Countdown to the Showdown

As the Too Big to Fail banks become even bigger, Americans’ wallets are shrinking – a sign that all the talk about reforming the financial system has been a lot of hot air.

Marshall Auerbach said it perfectly in a post last month: “For all of the lofty talk about establishing ‘the most ambitious overhaul of the financial system since the Great Depression’, Obama’s reforms amount to nothing more than a reshuffling of the deckchairs on the Titanic.”

Bank of America, the biggest of the “TBTF” institutions, Auerbach points out, now holds 12% of all US deposits. The top four (Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) now have 46% of the assets of all FDIC-insured banks, up from 37.7% a year ago. Goldman Sachs, the biggest securities firm before it was handed a bank charter, has plunged into even riskier business and upped its trading and investment profits by two-thirds over the past year.

And while banks earn massive profits while taking billions in taxpayer money, Americans are seeing their pensions shrink, foreclosures rise, unemployment soar, astronomical overdraft fees, and outlandish credit card interest rates.

Now a group of average Americans – retirees, farmers, workers, homeowners, renters, students, clergy, and small business owners from across the United States – have decided to do something about it. From October 25 through 27 Showdown in Chicago will bring thousands together in Chicago to protest, demanding a banking system that puts Main Street first by enacting financial reforms that benefit ordinary citizens, protect consumers and strengthen the economy.

Instead of allowing Wall Street’s lobbyists to set the agenda, the American people are taking to the streets to take back their financial system – and we at New Deal 2.0 support them.