind the scenes that could cost you money."

Garcia said consumers who notice unauthorized accounts or activity should immediately call their financial institution, cancel the transactions and demand refunds of any charges.

City officials and former Wells Fargo employees are asking consumers to scrutinize their bank statements and pay extra attention to online accounts after a lawsuit Monday accused bank employees of opening unauthorized accounts and moving clients' money around to meet corporate sales quotas. ( James Queally )

Feuer said Wells Fargo clients should call his office immediately at (213) 978-3393 if they notice checking or savings accounts have been opened in their names at the bank without their permission.

The city's lawsuit alleged that the root of the problem was an unrealistic sales quota system enforced by constant monitoring of each employee — four times a day.

"Managers constantly hound, berate, demean and threaten employees to meet these unreachable quotas," the lawsuit said.
Maged Nashid, a former Wells Fargo manager in Southern California, said Tuesday that he was fired for questioning practices similar to those alleged in Feuer's lawsuit. Employees who opened fraudulent accounts usually attached them to bogus mailing addresses, Nashid said.

"The client would never be aware of it," he said. "The only way to actually find out about it is through the online banking."

Randall A. Marquis, who has written about bank fraud as an editor at an industry publication, said Wells employees twice opened accounts for his 79-year-old grandmother and took money from her existing account.

"It was not fun to see her crying and saying, 'I want them to leave me alone.'
L.A. sues Wells Fargo, alleging 'unlawful and fraudulent conduct'


Wells Fargo sued by L.A. city attorney for 'unlawful, fraudulent conduct'
By E. SCOTT RECKARD contact the reporter


The city's lawsuit against Wells Fargo's 'fee-generating machine' grew from a Times investigation.
Rigid sales quotas at Wells Fargo Bank have driven employees to open unauthorized accounts for customers, sticking them with bogus fees and damaging their credit, according to a city of Los Angeles lawsuit that echoes a Times investigation.

The civil complaint, filed Monday in state court in Los Angeles by City Atty. Mike Feuer, says the largest California-based bank encouraged its employees to engage “in unfair, unlawful and fraudulent conduct” through a pervasive culture of high-pressure sales. Employees misused customers' confidential information and often failed to close unauthorized accounts even when customers complained, the suit alleges.

Some employees went so far as to raid client accounts for money to open additional accounts, the suit alleges.

Employees say intense sales demands at Wells Fargo branches create a dilemma for many: cheat or risk being fired. Bank officials say they make ethical conduct a priority. ( E. Scott Reckard )
“The result is that Wells Fargo has generated a virtual fee-generating machine, through which its customers are harmed, its employees take the blame, and Wells Fargo reaps the profit,” the lawsuit alleges.

Wells has blamed the problems on a few rogue employees who the bank has appropriately disciplined or fired. The city's investigation, however, found only token efforts by Wells to prevent customer abuses.

“On the rare occasions when Wells Fargo did take action against its employees for unethical sales conduct, Wells Fargo further victimized its customers by failing to inform them of the breaches, refund fees they were owed, or otherwise remedy the injuries that Wells Fargo and its bankers have caused,” according to the suit.

Wells Fargo has long boasted to investors of its unrivaled success in selling additional accounts and services to customers. In a statement, the bank said it would vigorously defend itself against the allegations.


Wells Fargo accuses workers of opening fake accounts to meet goals

“Wells Fargo's culture is focused on the best interests of its customers and creating a supportive, caring and ethical environment for our team members,” the bank said. “This includes training, audits and processes that work together to support our Vision & Values and our commitment to customers receiving only the products and services they need and will benefit from.”

The suit was filed under an unfair-business-practices law that permits attorneys representing large California cities to seek redress for customers throughout the state. It contends Wells Fargo employees violated state and federal laws by misusing confidential information and by failing to notify customers when their personal data were breached.

“We're very concerned that consumers be told whenever their information is used for unauthorized purposes,” Feuer said.

We're very concerned that consumers be told whenever their information is used for unauthorized purposes.- City Atty. Mike Feuer

The lawsuit seeks a court order shutting down the alleged wrongdoing, along with penalties of up to $2,500 for every violation and restitution for customers who were harmed. If it succeeds in Los Angeles County Superior Court, it would apply to all residents of the county and perhaps to people outside its boundaries, Feuer said.

Feuer said he began investigating in reaction to a December 2013 Times story on sales pressure at Wells Fargo branches across the country. The story relied on about three dozen former and current Wells staffers, along with a review of internal bank documents and lawsuits filed against the bank.
The employees described how staffers, fearing retribution from managers, begged friends and family members to open ghost accounts; opened accounts that they knew customers didn't want; forged signatures on account paperwork; and falsified phone numbers of angry customers so they couldn't be reached for customer satisfaction surveys.


“Your work was the catalyst for ours,” Feuer said in an interview.

In addition to charging fees on unwanted accounts, San Francisco-based Wells Fargo harmed customers by placing them into collections based on unauthorized withdrawals and reported damaging information on their credit reports when unwarranted fees went unpaid, the suit alleges.
After the December 2013 Times story, dozens of employees and customers reported similar problems, and those complaints continue today.

Siham El-Dahan said she has held financial services jobs for more than 20 years and joined Wells in May 2013, working as a business banker in the San Fernando Valley until she was fired two weeks ago.

The road to corporate greed is paved with nickel-and-dime bank charges. ( David Lazarus )
El-Dahan said she sought help from the bank's human-relations department beginning in September. She said her managers played favorites, denied employees' breaks that are required by law and regularly threatened employees about meeting sales quotas.

Employees responded by opening bogus accounts for customers who didn't want them on a “daily” basis, she told The Times.

When she asked to be transferred to another branch, she was referred back to her managers, she said. An emailed letter of complaint to bank directors and a signed letter to Wells Fargo's chief executive, John Stumpf, drew no response, El-Dahan said.

She believes she was fired in retaliation for speaking out. The stated reason was that a customer she signed up for a loan had defaulted, but she said she had nothing to do with the underwriting or approval of the loan.

Customers continue to report problems too. Frank Ahn, who runs a San Fernando Valley convenience store, said Wells overwhelmed him by opening one unwanted account after another — despite his repeated protests.

It started four years ago, he said, when he opened two accounts. Immediately, bank employees started pitching him on more accounts he didn't need, sometimes saying they must be opened by certain dates, which he interpreted as deadlines to meet quotas.

After repeated phone calls, Ahn said, he opened a third account he didn't need, as a favor to the banker. He was told there would be no charge, got charged anyway, then canceled the account,
“Then a couple of months later, I got three new accounts and a credit card I hadn't asked for,” Ahn said. “I called the 800 number and said I want them canceled. They would cancel them, but more would pop up later.”

Ahn then went into the branch to complain and have the accounts canceled.

“They said, ‘We'll get rid of them,' but they never did,” he said. “It got to where I had 10 accounts.”
Eventually, Ahn said, he got most but not all of the improper fees reversed. He would have switched to another bank, he said, but too many of his dozens of suppliers are connected to the account, making it impossible to untangle the payment systems.

Ahn, 33, who grew up in the Valley, said he feels sorry for people like his parents, immigrants from South Korea, who would not have the English skills to conduct what Ahn calls “a three-year battle” with Wells Fargo.

“This is making me a less productive person,” he said. “I should be spending my time improving the productivity of my business instead of this.”

Wells Fargo declined to comment on El-Dahan's and Ahn's stories.



OBAMA’S  CRONY  BANKSTER-DRIVEN  ECONOMY

First he  sabotaged America’s borders and then invited endless waves of illegals to grab America’s jobs and keep wages depressed.

Then he went after America’s pensions, medicare and social security towards his design of destroying the American middle-class.

AND IT’S WORKING!


“Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America (ALL MAJOR DONORS TO BARACK OBAMA) and every other major US bank have been implicated in a web of scandals, including the sale of toxic mortgage securities on false pretenses, the rigging of international interest rates and global foreign exchange markets, the laundering of Mexican drug money, accounting fraud and lying to bank regulators, illegally foreclosing on the homes of delinquent borrowers, credit card fraud, illegal debt-collection practices, rigging of energy markets, and complicity in the  Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.

 
IMF PREDICTS THAT OBAMANOMICS and the GLOBAL LOOTING BY OBAMA’S CRIMINAL CRONY BANKSTERS WILL SOON DESTROY THE AMERICAN ECONOMY.
The International Monetary Fund warned Wednesday that the world economy would remain locked in a pattern of slow growth, high unemployment and high debt for a prolonged period. The forecast, contained in the organization’s updated World Economic Outlook (WEO), marks a shift from previous economic projections in acknowledging that there is little prospect of a return to the growth levels that prevailed prior to the 2008 Wall Street crash.
The document’s grim analysis amounts to a tacit acknowledgement that the crisis ushered in nearly seven years ago by the financial meltdown is of a historical and fundamental character, and that the underlying problems in the global capitalist system have not been resolved.

 
THE LOOTING OF AMERICA:
BARACK OBAMA AND HIS CRONY
BANKSTERS set themselves on
America’s pensions next!
The new aristocrats, like the lords of old, are not bound by the laws that apply to the lower orders. Voluminous reports have been issued by Congress and government panels documenting systematic fraud and law breaking carried out by the biggest banks both before and after the Wall Street crash of 2008.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and every other major US bank have been implicated in a web of scandals, including the sale of toxic mortgage securities on false pretenses, the rigging of international interest rates and global foreign exchange markets, the laundering of Mexican drug money, accounting fraud and lying to bank regulators, illegally foreclosing on the homes of delinquent borrowers, credit card fraud, illegal debt-collection practices, rigging of energy markets, and complicity in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.
MUCH, MUCH MORE ON OBAMA’S ECONOMIC CRIMES PERPETRATED ON BEHALF OF HIS CRONIES ON THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS
One government-organized settlement has followed another, utilizing “deferred prosecution” deals and other gimmicks to allow Wall Street CEOs to get off scot-free. All the banks have had to do is pay largely fictitious fines, much of the nominal amount written off as tax credits.


OBAMANOMICS: Did Obama’s Crony Banksters Destroy the Global Economy after sucking up trillions in tax payer-paid welfare?

You bet! That’s why they invested in Obama!


THE IMPENDING GLOBAL DEPRESSION –
OBAMANOMICS AT WORK… even as his crony banksters  loot trillions.


THE OBAMA YEARS – THE GOLDEN AGE OF BANKSTER LOOTING AND BANKSTER WELFARE…

INCEST! The case of bankster-owned Barack Obama and crony Jamie Dimon of JP MORGAN… their looting continues!



OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERS PARTY UP
 
AND STILL GIVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
 
THE MIDDLE FINGER


'Not when those foibles had resulted in real harm to millions of people in the form of foreclosures, wrecked 401(k)s, and a devastating unemployment crisis.'






Michelle Obama: Blacks have been 'frustrated and invisible' for 'decades' AND UNDER OBAMA BLACK AMERICANS SIMPLY DON'T EXIST! | WashingtonExaminer.com

Michelle Obama: Blacks have been 'frustrated and invisible' for 'decades' | WashingtonExaminer.com


OBAMA IN SELMA: Is it his biggest hoax and lie to date?

"The lies and demagogy in Obama’s Selma speech cannot conceal the huge class gulf between the government he heads and the self-sacrificing workers and youth who led the fight for civil rights. They fought for equality. He represents privilege."




THE HIDDEN UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS IN AMERICA:

The Democrat Party’s OPEN BORDERS agenda at work.


  
Obama's 'Hispanicazation' of America
January 10, 2011
By: James Walsh
Casting a shadow on economic recovery efforts in the United States is the cost of illegal
immigration that consumes U.S. taxpayer dollars for education, healthcare, social welfare
benefits, and criminal justice. Illegal aliens (or more politically correct, “undocumented
immigrants”) with ties to Mexican drug cartels are contributing to death and destruction on
U.S. lands along the southern border.

While the declining job market in the United States may be
discouraging some would-be border crossers, a flow of
illegal aliens continues unabated, with many entering the
United States as drug-smuggling “mules.”
http://www.newsmax.com/JamesWalsh/illegal-aliens-undocumented-workers/2011/01/10/id/382347/
 
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY: BANKSTER-FUNDED PARTY FOR OPEN BORDERS, MEX WELFARE, NO LEGAL NEED APPLY and LA RAZA SUPREMACY!
 
SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS (R)
“No party can win without working and middle class voters. The path forward for the GOP is to become the party of the American worker. The party of higher wages. The party of full employment.
The Democratic Party has already cast its lot: its members have endlessly enabled the President’s anti-worker policies, including his wage-cutting agenda of uncontrolled immigration and the bleeding of American manufacturing wealth overseas.”
 
 
 
 

 

Battleground poll: 6 in 10 'would not consider' Bush, Biden for president BUT ILLEGALS SAY THEY WILL VOTE FOR BUSH OVER and OVER and OVER AGAIN! | WashingtonExaminer.com

Battleground poll: 6 in 10 'would not consider' Bush, Biden for president | WashingtonExaminer.com


STAGGERING EXPLOSION OF POVERTY IN AMERICA … as Obama eases millions of illegals into our jobs and hands them billions in welfare!

 

 
PAT BUCHANAN: Obama’s surrender of American borders to NARCOMEX.


STAGGERING EXPLOSION OF POVERTY IN AMERICA …
as Obama eases millions of illegals into our jobs and hands
them billions in welfare!



 
PAT BUCHANAN: Obama’s surrender of American borders to NARCOMEX.

OBAMA'S CRONY-WRITTEN TRADE DEAL - Warren: Trade deal could be used to 'punch holes' in Wall Street rules | WashingtonExaminer.com

Warren: Trade deal could be used to 'punch holes' in Wall Street rules | WashingtonExaminer.com


SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R)

“No party can win without working and middle class
voters. The path forward for the GOP is to become the party
of the American worker. The party of higher wages. The party
of full employment.
The Democratic Party has already cast its lot: its members
have endlessly enabled the President’s anti-worker policies,
including his wage-cutting agenda of uncontrolled
immigration and the bleeding of American manufacturing
wealth overseas.”

 




WILL OBAMA CAUSE THE IMPENDING GLOBAL  ECONOMIC MELTDOWN?



"Notwithstanding these powerful trends, the stock markets continue to power on, providing a graphic demonstration of the degree to which the accumulation of wealth by global financial elites has become divorced from the actual process of production."

STAGGERING EXPLOSION OF POVERTY IN AMERICA …
as Obama eases millions of illegals into our jobs and hands
them billions in welfare!

 



even after the 2008 meltdown, criminal banksters that destroyed billions in home values across the nation, are still fucking over the entire nation!

After L.A. lawsuit, Wells Fargo customers express anger over bank's practices

By ANDREW KHOURI AND JIM PUZZANGHERA

Lawsuit alleges Wells Fargo's high-pressure sales culture spurred workers to commit fraud to keep their jobs Wells Fargo opened accounts without customers' knowledge, lawsuit alleges
The city of Los Angeles' lawsuit against Wells Fargo & Co. unleashed an outpouring of anger from customers and current and former employees who said the nation's third-largest bank saddled clients with unwanted accounts, unwarranted fees and untold hardships.

From Florida to Montana and throughout California, they recounted Tuesday aggressive sales tactics that snared unwitting victims. Some customers who noticed problems said they found it difficult to correct the mistakes, much less recover all the charges.

The lawsuit, filed by City Atty. Mike Feuer, alleged that the bank's high-pressure sales culture set unrealistic quotas, spurring employees to engage in fraudulent conduct to keep their jobs and boost the company's profits.

"In its push for growth, Wells Fargo often elevated its profits over the legal rights of its customers," Feuer said Tuesday in announcing the suit.

Wells Fargo sued by L.A. city attorney for 'unlawful, fraudulent conduct'


Business owner Ken Wallman figures he was one of the luckier ones.

About two years ago, he went into a Wells branch in Marina del Rey to open one checking account, signing several documents to get it going. About six months later, he said, he learned he had a dozen additional accounts he never authorized, and some were dinged for monthly fees.

Wallman said that after many attempts to fix the problem, he eventually got the bank to "weed out the erroneous accounts and reverse some fees," but he's sure some charges slipped through "and cost me money."

The allegations against Wells Fargo could damage the bank's reputation and probably already are being looked into by regulators, said G. Michael Moebs, who heads industry research firm Moebs Services Inc.

"This is a fundamental reputation problem with any depository in the world. You don't want this happening," Moebs said.

Regulatory officials at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau declined to comment.

Wells Fargo declined to comment on specific stories from customers or former employees.
"We will vigorously defend ourselves against these allegations," the bank said of Feuer's lawsuit. "Wells Fargo's culture is focused on the best interests of its customers and creating a supportive, caring and ethical environment for our team members."

The bank said it provides training, audits and processes "that work together to support ... our commitment to customers receiving only the products and services they need and will benefit from."
Feuer launched his investigation after a December 2013 Los Angeles Times report based mainly on interviews with some three dozen current and former Wells employees and a review of internal bank documents and lawsuits filed against the bank.

This is a fundamental reputation problem with any depository in the world. You don't want this happening.- G. Michael Moebs, who heads industry research firm Moebs Services Inc.

The employees described how staffers, fearing disciplinary action from managers, begged friends and family members to open ghost accounts. The employees said they also opened accounts they knew customers didn't want, forged signatures on account paperwork and falsified phone numbers of angry customers so they couldn't be reached for customer satisfaction surveys.

Wells Fargo has long heralded its unrivaled success in selling additional accounts and services to customers. Last year, about 26% of the company's revenue was from fee income, including those from credit and debit card accounts, trusts and investments.

Fee income is a crucial part of banking revenue, Moebs said.

"You're looking at well over 85% of all depositories — banks, credit unions and thrifts — which, if they didn't have fee income, could easily go belly-up," he said.

The tactics described in the lawsuit could not only harm consumers but also damage their credit scores, Feuer and consumer advocates warned. Wells Fargo, for instance, put customers into collection when fees for unauthorized accounts went unpaid, the suit alleged.

Down the line, for instance, borrowers seeking mortgages or car loans could end up paying higher interest rates because the bank's actions could have lowered their credit scores, said Norma P. Garcia at advocacy group Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

"If you don't pay on time you risk a lot," she said. "There is a lot going on behind the scenes that could cost you money."

Garcia said consumers who notice unauthorized accounts or activity should immediately call their financial institution, cancel the transactions and demand refunds of any charges.

City officials and former Wells Fargo employees are asking consumers to scrutinize their bank statements and pay extra attention to online accounts after a lawsuit Monday accused bank employees of opening unauthorized accounts and moving clients' money around to meet corporate sales quotas. ( James Queally )

Feuer said Wells Fargo clients should call his office immediately at (213) 978-3393 if they notice checking or savings accounts have been opened in their names at the bank without their permission.

The city's lawsuit alleged that the root of the problem was an unrealistic sales quota system enforced by constant monitoring of each employee — four times a day.

"Managers constantly hound, berate, demean and threaten employees to meet these unreachable quotas," the lawsuit said.
Maged Nashid, a former Wells Fargo manager in Southern California, said Tuesday that he was fired for questioning practices similar to those alleged in Feuer's lawsuit. Employees who opened fraudulent accounts usually attached them to bogus mailing addresses, Nashid said.

"The client would never be aware of it," he said. "The only way to actually find out about it is through the online banking."

Randall A. Marquis, who has written about bank fraud as an editor at an industry publication, said Wells employees twice opened accounts for his 79-year-old grandmother and took money from her existing account.

"It was not fun to see her crying and saying, 'I want them to leave me alone.'
L.A. sues Wells Fargo, alleging 'unlawful and fraudulent conduct'


Wells Fargo sued by L.A. city attorney for 'unlawful, fraudulent conduct'
By E. SCOTT RECKARD contact the reporter


The city's lawsuit against Wells Fargo's 'fee-generating machine' grew from a Times investigation.
Rigid sales quotas at Wells Fargo Bank have driven employees to open unauthorized accounts for customers, sticking them with bogus fees and damaging their credit, according to a city of Los Angeles lawsuit that echoes a Times investigation.

The civil complaint, filed Monday in state court in Los Angeles by City Atty. Mike Feuer, says the largest California-based bank encouraged its employees to engage “in unfair, unlawful and fraudulent conduct” through a pervasive culture of high-pressure sales. Employees misused customers' confidential information and often failed to close unauthorized accounts even when customers complained, the suit alleges.

Some employees went so far as to raid client accounts for money to open additional accounts, the suit alleges.

Employees say intense sales demands at Wells Fargo branches create a dilemma for many: cheat or risk being fired. Bank officials say they make ethical conduct a priority. ( E. Scott Reckard )
“The result is that Wells Fargo has generated a virtual fee-generating machine, through which its customers are harmed, its employees take the blame, and Wells Fargo reaps the profit,” the lawsuit alleges.

Wells has blamed the problems on a few rogue employees who the bank has appropriately disciplined or fired. The city's investigation, however, found only token efforts by Wells to prevent customer abuses.

“On the rare occasions when Wells Fargo did take action against its employees for unethical sales conduct, Wells Fargo further victimized its customers by failing to inform them of the breaches, refund fees they were owed, or otherwise remedy the injuries that Wells Fargo and its bankers have caused,” according to the suit.

Wells Fargo has long boasted to investors of its unrivaled success in selling additional accounts and services to customers. In a statement, the bank said it would vigorously defend itself against the allegations.


Wells Fargo accuses workers of opening fake accounts to meet goals

“Wells Fargo's culture is focused on the best interests of its customers and creating a supportive, caring and ethical environment for our team members,” the bank said. “This includes training, audits and processes that work together to support our Vision & Values and our commitment to customers receiving only the products and services they need and will benefit from.”

The suit was filed under an unfair-business-practices law that permits attorneys representing large California cities to seek redress for customers throughout the state. It contends Wells Fargo employees violated state and federal laws by misusing confidential information and by failing to notify customers when their personal data were breached.

“We're very concerned that consumers be told whenever their information is used for unauthorized purposes,” Feuer said.

We're very concerned that consumers be told whenever their information is used for unauthorized purposes.- City Atty. Mike Feuer

The lawsuit seeks a court order shutting down the alleged wrongdoing, along with penalties of up to $2,500 for every violation and restitution for customers who were harmed. If it succeeds in Los Angeles County Superior Court, it would apply to all residents of the county and perhaps to people outside its boundaries, Feuer said.

Feuer said he began investigating in reaction to a December 2013 Times story on sales pressure at Wells Fargo branches across the country. The story relied on about three dozen former and current Wells staffers, along with a review of internal bank documents and lawsuits filed against the bank.
The employees described how staffers, fearing retribution from managers, begged friends and family members to open ghost accounts; opened accounts that they knew customers didn't want; forged signatures on account paperwork; and falsified phone numbers of angry customers so they couldn't be reached for customer satisfaction surveys.


“Your work was the catalyst for ours,” Feuer said in an interview.

In addition to charging fees on unwanted accounts, San Francisco-based Wells Fargo harmed customers by placing them into collections based on unauthorized withdrawals and reported damaging information on their credit reports when unwarranted fees went unpaid, the suit alleges.
After the December 2013 Times story, dozens of employees and customers reported similar problems, and those complaints continue today.

Siham El-Dahan said she has held financial services jobs for more than 20 years and joined Wells in May 2013, working as a business banker in the San Fernando Valley until she was fired two weeks ago.

The road to corporate greed is paved with nickel-and-dime bank charges. ( David Lazarus )
El-Dahan said she sought help from the bank's human-relations department beginning in September. She said her managers played favorites, denied employees' breaks that are required by law and regularly threatened employees about meeting sales quotas.

Employees responded by opening bogus accounts for customers who didn't want them on a “daily” basis, she told The Times.

When she asked to be transferred to another branch, she was referred back to her managers, she said. An emailed letter of complaint to bank directors and a signed letter to Wells Fargo's chief executive, John Stumpf, drew no response, El-Dahan said.

She believes she was fired in retaliation for speaking out. The stated reason was that a customer she signed up for a loan had defaulted, but she said she had nothing to do with the underwriting or approval of the loan.

Customers continue to report problems too. Frank Ahn, who runs a San Fernando Valley convenience store, said Wells overwhelmed him by opening one unwanted account after another — despite his repeated protests.

It started four years ago, he said, when he opened two accounts. Immediately, bank employees started pitching him on more accounts he didn't need, sometimes saying they must be opened by certain dates, which he interpreted as deadlines to meet quotas.

After repeated phone calls, Ahn said, he opened a third account he didn't need, as a favor to the banker. He was told there would be no charge, got charged anyway, then canceled the account,
“Then a couple of months later, I got three new accounts and a credit card I hadn't asked for,” Ahn said. “I called the 800 number and said I want them canceled. They would cancel them, but more would pop up later.”

Ahn then went into the branch to complain and have the accounts canceled.

“They said, ‘We'll get rid of them,' but they never did,” he said. “It got to where I had 10 accounts.”
Eventually, Ahn said, he got most but not all of the improper fees reversed. He would have switched to another bank, he said, but too many of his dozens of suppliers are connected to the account, making it impossible to untangle the payment systems.

Ahn, 33, who grew up in the Valley, said he feels sorry for people like his parents, immigrants from South Korea, who would not have the English skills to conduct what Ahn calls “a three-year battle” with Wells Fargo.

“This is making me a less productive person,” he said. “I should be spending my time improving the productivity of my business instead of this.”

Wells Fargo declined to comment on El-Dahan's and Ahn's stories.

FACING THE OBAMA DEPRESSION AROUND THE CORNER Fiscal train wreck | WashingtonExaminer.com

Fiscal train wreck | WashingtonExaminer.com


MARK LEVIN on the GOP surrendering to Obama’s LA RAZA
SUPREMACY: 

"No more excuses. No more whining. No more lying to get you
elected. No more crony deals with the U.S. Chamber of crony
capitalism," Levin said, taking a political shot at the business
community powerhouse U.S. Chamber of Commerce.


THE CHAMBER'S FIRST PRIORITY  IS OBAMA'S AMNESTY HOAX TO LEGALIZE MEXICO'S LOOTING AND KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED WITH ENDLESS HORDES OF ILLEGALS JUMPING OUR BORDERS.


MARK LEVIN on the GOP surrendering to Obama’s LA RAZA SUPREMACY:

"We are not a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of citizens," Levin said to applause. "I am sick and tired of the American citizen being demeaned and treated as a second-class citizen while anybody who crosses the border is treated as the most virtuous human being on the face of the earth."



THE U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: SERVING THEIR WALL STREET MASTERS BY ASSAULTING THE AMERICAN WORKER!

WAGES PLUMMET… and millions more illegals are arriving soon!


Low-wage males’ wages declined by an astonishing 31.2 percent, with mid-wage male workers seeing a 16 percent drop, the study found. Workers without a high school diploma suffered a 46.3 percent fall in wages, while workers with only a high school diploma lost 32.1 percent, and those holding a bachelor’s degree lost 4 percent. VIVA LA RAZA SUPREMACY? DEMS SABOTAGE E-VERIFY NATIONWIDE!



THE “HOPE and CHANGE” CLOWN’S LIES ON UNEMPLOYMENT as more illegals jump our borders…………..

In fact, The Obama Administration’s policies have been aimed at reviving US manufacturing on the basis of a significant reduction of workers’ wages.

As a result of these policies, the National Employment Law Project concluded in 2014 that “While the manufacturing sector has grown in recent years, wages are lower, the jobs are increasingly temporary, and the promised benefits have yet to be realized.”

 

PATRICK BUCHANAN

After Obama has completely destroyed the American economy, handed millions of jobs to illegals and billions of dollars in welfare to illegals…. WHAT COMES NEXT?


 

OBAMA, HIS WALL STREET CRONIES, THE DEMOCRAT PARTY, BILLIONAIRES, UNIONS and the U.S. CHAMBER of COMMERCE CONSPIRE TO END THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS…. they call it amnesty!

OBAMANOMICS: OBAMA'S CRONIES' WAR ON AMERICA Elizabeth Warren ties Baltimore unrest to financial misdoing | WashingtonExaminer.com

Elizabeth Warren ties Baltimore unrest to financial misdoing | WashingtonExaminer.com


Elizabeth Warren ties Baltimore unrest to financial misdoing..... NOW MULTIPLE IT BY EVERY STATE AND CITY IN THE NATION!!!

By Joseph Lawler | May 11, 2015 | 3:12 pm

Sen. Elizabeth Warren delivers remarks during the Good Jobs Green Jobs National Conference at the...

Speaking in Baltimore Monday afternoon, Sen. Elizabeth Warren tied the recent unrest and riots in the city to the failures of the financial system that she regularly criticizes.

The recent events in Baltimore are not the result of a single tragedy," the Massachusetts Democrat said at an event held at the University of Maryland's law school in Baltimore. "These events are also about millions of people, young and old, here and across the country, who find themselves struggling to make it in a system that is increasingly rigged against them."

Warren attributed the wide gap in wealth between the typical white and African-American families to "the impact of blows that reach across the generations."

"After decades of being ripped off — first through restrictive deed covenants, then through redlining, then through deceptive land contracts — African Americas were left with less and less wealth," Warren said.

The Baltimore upheaval: On race and class in America

12 May 2015
In the aftermath of the eruption of anger in Baltimore, Maryland over the police killing of Freddie Gray, the media and political establishment are seeking to conceal the real social and political issues at stake.

The killing of 25-year-old Gray last month—only one of the latest in a wave of police murders around the country—triggered clashes with police, demonstrations that spread to other cities and a police-military occupation of the city that was only lifted last week. While Gray’s murder was the catalyst, the scope and magnitude of the social discontent was fueled by the destitute conditions confronting working-class youth in the city’s poorest, largely minority, neighborhoods.

Much of the political elite that runs Baltimore is African American, including the current mayor, police chief and the majority of the city council. Although this fact has seriously undermined the arguments of the proponents of identity politics, it has not stopped them from insisting once again that the essential division in American society is race, not class.

On Sunday, the New York Times published a lead editorial, “How Racism Doomed Baltimore.” The newspaper, which sets the tone for what is described as “liberal public opinion” in America, declared that conditions in the city could only be understood within the context of the city’s legacy of racism and segregation.

“Americans might think of Maryland as a Northern state, but it was distinctly Southern in its attitudes toward race,” the Times editorialists write before giving a potted history of the state, from efforts to disenfranchise black voters in 1905 to more contemporary examples of racial segregation in public housing.

The desperate condition of young low-income men, the newspaper says, cannot be understood outside of the context of the “century-long assault that Baltimore’s blacks have endured at the hands of local, state and federal policy makers, all of whom worked to quarantine black residents in ghettos, making it difficult even for people of means to move into integrated areas that offered better jobs, schools and lives for their children.”

The “tensions associated with segregation and concentrated poverty place many cities at risk of unrest. But the acute nature of segregation in Baltimore—and the tools that were developed to enforce it over such a long period of time—have left an indelible mark and given that city a singular place in the country’s racial history.”

That Baltimore, like many cities in the north and the south, had a history of racial segregation is of course true. However, if a reader of this column were not familiar with the politics of Baltimore, they might be excused for believing the city is run by the Ku Klux Klan and that its police force is made up of Night Riders covered in white sheets.

The Times does not mention that the political establishment in the city is predominantly African American, or that half of the Baltimore Police Department is black. Indeed, three of the six cops indicted for Gray’s killing, including the driver of the police van charged with murder, are African American.

The relentless police violence in Baltimore stems not from racism but from class oppression, which the black politicians defend no less than their white counterparts. Unable to contain her hatred and fear of the city’s youth after sporadic rioting erupted the day of Gray’s funeral, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake declared, “Too many people have spent generations building up the city for it to be destroyed by thugs who are trying to tear down what so many fought for. They are tearing down businesses, destroying property.”

Rawlings-Blake speaks for a whole layer of wealthy African Americans who have a stake in defending their property and wealth and overseeing a system that produces ever-greater poverty for black and white workers alike. This corrupt social layer includes countless academics, politicians, preachers, millionaire “civil rights” leaders and black entrepreneurs who have benefited from government funding for minority-owned businesses and African American university programs.
Alongside the Times are various pseudo-left organizations that have long promoted identity politics in order to subordinate the interests of workers and youth to the Democratic Party. They represent the strivings of a segment of the upper middle class that uses the politics of race, gender and sexual identity as part of efforts to gain more of a share of the wealth exploited from the working class.
With angry youth in the streets of Baltimore denouncing the mayor and other black officials, the International Socialist Organization (ISO)—which hailed Obama’s 2008 election as a “transformative event in US politics, as an African American takes the highest office in a country built on slavery”—has suddenly discovered a “black elite” whose interests are at odds with the majority of minority workers and youth.

The problem, however, is that these “black elected officials” defend the “racist system!”
The ISO’s Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor—an assistant professor in Princeton’s African American studies department—tells us, “Black elected officials have largely governed in the same way as their white counterparts, reflecting all of the racism, corruption and policies favoring the wealthy seen throughout mainstream politics.” This “powerful Black political class,” she continues, “helps to deflect a serious interrogation of structural inequality and institutional racism.”

In other words, the problem is, according to Taylor, that the black politicians are simply not aggressive enough in their promotion of identity politics. Never does she suggest that there is a fundamental unity of interests between black and white workers.

The New York Times, the ISO—which is essentially an auxiliary agent of the Democratic Party—and the political establishment as a whole are determined to prevent any real examination of the social and economic structure of America because they all defend the capitalist system, which is the source of poverty and police brutality.

It has been 50 years since the Watts Rebellion in Los Angeles, one of the first of a wave of urban uprisings across the United States in the 1960s. The call made in the 1968 Kerner Commission on Civil Disorders for massive government spending to stop the country’s drift towards racial and economic polarization was never realized. Instead, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” programs gave way to massive outlays for the Vietnam War, with politicians declaring that it was impossible to provide “guns and butter.”

The five decades that have elapsed have seen the deindustrialization of major manufacturing centers like Baltimore, combined with an unrelenting destruction of social programs. At the same time, sections of the African American upper-middle-class have been elevated into positions of privilege and power.

By the time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap labor for the rich, including a growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill, with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest prison population in the world.

Since taking office Obama has only escalated these reactionary policies. Today the America
n ruling class will not even provide “guns and water,” as tens of thousands of low-income residents in Baltimore and Detroit are seeing their water service shut off for unpaid bills. The only “urban policy” Obama and the ruling class have is to try to contain the explosive social tensions with police military repression.

Whatever role racism might play in any particular act of police violence, the events in Baltimore expose the fact that above all class is the determining factor. With nothing to offer masses of people, the political and media representatives of the ruling class, along with the upper-middle-class boosters, are determined to block the development of a politically conscious and united movement of black, white and immigrant workers and youth against the profit system.

Jerry White
 
THE “HOPE and CHANGE” CLOWN’S LIES ON UNEMPLOYMENT as more illegals jump our borders…………..


In fact, The Obama Administration’s policies have been aimed at reviving US manufacturing on the basis of a significant reduction of workers’ wages.

As a result of these policies, the National Employment Law Project concluded in 2014 that “While the manufacturing sector has grown in recent years, wages are lower, the jobs are increasingly temporary, and the promised benefits have yet to be realized.”




PATRICK BUCHANAN

After Obama has completely destroyed the American economy, handed millions of jobs to illegals and billions of dollars in welfare to illegals…. WHAT COMES NEXT?


 
CRONY CAPITALISM… predicated on keeping wages depressed to third world levels for his billionaire donors!  

Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses…and Muslim Dictators



THE RISE OF BARACK OBAMA and the

FALL of AMERICA

HOW A SOCIOPATH CONNED A NATION CALLING IT “HOPE & CHANGE” AND THEN BECAME GEORGE BUSH’S THIRD & FORTH TERMS ON STEROIDS.


 

WHY DOES OBAMA HATE AMERICA  SO?





THE OBAMA REGIME’S ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN BORN WORKER RATCHETED UP ONCE AGAIN!

 
OBAMA’S PROMISE TO CRONY
BANKSTERS: Not one day in prison!

“Nearly five years after the greatest financial crash since the Great Depression, triggered by rampant illegality and fraud on the part of the major banks, not a single major institution or leading bank executive has been indicted, let alone tried, convicted and jailed.”

  
 

Illinois Supreme Court strikes down state pension cuts
By Alexander Fangmann
11 May 2015
On Friday, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that struck down the 2013 law cutting pension and retirement benefits for state workers, public university and community college workers, and teachers outside of Chicago.

The court’s decision makes clear the essentially illegal and criminal character of the drive by state and local officials to slash public employee pensions. The court case, however, in no way settles the question. The financial elite in this state, like their counterparts throughout the country and the rest of the world, views the pension benefits and social programs established through decades of social struggle as rightfully theirs, and will stop at nothing in their goal of reducing workers to penury.
The Supreme Court unanimously agreed with Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge John Belz’s decision that the law—known as Senate Bill 1—is a violation of the Illinois Constitution, Article XXIII, Section 5, which states that pension benefits “shall not be diminished or impaired.”

Further, the Supreme Court rejected the argument put forward by Democratic Party Attorney General Lisa Madigan, daughter of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, that the state’s “police powers” allowed pension benefits to be cut in order to preserve government services, which would otherwise have to be cut in order for the state to make required payments to the under-funded pension funds.
Justice Lloyd Karmeier wrote that economic fluctuations were anticipated at the time the constitutional provision was added. “The law was clear that the promised benefits would therefore have to be paid and that the responsibility for providing the state’s share of the necessary funding fell squarely on the legislature’s shoulders.”

The decision noted that the “General Assembly could also have sought additional tax revenue.” It criticized the legislature for allowing a 2011 temporary income tax increase to lapse at the beginning of this year, bringing the regressive tax back down to 3.75 percent from 5 percent and leaving an additional $1.6 billion deficit.

Indeed, the pension emergency that both the Democrats and Republicans have invoked to slash benefits is largely an engineered crisis. The entire reason for the existence of the so-called “unfunded pension liability” of approximately $100 billion is that state legislators have for years refused to make adequate payments to the pension systems, preferring instead to use that money to fund other programs.

In addition, the pension funding formulas deliberately overestimated the returns on pension fund investments in order to further reduce the necessary state contributions. Karmeier alluded to this in the decision, noting that the crisis is one for which “the General Assembly itself is largely responsible.”
In the wake of the decision, both Democrats and Republicans are working feverishly to craft even more devastating attacks on retirement benefits than those in the law that was struck down. Even prior to the decision, Democrats, including Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and those in the General Assembly, have been working closely with newly-elected Republican Governor Bruce Rauner—a close friend of Emanuel’s—using him as cover to introduce billions of dollars worth of cuts to a host of state agencies and social programs.

Rauner in the past has advocated eliminating all public pensions and moving workers to 401(k) style retirement plans. His proposed state budget for next year anticipated cutting state pension payments by an estimated $2.2 billion. This would be accomplished through the introduction of a distinction between current benefits and future benefits as a way of getting around the constitutional protection. Under Rauner’s proposal, all benefits currently earned by workers would be protected, but any future benefits would fall under the reduced Tier 2 pensions currently in place for newly hired workers.
Acknowledging that this would likely run afoul of the recent court decision, Rauner has proposed a constitutional amendment that would solidify the distinction between current and future benefits, arguing that, “Nobody, frankly, knows whether they’re going to have a job in the future.” However, a constitutional amendment would open the door to the elimination of retirement benefits by erasing the pension protection clause altogether—the eventual goal of the ruling elite. If the amendment were accomplished through the mechanism of a constitutional convention, it would open up the door for a reactionary rewriting of the entire document beyond the pension provision.

It is now likely that next year’s state budget will go substantially further than the bloodbath envisioned in Rauner’s proposal. Beyond the cuts to pensions, Rauner’s budget incorporated spending cuts of $4.18 billion, including $1 billion from the Department of Healthcare and Family Services, $400 million from higher education, and $22 million from the Department of Public Health, among other programs. Additionally, in March House Speaker Madigan made a deal with Rauner in which the legislature agreed to let the governor cut spending for the current year by $300 million and freeze $26 million in programs ranging from mental health and autism to burials for the indigent.

Among other proposals Rauner has floated is an extension of the sales tax to cover services and amending state law to allow municipalities and other state government entities to declare bankruptcy in order to annul constitutionally protected pension benefits, following the precedent set in the Detroit bankruptcy case by Judge Steven Rhodes. These measures are now substantially more likely to get a hearing, even though the latter would not help the state avoid its own pension shortfall.

The court’s decision, while not directly impacting the cuts to Chicago’s pension systems, which are the subject of a separate lawsuit, will likely mean they will also be reversed by the courts. Emanuel claims that his plan, which raised employee contributions from municipal employees and Chicago-area laborers by 29 percent and reduced annual increases to pensions, does not fall afoul of the decision because the cuts were “negotiated with labor,” in other words, with the union leaders, rather than being made unilaterally.

Following the decision, the unions did their utmost to continue to fan illusions in the ability of workers to redress their grievances within the confines of the current political set-up. Having supported former Democratic Governor Pat Quinn—who signed the pension cut bill and was among the most prominent voices calling for pension cuts—for reelection, the unions did nothing to mobilize Illinois workers against benefit cuts, urging them to place all their faith in the courts. Following the most recent decision, they have pledged to work closely with the legislature to find ways to cut pensions without falling afoul of the constitution.



THE “HOPE and CHANGE” CLOWN’S LIES ON UNEMPLOYMENT as more illegals jump our borders…………..

In fact, The Obama Administration’s policies have been aimed at reviving US manufacturing on the basis of a significant reduction of workers’ wages.
 

BANKSTER RAHM’S VICTORY FOR HIS 1% CRONIES – FIRST ON THE RAHM AGENDA: CUT PENSIONS, MORE “BAILOUTS” FOR CRONY BANKSTERS.






RAHM EMANUEL…. only one more of Obama’s dirty crony banksters implementing OBAMANOMICS: loot from the middle-class and hand it to the 1%!



“Mayor Emanuel embodies the foulest
characteristics of American politics in general
and the Democratic Party in particular. An
operative in the Clinton administration,
Emanuel made millions as an investment
banker before returning to the White House as
Obama’s chief of staff.”

 
As mayor, Emanuel has pursued the same policies in Chicago as Obama on the national level. He has presided over the closure of 50 schools, attacks on the jobs and pensions of teachers and public employees, and a wave of police violence against youth and working people. The money siphoned from essential services has funded tax cuts and other subsidies for corporations and wealthy investors.
The Democratic and Republican politicians endlessly proclaim that there is no money to meet pressing social needs. But the ranks of multi-millionaires and billionaires continue to grow, along with the obscene levels of wealth they control. These are the paymasters of both corporate-controlled parties.

As a result of these policies, the National Employment Law Project concluded in 2014 that “While the manufacturing sector has grown in recent years, wages are lower, the jobs are increasingly temporary, and the promised benefits have yet to be realized.”


 
PATRICK BUCHANAN

After Obama has completely destroyed the American
economy, handed millions of jobs to illegals and billions of
dollars in welfare to illegals…. WHAT COMES NEXT?

 


Net Job Growth Since Recession Still To Foreign-Born


“The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ March job’s data released Friday — as in previous months — again shows that net employment growth in the U.S. since the beginning of the recession has gone to foreign-born workers.”

“From the beginning of the recession in December of 2007 through March of this year, while the native-born population has experienced a net decline in employment, their foreign-born counterparts have experienced a net increase.”
 

THE OBAMA SUPER DEPRESSION AT HAND: Crony capitalism and the Obama administration at work for the 1%

Global financial markets are on the road to another crash, with consequences even more serious than the collapse of September 2008. There have been a series of dire warnings from within the ruling class itself that present monetary policies have created massive financial bubbles with devastating consequences.

 

OBAMANOMICS: Did Obama’s Crony
Banksters Destroy the Global Economy after
sucking up trillions in tax payer-paid welfare?

You bet! That’s why they invested in Obama!

 


CRONY OBAMANOMICS – HOW OBAMA SQUANDERED AMERICA FOR HIS
LOOTING WALL STREET BANKSTERS!



http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-reality-of-obamas-crony-capitalism.html



$3.39T Quantitative Explosion: Fed Owns More Treasuries and MBSs Than Publicly Held Debt Amassed From Washington Through Clinton.


April employment report masks extent of US jobs crisis



AMNESTY: The solution to keep wages

depressed .... is it working???




“A more recent national survey by the Federal Reserve, based on 2013 data, suggests the problem has not only persisted as the economy recovered but may even have worsened. More than 30 percent of Americans reported spikes and dips in their incomes. Among that group, 42 percent cited an irregular work schedule; an additional 27 percent blamed a span of joblessness or seasonal work.”

“In the two advanced countries with the greatest income inequality, Spain and the United States, job losses and wage cuts accounted for nearly all the increase in inequality.”



MICHELLE MALKIN: THE LIES ABOUT
HIRING AMERICAN… not in America!!!

 

April employment report masks extent of US jobs crisis
By Gabriel Black
9 May 2015
The US economy added 223,000 jobs in April, according to figures released Friday by the Labor Department. The official unemployment rate dropped to 5.4 percent, the lowest since May 2008.
In an online statement following the release of the figures, the Obama administration praised the report as a reflection of an “ongoing recovery” showing “substantial progress” in the economy. News commentators echoed this line, saying that the report constituted evidence of an economic turnaround.
Speaking at Nike headquarters in Oregon, Obama declared that “obviously” his policies have not “done too bad in terms of employment in this country. I just thought I’d mention that. Since there were a lot of predictions of doom and gloom.”

In reality, the jobs report looks good only in contrast to the dismal performance of recent months. The US economy added only 85,000 jobs in March, according to newly-revised figures released alongside the April statistics.

Stock analysts have called the April jobs figures announcement a “Goldilocks” report: generally positive, but not good enough to encourage the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates more rapidly, which would tend to lower stock values. Ryan Larson of RBC Global Asset Management told CNBC that the jobs report was “Probably [the] best scenario in which the market was hoping for growth but not [so strong] that the Fed needs to hike in June.” Stocks responded to the report with a rally.

Wages rose by 0.1 percent in April compared to March, below economists’ expectations, and were up by only 2.2 percent over the past year, according to the Labor Department report.

The industries that added jobs in April disproportionately pay low wages, and provide temporary and part-time work. As a CNBC headline put it, “Bad job news, good stock news.”

While only 1,000 jobs were added in the higher-paying manufacturing sector in April, a total of 182,000 jobs were added in the service sector. Administrative and waste services, a category that includes janitorial, cleaning staff, and temporary workers, added 41,300 jobs.

Food service and drinking venues added 26,000 jobs. The average wage in this sector is $11.39, with employees working an average workweek of 24.8 hours. Other industries that added jobs included transportation and warehousing, with 15,200 jobs added; hospitals, with 11,800 jobs; social assistance, with 10,400 jobs; and nursing and residential care facilities, with 8,100.

According to the National Employment Law Project (NELP), in the first four years of the “recovery,” low-wage jobs accounted for 44 percent of job growth. However, low-wage jobs were only 22 percent of the jobs lost in the recession.

While the official unemployment rate fell to 5.4 percent, this figure excludes the millions of people who are not counted as unemployed because they have simply given up on the prospect of finding a job. According to the Economic Policy Institute, there are 3.14 million such workers, and if they were counted in the official unemployment rate, it would stand at 7.3 percent.

The latest jobs figures follow a string of mass layoffs. Dow Chemical announced last Monday that it would cut up to 1,750 jobs to save costs. First Data, a tech finance company stationed in Omaha, Nebraska, this month said it would be laying off several thousand people globally in the coming months.
In April, Bell Helicopter announced 1,100 layoffs at its facility in Lafayette, Indiana. The Pennsylvania-based software developer Unisys also announced plans to slash 8 percent of its global workforce, including 1,800 workers in North America. On April 24, pharmaceutical giant Procter & Gamble announced it would cut 6,000 office jobs worldwide. The company has eliminated 20,000 office and manufacturing jobs since 2012.

During his appearance at Nike headquarters Friday, Obama credited his administration’s policies for having set up an economic turnaround, declaring “thanks to the hard work of the American people and entrepreneurs like the ones who are here today—and some pretty good policies from my administration—we’re in a different place today.”

In fact, The Obama Administration’s policies have been aimed at reviving US manufacturing on the basis of a significant reduction of workers’ wages.

As a result of these policies, the National Employment Law Project

concluded in 2014 that “While the manufacturing sector has grown

in recent years, wages are lower, the jobs are increasingly

temporary, and the promised benefits have yet to be realized.”