News Archives » Economic Justice
Earth Day 2010! April 22nd, 2010
April 22nd marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Forty years after the first Earth Day, the world is in greater peril than ever. While climate change is the greatest challenge of our time, it also presents the greatest opportunity – an unprecedented opportunity to build a healthy, prosperous, clean energy economy now and for the future. Consumption patterns also pose a threat. Today’s consumption is undermining the environmental resource base and exacerbating inequalities.
Daniel LeBlanc, OMI – now in Bolivia for the Alternative Climate Summit sent the following for our contemplation and action on Earth Day:
Click here to read more »
Action Alert: Stop Racial Profiling and Urge Financial Reform April 22nd, 2010
Help Stop Racial Profiling in Arizona
Tell Your Senators to Support Financial Reform
Go to the Action Alert for details…
ICCR Resolution at Citigroup Garners 30% of Shareholder Vote! April 20th, 2010
A Resolution put forward by faith-based shareholders with Citigroup on the complex financial instruments known as derivatives garnered a significant 30% of the shareholder vote at the banks’ AGM today. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate joined the Maryknoll Sisters, the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth, N.J. and other members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility in filing the Resolution.
Sr. Barbara Aires, coordinator of Corporate Responsibility for the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth, NJ, said: “We consider this double-digit vote in favor of the resolution to be a moral victory that sends a strong message to Wall Street that the ‘old ways’ on derivatives and all of the attendant market-crashing risk they involve is no longer acceptable.”
ICCR Board Member Rev. Seamus Finn, director, Justice, Peace & Integrity of Creation, Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying that ICCR members took this action because they are concerned “about those who are on the margins of the financial system, those in developing markets and the emerging market world.”
According to the resolution, “The recent financial crisis has resulted in the destruction of trillions of dollars of wealth and untold suffering and hardship across the world. …Very high degrees of leverage in derivatives transactions contributed to the timing and severity of the financial crisis.”
The US government holds 27% of outstanding shares in Citigroup as a result of last year’s bank bailout, and shareholders were disappointed that the US failed to vote all of its shares in favor of the derivatives resolution.
Fr. Finn excoriated the Treasury Department’s decision, saying “If taxpayers are going to own major shares of banks in exchange for bailouts then they should be just as active as other shareholders in providing guidance to management. The U.S. government controls over a quarter of outstanding Citigroup shares. It had an extraordinary opportunity here to vote all of its shares in telling Wall Street that more derivatives disclosure is vital.”
The Resolution called for the bank to disclose by Dec. 1 its policies on securing collateral for the derivatives they use in order to mitigate risk, and for using customer funds for other speculative activities. Derivatives are complex financial instruments that played a large role in the 2008 financial crisis.
Additional votes on shareholder resolutions on derivatives put forward by ICCR members will take place on April 28 at Bank of America, May 7 at Goldman Sachs, and May 18 at J.P. Morgan.
Learn more on the ICCR website …
Citigroup Faith-Based Shareholders Call on US Government to Vote Its Shares in Favor of Derivatives Reform April 17th, 2010
Faith-based institutional investors are urging the Obama Administration to send the same message to Wall Street that it is sending to Congress on financial reform. The United States government controls 27 percent of outstanding Citigroup shares, and faith-based shareholders say the US should support their Resolution urging the company to provide more disclosure about its derivatives trading. Voting will take place Tuesday morning at the Citigroup Annual Meeting in New York. The groups, which include the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, are members of the 300-member Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR).
Rev. Seamus Finn, OMI, actively engaged in pressing financial institutions for greater transparency and accountability and an ICCR board member, said, “The U.S. government controls over a quarter of outstanding Citigroup shares today. It has an extraordinary opportunity here to send a clear message to Wall Street that more derivatives disclosure is vital. Even more to the point, the Treasury Department really has no choice other than to support our resolution since a failure to do so would directly undercut its campaign for critical financial reform.”
Click here to read more »
Recent Developments at the United Nations April 14th, 2010
Daniel LeBlanc, OMI – Oblate representative at the United Nations – shares about recent meetings at the UN. His report focuses on:
- Two High Level Meetings on the Global Financial Crisis
- Summit on MDGs + 10 Review
- Extreme Poverty: An Affront to Human Rights
