How Deutsche Bank Destroyed Milwaukee

"Germans built Milwaukee, now a German Bank is destroying it!" is the unwelcome message Common Ground representatives are bringing to the Deutsche Bank meeting tomorrow.

Common Ground is a citizen's group in Wisconsin that is outraged at Deutsche Bank's policy of foreclosing and abandoning properties in Milwaukee, making large swaths of the city unlivable: 

On a summer Saturday afternoon, more than 50 Common Ground volunteers conducted a neighborhood walk around one of its member churches on Milwaukee's West Side. In a 10-block area, they counted 60 abandoned houses. More walks in other neighborhoods revealed similar results: foreclosed and abandoned houses that were not mere eyesores, but also havens for drug dealing and other criminal activity. According to the Milwaukee Assessor's Office, the subprime-foreclosure crisis has depressed total property values by about $1.11 billion dollars. Even for Deutsche Bank, that's not petty cash.

So a delegation from Common Ground are traveling to Germany to confront CEO Joseph Ackermann at the DB annual shareholder's meeting. Up to now, DB has refused to meet with the citizens in the US:

But Deutsche Bank has not only refused to meet with Common Ground; it has snubbed high ranking state and local officials. Murphy, the city leader who has become a Common Ground champion, is pressing federal officials to get involved. In a recent letter to the Treasury Department's Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, Michael S. Barr, Murphy deplored Deutsche Bank's intransigence and said that a meeting with Deutsche Bank was a "critical matter" for the city.

For more, see also Telepolis: Zerstört die Deutsche Bank Stadtteile von Milwaukee?

Comments

[Hattie]

Catching up to you here after a long absence. So much going on!
Thanks for keeping me informed. You are the only source I know of for gathering these items together and explaining their significance.