Supporting Congresswoman Waters
Maxine Waters attacked by NYT and WSJ
Los Angeles, CA -- Why are the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal attacking an African American member of Congress who has devoted herself to issues of stabilizing the economy of the African American community throughout her political career, instead of more closely scrutinizing the activities of former Citigroup Vice Chairman Robert Rubin?
In case you have forgotten, while serving as Secretary of the United States Treasury, Robert Rubin engineered a multibillion dollar, admittedly-illegal transaction that allowed Citigroup to acquire Travelers Insurance. Mr. Rubin, immediately after facilitating this transaction, took a $15 million a year job at Citigroup, where he admitted he had no managerial or administrative responsibility. Many contend the $150 million Mr. Rubin secured over the last ten years was equivalent to a payoff for this illegal transaction, which has now cost taxpayers at least $45 billion and created a bank “too big to fail”.
In this context, what exactly is the “crime” that Congresswoman Maxine Waters has committed?
First, she has helped a small Black-owned bank, OneUnited, that cannot afford the multimillion dollar lobbyists that the Bank of America, Citigroup and other majority corporations have.
Second, in order to preserve Black-ownership, which is rigidly defined by federal regulators, her husband invested $250,000 in a bank that was unlikely to be profitable. For clarification, over the last decade, banks on the average have lost more than 81% of their value, and Black-owned banks have suffered even more.
Third, Maxine Waters has been an advocate for African American and minority-owned banks from the time when Robert Rubin was Treasury Secretary, and when neither he nor no other federal regulatory agency would help minority owned banks.
Fourth, unlike for example AIG, Congresswoman Waters has always been open and transparent about her husband’s modest and nonprofitable investments.
As Congressman Charles Rangel well knows, when the New York Times and Wall Street Journal gang up on you, there’s no petty violation that will go unnoticed. Therefore, what we suggest is that Congresswoman Waters take advantage of these attacks to push forward the generally unsupported agenda of African Americans and other underserved communities.
Congresswoman Waters should request an investigation as to why the number of African American-owned banks has declined over the last twenty years, and why Citigroup’s $2 trillion in assets are 700 times greater than every African American bank in the nation combined. The investigation could also include why there are only three Mexican-American owned banks in the western United States and why Citigroup is using Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds to put the newest Mexican-American owned bank, Promérica, out of business.
The Congressional hearings should also explore the implementation of efforts to increase TARP funding to minority-owned banks, so that they can almost instantly triple their responsible small business and home lending to African American and other minority communities.
Last year government awarded $650 billion in contracts to large businesses served by Citigroup, Bank of America and other major financial institutions. Recent data shows that less than one percent (.8%) was awarded to African American businesses and just 1.1% to Latino-owned. Why shouldn’t Congress and the President, under the leadership of Congresswoman Maxine Waters, develop legislation and Executive Orders to compel federal agencies to provide up to 15% of their contracts to minority-owned businesses, and why shouldn’t every large federal contractor be required to do the same?
Every one of these issues has been raised in the past by Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Now is the time for our communities to support her in bringing these issues to the forefront. One piece of advice, however: no good deed will necessarily be rewarded.
- Earl “Skip” Cooper, II has been an African American and minority business advocate in Southern California for more than 35 years. He serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Black Business Association.
NEW YORK, N.Y.—As businesses explore best practices for success in the changing landscape created by the Internet, some companies have discussed charging for access to online content that was previously free. Some media outlets have discussed doing this, and The New York Times recently began charging online readers who view over 20 articles per month. But there may be trouble ahead as a recent Adweek/Harris Poll found that a large majority said they would be willing to pay "nothing" per month to read a daily newspaper's content online (80%).
There are clearly more important immediate things for the California Black community to worry about—the level of involvement of the L.A. Sheriff’s Department in the kidnap, murder and possible rape of Mitrice Richardson; electing Danny Tabor and finally ending the seemingly endless mayoral election process in Inglewood; and getting the votes finally counted between Harris and Cooley, for example.
Nevertheless, as evolving political analysts, it is important for us to keep up with the whole process, from federal to water district level.
As the Democratic party looks to maintain its control of Congress they are faced with a couple of potentially major problems as autumn elections loom later this year. Two of its senior Congress members are being charged with ethics violations that could change the balance of power in Congress depending on how voters are influenced.
Allegations that Chinese hackers infiltrated the computers of two leading U.S. newspapers add to a growing number of cyber attacks on Western companies, governments and foreign-based dissidents that are believed to originate in China, experts say.
According to one recent report, one in every three observed computer attacks in the third quarter of 2012 emanated from China.
Chinese officials have denied that Beijing has supported any cyber attacks, stressing that hacking is illegal in the country.
Washington, D.C.—Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) was unanimously elected ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee by the House Democratic Caucus. Following the election, Congresswoman Waters released the following statement:
