Greenlining Institute
By Orson Aguilar

Public anger over bank bailouts and fat Wall Street bonuses has put enormous pressure on President Obama to crack down – but a crackdown isn’t enough. It’s time to take positive steps to push our banking system to better serve all of America’s diverse communities.
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California Progress Report
Author: Preeti Vissa & Faith Bautista

Recent reports that financial legerdemain engineered by Goldman Sachs helped destabilize the Greek economy ought to make Californians nervous. It’s time to ask if Goldman could do to us what it appears to have done to the Greeks and, indirectly, to the rest of Europe.
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Sacramento Bee
By Orson Aguilar

The $250 million that California is about to save by slashing vital rehabilitation programs for prisoners will cost us many times that much money. The money we think we’re saving will cost us many times over in more crime, more drug abuse and ruined lives. Rehabilitation and alternative programs can save lives. I know. One of them saved mine.
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American Banker
By Jorge Corralejo and Claudia Viek

Credit to small businesses has been substantially curtailed since 2008, yet these businesses are far more responsible for domestic job creation than the banking industry or corporate America as a whole.

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American Banker
By Orson Aguilar – Executive Director, The Greenlining Institute

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the total amount of combined Tarp funds received by Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. It is $105 billion.

It’s sad, but not much has changed since corporate greed and malfeasance nearly caused our economy to collapse. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, assigned the job of protecting banking customers, recently named two CEOs, including Jeffrey Kindler of Pfizer, to fill their public interest positions. One must wonder why the Fed could not find qualified directors, with proven track records of public advocacy, to serve the public good. Pfizer, a so-called leader in serving the public good, was recently fined a record $2.3 billion by the Justice Department for fraudulent marketing of drugs. Among the many allegations, Pfizer paid kickbacks to health-care providers to induce them to prescribe drugs for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

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By Len Canty and Orson Aguilar | OW Contributors

With reports that only 9% of eligible loans being modified, families across the country are beginning to lose hope that President Obama’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) will help them remain in their homes.

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American Banker  |  Wednesday, May 27, 2009

By Orson Aguilar and J. Alfred Smith Jr.

A major transformation in banking is revolutionizing America’s approach to financial literacy.

Some financial institutions, to their credit, such as Citigroup, have expended hundreds of millions of dollars each over the last generation in promoting traditional approaches to financial literacy. (more…)

American Banker
By Orson Aguilar and Faith Bautista

As the presidential inauguration draws near, it is increasingly clear that bailouts and government guarantees are unlikely to be successful unless government assistance is focused on the 10 million or more American homeowners who are in trouble and the millions of jobs than can be created directly and indirectly through homeownership. (more…)

By Orson Aguilar
http://www.colorlines.com

A new compromise from foundations might be cause for some optimism.

The everyday challenges faced by the people in many neighborhoods seem far removed from the American Dream these days: the lack of good housing and jobs, poor health, immigration raids, the foreclosure crisis, failing schools and all-too-common homicides. (more…)

American Banker | Friday, October 24, 2008
By Robert Gnaizda and Jorge Corralejo

Last week the secretary of the Treasury and the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board decided to save the American banking industry from its follies by partially nationalizing the banks through an infusion of $250 billion of taxpayer funds. (more…)