Posted by CODEPINK Staff
WHAT: Local taxpayers to gather outside of AIG New York offices, demand their fair $80 million share of sale
WHEN: 12 p.m. TODAY (April 15)
WHERE: AIG headquarters @ 70 Pine St., New York, NY
NEW YORK CITY -- AIG is selling its Manhattan offices here -- and local taxpayers want their fair share of the deal!
Members of CODEPINK Women for Peace, Picture the Homeless, Green Party mayor candidate Rev. Billy and the Church of Life After Shopping, and others will march at 12 p.m. April 15 to the on-the-market AIG offices to claim their rightful 80 percent stake in the company, granted to them through the government's $170 billion bailout with taxpayer money. Since the building is selling for $100 million, they say, the American people deserve their $80 million now.
"AIG can't be trusted to manage what are now public assets, including its building at 70 Pine Street," said Mark Read, a carpenter from Brooklyn and event organizer. "For all we know, they'll use the proceeds from the sale of the building to pay for more bonuses and perks for the guys who drove the economy into a ditch. We ought to have a say in how AIG's money gets spent, and we think it ought to go to the people that are suffering as a result of AIG's recklessness and greed: the foreclosed upon and the homeless."
The crowd, with 1040 forms as proof of purchase in hand, will call for their $80 million to be used as restitution for Americans left homeless through foreclosures and job loss due to the economic meltdown. One in every 440 homes received a foreclosure filing in February 2009, according to RealtyTrac’s 2009 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report,and foreclosures jumped 30 percent between February 2008 and 2009. According to the Department of Labor, 4.6 million jobs have been lost in 2008 and 2009.
For more information, please call Dana Balicki, CODEPINK campaign coordinator, at 202-422-8624 and Mark Read, event co-organizer, at 917-776-8847
