Sunday, April 29, 2012

A new website has been launched all for the sake of mocking Wall Street giant Bank of America. The site, YourBofA.com, greets its visitors with a warm welcome from the chief executive officer, allegedly claiming their bank is no "longer working anymore." The website was blacklisted by Google and looks just like the original Bank of America page. Andy Bichlbaum, activist for The Yes Men, joins us to explain why he helped create the website.
YourBofA.com Dear Fellow American,
Welcome to your Bank of America.
Today, it's time to acknowledge that our Bank isn't working anymore—not just for the market, but for people, our real customers. We've paid $8.58 billion in relief to borrowers and $3.24 billion in fines. We face lawsuits and claims from citizens, companies, and state and local governments. There is even a petition with the Federal Reserve to break up our bank, adding yet more uncertainty to our position. Finally, we've found ourselves front-and-center in the national foreclosure crisis, and deep in unpopular investments like coal, at a time when climate change is a growing societal concern.
As a result, our company’s shares have fallen precipitously, and now trade at one-fifth their 2008 price. Our Bank may, in fact, soon need help keeping afloat—and much as in 2008, you, the American taxpayer, will be asked to provide that assistance.
The institutions you rescued in 2008 have continued much as they always were, engaging in the same practices that brought our economy so close to collapse. To make sure that this time around, things turn out differently, we at Bank of America are launching a forum in which you, the American taxpayer, can prepare for the time that you own us. By sharing ideas, and reading and rating the ideas of others, you can begin charting a course for this Bank—your course.
And when the day comes that you, the American taxpayer, own this Bank, you will be ready to make it a Bank for America—one that brings benefits not to the privileged only, but to all of our customers, and to all of our stakeholders too.
Welcome to your Bank of America.

Brian T. Moynihan
Chief Executive Officer
President

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