Wells Fargo told, "Big bank bonuses are outrageous"

Minneapolis community advocates marched from "The People’s Plaza" (also known as Hennepin County Government Center) to the Minneapolis Offices of Wells Fargo Bank to protest end of year big bank bonuses for executives even as they continue to foreclose homes and curtail job creation credit.

In front of the bank offices, Grace Bowman, an unemployed data analyst from Minneapolis, said, “The money big banks spend on huge bonuses and give to politicians and lobbyists could be spent helping underwater homeowners instead.”

More than $100 million in bonuses since the crash

The New Bottom Line coalition estimates that the seven largest U.S. banks could write down the principal of underwater mortgages at a one-year cost of seventy-one billion, which would save underwater families an average of $543 per month, pumping billions into the economy and creating up to one million jobs.

11 demonstrators held signs, one-per-person, which spelled out $141,083,671.00 on one side. That is the total amount of bonus and compensation money the top five Wells Fargo executives received in 2008, 2009, and 2010, the three years immediately following the the crash.

“I hear that John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo makes $8500 an hour. With that amount of money here in Minneapolis we could feed a thousand people for a month, house eight families, and fund a safe-zone after school program,” said Vaughn Lodge, of the American Indian movement.

Bill Sorem