With $10 trillion in assets at their collective disposal, big banks like Chase and Wells Fargo could do a lot of good. Yet, despite being “too big to fail,” these banks fail people every day. Whether it’s the persistent use of predatory practices, their enduring discrimination, or their insistent investment in exploitative and extractive industries, these formidable financial institutions have a corrosive influence on our country.
Yet, in spite of this, local governments put their assets—the collective wealth of communities collected through taxes—in the hands of these institutions. In New York City alone, $100 billion in the city’s money is handled by private banks every year. While the city’s assets sit in the corporate coffers of these Wall Street staples, the banks are free to invest them at their discretion. Their sole goal: pump up their profits. The result is that public dollars may be invested in projects that act against the public good, such as speculative real estate, private prisons, and fossil fuels.
To address these and other overlapping injustices, New York City’s New Economy Project, a community-based organization dedicated to advancing economic justice, has coordinated
— source yesmagazine.org | Syris Valentine | Nov 9, 2022