CALL TO ACTION: Keep Your Money in Bozeman, Make Wells Fargo Pay

Keep Your Money in Bozeman, Make Wells Fargo Pay

Nearly four years after Wall Street greed brought down the American economy, millions of working and middle class Americans remain out of work.  More than three million homes have been foreclosed on since the start of the housing crisis, and big banks remain poorly regulated and completely unrepentant.

While American families have been paying the price of this recession – sometimes with their homes and life savings – corporate CEOs continue to receive huge bonuses, and the biggest banks continue to make off like criminals.

The Housing Crisis: What exactly happened, and why should I care?

The Bank of America and Wells Fargo Corporations – among others – spent millions lobbying Congress to pass a series of financial deregulations that made it legal for them to engage in extremely risky behavior to pursue huge profits.  They used predatory lending to issue high-risk home loans and then bundled these mortgages together, selling them off to other financial institutions in a giant gambling scheme. Everyone at the time was making a killing. Home prices rose, bank profits soared, and investors raked in dough – all with minimal oversight. This created a giant bubble as home prices exceeded their real value. The bubble burst, and normal working American families were left footing the bill.

Wells Fargo, one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders, was a key player in crashing America’s economy.  It’s time we tell Wall Street banks that enough is enough and choose to bank with a local institution.

Keep your money in a local financial institution, and that money will be reinvested in the local community which will contribute to a stronger economy for us all. Put your money in the big Wall Street banks, however, and they will gamble with it wherever they believe their short-term profits will be maximized regardless of the impact on our community and therefore our economy.

Occupy Bozeman has launched a divestment campaign against the largest bank in Bozeman – Wells Fargo Corporation.  We encourage you to “Move Your Money” to a community-based financial institution. In addition to helping your community, you might also be helping yourself to much lower fees [see graph below].

Besides moving your money from Wells Fargo, Occupy Bozeman calls on you to join us in a variety of other actions against Wells Fargo. See http://occupybozeman.org for details.

With your help, we will show Wells Fargo that their actions have negative consequences for Bozeman and beyond. We will take personal responsibility on behalf of our community and not feed the pockets of Wall Street speculators.  By making Wells Fargo pay for what they have done, we commit ourselves to doing something better for our city, for our world.

Support Bozeman!  Divest from Wells Fargo and Go Local!