Albert Lupton: Why the 99 percent are demonstrating today

Today, May 9, the date of Bank of America's annual meeting, coordinated nationwide demonstrations will be taking place by a broad coalition of 99-percent citizen groups.

We are singling out Bank of America, one of the many major Wall Street institutions responsible for the 2007 / 2008 financial collapse due to deregulation and excess speculation and the banks' despicable business practices in the aftermath.

Despite its role in the financial collapse that robbed millions of middle class and the working poor of their savings, livelihoods and ability to keep their homes, Bank of America and their cohorts received bailout loans from the government at taxpayer expense, and then they proceeded to award themselves bigger option pay packages, including stock options at very low prices.

It is notable that B of A executives are working furiously to repay this government injection of funds because there is a "stay on executive pay."

Once this loan is repaid, from which they profited handsomely, B of A exec's can join the industry pay norm for CEO's, which is between 400 to 450 times what lower paid workers make in a year.

What's wrong with this picture?

Bank of America has a well-earned place in the "rouges' gallery" of major banks with its handling of the "foreclosure scandals."

Bank of America failed to pursue the most reasonable path in foreclosures, to work out deals for people to stay in their homes and to write off the excess amount of credit they extended to home buyers.

This would be the action of a good corporate citizen, instead of aggressively pursing foreclosures that leave homes empty and deteriorating from neglect.

There are more than 120 homeless people in Danbury, many of them our former neighbors, and mostly good productive people without a chance, thanks in part to predatory banking practices.

Bank of America, Danbury, Connecticut needs your help with the homelessness you and other major banks have created through your greed.

Let's see some funding and an action coalition.

Today we are focusing on these key themes:

Big banks like B of A serve the 1 percent at the expense of the 99 percent.

B of A was deemed "too big to fail" and was bailed out. We want it to be too small to matter.

Big banks, like B of A, created the conditions for an economic collapse, yet no one has gone to jail or had their assets clawed back to pay off the national debt that the 1 percent controlled Congress created on the backs of the 99 percent.

It's time for pay back, with the 99 percent taking back control.

Let's get money out of politics, so a national agenda for the 99 percent can be voted into office.

Alfred H. Lupton is a resident of Brookfield.