Dear Dirty America

Anti-Wall Street protesters have marched from the Occupy LA encampment at Los Angeles City Hall to a downtown Bank of America branch.

About 80 people are taking part in the Tuesday afternoon rally outside the bank at 7th and Figueroa streets.

The protesters have set up a tent in the doorway of the bank, which has locked its doors and is letting customers out one at a time.

About a dozen police officers are watching as the protesters chant “shame, shame, shame” and slogans in English and Spanish.

If you’re wondering why people hate Bank of America, and why Occupy Wall Street continues to gather steam and speak out against the major banks, here’s one reason why (Bank of America dumps $75 trillion in derivatives on the American taxpayer):

Bloomberg reports that Bank of America (BAC) has shifted about $22 trillion worth of derivative obligations from Merrill Lynch and the BAC holding company to the FDIC insured retail deposit division. Along with this information came the revelation that the FDIC insured unit was already stuffed with $53 trillion worth of these potentially toxic obligations, making a total of $75 trillion.

Derivatives are highly volatile financial instruments that are occasionally used to hedge risk, but mostly used for speculation. They are bets upon the value of stocks, bonds, mortgages, other loans, currencies, commodities, volatility of financial indexes, and even weather changes.

Many big banks, including Bank of America, issue derivatives because, if they are not triggered, they are highly profitable to the issuer, and result in big bonus payments to the executives who administer them. If they are triggered, of course, the obligations fall upon the corporate entity, not the executives involved. Ultimately, by allowing existing gambling bets to remain in insured retail banks, and endorsing the shift of additional bets into the insured retail division, the obligation falls upon the U.S. taxpayers and dollar-denominated savers.

 

I don’t know if Occupy Wall Street represents class warfare, as some of the movement’s detractors claim, but the fact that we allow these banking executives, hedge fund managers, and speculators to continue cashing in on toxic debt, and then sticking it to the U.S. taxpayer should call for some kind of warfare. Why we continue to let these bloodsuckers live, and why we don’t even, at least, jail them, is beyond me.

I hate capital punishment, but lining up a few bankers and activating the old Dixie firing squads might not be a bad idea. It’s about time America restores its honor and integrity, and anything less than getting rid of the bastards who destroyed our country’s financial system would be insufficient.