When Donald Trump nominated Steve Mnuchin for U.S. Treasury Secretary, a nightmare Debbi Adams thought she had left behind was suddenly back. The Michigan woman who once fought with all she had to save her home from foreclosure, is now fighting again – to stop the appointment of the former Goldman Sachs partner.
Adams, an activist with Michigan United, is just one of the many Americans organizing in the streets to prevent Wall Street from complete control of the federal government.
One of the more dramatic protests taking aim at “Government Sachs” is a group of 50 protesters with VOCAL-NY who have endured three nights of cold and rain, camping and sleeping in front of the Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York this week. They plan to stay through Friday – Inauguration Day – to call attention to the ties between the banking giant and the incoming president. (Michigan United and VOCAL–NY are both affiliate organizations of People’s Action.)
Also, people lined up to share their personal stories Wednesday at an event organized by Senate Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts, a day before Mnuchin’s nomination hearing.
Six years ago, Debbi Adams was laid off from her job, and was soon falling behind in the mortgage payments on her home. She was at risk of losing her house and, as with many people, her biggest investment. Like millions of others throughout the country during the Great Recession, Adams had a front row seat to the callous brutality of the Wall Street bankers and mortgage brokers.
Adams saved her home, but then watched in horror a second time as the very bankers responsible for the financial collapse, devastation and emotional trauma to families – walked away unscathed, and even richer.
“I was disgusted to see how the very people responsible for the housing crash were let off the hook. Bankers like Steve Mnuchin profited off my financial misery – and that of millions of people like me,” said Adams.
While families lost or came near to losing their homes and their lifetime investment, Mnuchin made millions on those foreclosures. The story of his bank foreclosing on the home of a 90-year-old Florida woman over a 27-cent discrepancy is now well known. A judge ruling in mortgage lawsuit against Mnuchin and his bank, OneWest, called the bank’s actions “harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive.” Others called his bank “the foreclosure machine.”
If Trump, Mnuchin, and the other Goldman Sachs graduates think people in America have forgotten and forgiven – they should think again. They don’t know the power of the people.
