TARP

DENVER–Members of Colorado Tea Party and 912 groups and the libertarian think tank Independence Institute attended a “grassroots session” and rally sponsored by Americans For Prosperity at the Capitol Wednesday. The activists met with GOP lawmakers for a strategy session in the Old Senate chambers and then gathered on the capitol steps. The rally lured a familiar group of Republican lawmakers, led this time by Yuma state Rep. Cory Gardner, who is also running to represent the Fourth Congressional district in Washington.

DENVER– Roughly 200 people gathered in front of the Wells Fargo “Cash Register” building downtown here Wednesday to protest “too big to fail” banks in general and Wells Fargo in particular– financial institutions that outrageously mismanaged depositor savings and fueled the global economic crisis last year. The banks received taxpayer bailout funds to the tune of $700 billion, which they used at first to stay afloat but ultimately to increase profits and even lobby lawmakers to vote against consumer protections. Protesters took turns withdrawing their Wells Fargo savings.

The top eight spenders in the financial industry spent nearly $30 million to lobby Capitol Hill last year, according to Nathaniel Popper of the Los Angeles Times — a 13 percent increase from 2008. That uptick was fueled by a 12 percent increase — to 6.2 million — at J.P. Morgan Chase. Wells Fargo upped [...]

In a moment that recalls Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry kicking off his gubernatorial campaign by declaring he would have rejected federal stimulus funds even as the state budget was tanking, we have GOP Texas Gov. Rick Perry, in a primary race, saying the whole TARP bailout program was a bad idea. What would he [...]

President Barack Obama is scheduled to unveil his agenda for revamping financial regulation later this week. As the economy struggles though a recession created by the banking industry, it’s crucial that Obama and his advisers craft a set of rules ensuring that the financial sector strengthens our economy instead of destroying it.

With workers all over the globe trudging through a catastrophic recession, it’s almost a given that governments will be battling the economic slide for a long time. Part of the effort to rebuild must involve new rules and regulations, but meaningful systems for economic accountability will be just as essential. If we do not hold the reckless executives who caused this crisis accountable for their actions, we risk regressing into similar turmoil in the near future.

Some of the largest U.S. banks may be on the ropes these days, but the disparity between the plight of financial executives and ordinary Americans has never been starker. Over the past two decades, the banking system has grown accustomed to scoring massive profits by preying on its own customers, making 2009’s transition to pilfering taxpayer wallets an easy one.

After burying the economy under a mountain of unaffordable debt, bank CEOs are now finding ways to subsidize their own paychecks with taxpayer bailout funds.

Talk of government pillaging and vague threats of a ballot box revolution at yesterday’s nationwide “Tea Party” protests missed a prime opportunity to advance a cause we can all get behind — ending abusive bank overdraft charges by the very institutions taxpayers bailed-out courtesy of the Bush Administration’s 2008 Troubled Assets Relief Program.

Our Washington Independent colleague Mike Lillis has the skinny on just where the pitchforks and torches should be aimed.

The national “New Way Forward” protest against the Obama-Geithner bank bailout is gaining momentum in Colorado. On the Web site facilitating the action, people are signing up to rally Saturday at banks and public buildings around the country. Denver sign-ups to meet on the west steps of the Capitol have climbed to 145 people.

For more on what went wrong with the economy and why it will be so difficult to fix, there’s good material of every length on the web these days — and most of it lands on one answer.