There is a movement growing to show the banks that eough is enough. People are urged to remove large amounts of money from banks on December 7th to show them our power vs threirs. The spokesperson is a Euro soccer player. I think this is very promising. Especially in light of an article in the New Yorker showing that by objective measures bankers are very overpaid in comparison to their utillity in the economy which is no way justifies their greatly increased part of the national economic pie and extreme pay in recent years. ************* Eric Cantona's call for bank protest sparks online campaignThousands of French protesters have taken up the former Man United footballer's call for a mass cash withdrawal Share12K Comments (518) Kim Willsher The Observer, Sunday 21 November 2010 Article history Eric Cantona is calling on protesters against cutbacks and pension reforms in France to start a real revolution by mass bank withdrawals. Photograph: MCP / Rex Features As students and public sector workers across Europe prepare for a winter of protests, they have been offered advice from the archetypal football rebel Eric Cantona. Cantona was once a famous exponent of direct action against adversaries on and off the pitch. In 1995 he was given a nine-month ban after launching a karate kick at a Crystal Palace fan who shouted racist abuse at the former Manchester United star after he was sent off. But while sympathising with the predicament of the protesters in France, the now retired Cantona is urging a more sophisticated approach to dissent. The 44-year-old former footballer recommended a run on the cash reserves of the world's banks during a newspaper interview that was also filmed. The interview has become a YouTube hit and has spawned a new political movement. The regional newspaper Presse Océan in Nantes had asked Cantona about his work with the Abbé Pierre Foundation, which campaigns for housing for the destitute and for which he produced a book of photographs last year. But the discussion soon moved on to other issues, including the demonstrations in France and elsewhere against government cutbacks in the new era of austerity. Cantona, wearing a bright red jumper, dismissed protesters who take to the streets with placards and banners as passé. Instead, he said, they should create a social and economic revolution by taking their money out of their bank. He said: "I don't think we can be entirely happy seeing such misery around us. Unless you live in a pod. But then there is a chance... there is something to do. Nowadays what does it mean to be on the streets? To demonstrate? You swindle yourself. Anyway, that's not the way any more. "We don't pick up weapons to kill people to start the revolution. The revolution is really easy to do these days. What's the system? The system is built on the power of the banks. So it must be destroyed through the banks. "This means that the three million people with their placards on the streets, they go to the bank and they withdraw their money and the banks collapse. Three million, 10 million people, and the banks collapse and there is no real threat. A real revolution. "We must go to the bank. In this case there would be a real revolution. It's not complicated; instead of going on the streets and driving kilometres by car you simply go to the bank in your country and withdraw your money, and if there are a lot of people withdrawing their money the system collapses. No weapons, no blood, or anything like that." He concludes: "It's not complicated and in this case they will listen to us in a different way. Trade unions? Sometimes we should propose ideas to them." Cantona's call appeared to touch a popular chord and generated an instant response. Nearly 40,000 people have clicked on the YouTube clip, and a French-based movement – StopBanque – has taken up the campaign for a massive coordinated withdrawal of money from banks on 7 December. It is claimed that more than 14,000 people are already committed to removing deposits. The movement is also gaining increasing attention in Britain. The trio of French Facebook users now leading the campaign have appealed to people across Europe to provoke a bank crash. "It is we who control the banks, not vice versa," they write. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/20/eric-cantona-bank-protest-campaign
That is one stupid idea. <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qu2uJWSZkck?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qu2uJWSZkck?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
Sorry, Sishir, entirely too many ad hominem attacks against you on my part. You might be right on this one. It could be dangerous to provoke a banking collapse. However, a big enough withdrawal to worry them about short term profitability might wake up the bankers and even the pols such as Obama that play nice with them. Eventually folks are going to try something besides mild centricism. This might be better than say having Glen Beck types like Sarah Palin and Rick Perry start a holy war vs Muslims or whatever crazy stuff they would to in power. People are hurting too much for cautious centrist wonkism.
Gotta say sishir is dead right on this one, whatever one's sensibilities. What made TARP such a bitter pill to swallow was the knowledge that a banking collapse means a collapse of the entire firmament of the American (in this case, European) economy. Harder, stronger regulation of the banks is needed ASAP, and it hasn't happened. That's regrettable, and needs to be remedied. But let's not bring about another GD economic dustbowl just to prove our point. "Let's make a run on the banks!" That'll fix 'em. Sure.
i tend to agree, but there has to be some way to take on these guys when they control all media whether Fox, NBC, MSNBC etc. Folks are virtually powerless when the politicians of both parties are either going to be paid by the financiers soon or ae scared that they will simply run candidates against them.
Anyone who knows Cantona knows he's not playing around. Problem is...the people who are affected the most don't have money to take out of the bank. He might very well have many listeners in France.
Bankers will get paid. Just that there is no justification for them to keep taking a bigger and bigger cut of the total GDP and paying themselves greatly more than folks in science, engineering, medicine, other fields that create more value and require in general more snap. Aside from a realtively small percentage of quant types most of Wall Street (salesman types) could not cut it in those fields. Most of their new financial "engineering" (nice try !) products have proven at best to add no value to the economy or at worst just be destabilizing schemes to book paper profits and pay prior to bailouts.
This might be the final straw that makes me takes my home and business accounts out of one of the 5 big guys. I wonder how much of a hassle it would be to do it all through a credit union? For those who give a damn about say democracy for instance, keeping money in these banks should be about on the moral plane of investing in private prisons, owning a sweat shop etc.
As a fat cat lawyer, glynch likes to hurt poor people. He thinks he is trying to help, but he doesn't.
I never saw your unedited post so no problems and if I did that's OK I don't take it personally. How much of a run is enough of a run to hurt fat cat bankers without hurting everyone else? The Its a Wonderful Life clip is simplistic but it is true. The money the banks hold is spread out in all sorts of loans to all sorts of things. A worldwide run on the banks will end up hurting the middle class way more than it will the rich. Even with deposit insurance guarenteed by governments as that will eventually have to be made up up in some way through higher taxes or more cuts. THis is as crazy as anything Glenn Beck is proposing and one that will likely have the opposite effect than intended. Its the equivalent of saying I am going to burn down my house because I am mad at my landlord. Yes my landlord might be hurt some but I am going to be living on the street. People are rightfully mad at the banks and we desperately need reform but a global run on the banks isn't going to help anyone.
That is a sensible move and one you should do. I keep my money in a regional bank that didn't need to be bailed out and even though they were forced to take TARP money were one of the first to pay it back.
The only thing this proves is that Eric Cantona and leftists who want to follow this "movement" have absolutely no idea of economics.
The biggest reason I am not going to do this is because my money is in a credit union. I highly recommend them, I have always gotten exemplary service and at this point would rather chew off my big toe than bank with BoA or one of the other majors.
Amen. If everbody removed their money from the banks, the whole god damn system would competely fall apart.
movement for bank robbers to sit outside of banks on Dec 7 waiting for people to remove their deposits
Ahh the old argument from college: Mother Theresa gets her pleasure helping the poorest of the poor. I get my pleasure maximizing my personal waelth at all cost. We are both pleasure seekers and equal.
Well they threatened us and scared the crap out of Obama (we can perhaps still assume he isn't one of them?). Why shouldn't we scare them. They have just as much or more to lose.
