the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jan 6, 2014
U.S. banks have reported record profits–141 billion dollars in 2012, and are on track to make as much or more for 2013. That works out to about half a billion dollars in profits every single day. And the banks have made these record profits for eight of the last ten years–no recession for them.
In fact, the U.S. taxpayers keep shoveling money at the banks and financial services. And the U.S. Federal Reserve keeps buying up billions of dollars of bad mortgages every month, left over from the days of the housing bubble.
Still, many banks have announced thousands of job cuts: Bank of America plans 30,000 job cuts; JPMorgan Chase plans 20,000 job cuts; Citigroup plans 11,000.
With profits up and bad mortgages disappearing from their books, why do banks want to cut jobs? Is it the high wages of their work force? Ha, ha!
Bank tellers average $24,000 per year, or less than $14.00 per hour. So bank tellers are the “working poor,” making many of them eligible for food stamps and Medicaid and CHIP, the subsidized Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Banks are cutting more jobs because they want to roll up still more profit on the backs of these workers. The system is working exactly the way the capitalists prefer.