The Occupiers’ Siren Song

NY Daily News

Occupy Wall Street is a movement that has been planned and executed by Marxists in America. There may be lots of useful idiots at play in the movement, but nevertheless, if you follow the money and influence, you find the likes of Democratic Socialists of America,ACORN, SEIU, the DNC, the Obama administration, the Working Families Party, the New Party, Tides and of course, that old evil spider, George Soros.

So far, so good, right? Them bad, us good… You can imagine my horror when I heard of how the left was seducing Conservatives and Libertarians to the dark side. Some of the things they say ‘are‘ what we are saying. But as Beck says, watch out who you stand next to. And while you are at it, watch out for their agenda. I fear we will lose many patriots to the Occupy Wall Street movement using the guise of stopping bailouts. Don’t get me wrong… I’m all for ending bailouts. There should never have been any – period. Just not this way. You can’t stand with Marxists and not be tainted by their goals, no matter how noble the cause seems.

Last week, I received word that Oath Keepers was joining Garrett John LoPorto and the Wayseer movement. LoPorto heads Occupy Boston. This turns out to not be quite accurate and Oath Keepers claims that LoPorto is only a volunteer. In fact, he has since been removed as even a volunteer. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt since I know many loyal patriots who belong to that organization. They had an editor who got carried away after seeing a video and reading a book. It happens – but rest assured, that before anything like that would ever occur at Oath Keepers, there would be a full investigation and a vote on it. These are Constitutionalists and real American patriots. But I would suggest that they stay far, far away from Occupy Boston if they can. Marxists of a feather flock together and recruit heavily from the masses.

Oath Keepers is not who I am referring to specifically here. I’m referring to rank and file Americans who are hurting. Who have lost their jobs and have been unemployed for a long, long time. People who can’t figure out how they are going to feed their children and themselves much less where the rent/mortgage is going to come from. If you were scared, hungry and desperate, you’d be angry too. And many are being seduced by the Occupiers’ siren song of: ‘Get ‘em!‘ But the call is a death trap that will crush America on the rocks.

Yes, there are evil banks. But you know who was behind the latest atrocity of Bank of America putting a $5 fee on debit card usage and Citibank leveling a $15 fee on their debit card users? Why, the Progressive yelling the loudest from the Senate floor of course: Tricky Dickey Durbin. The guy who added an amendment to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill that caused the banks to have to add these fees. The banks warned it would happen and it is always middle America who pays in the end. Always. And he did it because he can’t be held liable for speaking from the Senate floor and causing harm to Bank of America if it causes a run on the bank. Thanks Dick.

Yes, there are evil corporations and evil rich guys like George Soros. There always have been and always will be. But by and large, big companies and the wealthy are what create jobs and prosperity in this country. Without them, you have no America. You have Russia.

So instead of protesting the banks, corporations and feeding the ‘eat the rich‘ mantra, Americans should look to the Fed and to the White House and DC. This is where protests and anger should be leveled. Not through a Socialist/Marxist lens that focuses on wealth redistribution and something for nothing schemes. Instead of living in the freest nation on earth and having the chance for anyone to succeed, regardless of race, age, religion, sex or political bent, everyone will equally live in poverty and slavery and the elite will rule over us. That is what Occupy Wall Street accomplishes. It doesn’t address the burdens this nation is struggling under, it advances our demise at warp speed.

Here is the breakdown of the connections behind Occupy Wall Street and those who created the movement from The Blaze:

· The Working Families Party was established in the 90s by key members of the socialist organizations The New Party, ACORN, SEIU, and a coalition of other labor unions and community organizations.

· Patrick Gaspard, the current executive director of the DNC, former director of Obama’s Office of Political Affairs, was an organizer for the New Party, the executive vice president of the SEIU Local 1199, political director for Bertha Lewis (the former president of ACORN) and a co-chair of the Working Families Party.

· The New Party is a socialist political coalition co-founded in 1992 by academic and political activist Joel Rogers.

· The first strategic meetings to plan the New Party were held in Joel Rogers’ Madison, Wisconsin home; Wade Rathke, ACORN and SEIU founder and Gerry Hudson fromDemocratic Socialists of America and SEIU were in attendance at those meetings.

· The New Party’s influential Chicago chapter began to form in January of 1995. Its members consisted mainly of individuals from ACORN, SEIU and the Democratic Socialists of America. Obama attended a New Party function and received their endorsement in 1995.

· In 1994, a New Party newspaper listed more than 100 activists “who are building the NP;” some names among the list of 100 were Noam Chomsky, Frances Fox Piven,Wade Rathke, Cornel West, Jon Barton of SEIU, Maude Hurd of ACORN and Margaret Shelleda of SEIU.

· Gerry Hudson, SEIU Executive Vice President and original New Party member, serves on the board of the Apollo Alliance organized by Joel Rogers’ group COWS Center on Wisconsin Strategy. The Alliance is a project of the Tides Center. Harry Reid credited the Apollo Alliance with helping to write the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

· George Soros’ Open Society Institute is a major source of money behind the Apollo Alliance and the Tides Foundation.

One more, Jim Wallis is out there supporting, organizing and recruiting for the movement, claiming that occupiers stand with Jesus. All I can say to Wallis is, ‘beware false prophets.’

Those are the players and they are behind the Occupy Wall Street movement. They will lure as many in as possible before the door slams shut. They’ll lure Americans in with soothing words and false friendship and camaraderie. But, it is a trap – top down, bottom up, inside out. They want people to be so desperate that they will plead for the government to come in and take over. You might get a little food and a roof over your head, but you will end your days as a slave. If you are going to fight, make it for all the marbles. Make it count and keep your freedom. Don’t answer the occupiers’ siren song.

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton – the Noisy Room

BANK OF AMERICA TO CHARGE $5 MONTH FEE FOR USING DEBIT CARD

NEW YORK (The Blaze/AP) — Bank of America plans to start charging customers a $5 monthly fee for using their debit card to make purchases. The fee will be rolled out starting early next year.

A number of banks have already either rolled out or are testing such fees. But Bank of America’s announcement carries added weight because it is the largest U.S. bank by deposits.

Anne Pace, a Bank of America Corp. spokeswoman, said Thursday that customers will only be charged the fee if they use their debit cards for purchases in any given month. Customers won’t be charged if they only use their cards at an ATM.

The fee will apply to basic accounts and will be in addition to any existing monthly service fees. For example, one of the bank’s basic accounts charges a $12 monthly fee unless customers meet certain conditions, such as maintaining a minimum average balance of $1,500.

A fee for using debit cards is still a novel concept for many consumers and was unheard of before this year. But there are signs it may soon become an industry norm.

SunTrust, a regional bank based in Atlanta, began charging a $5 debit card fee on its basic checking accounts this summer. Regions Financial, which is based in Birmingham, Ala., plans to start charging a $4 fee next month.

Chase and Wells Fargo are also testing $3 monthly debit card fees in select markets. Neither bank has said when it will make a final decision on whether to roll out the fee more broadly.

 

“I might use all cash. Or go back to writing checks,” he said.

The debit card fee isn’t the only unwelcome change for checking account customers are seeing either. The banking industry has been raising fees and scaling back on rewards programs as they adjust to new regulations that will limit traditional revenue sources.

Starting Oct. 1, a regulation will cap the fees that banks can collect from merchants whenever customers swipe their debit cards. Those fees generated $19 billion in revenue for banks in 2009, according to the Nilson Report, which tracks the payments industry.

There is no similar cap on the fees that banks can collect from merchants when customers use their credit cards, however. That means banks may increasingly encourage customers to reach for their credit cards, reversing a trend toward debit card usage in the past several years.

An increasing reliance on credit cards would be particularly beneficial for Bank of America, which is a major credit card issuer, notes Bart Narter, a banking analyst with Celent, a consulting firm.

“It’s become a more profitable business, at least in relation to debit cards,” Narter said.

This summer, an Associated Press-GfK poll found that two-thirds of consumers use debit cards more frequently than credit cards. But when asked how they would react if they were charged a $3 monthly debit card fee, 61 percent said they’d find another way to pay.

If the fee were $5, 66 percent said they would also change their payment method.

Bank of America’s debit card fee will be rolled out in stages starting with select states in early 2012. The company would not say which states would be affected first.

Bank of America shares rose 9 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $6.25 in afternoon trading.

h/t to the Blaze

Dodd-Frank: The End Of Free Checking?

On Sat., Oct. 1, new regulations from the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul go into effect on debit cards. Specifically, they impose price controls on “interchange fees,” the fees that banks and credit unions charge to retailers on debit card transactions.

The average interchange fee is about 44 cents. The new rules limit the fees to 21 to 24 cents.

“The costs of processing debit card transactions doesn’t go away because you limit the price,” said John Berlau, director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute. “That shifts the costs to consumers.”

These fees are used by banks to offer free checking and rewards programs. But now those programs may be be coming to an end. Just 45% of noninterest checking accounts are now free, down from 65% last year, according to a recent survey by Bankrate.com. The average monthly fee for those accounts has risen 75% in

the last year to $4.37.

Bank of America (BAC) just announced a $5 monthly fee for debit cards, starting early next year. BofA cited regulatory costs. Wells Fargo (WFC) and Chase (JPM) has experimented with $3 fees in some markets. Earlier in the year, SunTrust (STI) bank ended its debit card reward program.

Berlau notes other consequences:

Much of these costs will be transferred to consumers in terms of loss of free checking and debit card rewards, new charges for using an ATM, and other fee hikes and service cuts. In its rule, the (Federal Reserve) almost invited banks and credit unions to do this, “helpfully” pointing out that “the interchange fee standard would not limit the ability of an issuer to earn revenue from other sources, such as charging fees to cardholders.”

And there may be other nasty surprises, such as job losses. A Wall Street Journal editorial blamed at least part of the 40,000 Bank of America job losses on the loss of revenue due to the Dodd-Frank price controls. And late last week, Texas-based International Bancshares announced that due to the revenue loss from the price controls, it was closing 55 branches in grocery stores and shedding 500 jobs.

Even retailers may not get the full benefit they are expecting. According to one article, debit card processors can charge an additional fee when merchandise is returned, and that fee may not be covered by the regulations. Processors also may charge flat fees on transactions rather than a percentage-based fee, meaning retailers may pay more on small sales. Expect more processors to do that as the regulations take hold.

By David Hogberg   -  Thu., Sept. 29, 2011 11:30 AM ET  -  Capital Hill  -  h/t to Jean Stoner

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