Comments

1
My sister worked as a teller at a Chase bank for a while because it was the only job she could get at the time.
She knows they're evil, but she also needed money to live on.

A lot of these occupy protest actions seem misdirected. Preaching to the choir, so to speak.
2
I imagine it is very tricky to not preach to the choir when your audience is 99% of the world.

Obviously your sister, or anyone who works for a bank, is just trying to live their life. But the second they refused to waive an overdraft fee to someone who really couldn't afford one, they became a cog in the machine of the problem.

Thankfully, this is a free market, so being evil is very affordable. Most people will trade in their moral compass for a robot-like corporate outlook on life for around $10 an hour plus benefits.

I'm not judging your sister, or anyone else for doing that, but if they don't realize that is what they are doing, they are being ignorant, which is totally understandable, cause it's hard to admit fucked up things about yourself like: "I will be evil for money and it won't bother me. In fact, I'll defend my actions as just trying to get by."
3
Unfortunately, this will probably result in a new headline which reads something like: Teachers Arrested at Bank in Seattle.

4
Who needs teachers? Not Ammreica, that's for sure!
5
So that's the "loophole" that people complain constitutes a "giveaway to the banks" in Washington tax law...

Look, the B&O tax is an incredibly stupid way to tax. It taxes gross receipts, rather than profits. Since different kinds of buisnesses have vastly different margins and cost structures, a simple B&O tax with a straightforward rate would put wide swaths of businesses out of business immediately, while rewarding others with near-zero taxes. To make the system workable at all, every B&O tax system is incredibly complex. Washington has hundreds of different activitiy classifications with different rates, deductions, and exclusions.

"Cleanup of radioactive waste" is taxed a 0.471% of gross, but "Manufacturing wheat into flour" is taxed at 0.138% of gross. If you sell fish feed, you are allowed to deduct your receipts from sales of feed to fish farmers, but not your receipts from sales of feed to anyone else.

So I'm not at all surprised there is a special provision for "interest on residential first mortgage investments", but you have to realize that there are thousands of such provisions in B&O taxes for every concievable business activity, and indeed there must be for a B&O tax system to work. Any particular provision might have been inserted as a political favor, but the vast majority of them were there something like them had to be.

You want a simple business taxation scheme in which politcial give-aways are clearly identifiable? Scrap the B&O tax and move to a profits tax like every other reasonable state.
6
The bank mortgage tax loophole won't even cover 6 mo ths of these teachers bloated guaranteed pension payments let alone enable little Johnny Gangbanger to read.
7
And that's why you don't charge a debit card fee.
8
@5 I agree the B&O tax is pretty dumbass, but right now I'd say the most deserving and likely most able sector of the economy able to kick in a bit more is finance.

What I would like to know is why they are not educating legislators who, unlike some poor teller trying to make a living, actually have some authority over what the B&O tax is.
9
here a lesson in economics:
competition drives down cost and improves the quality of the product.
and as soon as we bust the communist teachers' unions you'll see that happen in education.....
10
Given how nearly every teacher below the level of a college professor of economics is a dumb fucking illiterate on economics, this should be interesting: "Hai guyz, I teach 3rd grade earth science, now listen to mah economics lecture!!"

And that's coming from someone who sympathizes with the protesters.
11
I think it's bad form to essentially harass the bank tellers and other branch employees like that. They're just trying to keep a roof over their head, food on the table, and pay their bills like everyone else around here. Leave them out of this battle.

Surely there's a different, non-violent but less personally intimidating way for the protesters to make their point with the banks.
12
Cienna, the Chase CEO will visit Seattle to speak at a UW event at the Sheraton next week. We're already working on it.
13
Cienna: Chase CEO Jamie Whatshisname is scheduled to speak at the Sheraton downtown for a UW event next week. Occupy Seattle are already planning for this.
14
Jamie Dimon is not in charge of the nation's or our state's taxation system. If you want a transaction tax on financial institutions (which is an EXCELLENT idea), then direct your attention to the ONLY people who can block it:

The Republican shitheads in the Congress and the Legislature.

Republicans are the enemy. Focus on the enemy. Do not be distracted.

Put the Republicans in the most dismal minority possible, and you can achieve meaningful political goals. Harrassing tellers and yelling at Jamie Dimon will get you nothing.
15
I encourage the tellers and Chase employees to go along with the teachers. Give high-fives! Or letters of encouragement! Candy! Whatever! This isn't a mockery of the people who work at Chase, it's a demonstration by the people for the people, and in this case it's taking place at this bank.

Chase employees are the 99%. You are the 99% whether you know it or not. If you are a business person, a teller at a bank, a startup CEO, a Microsofter or Amazonian, a parent, a doctor, a lawyer, a government employee, a hobo on the street, and yes...even some of you rich kids whose parents are still not apart of that tip-top 1%, you too are the 99%.

We are all in this together.

You can participate and stand up for your AMERICAN RIGHTS and let your voice be heard. And It starts LOCAL! Otherwise your only choice will be to get butthurt and start pointing fingers at each other.

We need to demonstrate on all levels in many different ways.

I've been banking with Wells Fargo for years and I will be closing my accounts next week. This is just another way to demonstrate.

Change your Facebook photo, start a club at school, offer to help organize groups, talk to your neighbors and your family and your teachers and your postman. Talk to your teller and talk to the nice gals at See's Candy! They too are the 99%.

It's going to take all different types of people to make statements in many different ways. Remember the Civil Rights Movement? Look at the collection of demonstrations that happened? We must stand together!
16
Chase announced today they were doing away with debit fees.

And no credit union has cash back on purchases.

So Chase helps the 99% more than Becu.
17
I agree with kiraspeaks. If I was an employee I would listen closely and maybe learn something I didn't know.

Tellers have the perfect opportunity to make it a party and celebrate the sharing of knowledge.

We are the 99%.
18
The security officers probably aren't even employees of the bank, but of an independent contractor who pays minimum wage and no benefits. I'm sure they'll appreciate the teachers' lectures.

19
As a former teacher, I'd just like to say how incredibly misguided, even ignorant, this kind of demonstration is.

If they want to be honest about the situation, why don't they go to the school board and "teach" them how we're spending more than three times as much in per-pupil spending than we were 50 years ago.

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp…

They could "teach" them that when enrollment increases 10% over 40 years while, at the same time, employment increases more than 90%, there will always be funding problems.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/obama-job…

Public education needs more money like the military needs more money.
20
And THIS is why Seattle's OWS movement is so inspired!! Not only does Seattle have ZERO national banks headquartered here but when we protest the bank branches (all of which are retail bank fronts) we protest them not just on Saturday, when they have little to no management on site BUT,,,,get this part cause this is fucking brilliant....they wait until the bank branch is about to close!!!!

I mean how awesome is that?!?!?!?!?!?
21
Messing with bank tellers is like blaming a guy who works at burger king for 'fast food.'

This OWS 'activist' bullshit is petty, and childish, and useless.
22
Occupy Seattle's Tactical Working Group meets daily and would love to have thoughtful input from others who are interested in planning future direct actions.

If complaining here has any effect, it makes things worse. If you think we should demonstrate against banks and have ideas about how to do so, please quit bitching on Slog and get involved.
23
@15 That seems like a good way to lose your job. There is no protected right to protest your employer while on the clock. Might as well protest cuts to education by invading some teachers classrooms and lecturing them about it.

@22 Does it involve that annoying as fuck General Assembly process because I want none of that.
24
This isn't about "messing" with the bank tellers. The real audience for this action is the general public who desperately need to understand how things are run as is clear from most of the comments here.

Republicans in WA or DC do not need to be educated about the banks. They need to be shown that we will vote them out if they continue to serve the banks instead of their constituents. But as long as well meaning people say things like "I sympathize with them but I don't like them forcing people to actually listen to them" that's not gonna happen.
25
@24, two things. First, since Democrats serve banks as much as Republicans, and since Obama has received more money from the securities and investments industry than any other politician in the last 20 years, it would seem that people who tend to vote Democratic need to show Democrats that you will vote them out if they continue to serve banks instead of their constituents.

Second, you can't "force" someone to listen to you. And if your message is as confused and fact-free as the message these teachers want to send (or the demonstrably false idea that voting for Democrats helps the situation), you can guarantee that people won't listen to you.
26
22

how does complaining here make things worse?

is the free expression of ideas toxic to 'the cause' ?
27
@22, maybe you don't realize what people ARE doing already -- such as holding on to their jobs as much as possible, paying taxes, volunteering in the community, feeding and clothing and counseling the homeless, paying for parents' eldercare needs, paying for kids' college, donating to charity, maintaining homes, trying to keep their communities together!! You see, we ALREADY ARE in the trenches so I'm terribly sorry if some of us don't have time to come down to Westlake and give you some of our excellent ideas.
28
@ 18 ...

The security at the 6th? and Union branch was a police officer IN uniform .. if I understood what he said, he was being paid by the bank.

29
In spite of the article making one good point, it fails at the other. The CEOs were not the ones giving the failing businesses and banks tax dollars, your elected officials were, the ones you (well a few of the protesters at least) voted on. Change happens at the bottom ... not the middle.

@28 Actually, that's typical. Man store fronts (of all types of business) will do that, the police rent out their cops so they don't have to pay for full time security, and the police get a little money. It's a win-win.
30
@29: "The CEOs were not the ones giving the failing businesses and banks tax dollars, your elected officials were"

Because they were lobbied by the CEOs. This is targeting both the politicians and the CEOs.

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