In the Miami area, the average annual cost for an employer-sponsored program for a family of four, including employer and employee costs, was $24,965, that’s almost $4,000 higher than the national average! Most people don’t even realize the cost is so high because the employer pays a significant chunk of it, but that won’t last much longer as payroll deductions for health care costs went up 7.2% in 2012.

Is there anything that can prevent the mounting costs to health care? One thing, as the University of Miami’s health care policy professor, Steve Ullman says, is health care reform that would ultimately lower costs for everyone.  The Affordable Care Act does just that.

The law is currently being challenged in the Supreme Court by Florida and several other states. Our own attorney general, Pam Bondi, is front and center as the unofficial spokeswoman for the fight against universal health care. But why would Florida, a state that has confirmed high healthcare costs, be against the Affordable Care Act? All you have to do is look who’s in charge…

In a modernized first world country, access to affordable health care should be a universal human right. But sadly, over and over again, we see that right go unfulfilled. Instead of debating over which social service to cut from, our politicians should be looking for conscientious, yet compassionate ways to handle our nation’s budget. The last thing we need is more cuts to services like Medicaid and Medicare so a millionaire can get another tax break. Let’s be fiscally responsible, but not at the expense of health care.

Besides losing $2 billion, here are five other reasons why you should be worried about JPMorgan Chase:

• Inflated Executive Salaries. CEO Jamie Dimon’s total compensation for 2011 was $23.1 million dollars, making him the highest paid executive in banking sector, and over the past ten years the bonuses and compensation for the top five executives was $811.2 million.  In comparison, the median pay for a bank teller was barely over $22,000/year and many of the janitors who clean Chase’s Miami office only made a measly $7.67/hour, with no overtime pay and no benefits.

• Lobbyist Haven. Lobbying expenses since the bailout = $19.71 million

• Foreclosure Leader. JPMorgan Chase has $19.5 billion worth of foreclosed homes on its books, with another $54 billion worth of homes on their way to foreclosure.

• Predatory Lending. From 2006 through 2009, JPMorgan Chase was more than twice as likely to put African American and Latino borrowers into higher-cost, subprime loans than white borrowers.

• Lack of Small Business Lending. The bailout was intended to jumpstart the economy by having banks start to loan again, yet after the taxpayer bailout JPMorgan Chase saw a 75% decline in loans through the Small Business Administration’s flagship 7(a) program. In the meantime, the bank had $1.48 billion in outstanding insider loans to bank directors and their companies as of March 2009, more than any other bank.

It’s time our politicians stop catering to the big banks call for deregulation, when JPMorgan is the latest example of a bank in need of more regulation. The “too-big-to-fail” banks have become too-big-to-manage and their reckless behavior could wind up taking down our financial system. The working class won’t pick up the tab this time around, we can’t afford another bank bailout. It’s time we hold Dimon and the rest of the fat-cat bankers accountable for their actions.

Sources:

• http://www.sharewellnewswire.com/jpmorgan-ceo-jamie-dimons-2011-compensation-rises-11-percent/
• Capital IQ.
• http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Bank_Teller/Hourly_Rate/by_Employe

• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703440004575548403873382036.html?KEYWORDS=%22home+loans+in+foreclosure%22
• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703440004575548403873382036.html?KEYWORDS=%22home+loans+in+foreclosure%22
• Based on data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Database.
• http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2009/03/banks_lend_heavily_to_insiders.html

Coretta Scott King (April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006)

A mother of four, Coretta Scott King is considered the First lady of the Civil Rights Movement. She stood by her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to demand racial equality and after he was assassinated she devoted her life’s work to continuing the dream of social justice for all. In 1985, King and three of her children were arrested outside of the South African Embassy in Washington D.C., for protesting against that country’s apartheid, and later stood with Nelson Mandela when he was sworn in as President of South Africa.

Eleanor Roosevelt (October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962)

A mother of six, Eleanor Roosevelt was the first activist First Lady. She transformed the role of the First Lady into an active and engaging role, keeping the public informed of the White House’s policies. Roosevelt was a leader and humanitarian, championing the rights of women, minorities and the poor.

Harriet Tubman (1820 – March 10, 1913)

A mother of one, Harriet Tubman was an abolitionist and a former slave who led 300 slaves through the dangerous passage to freedom in the North. Never did she lose a “passenger” on the Underground Railroad, and southern slaveholders offered $40,000 up for her capture. During the Civil War she served as a nurse and spy for the Union Army.

Dolores Huerta (April 10, 1930 – )

A mother of eleven, Dolores Huerta is a labor organizer and advocator of human rights. She co-founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez and their motto “Si, Se Puede.” Huerta continues to fight for women’s rights and racial equality.

Yuri Kochiyama (May 19, 1921- )

A mother of six, Yuri Kochiyama is a grassroots civil rights activist who stands for a wide range of causes. As a young child she was sent with her family, along with many other Japanese American families, to internment camps during WWII, as a result of this she fought for Japanese redress after the war. Kochiyama saw many similarities between her experience and the treatment of African Americans and other minorities in the U.S., which influenced her to become a prominent activist in the civil rights movement.

Happy Mother’s Day to all to those great Moms out there! We hope that every Mother is receiving the appreciation they deserve this Sunday.

Naturally, those without health insurance were hit the hardest here in South Florida, where almost a third of the working-age population did not have insurance in 2010. Even something as little as putting off minor dental work can turned out for many to be a painful trip to the emergency room. The Florida Oral Health Coalition found that more than 115,000 people went to the hospital for dental work, which could have been prevented or done at a cheaper cost in a dentist’s office, driving up the price for the uninsured and taxpayers. If people had basic access to health care, costly consequences, like preventable trips to the ER, could be avoided.

It’s not easier either for those on social health services. Seniors are struggling on Medicare, and the poor are scraping by with what little Medicaid has to offer. Social health care is taking a beating, not just from the state of the economy but from the callous politicians who threaten to make budget cuts rather than forcing corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes.

Even those with health insurance are putting off medical needs due to the rising cost and uncertain economic times. The share of adults getting a routine check-up fell in 37 states, and for dentist visits it fell in 29 states. In this economy putting food on the table and having a roof over your head comes before a trip to the doctor.

It’s obvious we need the healthcare reform to be upheld, costs are rising and people are taking medical risks by not visiting their doctor and making costly last minute trips to the emergency room. Everyone should have the right to affordable health care, and before our governor cuts any more budgets or vetoes any more funding, he should take a look at this report. Then he’ll see just how much the people of Florida are struggling, so much that they’re willing to forego a trip to the doctor for a trip to the supermarket.

                Here are the 10 facts you need to know about the situation:

1.            In an effort to win support from Florida voters for a constitutional amendment benefiting casinos and race tracks, Mardi Gras Casino signed an agreement to stay neutral if their employees decided to unionize.

2.            In 2008, the Casino tried to get out of its signed pledge of neutrality, but a federal judge declined to invalidate the agreement.

3.            All of the Mardi Gras 10 served on the casino’s union leadership committee and all 10 were fired in November, some the day before Thanksgiving.

4.            Most who were fired were African American and Haitian women, many were single mothers just trying to make their families lives better. 

5.            The 10 workers say raises were rare, with former slots-area floor attendant, Theresa Muse, stating her hourly salary actually went down from $10/hour to $8/hour. 

6.            The fired workers contest that management met the union activities with aggression – “threatening employees with unspecified reprisals, promising a pay increase if the union push was abandoned and interrogating workers with suspected union sympathies.”

7.            When Rev. Richard Aguilar, an Episcopalian priest, and casino workers attempted to meet with management to discuss the situation, they allege that the Mardi Gras Casino Vice President, Dan Adkins, shouted obscenities directed towards the reverend’s church.

8.            The Mardi Gras 10 filed complaints with the Labor Board in January, citing federal violations of federal laws that protected their union related activities.  

9.            The Labor Board sided with the fired workers and accused the Mardi Gras Casino of illegal union-busting actions, and called on the fired workers to be reinstated and to be reimbursed for the lost wages. 

10.          The Mardi Gras Casino has yet to reinstate its fired workers. 

Join 1Miami and UNITE HERE! to demand that the casino take full accountability for their heartless actions and rehire the Mardi Gras 10!

For students he confused them with the creation of a polytechnic university, the 12th state university, out of the USF satellite campus in Lakeland. The school will not even become accredited for three years, despite some elected officials calling on Gov. Scott to allow the USF branch to become accredited with support of main campus before creating a new university practically from scratch.

Maybe another university would be nice if the other state universities didn’t see their state funding cut by $300 million, which some could perceive as an effort to fund this brand new school. To make matters worse, the staff at the satellite campus, who were previously guaranteed jobs at the main campus, were told they would have to reapply for positions and not all would be rehired.  But Scott tried to make at least some of the students happy if he couldn’t make university employees, by vetoing a bill that would have raised tuition by more than 15%.  Students are not dumb. They can figure out when a politician is only doing something for his political gain. We need a governor who cares about higher education, not one who tries a balancing act between budgets and tuition.

At the end of April, Gov. Scott heartlessly vetoed $2 million in legal assistance for low-income residents fighting foreclosure, domestic violence and consumer fraud cases.  It will mean a 25% reduction in lawyers available for legal aid. It couldn’t come at a worse time, especially when big banks like Wells Fargo are practicing predatory lending on low-income minorities.  How out of touch can he be? Foreclosures are still a major problem in Florida, and he just made it harder for poor families to fight back in the toughest economic time since the Great Depression.

Taxpayers also received the news that welfare drug testing cost more money than the state saves.  Forgetting that this is a violation of the Fourth Amendment, not to mention degrading, Gov. Scott passed this bill despite widespread opposition and now the taxpayers are footing the bill for this foreseen failure.

Gov. Scott has never had a high approval rating and his actions this past couple of weeks are not helping. He has done nothing for the working class, and in the case of low-income Floridians he has done even worse by harming and shaming them. Instead of cutting budgets, Gov. Scott should focus on saving Florida’s working class, and getting our economy back on its feet.

Maybe in the next two years Gov. Scott will come back to reality by focusing on tangible plans for job creation and making sure everyone pays their fair share so we don’t see cuts to our universities or vital services. If not he will find himself jobless come November 2014. We need politicians who represent the 99%, not ones who are oblivious to our struggles.

Sources:

• http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/20/2759732/fla-gov-signs-off-on-new-state.html

• http://www.theledger.com/article/20120423/NEWS/120429730?tc=cr&tc=ar

• http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Florida-State-University-of-Florida-Urge-Scott-To-Allow-Tuition-Increases-Above-15-149286495.html

• http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/us/07baltimore.html?pagewanted=all

Teaching and artistry run in my blood. My mother was a teacher, and I taught drama to young people for over 20 years in New York. My father, Frank Kleinholz, was a world-renowned artist and guest lecturer at UM. I can tell you that there is nothing like waking up everyday, knowing that you are making a difference. That is why, after working full-time in the public library for seven years while studying part-time for a master’s degree in library sciences, I made the natural leap to getting my teaching credentials in Florida. I was forced to take this leap after budget cuts froze the Librarian Trainee program in the Miami-Dade County Library System.

read more here…

This past May Day, the 99% in Miami came out in support of Jackson Memorial Hospital, which is being hit with staffing cuts. Under Carlos Migoya, a former banker, the hospital has already started to lay off the planned 1,100 employees. Many in the community and here at 1Miami, were outraged. Jackson is a staple in Miami, saving residents lives every day. With an attentive staff, whether you’re insured or not, make Jackson a necessity. The surrounding communities, and those in Miami-Dade without health insurance, rely on the hospital and the people who work there. No one wants to see layoffs for a vital and compassionate staff in such tough economic times.

At the rally, there were many who spoke of the excellent patient care and the most advanced medical services they received at Jackson. Residents were worried that the staff cuts would affect patient care, disproportionally hitting the poor and uninsured who count on Jackson much more than those who are insured. Others spoke about how health care is a human right, and what a great injustice it would be to alter the services provided at the hospital in anyway. The protest was as much about health care as it was about workers’ rights and the unrelenting attacks on both by the far right.

Elsewhere in the world, protests, rallies and marches were held in support of workers’ rights, good jobs and fewer cuts. From Spain to Sri Lanka, even to another rally here in Miami organized by Occupy Miami, all chanted for less cuts and more jobs. The 99% were seemingly waking from their winter hibernation to begin a summer of demanding change from the status quo of income inequality.

In Miami we need to change the local environment and call on our elected officials to focus on solving our city’s income inequality. It is evident that the 99% are under attack by just looking at Jackson’s problems with workers’ rights, and possible consequences to patient care and services for the uninsured.

To fix the problem of income inequality, we need the creation of good jobs, and a fair tax system that makes sure everyone pays their fair share, ensuring funding for vital services like education and Jackson Hospital. It is only then, will the working class grow, enabling the economy to prosper because the 99% are the backbone of the U.S.

Today, thousands of people are crowding around Wells Fargo’s shareholders meeting in San Francisco demanding, among other things, that Wells Fargo start helping out the homeowners it is foreclosing on the same way taxpayers helped Wells Fargo out when they needed help from us.

If you don’t know by now, Wells Fargo got one of the biggest bailouts from taxpayers out of any bank and paid a negative percent in taxes (between 2008-2010). Did I mention that it is the country’s largest mortgage servicer and lender, meaning it is one of the main banks that helps foreclose on American homeowners? In Florida, some of us call Wells Fargo one of “Florida’s foreclosure kings ” because it forecloses on more Florida families than almost any other bank. Just last week, a national organization filed a complaint against Wells Fargo saying that it took better care of foreclosed properties in white neighborhoods than it did in black and Latino neighborhoods.

A lot of this gets to me, because I think that the people who run Wells Fargo just don’t get the struggle that foreclosed families go through. They probably assume that we are lazy or made bad business decisions. Well I know a few things about foreclosure, I am fighting to keep my family home right now. And I’ll tell you one thing, I never got a billion dollar bail-out.

Even though Wells Fargo never owned my home, my story is not much different from the thousands of Miami folks trying to hold on to their homes. I lived in my home for 40 years. My father was a Pentecostal minister in Miami’s Liberty City, and my family never thought of the place we lived as a home, but as a community institution. If you were put out of your home, you knew to come to ours. If you had no food, you were welcome to our kitchen. If you were having problems at home, you could always talk them over in our living room.

After my parents died and the housing market crashed, my family has been fighting to preserve my home and the community’s institution. First, we were the victim of mortgage fraud. Then, my house was put on the auction block and sold to Joseph Dahan, a director of Greatest Enterprise LLC, for $27,000. That person thought that he would do me a “favor” and sell our own home back to us for three times that amount! We spent virtually every holiday, including Thanksgiving and New Year’s wondering whether or not we were going to be put out on the street. And we almost did too, until the community came together to defend our right to be in our home.

My family never turned our back on the community we live in, and we asked the people who stood up for me to use our home as a meeting space to help fight other foreclosures. We have also never been one to just ask for handouts. Even though the economy is rough, I try to make ends meet selling food out of my house to my neighbors.

There are probably going to be a hundred stories told at that shareholder meeting in San Franscisco, but I want people to remember one specifically. For every home that’s foreclosed on, it doesn’t just represent a vacant piece of property. It represents a family’s history, and for some neighborhoods, an institution. While people have fancy conversations about vacant homes, foreclosures and mortgage processing, stop picturing the homes that are vacant and start imagining the community institutions that have been foreclosed on.

For more of my story:

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2011/11/23/liberty-city-woman-may-lose-home-on-thanksgiving/

Here are just a few examples of their despicable practices:

Foreclosures

• Wells Fargo is one of three banks leading foreclosures in the country, currently it has $17.5 billion worth of foreclosed homes on its books. 
• In December 2010, they agreed to a settlement of $50 million to compensate borrowers who had lost their homes as a result of inadequate subprime loan information.  
• They were investigated for foreclosure fraud by the NY and CA attorney generals, and along with four other banks agreed to a national $26 billion dollar settlement for homeowners. 

Predatory Lending

• Wells Fargo targeted the most vulnerable communities with payday schemes and “ghetto loans.”
• From 2007-209, Wells Fargo was 188% more likely to put African-American and 117% more likely to put Latino borrowers into higher-cost, subprime loans than white borrowers.  
• They’ve had multiple discrimination lawsuits filed against them.

Tax dodging

• From 2009-2011, Wells Fargo paid an income tax rate of 1%.
• They received $17.96 billion in tax breaks from 2008-2010.

Wells Fargo is the poster child for corporate greed. After they put taxpayers on the hook for $36.9 billion in bailout funds, they made $32.4 billion in profits between 2007 and 2009.  In 2010 alone, their bank account fees profited them a staggering $4.9 billion. This year they would have been more profitable if they, and other banks alike, got their way with proposals to increase their bank fees. Too bad the people fought back, and mostly all of the banks caved to public pressure. 

Wells Fargo has brought nothing but misery wherever they have turned, preying on minorities, foreclosing on the middle class and failing to pay their fair share in income taxes. Besides those crooked practices which are prevalent among many other banks – cough, cough, Bank of America, cough – these big banks treat you like they’re doing you an unwelcomed favor, forgetting somehow that they hold our money and we can take our business elsewhere.

Our communities pick up the tab for Wells Fargo, and then they foreclose on us. Let’s change that. We need everyone to pay their fair share in income taxes, especially at such a sensitive time in our economic history. Join us in calling on our politicians to do something about this, to turn away big banks lobbying money and make them pay their fair share!

Sources:

• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703440004575548403873382036.html?KEYWORDS=%22home+loans+in+foreclosure%22
• http://www.realtor.org/RMODaily.nsf/pages/News2010121504?OpenDocument&WT.cg_n=RMO&WT.cg_s=RSSDaily&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DailyRealEstateNews+%28Daily+Real+Estate+News%29
• http://www.thenation.com/print/article/161737/new-yorks-ag-takes-banks;
• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/business/13mortgage.html
• http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/business/states-negotiate-25-billion-deal-for-homeowners.html?pagewanted=all
• http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/us/07baltimore.html?pagewanted=all
• Based on data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Database.
• http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/CorporateTaxDodgersReport.pdf, p. 7
• http://www.sitemason.com/files/kqyjDi/tallyaugust2009.pdf
• Capital IQ.
• 4Q10 Earnings Release.
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054971/Big-banks-debit-card-fees.html
• http://www.seiu.org/a/change-that-works/bank-of-america/business-practices.php