Occupy stages "Seussical" play outside Wells Fargo to protest evictions and money lost for schools.

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Occupy stages "Seussical" play outside Wells Fargo to protest evictions and money lost for schools.

POSTED: Thursday, April 5, 2012, 4:10 PM
Filed Under: News

On the eve of the six-month anniversary of Occupy Philly, a group of occupiers, including some who were arrested in a protest of Wells Fargo last fall, staged a "Seussical" spectacular outside that bank this afternoon.

The "play," which involved a 6-foot stagecoach, revolved around a Wells Fargo banker foreclosing on homeowners and stealing money from Philly schools.

The plot echoes the findings of a 2010 Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission lawsuit alleging that Wells Fargo had practiced discriminatory lending policies in Philly's African-American neighborhoods, leading to disproportionate foreclosures there.

It also invokes the massive financial fallout of agreements made between the Philadelphia School District (and other school districts around Pa.) and large financial institutions, including Wells Fargo, that have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for the schools. Essentially, these school districts entered into long-term investment agreements that depended on interests rates remaining significantly higher than they've since plummeted.

Philadelphia's schools, according to a report by the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, have lost some $331 million so far and stand to lose another $240 million from those deals.

You can read that report (and a much better explanation) here.

Posted by Isaiah Thompson @ 4:10 PM  Permalink | Post a comment
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