Sign the petition
The petition reads:
“To: John G. Stumpf, CEO, Wells Fargo
Jamie Dimon, CEO, JPMorgan Chase
Brian Moynihan, CEO, Bank of America
Lloyd Blankfein, CEO, Goldman Sachs
James P. Morgan, CEO, Morgan Stanley
Vikram Pandit, CEO, CitiBank
According to the latest data on year-end bank bonuses, 3.5 million jobs with benefits could’ve been created by spending the bonuses from only six firms: Wells Fargo, Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and CitiBank.
Are you serious? At a time when record numbers of Americans are dealing with joblessness created by your financial crash, and homelessness created by your forged foreclosures?
It’s time to spend the unearned bonus money on human needs, not executive greed. We’re demanding that you stop the unearned bonuses this year.
Sincerely,
[your name here]”
Complete the following to sign. You’ll also receive periodic updates on activism opportunities from The Other 98%.
End The Banker Bonuses This Holiday Season
Did you know we could end the unemployment crisis this very moment?
It’s very simple – if last year’s bank executive bonuses from the six biggest financial firms we bailed out went to creating jobs with middle-class jobs with benefits, the unemployment rate would plummet to 6.75% – the same as before the financial crisis.1
The banker bonuses have gotten more and more obscene – and instead of spending the money we gave them in the bailout on hiring new workers or failproofing their risky investments, the big banks are lavishing their executives with unearned bonuses. Even worse, that bonus money represents a small percentage of their total compensation – they could do the right thing and only take a small hit on their overall take-home pay.
How bad has it gotten? Even worse than we feared: According to the latest data on year-end bank bonuses, 3.5 million jobs with benefits could’ve been created by spending last year’s reported executive bonuses from only six firms: Wells Fargo, Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and CitiBank.2
Are they serious? At a time when record numbers of Americans are dealing with joblessness created by their financial crash, and homelessness created by their forged foreclosures? The big bank attitude seems to be “Big Bonus for me – the rest of you can go Scrooge Yourself.” Well, we’re not going to take it this holiday season.
Join us in sending a message to the big banks TODAY: it’s time to spend the bonus money on human needs, not executive greed. You can refuse the bonuses – or accept us Occupying your bonuses.
Some of the most brilliant economic minds to predict the financial crisis are now calling attention to the awful risk and moral hazard presented by out-of-control banker bonuses. Nassim Nicholas Taleb has taken to the New York Times editorial page with an inconvenient truth: it’s time to eliminate banker bonuses.3
Bonuses are particularly dangerous because they invite bankers to game the system by hiding the risks of rare and hard-to-predict but consequential blow-ups, which I have called “black swan” events. The meltdown in the United States subprime mortgage market, which set off the global financial crisis, is only the latest example of such disasters.
1. “Big Banks Bonus Bonanza Annual Report 2010“, Appendix: Total Job Creation By Bank, SEIU; Extrapolation of job data taken from “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey“, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor.
2. Ibid.
3. “Taleb: Banker bonuses should be banned“, Boing Boing.