Angry people marched along Main Street in Santa Ana form Bank of America to Chase on March 24, 2010 to bring attention to the problems caused for ordinary people by irresponsible bankers. Banks have taken money from the bank bailout program to keep operating but have stopped lending to ordinary Americans and small businesses. At the same time, bank profits have increased and bonuses continue to be paid.
The march started at the Bank of America, where an angry bank manager attempted to have the crowd removed from the property by Santa Ana police. The police worked with the protesters and asked them to please share the sidewalk, stay out of the street and not block driveways. The protesters complied with the very reasonable requests. The bank manager, still not happy, continued to ask the police to remove the group from his property. The police allowed the group to stay.
Rick Eiden, Tefere Gebre and Nick Berardino went into the bank, over the objections of the manager, and spoke with staff. Inside, they explained that they are disgusted with the behavior of Bank of America toward ordinary Americans and that they need to change their ways because people are starting to move money into local community banks.
The march continued to the Chase branch, which used to be a Washington Mutual (WaMu) branch and was originally a Home Savings. The marchers held a rally where they talked about the problems people are having getting loans modified even though Pres. Obama set up a program to do the loan modifications in a timely manner. The group also talked about moving their money out of large banks which refuse to help people with their home loans or to give loans to individuals and small businesses.
The rally was part of a national day of action to call attention to the problems Wall Street have caused for ordinary working Americans. Future actions to keep the issue in front of people are also planned.
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