Category Archives: Banking & Lending Issues

‘Major Step Forward’: AIG to Stop Insuring Coal, Tar Sands, and Arctic Drilling

“Organizing works,” said one advocacy group. “Now, all insurers must stop supporting fossil fuel expansion.”

By Kenny Stancil. Published 3-1-2022 by Common Dreams

Insure Our Future Coalition at AIG’s NYC Headquarters on 12/7/2021. Photo: Insure Our Future, PDM-owner, via Wikimedia Commons

Climate justice advocates celebrated Tuesday in response to insurance giant AIG’s announcement that it will no longer invest in or provide insurance coverage for any new Arctic drilling activities nor will it finance or underwrite the construction of any new coal-fired power plants, thermal coal mines, or tar sands projects, effective immediately.

AIG also said that it will immediately stop investing in or underwriting “new operation insurance risks” of coal-fired power plants, thermal coal mines, or tar sands projects owned by corporations that derive 30% or more of their revenue from those industries or generate over 30% of their energy production from coal. Continue reading →

Putin is about to start the most senseless war in history

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A view from Russia: no sanctions will stop Moscow, and its actions will drive more countries into NATO’s arms

By Greg Yudin Puvlished 2-22-2022 by openDemocracy

Vladimir_Putin. Photo: Kremlin/CC

In the near future, a big war will begin – a war that we have not seen in the lifetime of my generation, and perhaps the previous generation too.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, last night formally recognised the separatist ‘People’s Republics’ in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine as independent territories. Now, he has ordered so-called ‘peacekeeping forces’ into the Donbas region.

Meanwhile, on the borders of Ukraine, Russia has gathered an army of 75% of all available forces. Belarus has officially confirmed that, following extensive exercises, Russian troops are not leaving Belarus. A few kilometres from Ukraine, tanks sit in Russian forests and fields – as can be seen in videos filmed in Russia’s Belgorod, Kursk and Bryansk regions, as well as in Belarus’ Homyel region. This military force is fully prepared for a large-scale operation – and is already in position to attack. Continue reading →

Day of Action for Biden to ‘Pick Up the Pen’ and Cancel Student Debt Announced

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“We’re going to the Department of Education on April 4th to force Biden to cancel student debt,” said the Debt Collective.

By Kenny Stancil. Published 2-14-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo: Reckon South

Progressive organizers on Monday announced an upcoming day of action to pressure President Joe Biden to use his executive authority to wipe out $1.8 trillion dollars in student loan debt.

On the RSVP page for the protest—scheduled to take place on April 4 at 12:00 pm ET at the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C.—the Debt Collective explained that “debtors and our allies are taking action to say: Pick up the Pen, Joe. Cancel student debt for all 45 million Americans.” Continue reading →

What would Western sanctions mean for Russia?

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The unprecedented measures proposed by the US, the EU and the UK could create chaos in Russia’s economy and impoverish its population

By Isobel Koshiw. Published 2-8-2022 by openDemocracy

Russian President Vladimir Putin Photo:: Kremlin.ru

Proposed Western sanctions could almost cut Russia out of the global financial system, creating chaos for the Russian economy and impoverishing ordinary Russians, experts have warned.

The measures threatened by the US, the EU and the UK if Russia incurs further into Ukraine would be unprecedented. Previous countries that have faced similar sanctions – such as North Korea and Iran – were peripheral to the global markets in comparison to Russia. Continue reading →

‘Alarming’: ALEC’s New Model Bill Would Penalize Banks for Divesting From Fossil Fuels

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One critic called the proposal, which describes green investment policies as a form of “energy discrimination,” a “desperate attempt by fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists to maintain their profits.”

By Kenny Stancil. Published 12-8-2021 by Common Dreams

Marathon Petroleum’s Los Angeles Refinery in Carson, California, Photo: Marathon Petroleum

Progressives are sounding the alarm about a recently launched right-wing campaign that seeks to preempt green investment policies throughout the United States by portraying the financial sector’s potential turn toward clean energy as discriminatory—and introducing legislation that would punish banks and asset managers for divesting from fossil fuels.

The Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which consistently pumps out reactionary bills mostly for state-level Republicans, held its States and Nation Policy Summit last week in San Diego. Continue reading →

Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty Tied to ‘Historic Shift’ Away From ‘Perilous Profiteering’

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“Financial institutions that continue investing in companies building nuclear weapons face regulatory risks as more countries join the treaty. They also face an increased reputational risk.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 11-11-2021 by Common Dreams

ICAN action against investments in nuclear weapons. April 2012, Melbourne. Photo: ICAN (Tim Wright)/flickr/CC

The latest Don’t Bank on the Bomb report, released Thursday, sheds light on the early impacts of a global treaty banning nuclear weapons worldwide while also exposing the companies and financial institutions responsible for continuing to build up governments’ arsenals.

The new report from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and PAX comes as the world nears the one-year mark of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entering into force after opening for signature in September 2017. Continue reading →

What is COP26? Here’s how global climate negotiations work and what’s expected from the Glasgow summit

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*U.N. climate summits bring together representatives of almost every country.*
*UNFCCC*

Shelley Inglis, University of Dayton

Over two weeks in November, world leaders and national negotiators will meet in Scotland to discuss what to do about climate change. It’s a complex process that can be hard to make sense of from the outside, but it’s how international law and institutions help solve problems that no single country can fix on its own.

I worked for the United Nations for several years as a law and policy adviser and have been involved in international negotiations. Here’s what’s happening behind closed doors and why people are concerned that COP26 might not meet its goals. Continue reading →

Utilities Took $1.25 Billion in Pandemic Aid Then Shut Off Power to Households Nearly 1 Million Times: Report

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“These companies took bailout dollars from taxpayers and turned around to lobby against shutoff moratoria proven to save lives.”

By Brett Wilkins, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-30-2021

A new report from BailoutWatch and the Center for Biological Diversity reveals that leading U.S. utilities took $1.25 billion in pandemic relief funds even as they cut off power to vulnerable households nearly a million times. Photo: Matt Wiebe/Flickr/cc

Over a dozen leading U.S. utility companies took more than a billion dollars of publicly-funded pandemic bailout money while pulling the plug on power to vulnerable households nearly a million times, according to a new report out Thursday.

The Center for Biological Diversity and BailoutWatch report—entitled Powerless in the Pandemic: After Bailouts, Electric Utilities Choose Profits Over People—details how utilities used their political power “to secure bailouts that cost taxpayers $1.25 billion, cushioning them from the pandemic economy,” while disconnecting vital services from some of the most vulnerable U.S. households. Continue reading →

Alabama GOP Condemned for Plan to Build Prisons With Covid-19 Funds

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“The Republican Party in a nutshell: contemptible, cruel, and corrupt.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-29-2021

Advocates on Wednesday condemned Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey for her plan to use coronavirus relief funds to construct prisons. (Photo: Josh Rushing/cc/ACLU of Louisiana)

Local activists in Montgomery, Alabama were joined by rights advocates across the country on Wednesday in condemning Republican Gov. Kay Ivey’s plan to use federal coronavirus relief funds to build three new prisons in the state—what the governor called “an Alabama solution to this Alabama problem” of overcrowding.

At a rally outside the State House as legislators debated the plan, demonstrators spoke about some of the inmates and prison workers who have died of Covid-19—at least 69 people, according to the Alabama Political Reporter. Continue reading →

House Dems Unveil Bill to Stop Wall Street From Destroying the Planet

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“The Federal Reserve’s role is not to surrender our planet to corporate polluters and shepherd our financial system to its destruction,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib, among the Democrats urging the Fed to end fossil fuel financing.

By Kenny Stancil, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-15-2021

The Marathon Oil refinery in St. Paul Park, MN. Photo: Tony Webster/Wikimedia/CC

Progressives on Wednesday applauded Democratic Reps. Mondaire Jones, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib for unveiling a bill that would prevent Wall Street from continuing to bankroll fossil fuels, the primary driver of the climate emergency.

The Fossil Free Finance Act (pdf) would require the Federal Reserve to mandate, via regulation or guidance, that all banks and other financial insitutions with more than $50 billion in assets phase out the funding of coal, oil, and gas extraction as well as industries linked to deforestation, in accordance with science-based targets for slashing carbon pollution. Continue reading →

Occupy World Writes

The Movement Continues – Globally

Category Archives: Banking & Lending Issues

Putin is about to start the most senseless war in history

A view from Russia: no sanctions will stop Moscow, and its actions will drive more countries into NATO’s arms

What would Western sanctions mean for Russia?

The unprecedented measures proposed by the US, the EU and the UK could create chaos in Russia’s economy and impoverish its population

‘Alarming’: ALEC’s New Model Bill Would Penalize Banks for Divesting From Fossil Fuels

One critic called the proposal, which describes green investment policies as a form of “energy discrimination,” a “desperate attempt by fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists to maintain their profits.”

What is COP26? Here’s how global climate negotiations work and what’s expected from the Glasgow summit