Investors.com
It won't be easy. The radicals have launched a coordinated attack against them on three fronts: corporate shareholder meetings, the courts and Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's conservator.
First the street war.
Some 1,000 protesters stormed Wells Fargo's shareholder meeting Tuesday in San Francisco. Claiming to hold stock certificates, about 20 got into the building and interrupted Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf at least four times.
One protester shouted: "Mr. Stumpf, your bank leads the pack in foreclosures, tax-dodging, predatory loans and investing in private prisons — can you tell us why these issues don't concern you?"
Another yelled: "When will you stop illegally foreclosing on millions of Americans and stop preying on the 99%?"
Since they were out of order, Stumpf wisely had security escort them out. About two dozen were arrested outside as they chained themselves together to block the entrance.
In February, about 100 protesters showed up at Stumpf's house to demand the "evil robber banker" stop foreclosures on people who can't make their mortgage payments. Stumpf had to call security to block the crowd.
Wells Fargo is clearly rattled by these thugs. It has acknowledged the Occupy Wall Street movement in its annual report, and lists the protests as a "risk factor" that could harm its business.
The protests were led by National People's Action, a radical Chicago-based group that saw 13 of its leaders arrested at the Wells Fargo meeting. NPA says it won't let up until the bank ends foreclosures and forgives the debt of delinquent borrowers.
"NPA was inside and outside today's shareholder meeting to directly challenge Wells Fargo's actions that helped crash the economy and now impeded creating an economy that works for the 99%," the group said in a press release.
In fact, it was NPA that helped cause the crisis by shaking down Wells Fargo and other banks for hundreds of billions in subprime loans to risky borrowers under the Community Reinvestment Act. And Wells Fargo has already helped more than 740,000 customers with loan modifications, while forgiving $4.1 billion in principal since the crisis.
What's more, Wells Fargo and three other big banks are under court order to cut even more mortgage principal as part of a $25 billion settlement of a multistate suit led by Attorney General Eric Holder.
But that's not enough for NPA, which calls the payout "paltry." It won't be happy until banks fork over $300 billion. NPA spokesman George Goehl snarled: "Anything less than $300 billion is a win for the 1%," which it vows to "topple."
NPA, which plans to disrupt 32 other shareholder meetings, including Bank of America's May 9 event in Charlotte, N.C., claims to have trained more than 50,000 Occupy Wall Street protesters. Who helped train NPA's trainers? Barack Obama.
Which brings us to Fannie and Freddie. NPA has called on Obama and Democrats in Congress to fire their post-crisis regulator, Ed DeMarco, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. DeMarco, a Bush holdover, doesn't agree with the White House's idea to implement a broad principal reduction program at Fannie and Freddie.
He's right to hold his ground. Writing down principal through Fannie and Freddie would increase taxpayer liability for the failed mortgage giants.
But DeMarco is starting to wilt from the pressure tactics. NPA has put out a figurative hit on the bureaucrat, telling its army of goons that he is "Enemy No. 1." DeMarco recently signaled a willingness to consider such a foolhardy program.
"Wells Fargo is emblematic of everything that is wrong with the direction our country is heading," NPA claims. Actually, NPA and its White House patrons are what's wrong.
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