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The Occupy Wall Street movement is a big enough problem for U.S. banks that they should pay for opposition research into the political motives of protesters, said a firm that lobbies for the industry.
Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford, a Washington-based firm, proposed the idea in a memo to the American Banking Association, an industry group which said on Saturday that it did not act on the idea.
The four-page memo outlined how the firm could analyze the source of protesters' money, as well as their rhetoric and the backgrounds of protest leaders.
"If we can show they have the same cynical motivation as a political opponent, it will undermine their credibility in a profound way," said the memo, according to a copy of it on the website of TV news channel MSNBC, which first reported on it. (See MSNBC's report here)
Clark Lytle Geduldig counts the banking association among its regular lobbying clients, U.S. Senate records showed.
Looks like the banks want to throw enough spin out there to hide the truth of their lobbying tactics and corruption of our system that led to the 2008 meltdown and how we let the derivatives market expand beyond our government's watch.