Lucas,
Maybe I shouldn't admit this, but I actually danced a little celebratory jig in my living room Sunday evening when news broke that Larry Summers was no longer in the running to be Federal Reserve chairman.
The timing could not have been better.
Our success getting Larry Summers de-considered illustrates exactly how Public Citizen — that includes you — makes a difference.
On Sunday morning, I sent you an email with some telling facts to mark the five-year anniversary of Lehman Brothers' collapse, which turned out to be the Wall-Street-greed straw that broke the global-economy camel's back.
And later that day, we learned that Larry Summers — who was among the pushiest pushers of the deregulation that made the crash practically inevitable — would not be permitted to further menace the national and global economy.
Review my Sunday email, copied below in case you missed it, for just a sample of what we're up against.
Then think about what we accomplish — like forcing Larry Summers' withdrawal from Fed chair consideration — when we work together.
Contribute today as generously as you can.
Please note that we have a $50,000 Matching Gift Offer in effect right now. Whatever you contribute — $5, $50 or even $500 — will be matched dollar-for-dollar by a benefactor who wants to help your support go twice as far.
You should know that as part of Public Citizen, you helped show Summers the door:
- Our financial policy experts lobbied Democratic and Republican leadership and key members of the Senate Banking Committee about how Summers was wrong for the Fed, regardless of one's political persuasion.
- Public Citizen pointed out and generated media coverage of ways that Summers being put in charge of the Fed could create scandalous conflicts of interest and violations of the Obama administration's ethics policies.
- We mobilized grassroots opposition to Summers, including a petition showing broad public opposition to his possible appointment as Fed chair.
When we see a corporate booster being floated for a position of power, we go into booster-popping mode.
We are this country's leading champion of policies that put everyday people before corporate profits.
And we do it without taking a dime from Big Business or the government.
It's entirely because of people like you and your support of the work we're doing together.
Please contribute right now so that your donation qualifies for the dollar-for-dollar Matching Gift Offer that will double the value of your support.
Thank you for the strength you bring to this shared project called Public Citizen.
Sincerely,
Robert
P.S. If you've made a contribution recently, I hope you don't mind me sending you this email — I wanted to share the good news about Larry Summers with all of our supporters.
Lucas,
Five years ago today, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.
Instantly and inevitably, the house of cards otherwise known as Wall Street collapsed.
But after getting bailed out by the American taxpayers, Wall Street is doing just fine.
The people of Main Street? Not so much.
Here are some numbers to think about this Sunday morning.
- Amount the crash cost the U.S. economy: $22 trillion
- How much everyone would get if that $22 trillion were divided equally among the U.S. populace: $69,478.88
- Assets of the four biggest banks in America — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wachovia/Wells Fargo — when they were "too big to fail" in 2008: $6.4 trillion
- Assets of those four banks today: $7.8 trillion
- Of the 63 former Lehman Brothers employees identified by a bankruptcy examiner as being aware of an accounting scheme Lehman used to mask its true finances, number who are employed in senior financial services positions today: 47
- Number of the 25 banks responsible for the bulk of risky subprime loans leading up to the crash that are back in the mortgage business: 25
- Chances that an American voter thinks that regulating financial products and services is "important" or "very important": 9 in 10
- Chances that an American knows the Earth orbits the sun: 8 in 10
- Amount spent in 2012 by Wall Street and other finance industry behemoths on lobbying to roll back, water down and weasel out of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act: $487 million
- Number of registered financial industry lobbyists in 2012: 2,429
- Number of lawsuits filed as of April of this year by Eugene Scalia, son of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to hold up implementation of Dodd-Frank rules on legal technicalities: 7
- Rank of finance industry among all corporate election spending by sector in 2011 and 2012: 1
- Amount the industry gave to political candidates in 2011 and 2012: $664 million
- In 2012, rate at which revenues of JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., matched Public Citizen's operating expenses for the entire year: Every 80 minutes
Undeniably, these numbers are shocking, infuriating, damning.
That's why what you and I do as part of Public Citizen is so important.
Together, we are fighting every day to challenge the corporate greed and political corruption behind numbers like these.
And we've made impressive progress.
Public Citizen led the charge for Wall Street reform from day one — which was a cinch for us, since we'd been aggressively opposing for many years before that the deregulation that predictably catalyzed the crash.
We helped get Dodd-Frank enacted. And, behind the scenes in Congress, at the White House and in the courts, we've been a leader in the struggle to have the law enforced despite staggering resistance from Wall Street and its political puppets.
We were instrumental in the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well as in the appointment and confirmation of its director, Richard Cordray.
We've been among the loudest voices calling to break up the biggest banks, including Bank of America, and in exposing the sham of "too big to jail."
So let me give you one more statistic:
- Amount of the Matching Gift Offer a supporter just made to match every dollar you contribute right now: $50,000
Contribute today as generously as you can.
Your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar, and you'll help Public Citizen have the modest but necessary resources to keep fighting corporate power on Wall Street and wherever else it lurks.
Thanks.
Onward,
Robert Weissman
President, Public Citizen
P.S. There are just two weeks left in Public Citizen's fiscal year. How we close out this fiscal year tells me how aggressive we can be going forward. That's why the benefactor behind this Matching Gift Offer made it right now. And I need your help to realize the full value of the offer at this critical time in our budget cycle. Please contribute today.