Several thousand demonstrators marched through the New York financial district on Thursday in a protest led by labor unions, saying Wall Street’s biggest banks must account for record profits while average Americans still suffer financially.
Spearheaded by the AFL-CIO, the march made its way through the downtown Manhattan financial district with signs saying “Wall Street overdrafted our economy” and “Reclaim America, hold banks accountable.”
The march featured a variety of organizations and labor unions with grievances about the economy and jobs.
Union member Kurt Hallman, an electrician who was marching in the rally, said the big banks “let everybody here sink to the bottom.”
“They tightened up all the loaning. Now there’s no money,” he said. “These guys who gave themselves billion dollar bonuses.”
The US Senate began debating an overhaul of the US financial system on Thursday after Republicans for three days threatened to ground proceedings to a halt.
Support for the Democrats’ push on Wall Street reform was boosted following a Senate hearing this week in which executives from giant investment bank Goldman Sachs faced questioning about the company’s ethics and treatment of clients.
“Big Banks tanked our economy and took our money when they needed a bailout,” AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said in a column posted on the Huffington Post Web site. “The bottom line is Wall Street should pay to clean up the mess they made and Congress must enact strong Wall Street reform.”
Last week US President Barack Obama delivered a speech in New York in which he scolded Wall Street for fighting tighter regulation and said legislation was needed to avoid future crises.
One group at the rally dubbed itself “The Other 98 Percent” and called for policies that focus on “the rest of us” instead of the wealthy.
“We’re not here to say get rid of the markets,” said Marco Ceglie, a co-founder, “just that they need adult supervision.”
Before the rally, noisy protesters with signs took over two bank building lobbies.
Hours before the scheduled rally, more than 100 people entered a midtown Manhattan building housing JPMorgan Chase offices. They handed a bank executive a letter requesting a meeting with the CEO, and chanted “Bust up! Big banks!” and “People power!”
A half-hour later, they were calmly escorted outside by officers, who remained expressionless as the protesters chanted, “The police need a raise.” They then walked a few blocks up Park Avenue and crowded into the lobby of the Seagram Building, where Wells Fargo and the bank it merged with in 2008, Wachovia, have offices.
The protesters held up signs reading, “Save Our Jobs” and “Save Our Homes.” One included a Great Depression-era photograph. Police arrived on horseback as curious office workers watched the scene unfold from their windows.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not