If I may dig up one of my all-time favorite Onion articles:
79 Percent Of Americans Missing The Point EntirelyWASHINGTON, DCâ€"According to a Georgetown University study released Tuesday, 79 percent of Americans are missing the point entirely with regard to such wide-ranging topics as politics, consumerism, taxes, entertainment, fashion, and professional wrestling. . . .
I've been trying to organize my thoughts about the coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests, not to mention the protests themselves, and I keep coming back to that Onion article,[1] because any way I look at it, just about everyone is missing the point.
The problem, and I suppose this was inevitable, is that Occupy Wall Street is being portrayed as some kind of anti-Tea Party. Left vs. right, blue vs. red, rock vs. country, et ceteraâ€"it's the only way we know how to draw battle lines anymore. But how are the two movements meaningfully different? I sure as hell can't figure it out. There are plenty of minor differences, mostly concerning priorities and demographics, but the similarities are much more substantial. Both are popular uprisings against powerful-but-nebulous entities believed to be responsible for America's economic struggles. Both are defined not by easily-identified leaders, but by the sum total of countless unique viewpoints, and thus are not capable of articulating their goals with any cohesiveness or specificity (nor should they be expected to). And both movements, to borrow the classification scheme created by Bill O'Reilly, are teeming with both pinheads and patriots.
And yet, over the last week or so each side has generated mountains of commentary saying, essentially, this: You know the one-sidedly [negative/positive] portrayal of the Tea Party we've been pushing for two and a half years now? Well Occupy Wall Street is totally the opposite!
Paul Krugman describes OWS as "a popular movement that, unlike the Tea Party, is angry at the right people." Meanwhile, Ann Coulter says the OWS protesters are angry at the wrong people (and also have poor hygiene, because why not?).
Keith Olbermann says OWS is legitimately a grassroots movement that, at least at first, was ignored by the media. Rush Limbaugh says the Tea Party is the "organic" one, while OWS was "manufactured" by the media.
ThinkProgess claims the OWS protests "better embody the values of the original Boston Tea Party." BigGovernment insists the protesters are "more aligned with Marxism; with Democratic Socialism; with Soviet Era Collectivism; with the very dangerous and elitist Progressive Movement" than with anything even remotely "American".
So it goes. It's hard to be honest and fair. It's easy to cobble together some empty rhetoric and lob it in the direction of those most inclined to assume the best about their friends and the worst about their enemies.[2]
Not that I have any special insight into who's least wrong, but I'm a big fan of the sentiments expressed in this Reason article:
Of course, the type of loudmouth gadflies who show up at all large outdoor political events, whether Tea Party gatherings, GOP coffee klatches, or Democratic National Conventions, can be found in Liberty Plaza. But to dismiss an entire movementâ€"one that is gathering momentum in cities all around the countryâ€"based on the inarticulateness of a few teenagers is entirely the wrong response. It's far more useful to try and understand what is going on here, to grok the meaning of these protesters' motivations, before prematurely passing summary judgment.
Exactly. We should pay less attention to the individual lunatics, and more attention to what a movement is really about. Occupy Wall Street, at its core, is a reaction to the increasing power and influence of large corporations. The Tea Party, at its core, is a reaction to the government's constant interference with private enterprise. But wait a minuteâ€"aren't those things connected?
Bailouts, subsidies, tax breaks, special rights and privileges, regulations designed to restrict competitionâ€"to name a few of the many ways the government protects and stimulates corporate interests, and those things are every bit as anti-free market as, not to mention directly related to, the high taxes and excessive bureaucracy that gets Tea Partiers riled up.[3] In other words, aren't these two groupsâ€"Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Partyâ€"raging against different halves of the same machine? Do I have to draw a Venn diagram here?
Oh, alright, I'll draw a Venn diagram:
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pho4SDZg2eo/To-cS0tId7I/AAAAAAAAADQ/FlGE6MqwKSc/s1600/OWSvsTP.jpg)
Yeah, I'm oversimplifying, but only a little. The greatest threat to our economy is neither corporations nor the government. The greatest threat to our economy is both of them working together. There are currently two sizable coalitions of angry citizens that are almost on the same page about that, and they're too busy insulting each other to notice.
1. The best part is the quote at the end:
"If I want to miss the point, that's my own business," said Ernie Schayr, a Wheeling, WV, auto mechanic. "If I want to complain about having to pay taxes while at the same time demanding extra police protection for my neighborhood, that's my right as an American. Most people in other countries don't ever get the chance to miss the point, and that's tragic. The East Timorese are so busy fleeing for their lives, they never have the chance to go to the supermarket during the busiest time of the week and complain to the cashier about how long the lines are and ask them why they don't do something about it."
2. Here's a refreshing case of common sense and reason transcending partisanship: An open letter and warning from a former tea party movement adherent to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Naturally, the author is anonymous (as far as I can tell). By Reverend Vas Littlecrow Wojtanowicz.
3. By all means, leave a comment if you think I'm wrong, but it's a myth that big corporations are anti-government, right? They don't want to have to compete in a free market, they want to "compete" in an artificially restricted market.
http://howconservativesdrovemeaway.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-vs-tea-party.html
Where's the "Love" button on this thing?
I am so putting that diagram on Facebook.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/advice_for_the_occupiers_from_a_tea_partier.html
Advice for the Occupiers from a Tea Partier
By Kender MacGowan
Hello, fellow protesters -- I'd like to offer some advice, in the spirit of camaraderie for your ongoing demonstrations. You've been doing things in protests we Tea Partiers never did and you're having experiences I am unfamiliar with. I think perhaps I can offer some advice to stop these events from occurring. I see you've been having some trouble with the cops telling you to break it up and go home and then, when you don't, they shoot tear gas into the crowd and swarm in and bust skulls.
We never had that at the Tea Party protests even though at some Tea Party events, some folks showed up packing heat, which you would think is more than reason enough for cops to come in and shut it down. They never did, though, and there are probably several things we did that you haven't been successful at implementing. What follows are some things we did that assured a tear gas- and baton-free event, and I offer them up simply as friendly advice.
1) Get permits. I know it's a bit of a pain and subtracts from your feeling of impromptu, grassroots, screw-the-system activism, but seriously, we have certain rules in place to help keep order and protect people from uncontrollable situations that get out of hand. Plus it gives those "pigs" (do you hippies still call cops "pigs"?) one less reason to roust you.
2) Police yourselves. I realize that part of your message is screw the system and you believe that folks should be able to do whatever, whenever and wherever they feel like it, but the fact of the matter is that illegal drugs are illegal drugs, and the feeling of power you may derive from having an "eff 'em -- just let them try to arrest me" attitude doesn't help your cause. People out here are calling you dirty hippies. You should work to get the general public on your side, not just the disaffected stoners, unemployed baristas, and out-of-work philosophy majors.
3) Have actual grievances with proposed solutions. "Destroy capitalism" may sound fine in the abstract and look great sharpied across your girlfriend's torso, but it's really not a grievance. Honestly, I have seen little beyond the standard communist sloganeering and heard little beyond a lot of talk about "unifying" (what you're unifying against and who is supposed to unify has also slipped my grasp), and frankly, after a month and more of protesting, I would think some of you could have come together and put in place a few talking points at least. While you're at it, be consistent! Calling for the Koch brothers to not support politicians and causes while not calling for Soros to do the same only shows your true agenda.
4) Find someone who is articulate and reasonably dressed to be your spokesperson. Having someone with wild hair that looks filthy, wearing a shirt with Che Guevara on it, and holding a sign that says "eat the rich" is probably not the best way to go to engender sympathy in the community at large. You may not think about it, but most of the people who watch the news and see you ranting about inequality probably just got home from a long day at work in the corporate world you're wanting to destroy, so getting those folks on your side would go a long way in helping you.
5) Hygiene! Learn it. Employ it. Looking like a modern version of Haight Ashbury circa 1967 may give you credibility at the coffee shop where you hang out and rail against the world, but it just makes you look like a dirty hippie on TV and in newspaper photos. Perhaps if you got a haircut and wore a suit and looked more like those you want to destroy, some people may be fooled into thinking you have a point. (But again, you must first have an actual grievance and a proposed solution before that's really going to happen. See point #3.)
6) Quit playing the drums. I know it's satisfying to bang your bongos, but seriously, it's monotonous and rather childish, which also happens to be the same description most thinking people give to your ideas as a whole.
7) Stop camping out. Bunches of people are saying, "Why don't these folks occupy a shower and a job?" (hearkening back to #5), and when you camp out for weeks, they don't think you're committed to a cause -- they think you're a lazy bum who doesn't have the 2 dollars a day it costs to camp in a campground. You never saw the Tea Party camping out. Granted, we Tea Parties weren't in the same boat as you Occupy kids; in other words, we had more at home waiting on us than an empty basement and a freezer full of Hot Pockets. We had, you know, responsibilities and homes and families to care for, jobs to go to, and, generally, you know...a life.
8) Listen to the cops. When they say leave, leave. Cops have a tendency to tell you only things you really need to know, and "disperse" is generally followed by tear gas canisters -- and, if you don't get the message at that point, batons swinging through the smoke. Face it: you kids don't have the knowledge or the guts to actually fight someone; in fact, part of your whole schtick is "war is not the answer" and "violence doesn't solve problems," but the truth is that it does, and the cops know it.
If you want to fight the system -- the very system, by the way, that has given you the freedom to sit around in a tent in the middle of major American cities for weeks on end and not die of starvation or exposure -- try to do it the old-fashioned way.
Hire a lobbyist.
Hilarous that a group that could care less about the regular person is giving advise. Tpeople as republicans are about me...not we. Their ideas are...screw everyone else..i got mine...screw you.
It’s interesting that both groups biggest grips are with the political parties that generally represent their membership. OWSers are angry about repeals of Glass Steagle â€" signed into law by liberal icon Bill Clinton. Tea Partiers are mad about big Federal entitlements and spending â€" conservative GW Bush set the records on those. One side will not convert any significant votes from the other, nor will they get compliance from the rival side of the political spectrum. Intramural reform will get the most traction for both. Seek change from the inside out â€" or change will become further from you.
Quote from: Shine on October 31, 2011, 08:22:11 AM
It’s interesting that both groups biggest grips are with the political parties that generally represent their membership. OWSers are angry about repeals of Glass Steagle â€" signed into law by liberal icon Bill Clinton. Tea Partiers are mad about big Federal entitlements and spending â€" conservative GW Bush set the records on those. One side will not convert any significant votes from the other, nor will they get compliance from the rival side of the political spectrum. Intramural reform will get the most traction for both. Seek change from the inside out â€" or change will become further from you.
Interesting observation!
Shine, I agree with you that Intramural reform is indeed what is needed, however as long as we haven't identified the real culprit of our destabilizing problems, we will not be able to accurately determine a systemic solution.
So far the camp claiming the "big Federal entitlements and spending" is winning, just as the 1% likes it...........since it bestowes "austerity" measures on the 99 percenters.
Of course ending both wars would have had the most significant impact on reducing our Federal spending, but as usual the right-winders prefer to extract even more from the sick, the poor and the elderly, rather than tackle the REAL and structural economic problems we face.
Here is a handy chart that depicts how the tea-partiers have been helping the 1% maintain their iron grip on our economy, despite starting off with legitimate gripes regarding the bank bail-outs while leaving mainstreet behind.
(http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/316692_2121678887940_1424873223_31796349_1491212685_n.jpg)
More on this discussion in the secret "members only" forum here:
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,13536.0.html
It would be interesting to find out the political affiliation of the “top 1%†â€" Guys like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, George Soros, etc are probably not hanging out at Rick Perry’s hunt club. No segment of the population is monolithic. People of wealth have influence, and that is not new. The idea that people of wealth are part and parcel of the cause of the economic problems we have seen in the past 15 years is very likely to be accurate. But, to say "they want it this way" cannot not be logical. Much of the accumulation in wealth is in investments, stocks etc, that have performed poorly in the past decade. Add to it a consuming population, the 99% that you call it, who has reduced spending power to create corporate profits, add to rich people getting richer. There is the issue of executive compensation, out of control and unprecedented, and at the expense of the stock holder. Take this out of the equation and you don’t see the non-typical gain in wealth frequently reported in the media. That is because equities and the economy has not performed to create that wealth. But the question of "who is Wall Street" â€" well that would be about ½ of US households holding stock investments.
1% is a “Boogie Man†â€" no names, just a number. More myth than reality. BTW, I don’t see the current liberally dominated beltway officials doing much to reinstitute Glass/Steagall style reforms and other needed reforms on Wall Street. OWS is anger. Activism is a different matter. Where is your draft bill to reform Wall Street? Just Say’n.
I do not support most of the things said by the TEA Party but I do not believe your list Faye represents the vast majority of the Tea Party supporters.
Shine is your contention that Stocks have preformed poorly? Remember 6500 just a two and a half years ago? The market has almost doubled under Obama.
Reduced spending power has come from both parties belief in trickle down economics. They have supported free trade and therefor the small amount of trickle down that has occurred went to China and India.
Economics is simple just return to pre Regan Hamiltonian policies of tariffs, banking regulations and organized labor. The rich and everyone else prospered like never before on this planet under Hamilton's system.
Quote from: Shine on October 31, 2011, 09:31:12 AM
It would be interesting to find out the political affiliation of the “top 1%†â€" Guys like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, George Soros, etc are probably not hanging out at Rick Perry’s hunt club. No segment of the population is monolithic. People of wealth have influence, and that is not new. The idea that people of wealth are part and parcel of the cause of the economic problems we have seen in the past 15 years is very likely to be accurate. But, to say "they want it this way" cannot not be logical. Much of the accumulation in wealth is in investments, stocks etc, that have performed poorly in the past decade. Add to it a consuming population, the 99% that you call it, who has reduced spending power to create corporate profits, add to rich people getting richer. There is the issue of executive compensation, out of control and unprecedented, and at the expense of the stock holder. Take this out of the equation and you don’t see the non-typical gain in wealth frequently reported in the media. That is because equities and the economy has not performed to create that wealth. But the question of "who is Wall Street" â€" well that would be about ½ of US households holding stock investments.
1% is a “Boogie Man†â€" no names, just a number. More myth than reality. BTW, I don’t see the current liberally dominated beltway officials doing much to reinstitute Glass/Steagall style reforms and other needed reforms on Wall Street. OWS is anger. Activism is a different matter. Where is your draft bill to reform Wall Street? Just Say’n.
The top 1% of the population owns 42% of the wealth and receives 21% of income.
The top 1% is both Republican and Democratic.........the Republicans are upfront about their "protect the uber-rich" attitude compared to the Dems who occasionally mouth populist ideas but enable the Republicans nevertheless.
Our friend, President Obama, has been one of those too. And as far as my draft bill to reform Wall Street, a simple return to the Glass-Steagall act (as all progressives in 2008 advocated in their campaigns, including myself) is a really good start:
QuoteWall Street is Still Out of Control: Why Obama Should Call for Glass-Steagall and a Breakup of Big Banks
Business & Economy | Robert Reich | October 28, 2011 4:45 pm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summers, Rubin and Gramm celebrate President Clinton signing of bill repealing Glass Steagall
Next week President Obama travels to Wall Street where he’ll demand â€" in light of the Street’s continuing antics since the bailout, as well as its role in watering-down the Volcker rule â€" that the Glass-Steagall Act be resurrected and big banks be broken up.
I’m kidding. But it would be a smart move â€" politically and economically.
Politically smart because Mitt Romney is almost sure to be the Republican nominee, and Romney is the poster child for the pump-and-dump mentality that’s infected the financial industry and continues to jeopardize the American economy.
Romney was CEO of Bain & Company â€" a private-equity fund that bought up companies, fired employees to save money and boost performance, and then resold the firms at a nice markups.
Romney also epitomizes the pump-and-dump culture of America’s super rich. To take one example, he recently purchased a $3 million mansion in La Jolla, California (in addition to his other homes) that he’s razing in order build a brand new one.
What better way for Obama to distinguish himself from Romney than to condemn Wall Street’s antics since the bailout, and call for real reform?
Economically it would be smart for Obama to go after the Street right now because the Street’s lobbying muscle has reduced the Dodd-Frank financial reform law to a pale reflection of its former self. Dodd-Frank is rife with so many loopholes and exemptions that the largest Wall Street banks â€" larger by far than they were before the bailout â€" are back to many of their old tricks.
It’s impossible to know, for example, the exposure of the Street to European banks in danger of going under. To stay afloat, Europe’s banks will be forced to sell mountains of assets â€" among them, derivatives originating on the Street â€" and may have to reneg on or delay some repayments on loans from Wall Street banks.
The Street says it’s not worried because these assets are insured. But remember AIG? The fact Morgan Stanley and other big U.S. banks are taking a beating in the market suggests investors don’t believe the Street. This itself proves financial reform hasn’t gone far enough.
If you want more evidence, consider the fancy footwork by Bank of America in recent days. Hit by a credit downgrade last month, BofA just moved its riskiest derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a retail subsidiary flush with insured deposits. That unit has a higher credit rating because the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (that is, you and me and other taxpayers) are backing the deposits. Result: BofA improves its bottom line at the expense of American taxpayers.
Wasn’t this supposed to be illegal? Keeping risky assets away from insured deposits had been a key principle of U.S. regulation for decades before the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
The so-called “Volcker rule†was supposed to remedy that. But under pressure of Wall Street’s lobbyists, the rule â€" as officially proposed last week â€" has morphed into almost 300 pages of regulatory mumbo-jumbo, riddled with exemptions and loopholes.
It would have been far simpler simply to ban proprietary trading from the jump. Why should banks ever be permitted to use peoples’ bank deposits â€" insured by the federal government â€" to place risky bets on the banks’ own behalf? Bring back Glass-Steagall.
http://www.ukprogressive.co.uk/wall-street-is-still-out-of-control-why-obama-should-call-for-glass-steagall-and-a-breakup-of-big-banks/article15343.html
QuoteThe top 1% is both Republican and Democratic.........the Republicans are upfront about their "protect the rich" attitude compared to the Dems who occasionally mouth populist ideas but enable the Republicans nevertheless.
Are you telling us that democrat leadership are hypocrites??!! :o
Quote1% is a “Boogie Man†â€" no names, just a number. More myth than reality. BTW, I don’t see the current liberally dominated beltway officials doing much to reinstitute Glass/Steagall style reforms and other needed reforms on Wall Street. OWS is anger. Activism is a different matter. Where is your draft bill to reform Wall Street? Just Say’n.
R
This is an expression of anger that popped up. A simple message of remember us the people who live here. Now you are seeing the chapters starting to organize and focus. I am sure they are so sorry they didn't check off all the squares on some form you believe should be filled out in order to express disappointment in this country. Sometimes day one is not the same as year two. Give me a break with all the put downs that the grassroots movement doesn't have the corporate polish of the corporately sponsored Tea Party.
Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 31, 2011, 09:58:34 AM
QuoteThe top 1% is both Republican and Democratic.........the Republicans are upfront about their "protect the rich" attitude compared to the Dems who occasionally mouth populist ideas but enable the Republicans nevertheless.
Are you telling us that democrat leadership are hypocrites??!! :o
Yes
Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 31, 2011, 09:58:34 AM
QuoteThe top 1% is both Republican and Democratic.........the Republicans are upfront about their "protect the rich" attitude compared to the Dems who occasionally mouth populist ideas but enable the Republicans nevertheless.
Are you telling us that democrat leadership are hypocrites??!! :o
All politicians that are bought and paid for by corporations and answer only to those who can afford legions of paid lobbyists are hypocrites by definition.
We need to return to government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Public financing of campaigns will do that:
http://www.getmoneyout.com/
1/4 million Americans have already signed up for this idea!
Quote from: JeffreyS on October 31, 2011, 10:03:31 AM
Quote1% is a “Boogie Man†â€" no names, just a number. More myth than reality. BTW, I don’t see the current liberally dominated beltway officials doing much to reinstitute Glass/Steagall style reforms and other needed reforms on Wall Street. OWS is anger. Activism is a different matter. Where is your draft bill to reform Wall Street? Just Say’n.
R
This is an expression of anger that popped up. A simple message of remember us the people who live here. Now you are seeing the chapters starting to organize and focus. I am sure they are so sorry they didn't check off all the squares on some form you believe should be filled out in order to express disappointment in this country. Sometimes day one is not the same as year two. Give me a break with all the put downs that the grassroots movement doesn't have the corporate polish of the corporately sponsored Tea Party.
Well said JeffreyS!
There is no question that the 1% exists and exerts its influence. Here is a prime example:
QuoteIn January 2010, after Scott Brown's upset victory in the special Massachusetts Senate election, a panicky President Obama managed to sound like a populist for a couple of days. He called for a tax on banking profits and drafted Paul Volcker to appear at a quickie press conference so that the administration could call for something dubbed "The Volcker Rule."
Volcker, an impeccably conservative former Fed Chair skeptical about the abuses of financial de-regulation, was one of the few elder statesmen in 2010 with any credibility. Though Volcker was an early supporter of Obama and adviser to the campaign, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and economic adviser Larry Summers managed to marginalize Volcker because the old man turned out to be leery of their schemes to prop up the big banks without cleaning them out. Even worse, Volcker was nostalgic about the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, which had staved off big trouble for more than half a century by requiring that federally insured commercial banks stay out of the inherently speculative investment banking business.
Financial lobbies had finally succeeded in getting Glass-Steagall repealed in 1999, with Summers and Geithner cheering. Now the president, in big political trouble, was sending for Volcker the way one breaks glass in an emergency. But the so-called Volcker Rule, a phrase the White House made up, turned out to be Glass-Steagall lite.
Unlike the 1933 statute, Obama's so-called Volcker rule did not separate commercial banks from investment banks -- a nice clear bright line that was easy to police and hard to evade.
Rather, the administration's proposed Volcker Rule limited how much "proprietary trading" big consolidated banks could do. Trading, however, is only one of the many kinds of mischief bankers get into when the mix commercial banking and investment banking. The version of the rule that was included in the Dodd-Frank Act left details to the regulators.
Now the regulators have produced a 298-page set of proposed rules, and nobody is happy. The regulators have invited comment on no fewer than 350 questions. Bankers say the whole thing is too bureaucratic and will cut into their profitable lines of business. Consumer groups warn that the thing has too many loopholes. Wiseguys on Wall Street say it is child's play to disguise a proprietary trade for the bank's own account as a customer trade.
All, of course, are correct. It would have been far better policy to return to the simple bright line of the Glass-Steagall Act.
QuoteIf you want to be a commercial bank, with federal deposit insurance, access to Federal Reserve advances, and a Good Housekeeping seal from regulators, great. You will have to follow closely policed rules. Alternatively, if you want to trade and speculate with your own money, go to it. But don't grow so big that you can bring down the whole system, stay out of the commercial lending business, and don't expect the government to bail out your bad bets.
That system worked very nicely. It was almost impossible to evade, and it didn't require 298-page regulations, with legions of regulators to police the creative evasions and gray areas.
The entire banking system has become far too complex -- too complex for economic efficiency and too complex to regulate.
The Obama administration proposed an ambiguous "Volcker Rule" rather than a clean return to Glass-Steagall because the so called rule would be easy to evade and would not interfere in any fundamental way with Wall Street's current business model.
It was Henry David Thoreau who observed, "Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify. Forget the Volcker rule.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/volcker-rule_b_1014606.html
(Just like HAMP was set up to fail)
This is the way Obama is Centrist.......ie corporate-minded, whereas the American Public is actually considered progressive (even the independents and Republicans if they would just realize this). In the Venn diagram, this is captured by the OWS bubble, and the piece overlapping with the tea-party:
QuoteThe public agrees with OWS on health care: 65% of protesters believe government should guarantee health care for all. In the last major poll on the subject, 64% of voters said the same thing.
The public agrees with OWS on taxes: 77% of OWS participants want to raise taxes on the wealthy; according to the Marist polling organization, 68% of all voters - including 68% of independents - agree with them.
The public agrees with OWS on a secure retirement: 65% of protesters think the government should guarantee a secure retirement. 70% of all voters - including 73% of independents - agree with them.
Schoen may have tried to hide or skew his information, but he's given us enough to know that the demonstrators are smack dab in the mainstream of American public opinion. Their tax views are supported by an overwhelming majority of the public. Their views receive the overwhelming support of independents and are often supported by a majority of Republicans too.
And what about that Tea Party that Schoen's been pushing as the "new center" in American politics? Does the public agree with them, too? Er, not so much. The latest CNN poll shows that 53% of Americans disapprove of the Tea Party movement and only 28% approve. Those are the lowest numbers since the pollsters began tracking Tea Party popularity last year.
Oops. Looks like Schoen and Rasmussen will need to write a new book.
(One other thing: That CNN poll also shows that Hillary Clinton is still the country's most popular public figure. Just think what she might have accomplished if she hadn't used the firm of Penn, Schoen & Berland to run her last campaign.)
The Real Center
No wonder the faux-centrist/"Third Way" (Democratic) crowd hates OWS. The protests put the lie to phony notion that the "center" agrees with the corporate-funded policies they espouse. And they illustrate the fact that the real "center" holds opinions that are usually stigmatized as "progressive" inside the Beltway .
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/centrist-hit-job-accident_b_1016925.html
Quote from: JeffreyS on October 31, 2011, 09:54:22 AM
Shine is your contention that Stocks have preformed poorly? Remember 6500 just a two and a half years ago? The market has almost doubled under Obama.
Obama had little to do with why the Dow was cut in half back in the Spring of 09 â€" and the policy actions the administration took as a result are inconclusive to what affect they had, positive or negative. Politicians are quick to own success and make failure and orphan. As for stocks, the Dow was at 10,000 in 2000. And have averaged out not far from that level. With inflation, that makes stocks a fairly stagnant investment through much of the decade. Stock prices are ultimately determined by earnings and accumulation of assets. The phrase, “a rising tide lifts all ships†is an accurate one â€" a good economy will result in more jobs, better pay and an increase in consumption. Consumption growth is arguably the single most important factor in corporate earnings.
If you bought into the market when the Dow went below 7000 (literally a matter of days to do it) then you made a lot of money. Fact is, the markets went that low because most people were selling and many are still out of the market, putting them more in a posture of loss, not gain. Don’t get me wrong, I think we need reforms and reforms will be good for workers, corporations and stock investors. But, I hold to my initial point in that conservative interest are not going to take any action of the agenda of OWS, and I, like others, are not totally clear on what that agenda is. OWS needs to attempt to motiveate its political ally - liberal and reform oriented elected officials. Complaints about Tea Partiers is wasted effort.
Quote from: Shine on October 31, 2011, 05:24:47 PM
OWS needs to attempt to motiveate its political ally - liberal and reform oriented elected officials. Complaints about Tea Partiers is wasted effort.
OWS knows the system is corrupt..........there are very few people in congress that can be motivated to act decisively to protect the interest of the people. For example lead paint is A-ok again in this country of ours since a few days ago.
There is only one strong voice in Florida and that is the voice of Alan Grayson...........he will say it like it is and fight corruption where he sees it.
That's why you intramural approach may be futile.........it may need to be an outside the box approach......
In the last 30 years the top 1% of Americans saw their real, after-tax income increase nearly fourfold. And how about the "other" 99%? Look below
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MJeWSfTGlLE/TqzmYZhcSwI/AAAAAAAADBs/8lUoZ10GFmM/s1600/20111029_WOC689.gif)
The chart appears in an article in The Economist (Income Inequality in America:The 99 Percent), which includes the following passage:
...the data are powerful because they tend to support two prejudices. First, that a system that works well for the very richest has delivered returns on labour that are disappointing for everyone else. Second, that the people at the top have made out like bandits over the past few decades, and that now everyone else must pick up the bill.
Couldn't have said it better myself (and I don't frequently agree with The Economist).
The chart in The Economist article comes from a very interesting study done by the US Congressional Budget Office. The following chart is on its cover.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--_6PIxH7kbY/Tqzrlu3SIvI/AAAAAAAADB8/LHHK3tkRwMw/s1600/Untitled.png)
Class warfare indeed.
Quote from: Shine on October 31, 2011, 05:24:47 PM
Quote from: JeffreyS on October 31, 2011, 09:54:22 AM
Shine is your contention that Stocks have preformed poorly? Remember 6500 just a two and a half years ago? The market has almost doubled under Obama.
Obama had little to do with why the Dow was cut in half back in the Spring of 09 â€" and the policy actions the administration took as a result are inconclusive to what affect they had, positive or negative. Politicians are quick to own success and make failure and orphan. As for stocks, the Dow was at 10,000 in 2000. And have averaged out not far from that level. With inflation, that makes stocks a fairly stagnant investment through much of the decade. Stock prices are ultimately determined by earnings and accumulation of assets. The phrase, “a rising tide lifts all ships†is an accurate one â€" a good economy will result in more jobs, better pay and an increase in consumption. Consumption growth is arguably the single most important factor in corporate earnings.
If you bought into the market when the Dow went below 7000 (literally a matter of days to do it) then you made a lot of money. Fact is, the markets went that low because most people were selling and many are still out of the market, putting them more in a posture of loss, not gain. Don’t get me wrong, I think we need reforms and reforms will be good for workers, corporations and stock investors. But, I hold to my initial point in that conservative interest are not going to take any action of the agenda of OWS, and I, like others, are not totally clear on what that agenda is. OWS needs to attempt to motiveate its political ally - liberal and reform oriented elected officials. Complaints about Tea Partiers is wasted effort.
I would agree Obama was not the driving force behind how phenomenally Wall Street has preformed recently. I would point out he had nothing to do with it's decline. The point I was calling you on was your false claim that Wall Street has not done well when it has probably had it's best three years in almost a century. Wall Street is not the best barometer of the rising tide for corporations corporate profits are ( not total revenue) unfortunately that tide has been trickling down to places like China and India and cutting out the American worker.
Your basic premiss seems reasonable OWS is not the movement to end all movements it is a cry for help. It will mature or perhaps be a flash that fades. It is just pointing out that we seem to have forgotten the average citizen in our efforts to have the best economy possible.
Quote from: finehoe on October 31, 2011, 07:14:43 PM
In the last 30 years the top 1% of Americans saw their real, after-tax income increase nearly fourfold. And how about the "other" 99%?
These things are very true. The rich have gotten richer. But there is still the issue of the political affinity of those in that segment and the assumption that their level of political influence has changed. The assumption that this “1%†is the political bad guy, may or may not be accurate. Looking at our local community, a few years back, the new fees John Peyton proposed to sustain local revenue levels were largely backed by the social elite who did not want social programs like libraries and stipends to groups such as Sulzbacher on the chopping block. Consider the recent Mayor’s race. Many of the people of wealth in this community, jumped party, got behind Democrat Alvin Brown because they did not want Hogan’s view of cutting social programs and slashing economic development. I am not trying to say one political point of view here is right or wrong but OWS brings the assumption that people in this “1%†are uniformly corrupt. Where is the evidence of that? Again, its easy to say it’s the “1%†when they are unnamed, faceless â€" anonymous.
Quote from: JeffreyS on October 31, 2011, 10:03:26 PM
The point I was calling you on was your false claim that Wall Street has not done well when it has probably had it's best three years in almost a century.
So the Dow was basically cut in half, then gains back only 85% of its high and that is your view of a Bull market? You would fit right in on Wall Street. LOL!
Quote from: Shine on November 01, 2011, 08:22:53 AM
Quote from: finehoe on October 31, 2011, 07:14:43 PM
In the last 30 years the top 1% of Americans saw their real, after-tax income increase nearly fourfold. And how about the "other" 99%?
These things are very true. The rich have gotten richer. But there is still the issue of the political affinity of those in that segment and the assumption that their level of political influence has changed. The assumption that this “1%†is the political bad guy, may or may not be accurate. Looking at our local community, a few years back, the new fees John Peyton proposed to sustain local revenue levels were largely backed by the social elite who did not want social programs like libraries and stipends to groups such as Sulzbacher on the chopping block. Consider the recent Mayor’s race. Many of the people of wealth in this community, jumped party, got behind Democrat Alvin Brown because they did not want Hogan’s view of cutting social programs and slashing economic development. I am not trying to say one political point of view here is right or wrong but OWS brings the assumption that people in this “1%†are uniformly corrupt. Where is the evidence of that? Again, its easy to say it’s the “1%†when they are unnamed, faceless â€" anonymous.
Good post.
I'm not a fan of the 1% labeling. The 99% is also a misnomer. There are corrupt welfare recipients, just like there are corrupt Wall St bankers.
I agree with placing blame directly where it belongs, and in some cases, the blame belongs on all of us.
That said, I don't believe OWS is anti-capitalist. (some within their ranks are, but I don't see them as a majority or even relevant within the movement)
Quote from: finehoe on October 31, 2011, 07:14:43 PM
In the last 30 years the top 1% of Americans saw their real, after-tax income increase nearly fourfold. And how about the "other" 99%? Look below
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MJeWSfTGlLE/TqzmYZhcSwI/AAAAAAAADBs/8lUoZ10GFmM/s1600/20111029_WOC689.gif)
The chart appears in an article in The Economist (Income Inequality in America:The 99 Percent), which includes the following passage:
...the data are powerful because they tend to support two prejudices. First, that a system that works well for the very richest has delivered returns on labour that are disappointing for everyone else. Second, that the people at the top have made out like bandits over the past few decades, and that now everyone else must pick up the bill.
Couldn't have said it better myself (and I don't frequently agree with The Economist).
The chart in The Economist article comes from a very interesting study done by the US Congressional Budget Office. The following chart is on its cover.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--_6PIxH7kbY/Tqzrlu3SIvI/AAAAAAAADB8/LHHK3tkRwMw/s1600/Untitled.png)
Class warfare indeed.
These charts do not account for persons within each category. They are meaningless without knowing if less people are in the bottom quintile while more are in the top, for instance.
Charts and graphs can be used to make virtually any point, no matter how nonsensical. (not calling your point nonsensical)
Earning money legally is just that. A garbage man is not likely to earn the same as a lawyer.
A student can become either.
I would rather focus on creating and re-instating laws that protected citizens from wall st gamblers than base laws on economic equality.
Should the garbage man make the same as a lawyer?
(Garbage men do fairly well, fwiw)
The Occupiers’ Responsive Chord
Monday, October 31, 2011
A combination of police crackdowns and bad weather are testing the young Occupy movement. But rumors of its demise are premature, to say the least. Although numbers are hard to come by, anecdotal evidence suggests the movement is growing.
As importantly, the movement has already changed the public debate in America.
Consider, for example, last week’s Congressional Budget Office report on widening disparities of income in America. It was hardly news â€" it’s already well known that the top 1 percent now gets 20 percent of the nation’s income, up from 9 percent in the late 1970s.
But it’s the first time such news made the front page of the nation’s major newspapers.
Why? Because for the first time in more than half a century, a broad cross-section of the American public is talking about the concentration of income, wealth, and political power at the top.
Score a big one for the Occupiers.
Even more startling is the change in public opinion. Not since the 1930s has a majority of Americans called for redistribution of income or wealth. But according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, an astounding 66 percent of Americans said the nation’s wealth should be more evenly distributed.
A similar majority believes the rich should pay more in taxes. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, even a majority of people who describe themselves as Republicans believe taxes should be increased on the rich.
I remember the days when even raising the subject of inequality made you a “class warrior.†Now, it seems, most Americans have become class warriors.
And they blame Republicans for stacking the deck in favor of the rich. On that New York Times/CBS News poll, 69 percent of respondents said Republican policies favor the rich (28 percent said the same of Obama’s policies).
The old view was anyone could make it in America with enough guts and gumption. We believed in the self-made man (or, more recently, woman) who rose from rags to riches â€" inventors and entrepreneurs born into poverty, like Benjamin Franklin; generations of young men from humble beginnings who grew up to became president, like Abe Lincoln. We loved the novellas of Horatio Alger, and their more modern equivalents â€" stories that proved the American dream was open to anyone who worked hard.
In that old view, being rich was proof of hard work, and lack of money proof of indolence or worse. As Herman Cain still says “if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself.â€
But Cain’s line isn’t hitting a responsive chord. In fact, he’s backtracked from it (along with much of the rest of what he’s said).
A profound change has come over America. Guts, gumption, and hard work don’t seem to pay off as they once did â€" or at least as they did in our national morality play. Instead, the game seems rigged in favor of people who are already rich and powerful â€" as well as their children.
Instead of lionizing the rich, we’re beginning to suspect they gained their wealth by ripping us off.
Mitt Romney is defensive about his vast wealth (reputed to total a quarter of a billion). He’s reverted to scolding his audiences on the campaign trail for “attacking people based on heir success.â€
The old view was also that great wealth trickled downward â€" that the rich made investments in jobs and growth that benefitted all of us. So even if we doubted we’d be wealthy, we still gained from the fortunes made by a few.
But that view, too, has lost its sheen. Nothing has trickled down. The rich have become far richer over the last three decades but the rest of us haven’t. In fact, median incomes are dropping.
Wall Street moguls are doing better than ever â€" after having been bailed out by the rest of us. But the rest of us are doing worse. CEOs are hauling in more than 300 times the pay of average workers (up from 40 times the pay only three decades ago), as average workers lose jobs, wages, and benefits.
Instead of investing in jobs and growth, the super rich are putting their money into gold or Treasury bills, or investing it in Brazil or South Asia or anywhere else it can reap the highest return.
Meanwhile, it’s dawning on Americans that in the real economy (as opposed to the financial one) our spending is vital. And without enough jobs or wages, that spending is drying up.
The economy is in trouble because so much income and wealth have been going to the top that the rest us no longer have the purchasing power to buy the goods and services we would produce at or near full employment.
The jobs depression shows no sign of ending. Personal disposable income, adjusted for inflation, was down 1.7 percent in the third quarter of this year â€" the biggest drop since the third quarter of 2009. Housing prices have stalled, home sales are down.
The only reason consumer spending rose in September is because we drew from our meager savings â€" mostly in order to pay medical bills, health insurance, and utilities. That’s the third month of savings declines, according to the Commerce Department’s report last Friday.
This can’t and won’t continue. Savings are now down to 3.6 percent of personal disposable income, their lowest level since the recession began.
Americans know a rigged game when they see one. They understand how much money is flowing into politics from the super rich, big corporations, and Wall Street â€" in order to keep their taxes low and entrench their privileged position.
The Occupy movement is gaining ground because it’s hitting a responsive chord. What happens from here on depends on whether other Americans begin to march to the music â€" and organize.
http://robertreich.org
Quote from: Shine on November 01, 2011, 08:29:18 AM
Quote from: JeffreyS on October 31, 2011, 10:03:26 PM
The point I was calling you on was your false claim that Wall Street has not done well when it has probably had it's best three years in almost a century.
So the Dow was basically cut in half, then gains back only 85% of its high and that is your view of a Bull market? You would fit right in on Wall Street. LOL!
Fair enough. I would contend that 14161 number (2006 I believe) was a bubble. Your 7 year number is up, your 10 year number is up. The people keep or lose their job, make or don't make their bonuses based on what have you done for me lately and in that vein Wall Street people keeping their eye on the quarterly reports are doing happy dances over what has been going on here recently. Now if your the guy who wanted to retire two years ago based on your investments you are stuck for a while longer.
When I say Wall Street has done well I mean the people working in the investment industry the manipulators not the main street investors. The main street investors have had to sit and wait and will have to a while longer.
Thoughts on a Modern RevolutionQuotePart I. Why it won’t come easy…
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
â€"United States Declaration of Independence
There seems to be a division of thinking when it comes to the 1% vs everybody else. Many people seem to think that their extreme advantage of resources, the power inherent in the existing structure, and the technology they have access to will ensure their continued dominance. Others argue that because they are outnumbered 99 to 1 they can only maintain their control if the 99% remain compliant. While I favor the latter view, questions remain: what percent need to resist in order for the existing power structure to be overthrown? How does the average citizen overcome the massive advantages available to the existing authority? Can this be accomplished with peaceful means, or will the conflict escalate into violence? What does history teach us to expect in the resolution of this crisis? If the existing structure is torn down, will it be replaced by something better or something worse?
In part 1 of this series, we will investigate the strength of the existing authority, and the inherent advantages that the authority holds over the average citizen who would consider resistance. In part 2, we will look at the inherent strengths that the average citizen has in resisting the existing authority. In part 3 we will look at some of the various methods and strategies that the resistance can pursue. And in part 4 we will try to draw some conclusions about the path this crisis phase will take and what history teaches us to expect.
This is not authoritative commentary. This is simply my observation and analysis of the challenges and opportunities that exist to the citizens that are contemplating resistance in an effort to restore the existing government to its constitutional origins or to another form entirely. I welcome your commentary, perspective and wisdom in this study.
Let us look at the various ways in which the 1% are able to maintain their power. First of all is momentum. It is human nature to resist major changes. Sure we like to change to the next new iPhone, but when it comes to major aspects of how we perceive our role in everyday life we ignore, deride, ridicule, or directly oppose both the change as well as those who are advocating it. For that reason most of the major changes we have witnessed in our lifetimes are a result of tiny, seemingly insignificant changes that incrementally alter the way things are. Freedom, taxation and legislation have all incrementally mutated from emancipated, transparent and accessible to incarcerated, opaque and ϋber statutory.
It takes a major shock to convince people that a change is worthy of the effort required to enact it. Normalcy bias, fear, laziness, and ambivalence all fight to keep things the way they are. Our overall wealth as a society and the extreme amount of “assistance†given over to what has become a large percentage of the populationâ€"the disabled, unemployed, and derelictâ€"have insulated us by and large from hardships that have driven other populations around the world to protest, resistance, and violence. Our poor are not starving; they are obese. Our unemployed are not desperate; they are better off with their benefits than with a job. More people are added to the rolls of the disabled every day by the expansion of the definition of disabled, and by the fact that in many cases they can receive more income while doing nothing productive (SNAP, medical, and direct payments) than they could earn with hard work.
Because of the distortion created and enforced by the various entitlement programs at the federal, state, and local levels, we have witnessed dramatic increases in the numbers of participants in these programs. In turn we have seen the tax revenues that support these programs that are paid through the work of productive citizens drop as more and more people become net recipients of government funds and fewer and fewer people are net contributors. This trend is clearly unsustainable; however, each new person added to the dole is another person that would have to vote for change that would negatively impact their immediate circumstances. History suggests that very few people will be willing to support actions that would hurt their personal short term circumstances in favor of society’s long term prosperity. The consequence of this dynamic is that there will be no slow, transitional wind down of these programs. Instead these programs and the numbers of people involved will continue to grow until the programs fail catastrophically. For that reason, it is my assessment that the growing pool of beneficiaries will not be a significant part of any anti-establishment movement, protest, or revolution.
A contributing factor to the momentum of the establishment and the slow response of the average citizen is the lack of hardship and suffering he faces. Very few people in the United States go hungry. Very few people are denied medical care. Very few people lack clean water, sleep without shelter, lack adequate clothing, have no access to education, can afford no entertainment, or have no access to sanitation. We are by global comparison a very rich country, and even the poorest in this country live beyond the means of billions worldwide. In short we all have quite a bit to lose, and that changes the riskiness of choosing to resist.
In my personal situation I have a wife and two children, I own a business that employs 14 people, I have property and investments (not a lot), I have 5 sisters, my mom and pop are living, and I have many close ties in my community. If I choose to resist the government I put all of those people, all of my property, and all of my ties at risk. I also put my life and health at risk. I put my freedom at risk (such as it is). In essence I put everything that is near and dear to me at risk, and that does (and should) enter into my decision to resist or to comply.
With our poorest tamed by the entitlements they would lose if they resist, the burden of resistance then falls upon a group of people with plenty to lose. Their incentive is the awakening to the reality that not resisting may cost them all of the same things; however, the risk equation remains “if I resist I will risk all of my treasured people and possessions†vs. “if I resist I may risk all of my treasured people and possessions.â€
Another significant factor in favor of maintaining control by the existing authority is force. The establishment powers, whether behind the scenes (the bankers) or in full view (the politicians) have near complete capture of all the federal (the military, DHS, CIA, FBI, et al), the state (National Guard, SBI, State Troopers, et al) and local (sheriff, city police, et al) agencies. While there is some question floating around the blogosphere about whether or not the members of those agencies will be willing to fire upon civilians history and recent events make it clear that at least the majority will comply with the orders they receive. For the same reason that the average citizen is overwhelmed when thinking of how and when to resist authority, the front line soldier or officer is similarly daunted by thoughts of bucking the chain of command. When you combine that with the very real threat of armed resistance, the possibility of significant violence cannot be ignored.
While any violence on the part of the agents of authority will likely escalate the overall level of resistance in the general population, it is certainly going to discourage any people who are caught up in the festival aspect of the resistance from continuing. The real and present threat of violence and death is a great deterrent; it is not a coincidence that tyrannical governments across the globe and throughout history have made effective use of violence in putting down discontent. While it will cement the resolve of the committed and work to increase the number of people who have suffered significant enough indignity and hardship to risk their lives, a large number of people will be too fearful to support the resistance and will in fact look to establish their own safety by actively helping the establishment root out the resistance.
Along with direct force there are force multipliers like air support, heavy weapons, command and control capabilities, control over the infrastructure, night vision and infrared tracking, satellite surveillance, the network of in place surveillance and traffic cameras, body armor, on-line intercepts of emails, phone taps, the ability to shut down transportation systems, forensic analysis, and training. How does a single citizen cope with the myriad ways in which the governing authority can deploy massive resources and multiply their effectiveness? When he realizes that he must join with others to pool resources and capabilities, how does he find or recruit his team without leaving a trace that will be detected by the government or co-opted to its benefit? It is, to say the least, a daunting challenge.
Non-defense government (federal, state, and local) consumption and gross investment as percentage of GDP, 1929-2008
Anyone who has ever gone on an extended hike in the wilderness has come face to face with the importance and the challenge of logistics. Like a rocket that uses 90% of the fuel to lift the fuel that lifts the rocket into orbit, a hiker must carry more food to offset the extra energy expended by carrying a heavy load of food onto the trail. Furthermore, any tools or materials he needs must be carried along if they cannot be fabricated or acquired along the way, so if the hiker has any desire to do much more than walk (eg. take pictures, drink, sleep, cook, or bandage a cut), he has to carry the means to do so along with him.
For that reason the modern day resistance movement will begin as a largely local phenomenon. People cannot afford to deploy themselves to faraway places and risk their source of income and/or support the additional expense. There will necessarily need to be help in the form of food, medicine, shelter, and materials above and beyond what the average resister will be able to provide, and that lifeline of support is easily constrained or severed by the power in authority.
Conversely the government in all of its forms and agencies has nearly unlimited resources (at least in the short to medium term) in the form of cash, supplies, transportation, and secure storage to support its activities. It rules the air and roads and sea and rails, and it can deploy immense amounts of resources in a short period of time if needed. Furthermore there is no opportunity for any single citizen to limit the reach and ability of the government to deploy those resources. It is simply the case of only being able to stop one grain of sand in a landslide.
The powers that be also have complete authority and control over all of the major channels of communication. They can manipulate, halt, or utilize all TV, radio (broadcast), newspaper, internet, radio (point to point), telephone, snail mail and satellite communications at will. They can monitor, intercept, jam, encrypt or decrypt nearly any message that a modern day citizen can compose. That leaves the resister the option of sending messages that are very difficult to hide and protect, or sending messages that travel at very slow speeds by off the grid methods.
Hand in hand with the ability to communicate is the ability to coordinate. Existing agencies have command and control structures in place that allow orders from leadership to be executed quickly and reliably. Those agencies have extensive practice and established methods for preserving their chain of command and those in the chain are well versed in the execution of the orders they receive. The command structure is redundant and well insulated from the agents in the field of operations, and is virtually immune to any action on the part of the citizen that has chosen to resist.
That citizen in turn is working with other autonomous people and groups (if he is working with anyone at all) who’s participation is completely voluntary. They may agree to carry out the requests he makes, but they may only agree to part of the action. They may decide to change the time table. They may decide to back out without notice. Or they may become otherwise engaged and be limited in the sense of accountability they feel and/or be limited in their ability to communicate their change in direction. It is very easy to take out the leadership since the leadership is also likely to be the operator in the field. There is little or no redundancy, and there is little or no practice in cooperative action. Furthermore the more cooperative and effective the group becomes, the more likely they are to become a target of strategic priority by the forces of the powers in place.
The last major category of strength this analysis will address is financial. Despite the overwhelming debt, the deficits, and the lack of solvency in the government at the federal, state, and local levels the fact remains that the financial powers can (and will) continue to create money to fund their activities. There are many questions about whether or not this course of action is sustainable or effective; however, there is little doubt that it will continue. The wealth of the United States is tremendous, and even though it is being steadily diluted by the devaluation of the dollar, there remains an enormous amount of wealth yet to dilute. Consider that the total notional wealth of the United States is around $56T. Even maintaining budget deficits that are funded by printing new dollars, it would take around 30 years to consume the wealth through the expansion of the currency.
Now I know that it is a good bit more complicated than that; however, the fact remains that there is massive wealth left that can be consumed. Furthermore it is likely that the existing debt will be defaulted and wiped out. While there are numerous disruptions inherent is such a scenario the government will be free of its encumbrances and will be able to continue to print new money (even if it is called something else or initially backed by other assets). What this means is that for all practical purposes the government will remain unconstrained in its spending while the average citizen will be anything but. More importantly, as the government creates more and more money, the wealth of the citizen will continue to decline further limiting him from saving or deploying his assets towards effective resistance even as the devaluation creates more and more people desperate enough to consider action.
An average citizen faces an enormous, frightening and disheartening challenge if he chooses to resist; however, that has always been true throughout history when the brave and often tragic souls of the past have decided that enough was enough. No government in world history has lasted very long; most have failed in a much shorter span than the United States has lasted. Neither success nor failure is baked in the cake. In the next part, we will look at the inherent strengths that the average citizen has in resisting the existing authority.
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http://www.theburningplatform.com/
Not authoritative but some pretty common sense ideas and unbiased analysis.
Pretty smart blogger. Just go to the site. This c&p doesn't do justice without the visuals.
QuoteCORZINE & OBAMA: BEST BUDDIES5
Karl Denninger detailing the ongoing oligarchical rule of America. Corzine is actively involved in the Obama re-election campaign. His firm MF Global was made a primary dealer in 2010. That meant millions of new business for this connected douchebag. He should go to jail for what he has done. Will he? No fucking way. He’s a member of the 1%. They never go to jail.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=196876
Can You Survive It Being Over?
And by “overâ€, I mean really, truthfully over.Look folks, there’s really nothing more-serious than grabbing client funds internally. It’s black-letter wrong, and it appears to have happened in the case of MF Global:
The filing came as MF Global told regulators of potential “deficiencies†in some customer accounts, according to a statement by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Regulators are investigating whether hundreds of millions of dollars are missing from client accounts, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
The “mainstream media†outlets this morning are talking about this being a “risk management†issue. Nonsense. This is a trust issue and Corzine is a former Goldman guy and the former governor of New Jersey.
The political connections are deep as well:
President Obama is desperately putting his Wall Street stock in an unlikely old buddy.
The beleaguered president has recruited former Goldman Sachs head honcho Jon Corzine to shore up re-election funds from the banking industry, which is furious over Obama’s financial regulations.
Corzine, the former governor of New Jersey who was blasted out of office by Republican Chris Christie in 2009, has attended secret meetings with the president and has been working on Obama’s 2012 campaign for months, The Post has learned.
The Democrat, who now leads Manhattan-based brokerage MF Global, has been tasked with scraping up the very little banking-industry support Obama can still get.
Nice. Oh, that’s from July, if anyone’s interested.
The obvious questions that this little “incident†raises are too many to count but at their core go straight to the credibility of our entire financial system. None of them are pretty. Our markets are responding pretty much as you’d expect and coupled with the European situation which is also a matter of confidence and lies we’ve lost 70 S&P points â€" or about 5% of the the market’s total value â€" in the last 36 hours.
How much more of this is out there? There’s no way to know and that’s the root of the problem, just as it was in 2008.
But this much we do know: This is not an issue of a firm that allegedly broke every rule in the book when it comes to the sanctity of customer funds. Rather it is a story of utterly failed regulation and oversight that continues four years after the collapse that initiated in 2007.
It is the story of willful and intentional blindness by our government and the instrumentalities within it that are supposed to prevent this sort of crap from happening.
Let us remember that MF Global was just added to the primary dealer list in 2010!
The bankruptcy does raise questions, however, about how the Fed picks the primary dealers â€" especially since MF Global was one of four firms added to the ranks after new, more stringent requirements were put in effect in 2010.
I have to ask: Was that a political addition and where in the hell were the examiners that are supposed to be paying attention to what these firms are doing? If this is the result of “more-stringent†requirements can someone tell me why I should believe that any of the other Primary Dealers are in fact solvent and why I should not believe that they’re all doing the same thing?
Oh, there’s no reason to be “concernedâ€, right? That’s why the banks were positively pounded yesterday and the carnage appears to be continuing today. It’s why this isn’t limited to the United States but is also happening over in Europe. It’s why this morning the DAX is down 4%, the CAC is down 4% and the FTSE is down 2.5%. It’s why nobody trusts a balance sheet â€" because there is no reason to trust any of them in the financial sector as we continue today, four years on, to have these sorts of “surprises†where hidden risk “magically appears†at the most-inopportune time and then we continue to hear the utter lie that “nobody could have seen it coming.â€
The reason “nobody sees it coming†is that The SEC and banking “regulators†are averting their eyes â€" on purpose!
This is the continuing story, as I lay out in Leverage, of “two worlds†where one has the rule of law (you and I) enforced, where robbing a bank gets you a nice long prison sentence and some cops looking for bank robbers to stop them while in the other, inhabited by politically-connected and powerful men and women you can pretty much do anything you damn well please and nothing happens to you â€" in fact, you get rewarded with calls from The President of the United States and pick the pockets of the public with essential impunity.
You cannot trust ANY balance sheet given to you today â€" in point of fact the government itself demanded that FASB allow lies as a business practice when it comes to the alleged value of securities. It’s that simple.
This is not the mark of a representative republic, it is not the mark of a free and fair market, and it is not “crony capitalism.â€
It is a mark of a feudal system where outright looting is not only permitted it is encouraged.
There are no checks and balances and the banksters wield their briefcases like John Dillinger wielded his tommy gun. There has been no reform since 2008. Dodd-Frank was a joke, Glass-Steagall was not put back in place, and there was no prosecution of those who did wrong.
SEVENTEEN PAGES IN GLASS-STEAGALL â€" 17 PAGES â€" KEPT THE BANKING SYSTEM SAFE FOR FIFTY YEARS.
And now we have another collapse that appears to show that there is no regulation, there is no oversight and nobody in the government gives a damn when one of the primary dealers that the government charges with making an orderly market in Treasuries appears to have co-mingled more than half a billion in customer funds with their own trading book.
People have taken cheap shots at me for supporting the goals of “Occupy Wall Street†â€" first and foremost among them being that the looting must be stopped.
If you’re one of the customers of MF Global who’s customer funds seem to have “disappeared†into the world of leverage abuse would you like to rethink your view that these folks are a bunch of anarchists that are just flat dead wrong this morning?
Perhaps it’s time for you to take the blinders off and have a whiff of the coffee that I’ve been offering up for the last four years. The caffeine will make for a damn good start to the morning and, if you have a brain in your head, stoke righteous outrage and a long-overdue demand to STOP THE LOOTING AND START PROSECUTING.
And by the way, if we don’t start doing that right here and now?
This game is nearing its forced conclusion and you’re not going to like it.
Quote from: JeffreyS on November 01, 2011, 09:40:29 AMI would contend that 14161 number (2006 I believe) was a bubble.
Actually, the daily numbers have more bubbles than a bath tub. If you look at the general measure of stock value being the Price/earnings ratio â€" it is almost never at its mean but often at some place between 8 and 30 times earnings -- Radically under or radically overvalued. Hence the cycle of fear and cycle of greed.
This is why it is better to look at the stock market trend as y=mx+b.
QuoteThe reason “nobody sees it coming†is that The SEC and banking “regulators†are averting their eyes â€" on purpose!
The mantra of the Republican party since Reagan has been "de-regulation" so why should this surprise anyone?
De-regulation is not a bad idea, any more than regulation is a bad idea. Smart, workable, appropriate regulations should exist, while anti-competitive regulations should be avoided where possible.
There is no perfect mix of either. It will always be a struggle to find equilibrium between chaos and tyranny.
Glass-Steagal should be re-regulated.... Yesterday.
Yes but De-regulation is a bad mantra.
Why aren't tea-partiers supporting this? Don't they think frequent computerized trading(10,000 trades per minute) has a de-stabilizing effect on our economy?
Don't they think heavy speculation artificially inflates prices and causes a de-stabilizing effect on our economy?
Or are they simply loath to use taxes as a deterrrant to out-of-control trading?
Both 'Occupy' Marchers And Dem Politicians Rally Behind Taxing Wall Street Trades
Thu, 11/03/2011 - 11:23pm â€"
Matt Taylor
At least 1,500 members of the National Nurses Union (NNU) and Occupy D.C. activists marched on the Treasury Department on Thursday morning to call for a "meaningful" tax on Wall Street trading -- one day after Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) introduced a bill that would levy a small tax on a wide range of financial transactions.
The unplanned convergence between Democratic politicians and the protesters, who have generally refrained from making specific demands, offered a hint of how the populist energy from the "Occupy" movement might translate into policy. "Occupy Wall Street made people feel they're part of a very large community," said DeFazio, who has supported similar legislation in the past, in an interview with The National Memo. "As people have been awakened, they're going to look for things to take action on."
The White House has not been supportive of previous proposals. President Barack Obama shied away from the policy and instead revived a 2010 idea for a "financial crisis responsibility fee" when he arrived at the G20 summit in Cannes, France, this week; the fee would recoup the remaining losses from the 2008 bailout and help provide a base of support for any future rescues. (The conference itself, which brought together the most powerful economic policymakers in the world so they could meet on the elegant French Riviera, seemed designed to spark populist outrage.)
Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner has long been skeptical of a tax -- reportedly arguing against one in a September meeting with top European financial officials -- and multiple high-level labor sources said they considered him the main obstacle within the administration.
"Geithner has voiced opposition but in a way that leaves the door open," DeFazio said with a hint of optimism, indicating that he believes the secretary will only support an FTT if it is imposed by a large contingent of those countries with active financial markets, including England and other E.U. nations.
DeFazio and Harkin's bill, the Wall Street Trading And Speculators Tax Act, would slap a tax of 0.03 percent (or three basis points) on transactions that occurred after the initial issuance of a stock, bond, and other kinds of securities. The rate was kept deliberately low so everything but the riskiest kinds of trades would still be profitable.
"What we want to do is maximize our revenue without hurting pension funds and self-directed IRAs," said DeFazio, an outspoken liberal who voted against the TARP bailout in 2008. "But [we also want] a level of tax that's adequate to drive the super-high level speculators out of the market, or at least exact a substantial revenue from them."
Harkin's Communications Director Kate Cyrul also argued that a higher rate "hurts the likelihood of the measure becoming law," but the marchers in D.C. seemed unenthused by the prospect of a watered-down legislative compromise. Instead, the protesters called for a tax of 0.5 percent (or 50 basis points) -- nearly 20 times higher than the rate proposed by two of the most liberal members in Congress -- in order to raise $350 billion for jobs programs and infrastructure investment.
"We don't want a token," said Karen Higgins, a staff nurse from Boston and a national co-president of NNU. "We went through this with the health care bill, where instead of doing what is right, we did [what was easy]." The nurses don't want to pass a small tax that critics will be able to say failed to bring in substantial new revenues or significantly change Wall Street's behavior.
The rest of the labor movement, while not as hard-line as the nurses' union, also wants to see a heftier tax that makes a dent in Wall Street gambling.
"The AFL-CIO believes that a 10 basis points tax would serve three critical goals: raising considerable revenue, increasing the fairness of our tax code, and deterring speculative trades that constitute either gambling or gaming the system rather than long-term investing," said Jeff Hauser, a spokesman for the labor group.
But Democratic aides close to the legislation say going higher than three basis points risked halting many transactions, including derivative trades (and thus gutting the revenue stream), something they indicated was not a goal of their bill, even if Occupy Wall Street protesters might welcome the change.
Follow National Correspondent Matt Taylor on Twitter @matthewt_ny
http://www.nationalmemo.com/article/financial-transaction-tax-nurses-union-defining-issue-democrats-occupy-wall-street
Obama again being too weak to bring about meaningful reform........or too bought and paid for by the Finance Industry to want to risk irking them.
Not exactly on point, but worth a read. Depending on your point of view, destroying the derivatives sector could be considered a bug or a feature. :)
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-and-economy/hanging-london-out-to-dry%3a-the-impact-of-an-eu-financial-transaction-tax/ (http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-and-economy/hanging-london-out-to-dry%3a-the-impact-of-an-eu-financial-transaction-tax/)
QuoteOur new report, released today, assesses the impact of a Financial Transaction Tax (aka Robin Hood Tax) on Britain's economy. The results are eye-watering â€" it would destroy the City's derivatives trading sector, hit Britain's growth and ramp up market volatility. The executive summary is below:
1) The European Commission has proposed a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) on all securities traded with at least one party within the European Union. A tax of 0.1% would be applied to shares and bonds trades and 0.01% to derivatives trades, including over-the-counter derivatives, of which London is a world centre.
2) The EC’s impact assessment projects a 1.76% hit to long-term (20-year) growth across the EU. This would amount to a £25.58 billion cost to the UK economy over this period, and a £185 billion cost to the total European Union economy (2010 prices). This is based on a direct application of the cost to Britain’s economy. The true figure is likely to be far greater, because of Britain’s disproportionately large financial sector (and especially its derivatives trading sector).
3) The EC impact assessment also projects up to a 90% decline in derivatives trading if its proposed Financial Transaction Tax is implemented. The City of London is the centre of global over-the-counter derivatives trading, accounting for nearly half (45.8%) of all global interest rates derivatives turnover. This would adversely and disproportionately hurt the London economy, and would destroy a socially-valuable financial activity that it integral to the modern British economy.
4) Contrary to some supporters of the FTT, the tax would increase market volatility. There is no empirical support for the idea that the FTT would reduce volatility. Indeed, by making transactions more costly, the tax would make markets less responsive to new information and more prone to violent lurches up and down. Academic models of the tax have been inconclusive at best.
5) The FTT would reduce market liquidity in all securities markets. 40% of the London Stock Exchange’s volume is based on high-volume, low-margin transactions, which would be wiped out by the FTT, making markets far more illiquid. Markets’ ability to incorporate new information into asset prices would be undermined.
6) Unemployment would rise if an FTT was introduced. At the margin, the FTT would mean less investment and less output. The tax, if implemented in 2014 as proposed by the EC, would slow down an economic recovery and reduce capital investment. The EC’s long-run projection for this is a 4.5% reduction in investment.
7) If the FTT was only introduced in the EU or G20, many traders currently operating in the UK would relocate to places like Hong Kong, Singapore or Zurich. There is little scope for a worldwide FTT â€" even types of trades that are affected in a minor way by the FTT would likely move en masse to other jurisdictions that would flourish as FTT-free zones.
Quote from: FayeforCure on November 04, 2011, 10:34:37 AM
Why aren't tea-partiers supporting this? Don't they think frequent computerized trading(10,000 trades per minute) has a de-stabilizing effect on our economy?
Don't they think heavy speculation artificially inflates prices and causes a de-stabilizing effect on our economy?
Or are they simply loath to use taxes as a deterrrant to out-of-control trading?
Both 'Occupy' Marchers And Dem Politicians Rally Behind Taxing Wall Street Trades
Thu, 11/03/2011 - 11:23pm â€"
Matt Taylor
At least 1,500 members of the National Nurses Union (NNU) and Occupy D.C. activists marched on the Treasury Department on Thursday morning to call for a "meaningful" tax on Wall Street trading -- one day after Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) introduced a bill that would levy a small tax on a wide range of financial transactions.
The unplanned convergence between Democratic politicians and the protesters, who have generally refrained from making specific demands, offered a hint of how the populist energy from the "Occupy" movement might translate into policy. "Occupy Wall Street made people feel they're part of a very large community," said DeFazio, who has supported similar legislation in the past, in an interview with The National Memo. "As people have been awakened, they're going to look for things to take action on."
The White House has not been supportive of previous proposals. President Barack Obama shied away from the policy and instead revived a 2010 idea for a "financial crisis responsibility fee" when he arrived at the G20 summit in Cannes, France, this week; the fee would recoup the remaining losses from the 2008 bailout and help provide a base of support for any future rescues. (The conference itself, which brought together the most powerful economic policymakers in the world so they could meet on the elegant French Riviera, seemed designed to spark populist outrage.)
Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner has long been skeptical of a tax -- reportedly arguing against one in a September meeting with top European financial officials -- and multiple high-level labor sources said they considered him the main obstacle within the administration.
"Geithner has voiced opposition but in a way that leaves the door open," DeFazio said with a hint of optimism, indicating that he believes the secretary will only support an FTT if it is imposed by a large contingent of those countries with active financial markets, including England and other E.U. nations.
DeFazio and Harkin's bill, the Wall Street Trading And Speculators Tax Act, would slap a tax of 0.03 percent (or three basis points) on transactions that occurred after the initial issuance of a stock, bond, and other kinds of securities. The rate was kept deliberately low so everything but the riskiest kinds of trades would still be profitable.
"What we want to do is maximize our revenue without hurting pension funds and self-directed IRAs," said DeFazio, an outspoken liberal who voted against the TARP bailout in 2008. "But [we also want] a level of tax that's adequate to drive the super-high level speculators out of the market, or at least exact a substantial revenue from them."
Harkin's Communications Director Kate Cyrul also argued that a higher rate "hurts the likelihood of the measure becoming law," but the marchers in D.C. seemed unenthused by the prospect of a watered-down legislative compromise. Instead, the protesters called for a tax of 0.5 percent (or 50 basis points) -- nearly 20 times higher than the rate proposed by two of the most liberal members in Congress -- in order to raise $350 billion for jobs programs and infrastructure investment.
"We don't want a token," said Karen Higgins, a staff nurse from Boston and a national co-president of NNU. "We went through this with the health care bill, where instead of doing what is right, we did [what was easy]." The nurses don't want to pass a small tax that critics will be able to say failed to bring in substantial new revenues or significantly change Wall Street's behavior.
The rest of the labor movement, while not as hard-line as the nurses' union, also wants to see a heftier tax that makes a dent in Wall Street gambling.
"The AFL-CIO believes that a 10 basis points tax would serve three critical goals: raising considerable revenue, increasing the fairness of our tax code, and deterring speculative trades that constitute either gambling or gaming the system rather than long-term investing," said Jeff Hauser, a spokesman for the labor group.
But Democratic aides close to the legislation say going higher than three basis points risked halting many transactions, including derivative trades (and thus gutting the revenue stream), something they indicated was not a goal of their bill, even if Occupy Wall Street protesters might welcome the change.
Follow National Correspondent Matt Taylor on Twitter @matthewt_ny
http://www.nationalmemo.com/article/financial-transaction-tax-nurses-union-defining-issue-democrats-occupy-wall-street
Obama again being too weak to bring about meaningful reform........or too bought and paid for by the Finance Industry to want to risk irking them.
because most tea party members have a job and don;t believe on shi**ing on police cars. dont get much simpler than tha
Well luckily OWS isn't against having a job or for messing with police cars. I'm guessing now that it has been a few hours since your terrible post you are probably feeling a little guilt and shame about it. So I won't dwell on it any longer.
Quote from: JeffreyS on November 04, 2011, 09:27:06 PM
Well luckily OWS isn't against having a job or for messing with police cars. I'm guessing now that it has been a few hours since your terrible post you are probably feeling a little guilt and shame about it. So I won't dwell on it any longer.
Good for you
Quote from: JeffreyS on November 04, 2011, 09:27:06 PM
Well luckily OWS isn't against having a job or for messing with police cars. I'm guessing now that it has been a few hours since your terrible post you are probably feeling a little guilt and shame about it. So I won't dwell on it any longer.
Well somebody is vandalizing police cars... ATMs, smashing windows, during the protest (at least in Oakland). Are these people simply fringe elements?
You know it BT. Just like I know there fringe elements in the Tea Party, the green party, Christianity, and every other large group. OWS is so young and is more of a protest than a group so it may more of a just joined in to be rowdy than others at this point.
Stephen no doubt a few storm trooper style policemen have exacerbated a few of the protests.
For the most part it has just been a peaceful protest well policed about how we have given too much power to corporations.
Quote from: stephendare on November 05, 2011, 09:22:16 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 09:19:18 AM
Quote from: JeffreyS on November 04, 2011, 09:27:06 PM
Well luckily OWS isn't against having a job or for messing with police cars. I'm guessing now that it has been a few hours since your terrible post you are probably feeling a little guilt and shame about it. So I won't dwell on it any longer.
Well somebody is vandalizing police cars... ATMs, smashing windows, during the protest (at least in Oakland). Are these people simply fringe elements?
i think the unrest started when a cop shot a veteran in the head, Bridge Troll. In fact if you read the news, a lot of the smashing is being done by outraged veterans.
Those vets should be arrested and prosecuted.
Quote from: stephendare on November 05, 2011, 09:22:16 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 09:19:18 AM
Quote from: JeffreyS on November 04, 2011, 09:27:06 PM
Well luckily OWS isn't against having a job or for messing with police cars. I'm guessing now that it has been a few hours since your terrible post you are probably feeling a little guilt and shame about it. So I won't dwell on it any longer.
Well somebody is vandalizing police cars... ATMs, smashing windows, during the protest (at least in Oakland). Are these people simply fringe elements?
i think the unrest started when a cop shot a veteran in the head, Bridge Troll. In fact if you read the news, a lot of the smashing is being done by outraged veterans.
Another possibility is that anti-OWS forces have planted vandals among the crowd in order to distract from an otherwise peaceful movement.
You know how it is..........the status quo folks would like nothing better than to "shoot the messenger" rather than to really address our problems.
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 09:32:51 AM
Quote from: stephendare on November 05, 2011, 09:22:16 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 09:19:18 AM
Quote from: JeffreyS on November 04, 2011, 09:27:06 PM
Well luckily OWS isn't against having a job or for messing with police cars. I'm guessing now that it has been a few hours since your terrible post you are probably feeling a little guilt and shame about it. So I won't dwell on it any longer.
Well somebody is vandalizing police cars... ATMs, smashing windows, during the protest (at least in Oakland). Are these people simply fringe elements?
i think the unrest started when a cop shot a veteran in the head, Bridge Troll. In fact if you read the news, a lot of the smashing is being done by outraged veterans.
Those vets should be arrested and prosecuted.
Yup street vandalism should be prosecuted but the economic vandals on Wall Street get a free pass (snark) ::)
Quote from: JeffreyS on November 05, 2011, 09:28:54 AM
You know it BT. Just like I know there fringe elements in the Tea Party, the green party, Christianity, and every other large group. OWS is so young and is more of a protest than a group so it may more of a just joined in to be rowdy than others at this point.
Stephen no doubt a few storm trooper style policemen have exacerbated a few of the protests.
For the most part it has just been a peaceful protest well policed about how we have given too much power to corporations.
Thank you Jeffery. Does this mean we can stop identifying a few fringe players in a particular movement with the worst qualities of those fringe players? I hope so... In a civil discussion... this is the proper way to do it.
Quote from: FayeforCure on November 05, 2011, 09:33:48 AM
Quote from: stephendare on November 05, 2011, 09:22:16 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 09:19:18 AM
Quote from: JeffreyS on November 04, 2011, 09:27:06 PM
Well luckily OWS isn't against having a job or for messing with police cars. I'm guessing now that it has been a few hours since your terrible post you are probably feeling a little guilt and shame about it. So I won't dwell on it any longer.
Well somebody is vandalizing police cars... ATMs, smashing windows, during the protest (at least in Oakland). Are these people simply fringe elements?
i think the unrest started when a cop shot a veteran in the head, Bridge Troll. In fact if you read the news, a lot of the smashing is being done by outraged veterans.
Another possibility is that anti-OWS forces have planted vandals among the crowd in order to distract from an otherwise peaceful movement.
You know how it is..........the status quo folks would like nothing better than to "shoot the messenger" rather than to really address our problems.
Gee faye... you dont suppose that sort of skullduggery could have happened at the tea party rallies... whoda thunk it...
Quote from: FayeforCure on November 05, 2011, 09:35:51 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 09:32:51 AM
Quote from: stephendare on November 05, 2011, 09:22:16 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 09:19:18 AM
Quote from: JeffreyS on November 04, 2011, 09:27:06 PM
Well luckily OWS isn't against having a job or for messing with police cars. I'm guessing now that it has been a few hours since your terrible post you are probably feeling a little guilt and shame about it. So I won't dwell on it any longer.
Well somebody is vandalizing police cars... ATMs, smashing windows, during the protest (at least in Oakland). Are these people simply fringe elements?
i think the unrest started when a cop shot a veteran in the head, Bridge Troll. In fact if you read the news, a lot of the smashing is being done by outraged veterans.
Those vets should be arrested and prosecuted.
Yup street vandalism should be prosecuted but the economic vandals on Wall Street get a free pass (snark) ::)
(more snark) Prosecute em faye! Sue em! I encourage it. If laws were broken... prosecute.
I think our government considers the Wall Street banksters too big to jail.
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 09:37:51 AM
Quote from: FayeforCure on November 05, 2011, 09:33:48 AM
Quote from: stephendare on November 05, 2011, 09:22:16 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 09:19:18 AM
Quote from: JeffreyS on November 04, 2011, 09:27:06 PM
Well luckily OWS isn't against having a job or for messing with police cars. I'm guessing now that it has been a few hours since your terrible post you are probably feeling a little guilt and shame about it. So I won't dwell on it any longer.
Well somebody is vandalizing police cars... ATMs, smashing windows, during the protest (at least in Oakland). Are these people simply fringe elements?
i think the unrest started when a cop shot a veteran in the head, Bridge Troll. In fact if you read the news, a lot of the smashing is being done by outraged veterans.
Another possibility is that anti-OWS forces have planted vandals among the crowd in order to distract from an otherwise peaceful movement.
You know how it is..........the status quo folks would like nothing better than to "shoot the messenger" rather than to really address our problems.
Gee faye... you dont suppose that sort of skullduggery could have happened at the tea party rallies... whoda thunk it...
Gun toting, hate-filled folks don't need to be planted at tea party rallies. They are a natural in that movement.
Not to say there aren't many decent folks among the tea partier..........we just don't see them out there as much.
Even here locally they went beserk at a supposedly civil meeting of the St Johns County Board of County Commissioners at the mere suggestion in support for the concept of a St Augustine National Historic Park and National Seashore:
Quote
County rejects national park, seashore
Posted: November 2, 2011 - 12:47am
By PETER GUINTA
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
A proposal to turn over 133,000 acres of St. Johns County, water management and state lands to the federal government for creation of a national historic park and seashore was denied unanimously Tuesday by the County Commission.
Activist Ed Slavin of St. Augustine, who presented the idea Tuesday to the County Commission, said he only wanted the board to endorse the concept. But after the vote, he said he wasn’t deterred by the 5-0 vote against it.
“We shall persevere and will be back,†he said late Tuesday. “Let the people vote.â€
He plans to lobby the County Commission, requesting them to allow a referendum on the 2012 ballot.
“Our small businesses are hurting,†he said.
However, his idea was attacked by current and former members of the St. Augustine Tea Party.
For example, Marty Miller compared Slavin’s campaign to those of Hitler and his fellow Nazis who sought domination. He told the commission, “It’s all right the way it is. Don’t lose local control.â€
Another Tea Party leader said if the board voted for Slavin’s idea, they would be committing “treason.â€
Slavin asked the commission to enforce its rules of civil discourse. But no one was censured.
Later, he said that accusation especially galled him because his paratrooper father fought Nazis in Sicily during World War II.
Former state representative candidate Faye Armitage spoke for the idea, saying, “We have to do everything to protect our shoreline. There are 53 state parks slated for closure. The best way to protect our natural resources is to designate them as national parks.â€
Robert Johnson recalled the Interior Department’s enforcement of a driving ban on the Fort Matanzas National Monument grounds.
“I have seen and felt first-hand what happens when you turn over your wallet to the federal government,†he said. “I don’t want a Washington, D.C., bureaucrat telling our elected representatives how to manage our resources.â€
Dan Holiday, in business 53 years in St. Augustine, said, “Everything the federal government touches becomes a disaster. They use heavy-handed tactics, and no one wants to pay fees to use our beach. If you do this, it’s permanent. When it’s gone, it’s gone.â€
Doug Russo, a local pastor, said that the idea “is a step toward world citizenry.â€
Tea Party organizer Randy Covington said Slavin’s idea of “a carbon-neutral transportation system†is a dream and that local governments would be “rendered impotent and be subject to government bureaucrats. Reject this plan outright. Form a foundation, buy or acquire property, and then donate it to the federal government.â€
Slavin said this idea was introduced in 1939 and was approved, though that approval was later withdrawn. “This is the first time in 71 years that people are talking about the St. Augustine Historical Park and National Seashore,†he said. “We’re not talking about bossing people around. We’re talking about preserving what we have forever. There are 400 national parks in America.â€
Commissioner Mark Miner said the National Park Service has a $3 billion maintenance backlog and spends 90 percent of its budget on construction and 10 percent on resource management.
“The best government is the one closest to the people,†he said.
Commissioner Ron Sanchez said, “Our own kids are broke because of the federal government. Our county and state parks are run better than anywhere. This program will cost us a fortune. If the federal government closed one of our beaches, we’d lose half our tourists. And I’m not giving up control of our water supply to anybody.â€
Commissioner Cyndi Stevenson made the shortest comment of all.
She said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.â€
http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2011-11-01/county-rejects-national-park-seashore
BTW Commisioner Ron Sanchez is wrong about state and county parks being better run: 53 state parks were slated to be paved over with golf courses under Tricky Rick Scott's leadership...........it is dangerous to leave state parks in the hands of corrupt local politicians.
QuoteNot to say there aren't many decent folks among the tea partier..........
What an awesome and generous compliment! Wow... ;D
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 09:32:51 AM
Those vets should be arrested and prosecuted.
As should those policemen who attacked the protesters.
Quote from: finehoe on November 05, 2011, 10:57:21 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 09:32:51 AM
Those vets should be arrested and prosecuted.
As should those policemen who attacked the protesters.
Unlike the protestors... I am sure their actions are being reviewed for misconduct.
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 11:19:45 AM
Quote from: finehoe on November 05, 2011, 10:57:21 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 09:32:51 AM
Those vets should be arrested and prosecuted.
As should those policemen who attacked the protesters.
Unlike the protestors... I am sure their actions are being reviewed for misconduct.
Oh really? You actually think police would think they might have done anything wrong?
They never bothered to launch an investgation on their own. It wasn't until a week later after a complaint from a citizen that they finally launched an investgation, and only for their attack on Scott Olson:
(http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/10/26/1319655773768/Occupy-Oakland-protester--007.jpg)
Quote
Occupy Oakland: police to be investigated over Scott Olsen injury
Citizens' Police Review Board to launch formal investigation as Oakland prepares for general strike on Wednesday
reddit this
Adam Gabbatt in Oakland
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 November 2011 14.58 EDT
Article history
Occupy Oakland protester Scott Olsen is seen lying on the ground after he was apparently hit by a projectile at a protest. Photograph: screengrab via YouTube
Oakland police are to be the subject of a formal investigation after Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen suffered a fractured skull at an Occupy Oakland protest last week.
Oakland's Citizens' Police Review Board is launching the investigation after it received a complaint on Friday. Police in Oakland are bracing themselves for a general strike on Wednesday, which has been announced by the city's Occupy movement and is expected to cause disruption across the city.
Olsen, 24, was seriously injured after allegedly being hit on the head by a police projectile. He is still in hospital and unable to talk, communicating only through short written messages.
A source at the review board said the investigation will begin in the next few days, and is expected to last "several months".
"We're reviewing the information we have at the moment," the source told the Guardian.
The board received the complaint from a member of the public. The complaint "relates specifically to Scott Olsen", and was not filed by a member of Olsen's family.
An investigator has yet to be assigned to the case, but will be "within the next few days", the source said.
"I think it's a wonderful thing," said Alan Brill, who acts as a spokesman for Occupy Oakland.
"Just like every once in a while people do things that are wrong from our side, there is a small percentage of police that are out of control, and I'm glad they're being investigated."
Olsen, a former marine who served two tours of Iraq, was injured on Tuesday 25 October as police cleared the Occupy Oakland camp from its base at Frank Ogawa plaza, outside Oakland city hall.
Police used teargas and "less lethal" weapons to clear the plaza. Olsen was apparently struck in the forehead, knocking him to the ground. Video footage shows a police officer throwing an explosive towards a group of protesters who went to Olsen's aid.
More than 15 police agencies were involved in the operation that day, including San Francisco sheriffs.
There has been speculation on social media sites that it was a San Francisco sheriff who injured Olsen, with some Twitter and Facebook accounts naming an officer. However, sheriff spokeswoman Eileen Hirst said that while a platoon of 35 sheriffs did attend the Oakland operation, none of them were carrying teargas or less lethal weapons.
Hirst said the San Francisco sheriffs' involvement in the operation in Oakland was being reviewed internally, but none of the 35 officers who attended on 25 October had been suspended.
Thousands of Occupy protesters are expected to gather in Oakland for the general strike and mass day of action on Wednesday. The strike aims to "shut down" the city, culminating with a march to the Port of Oakland to prevent the transit of cargo.
"Oakland was the site of the last general strike in the US," said protester Tim Simons, at a press conference on Monday.
"On Wednesday, we're going to make history once again. We're going to make Oakland proud."
• This article was amended on 4 November 2011 to add the word "allegedly" in the following sentence: "Olsen, 24, was seriously injured after allegedly being hit on the head by a police projectile."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/01/occupy-oakland-police-scott-olsen
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 11:19:45 AM
Quote from: finehoe on November 05, 2011, 10:57:21 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on November 05, 2011, 09:32:51 AM
Those vets should be arrested and prosecuted.
As should those policemen who attacked the protesters.
Unlike the protestors... I am sure their actions are being reviewed for misconduct.
Well, you are misinformed. Every day police gets away with brutality and false arrest:
http://www.youtube.com/v/Zgr3DiqWYCI?
Quote from: JeffreyS on November 05, 2011, 09:43:55 AM
I think our government considers the Wall Street banksters too big to jail.
I like that:
Banks are too big to fail
and
Banksters are too big to jail
THAT would make a really good OWS sign!
As that represents the essence of control and dysfunction in the world:
The feeling of outrage: OWS wants an end to the
mess crime on Wall Street
No One was punished for creating the economic tsunami!
http://www.youtube.com/v/cG_TKAJyV6k?
Here's a story from Nashville where the police arrested a reporter who videotaped the whole thing without the policeman knowing it. The policeman could be heard telling someone what to charge the reporter with.
http://www.nashvillescene.com/pitw/archives/2011/10/29/scene-reporter-captures-own-arrest-on-video-refutes-state-troopers-charges
Two things from me....
1. I understand the frustration with disparity of income and the concentration of wealth. I do not understand (or I am not aware of) the criminal charges being discussed and exactly who should be charged. If there are specific charges against specific persons then I would like to hear them...and I would like to know where any prosecution stands. If this is just a general call of "crimes" by "bankers" or "the 1%" then those calls are just rhetoric and I will disregard them.
2. Scott Olsen was reportedly struck in the head by a "launched" (not hand thrown) tear gas canister. Any investigation would supposedly revolve around the aim point of the launching Officer. That investigation will take time and I would wait for the result before commenting any further. Obviously, the purpose of less lethal weapons is to reduce the chances of injury or death.
"Crowd Control" is a broad term which encompasses many different scenarios. Even when well trained (which is not often), it a difficult operation to successfully complete when the "crowd" is hostile. Small transgressions by either side can quickly escalate into injuries to both citizens and police. For this reason, police officials are hesitant to engage in such operations until required to do so by civilian authority. That compulsion to act is most often the result of excessive property damage, injuries to innocent citizens, or a combination of the two.
I have not been present at any Occupy event other than here in Jax, so I will not comment on events that I did not witness.
NotNow, crowd control can indeed be difficult and police is used to "take control," but this is a quote I couldn't agree with more regarding the more restrained appropriate response for police:
“The Supreme Court has said the police must go after only the agitators,†he says. “Otherwise, it would be a simple matter for someone to shut an entire protest down by just planting a few hooligans.
No, you can’t go into these situations wholesale with bean bags and tear gas.â€
- James Lafferty, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild of Los Angeles, a human rights bar association that facilitates public demonstrations.
http://www.minnpost.com/worldcsm/2011/11/04/32950/occupy_wall_street_clash_in_oakland_how_should_police_handle_protests
NN, the Occupy protests here in Jax have been very peaceful, loud, fun and very respectful of the JSO officers present. Everybody has been very relaxed and nobody, LEO's or protestors has tried to provoke the other.
Cool heads are prevailing on both sides. The sole exception has been Councilman Redman.
Quote from: Dog Walker on November 06, 2011, 09:19:21 AM
NN, the Occupy protests here in Jax have been very peaceful, loud, fun and very respectful of the JSO officers present. Everybody has been very relaxed and nobody, LEO's or protestors has tried to provoke the other.
Cool heads are prevailing on both sides. The sole exception has been Councilman Redman.
This is what I observed at the one protest I attended and I applaud the efforts of the local OWS group to keep things civil. This is NOT the case in more than a few others... including Oakland.
I agree that local Occupy events have been peaceful, I only mentioned them to make the point that I have not witnessed the violence being discussed here. Therefore I cannot fault one side or the other.
Faye, I am not sure what decision your quote is referencing. The quote seems to be too specific to fit all situations. "Agitators" are not always obvious and "crowds" can be destructive, damaging, and violent in themselves. As previously stated, "crowd" or "riot" control is a VERY broad subject. Volumes have been filled with experiences and theory on the subject. It would be impossible to address all theoreticals in a forum such as this.
Quote from: NotNow on November 06, 2011, 05:15:56 PM
I agree that local Occupy events have been peaceful, I only mentioned them to make the point that I have not witnessed the violence being discussed here. Therefore I cannot fault one side or the other.
Today's technology records situations so we CAN indeed find fault, whether we are there personally or not. The Rodney Kings are no longer considered isolated incidents. The question is do we WANT to find fault or just acquiesce to authority.
Kudos to local police that have so far been supportive of OWS activities here.
View this (all 4 of the videos, unedited):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGL-Ex1CD1c
And READ this...ALL of it:
http://occupywallst.org/
This is their manifesto: Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.
Read THIS...ALL of it (I did not make this up, it's directly from their site. I even receive updated emails as changes are made):
http://piratenpad.de/cyG2aD0YGO
Now, after reading and viewing all of that, if you claim that this movement is still "for the people" and that they are "not anti-capitalist", you need a serious reality check.
Yes, there are some legitimate grievances. We have not been a truly capalist society. We have been moving more toward Socialism every day and we see where it's getting us, 9% unemployment, government entities running our banks and financial system (read Fannie, Freddie and Ginne), corporations with the money and know-how to create jobs in our country taking them elsewhere because it's the only way they can make a profit and continue to grow their business (i.e. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, etc.)
Incidentally, I am in the top 5% of earners and tax payers in this country. I work for a major wall-street bank. I earn a great income and am proud of the effort and the struggle I went through to get to where I am now. I have never asked for a hand-out...ever. No, I did not come from an affluent family. I actually was kicked out of my house and lived on my own since the age of 16. I completed high-school through a high-school completion program while working a fulltime crap job to pay for my crap apartment and transportation (I took the bus...in Jacksonville as i didn't own a car until I was 18 and could pay for one myself). I didn't get to attend college until I was well into my 20's and it was a community college at that, of which I paid for on my own. Anyone who claims ownership to ANY of my money can seriously kiss my ass. I EARNED every bit of what I have. You can slant the Occupy beliefs any way you want and state that they are only agains the "big banks" or only against "big corporations", etc., however as you can see from their official postings, this is not the case. They are against anyone who has more than them and they think people have the "right" to be happy. YOU make your own happiness, it is not reliant on anyone else. Additionally,your right is the PURSUIT of happiness. They refuse to persue anything but other people's wealth.
It is the INDIVIDUAL that is the hero. The government's role is to protect us from force in our pursuit for our personal happiness and well-being. They are not and never should be the force nor should they dictate what they feel is just for us. Additionally, no one person or group has any right so ever to force his/her will upon on another human being, period. Those are inherent rights as well as constitutional rights. Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).
They say that money is evil and the corporations are evil. Evil requires the sanction of the victim. I am not a victim. No one forced me to take the jobs I've had. No one has forced me to invest the way I have. I alone made these decisions.
If you take anything at all from this, remember this: Where there is sacrifice, there is someone there collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there is service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master. The Occupy folks would gladly see our system changed to that of a Communist society in which they dictate what money goes where and who earns it (yes, they actually created a list of occupations and the associated incomes...it's on the website under "shared documents"). They are, or whomever they appoint, is the dictator and EVERYONE loses their rights and must comply or be punished. This is the way it works.
Wealth is the capacity of man's power to think. When we have lost our wealth, we have lost all thought and have become a complacent society run on whim: Tribal.
Who is John Galt?
Quote from: NotNow on November 05, 2011, 07:41:40 PM
I do not understand (or I am not aware of) the criminal charges being discussed and exactly who should be charged. If there are specific charges against specific persons then I would like to hear them...and I would like to know where any prosecution stands.
That's precisely the problem. No one is being prosecuted.
No crimes, eh? Except for all the ones they have admitted to under oath -- or where someone other than a bankster went to jail, like:
1)Money laundering for Mexican drug cartels
2)Intentionally and knowingly peddling crap loans
3)Filing over 100,000 known perjured affidavits
4)And selling crap CDOs as "good investments."
And that's just a "quick list" of a few examples, and by no means is exhaustive. Every one of those is a criminal act by the way, ranging from fraud to perjury to knowingly assisting in a criminal enterprise.
Quote from: finehoe on November 07, 2011, 12:03:15 PM
Quote from: NotNow on November 05, 2011, 07:41:40 PM
I do not understand (or I am not aware of) the criminal charges being discussed and exactly who should be charged. If there are specific charges against specific persons then I would like to hear them...and I would like to know where any prosecution stands.
That's precisely the problem. No one is being prosecuted.
No crimes, eh? Except for all the ones they have admitted to under oath -- or where someone other than a bankster went to jail, like:
1)Money laundering for Mexican drug cartels
2)Intentionally and knowingly peddling crap loans
3)Filing over 100,000 known perjured affidavits
4)And selling crap CDOs as "good investments."
And that's just a "quick list" of a few examples, and by no means is exhaustive. Every one of those is a criminal act by the way, ranging from fraud to perjury to knowingly assisting in a criminal enterprise.
The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim. All of your claims above need to be substantiated by some type of documentation justifying them to be considered. If you were to actually do the research on any one of those, they would all lead back to mis-doings by our Federal Government, not banks. Therefore, you would be stating that someone within our governmental system would need to be prosecuted. Since it was Clinton who put into effect the Everyone in a Home program which was backed by the government-owned FannieMae and FreddieMac which insisted on banks coming up with "creative" underwriting and even incented them for the number of Fannie and Freddie loans that were originated each month, should it be Bill? Or maybe it should be Bush who should be in jail for backing the HAMP and HARP programs which, again, gave incentives to banks for each loan they originated under those programs to modify the terms of the now bad loans either through payment modification or refinance? Wait, how about Obama, for issuing bailouts using taxpayer money without taxpayer agreement or vote by the people, against the Capitalist form of government for which we are supposed to be governed under our Constitution (treason?)? Or, MAYBE, we could even prosecute every person in the 1968 Congress for backing the mortgage-backed securities created by their very own GinneMae?
Guys, it all started with the government and they continue to perpetuate the problem, not the banks. The banks (namely, the big, bad Bank of America) didn't even get involved with pooling loans and selling securitized assets until 1978...10 years after the government came up with the idea to create the mortgage-pools and invest on them. Couple that with the Clinton-era Everyone in a Home, and what you have is an increase in fraud (yes, some banks did commit fraud in order to receive incentives, not denying that) to originate creative loans to receive incentives under the program, increase the ability to originate even more loans by opening credit via the sale of MBS pools (backed by the GSEs), and the ultimate credit crisis we're now under in which NO ONE can get a home because the banks don't have the ability to lend.
So, who did you say needs to go to jail?? When Hitler created the Holocaust to rid the world of one race, we killed Hitler and started prosecuting all of the folks who followed his orders. If that same sentiment were true of how we got where we are now (on a much lesser caliber of course), then it should be the highest possible punishment for the leaders (presidents/congress) with prosecution for the bank's policy-owners (fyi, CEOs are not necessarily the policy-owners. They hire teams of people to handle that, i.e. Chief Compliance Officers).
Quote from: second_pancake on November 07, 2011, 12:42:49 PM
If you were to actually do the research on any one of those, they would all lead back to mis-doings by our Federal Government, not banks.
Oh, please. How on earth is the Federal Government responsible for this?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html
or this?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/18/national/main20080533.shtml
or this?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/11/01/77791/how-goldman-secretly-bet-on-the.html
Quote from: finehoe on November 07, 2011, 01:01:32 PM
Quote from: second_pancake on November 07, 2011, 12:42:49 PM
If you were to actually do the research on any one of those, they would all lead back to mis-doings by our Federal Government, not banks.
Oh, please. How on earth is the Federal Government responsible for this?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html
or this?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/18/national/main20080533.shtml
or this?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/11/01/77791/how-goldman-secretly-bet-on-the.html
Money Laundering: Federal Government at fault for these comments made in the article that you posted: The bank didn’t react quickly enough to the prosecutors’ requests and failed to hire enough investigators, the U.S. Treasury Department said in March. After a 22-month investigation, the Justice Department on March 12 charged Wachovia with violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to run an effective anti-money-laundering program.
Five days later, Wells Fargo promised in a Miami federal courtroom to revamp its detection systems. Wachovia’s new owner paid $160 million in fines and penalties, less than 2 percent of its $12.3 billion profit in 2009.
"If Wells Fargo keeps its pledge, the U.S. government will, according to the agreement, drop all charges against the bank in March 2011. " Why would the government not prosecute them under the fullest extent of the law and under the Bank Secrecy Act for which they were in violation? And why would the government, with its own prosecution team, go into a full on investigation for the claims and then come out and say they were , "...found of no wrong-doing"?
Robo-Signing:
This one is a bit complicated to explain to someone not in mortgage finance or Default, but here it is...
The government has mandates that they issue for home-lending and loan servicing companies; loan servicing companies service the loan on behalf of a lender and/or investor. They usually do all the dirty-work like property tax payments, payment processing/collection, and even the foreclosure of a loan. Among these "compliance" orders are timelines around the date of "first action" as well as Notice of Default/Intent issuance dates, and the foreclosure sale date (you have to publically publish the date the sale is to take place and where, etc.), etc. There are so many regulations at the Federal level that there are entire departments within these organizations whose only job is to read through them and issue them to the appropriate departments and then do QC checks to make sure all their policies and procedures have been updated to meet the regulations and that they are abiding to them. So, back to Robo-Signing...
When the sub-prime mortgages started to Default, banks were left with so many loans in which they had to not only meet the Gov guidelines, but also those of the GSEs (FannieMae, FreddieMack, and GinnieMae) which were in a lot of instances, much more strict and the timelines much tighter since they were government backed; that they were facing monetary penalties for not meeting the SLAs (service-level agreements), and even down-grading (When a servicing corporation or bank is down-graded, it affects alot more than just the servicing side of the business, it affects the stock-prices and the shareholders). In order to ease the pressure and ensure they were in compliance, they, again, came up with creative measures to ensure they could keep up with all the mandates placed upon them.
I am in no way condoning this behaviour. I don't think the end justifies the means (i.e. - the homes were going into foreclosure, to ensure we meet foreclosure, we must falsely sign documents). I am merely pointing out that it is the government's involvement in private enterprise that has caused these issues. This is not Capitalism. Corporations should not be told how to run or not run their business. They should be allowed to fail or suceed on their own.
I equate this to a teacher telling his/her student at the end of the day that they have to complete a 20-page essay on the Theory of Relativity by first thing the next morning otherwise they will receive a failing grade for the entire course. What do you think that student would do with only a few hours to work with? They are faced with all of the hard work they've put into the year being completely for naught over one assignment. One is faced with a choice: the wrong one - cheat, and the right one - accept the failing grade and move on. When you're entire business, your job and the jobs of the thousands you employ depend on it though, the decision becomes much harder, doesn't it?
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 01:28:22 PM
http://firedoglake.com/2011/01/27/tea-party-patron-saint-ayn-rand-applied-for-social-security-medicare-benefits/
What would John Galt and Howard Roark say?
Critics of Social Security and Medicare frequently invoke the words and ideals of author and philosopher Ayn Rand, one of the fiercest critics of federal insurance programs. But a little-known fact is that Ayn Rand herself collected Social Security. She may also have received Medicare benefits.
An interview recently surfaced that was conducted in 1998 by the Ayn Rand Institute with a social worker who says she helped Rand and her husband, Frank O’Connor, sign up for Social Security and Medicare in 1974.
Federal records obtained through a Freedom of Information act request confirm the Social Security benefits.
Collectivist! Dagny Taggart weeps.
(http://static1.firedoglake.com/1/files/2011/01/3447039194_0fc136812b-300x199.jpg)
And before any glibertarians come back with “but…but…she paid into it so there’s no hypocrisy” in comments, Rand herself wrote,
There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction.
Adding an extra layer of crow to the deliciousness, the Ayn Rand Center for the Center for F*ck You I Got Mine Individual Rights has an article on its website right now titled, “Social Security is Immoral.” http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=10857&news_iv_ctrl=1021
IOKIYARand.
She is exactly right, there is no compromise, which is why she also said this: "It is obvious, in such cases, that a man receives his own money which was taken from him by force, directly and specifically, without his consent, against his own choice. Those who advocated such laws are morally guilty, since they assumed the “right†to force employers and unwilling co-workers. But the victims, who opposed such laws, have a clear right to any refund of their own moneyâ€"and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money, unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration."
There is no compromise of her moral issues, matters of knowledge, truth or rational conviction. There is no choice whether or not to pay into SS. Sure, it is in the Constitution that we not have an identifier to be used for the individual and therefor we are not "required" to have a SSN, however the government dictates that if we receive income, we must pay FICA and the only way we can pay it is by having our "account number" which is our SSN. So, we have to establish this account and we have to, forcibly, pay into it whether we want to or not. If we do not collect on it to get our own money back, then that will go to someone else; the Robin Hood syndrome.
Based on this article, one could also argue that because she gave to many charities throughout her life that she wasn't selfish and didn't live by the ideals of her philosophy which would also be wrong. If giving to others gives you a sense of value and acheivement then it is indeed a very selfish act. ;-)
Her philosophy is simple: "...the concept of man as a heroic being with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
She didn't. She went about it just as she did everything in her personal life, privately. Not having a press conference to announce you're doing something, doesn't mean you're hiding it. She did the same thing when she had a marital affair, which I don't agree with; it was private between her, her husband, and Nathaniel Branden and when asked about it, she talked about it. She didn't announce when she gave her private money to charity either. That was information that was "uncovered" as well.
Quote from: finehoe on November 07, 2011, 01:01:32 PM
Quote from: second_pancake on November 07, 2011, 12:42:49 PM
If you were to actually do the research on any one of those, they would all lead back to mis-doings by our Federal Government, not banks.
Oh, please. How on earth is the Federal Government responsible for this? War on drugs.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html
or this? Gramm, Leach, Bliley
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/18/national/main20080533.shtml
or this?See above
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/11/01/77791/how-goldman-secretly-bet-on-the.html
These actions were promoted by deregulation, implemented by Congress.
Should Banks be held liable? Absolutely. It won't be the Federal Government that holds them liable, however. (Outside token repercussions)
Quotebut if you are truly a fan of objectivism, then surely you realize that you are standing up for everything that she despised and hated about moochers when you stick up for these modern purveyors of finance.
DAMN!!!!!
That might be the most concise statement about Rand I ever read! Well done.
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 01:37:54 PM
Quote from: second_pancake on November 07, 2011, 01:32:08 PM
Quote from: finehoe on November 07, 2011, 01:01:32 PM
Quote from: second_pancake on November 07, 2011, 12:42:49 PM
If you were to actually do the research on any one of those, they would all lead back to mis-doings by our Federal Government, not banks.
Oh, please. How on earth is the Federal Government responsible for this?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html
or this?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/18/national/main20080533.shtml
or this?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/11/01/77791/how-goldman-secretly-bet-on-the.html
Money Laundering: Federal Government at fault for these comments made in the article that you posted: The bank didn’t react quickly enough to the prosecutors’ requests and failed to hire enough investigators, the U.S. Treasury Department said in March. After a 22-month investigation, the Justice Department on March 12 charged Wachovia with violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to run an effective anti-money-laundering program.
Five days later, Wells Fargo promised in a Miami federal courtroom to revamp its detection systems. Wachovia’s new owner paid $160 million in fines and penalties, less than 2 percent of its $12.3 billion profit in 2009.
"If Wells Fargo keeps its pledge, the U.S. government will, according to the agreement, drop all charges against the bank in March 2011. " Why would the government not prosecute them under the fullest extent of the law and under the Bank Secrecy Act for which they were in violation? And why would the government, with its own prosecution team, go into a full on investigation for the claims and then come out and say they were , "...found of no wrong-doing"?
are you serious? Why wouldn't they indeed.
Robo-Signing:
This one is a bit complicated to explain to someone not in mortgage finance or Default, but here it is...
The government has mandates that they issue for home-lending and loan servicing companies; loan servicing companies service the loan on behalf of a lender and/or investor. They usually do all the dirty-work like property tax payments, payment processing/collection, and even the foreclosure of a loan. Among these "compliance" orders are timelines around the date of "first action" as well as Notice of Default/Intent issuance dates, and the foreclosure sale date (you have to publically publish the date the sale is to take place and where, etc.), etc. There are so many regulations at the Federal level that there are entire departments within these organizations whose only job is to read through them and issue them to the appropriate departments and then do QC checks to make sure all their policies and procedures have been updated to meet the regulations and that they are abiding to them. So, back to Robo-Signing...
When the sub-prime mortgages started to Default, banks were left with so many loans in which they had to not only meet the Gov guidelines, but also those of the GSEs (FannieMae, FreddieMack, and GinnieMae) which were in a lot of instances, much more strict and the timelines much tighter since they were government backed; that they were facing monetary penalties for not meeting the SLAs (service-level agreements), and even down-grading (When a servicing corporation or bank is down-graded, it affects alot more than just the servicing side of the business, it affects the stock-prices and the shareholders). In order to ease the pressure and ensure they were in compliance, they, again, came up with creative measures to ensure they could keep up with all the mandates placed upon them.
I am in no way condoning this behaviour. I don't think the end justifies the means (i.e. - the homes were going into foreclosure, to ensure we meet foreclosure, we must falsely sign documents). I am merely pointing out that it is the government's involvement in private enterprise that has caused these issues. This is not Capitalism. Corporations should not be told how to run or not run their business. They should be allowed to fail or suceed on their own.
I equate this to a teacher telling his/her student at the end of the day that they have to complete a 20-page essay on the Theory of Relativity by first thing the next morning otherwise they will receive a failing grade for the entire course. What do you think that student would do with only a few hours to work with? They are faced with all of the hard work they've put into the year being completely for naught over one assignment. One is faced with a choice: the wrong one - cheat, and the right one - accept the failing grade and move on. When you're entire business, your job and the jobs of the thousands you employ depend on it though, the decision becomes much harder, doesn't it?
THis is such a load of dingo's kidneys. On one hand you say that you disagree with the crimes committed, but on the other hand you say that since there was some way to connect it to government practices, that therefore it all amounts to nothing?
No, Stephen, that's not what I said. I said I don't think the end justifies the means. What the banks did as a reaction to the SLAs they were trying to meet was wrong. The question was, how were the actions of the bank the fault of the government and I answered that question. It's cause and effect. The government created regulations that were almost impossible for financial institutions of that magnitude to adhere to. The effect was the banks cutting corners to maintain compliance.
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 02:13:21 PM
read the above, second pancake. She took it under the name 'ann oconner', and it was a secret.
Stephen, Ann O'Conner IS/WAS her name, lol. Ayn Rand was her pen name used for her writings. She could not do anything legally under the name Ayn Rand because that was not her legal name.
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 02:31:53 PM
Second Pancake, you cannot have it both ways.
Either they committed a crime or they didnt.
You seem to be saying that its ok, because they were only doing it to get around regulations.
Which is exactly the point.
Stephen, that IS what I'm saying. Did you read the Hitler comment??? I am in agreement that when a crime is committed, those who committed the crime should face charges. This is why I also made the comments as to why would the government not have prosecuted those in charge of monitoring the bank accounts under the Bank Secrecy Act when they admitted to wrong doing? And why would the government have subsequently said they found no "wrong-doing", again, when the bank came out and admitted they had done something wrong? It doesn't make sense. NO deal should've been cut and the head of that department within the bank should be doing jail time, period.
In addition, I'm saying, the government needs to realize BEFORE then enact regulations, what the effect of those regulations might be. Instead of being so REactive, they should be more PROactive and fully vet their ideas.
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 02:29:51 PM
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 02:13:21 PM
read the above, second pancake. She took it under the name 'ann oconner', and it was a secret.
I literally have every word that Ayn Rand ever typed, including every single edition of the Objectivist Newsletter, incidentally. I love Ayn Rand, and I love objectivist thought, but if you are truly a fan of objectivism, then surely you realize that you are standing up for everything that she despised and hated about moochers when you stick up for these modern purveyors of finance.
This is the very epitome of what she denounced as the aristocracy of Pull, in her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged.
You are defending Wesley Mouch, SP, not John Galt.
Henry Reardon paid the highest wages of anyone in his industry, because he wanted the most competent men.
Dagny Taggart personally built roads and doubled the incomes of her workers in reward for their accomplishments.
John Galt was prepared to give the world a free energy source in order to sell the motors that utilized it.
Trade value for value. A = A.
When you stand up for the villains that sold worthless mortgages as securitized financial products, you are helping to confuse the rest of the world into not being able to tell the difference between criminals and industrialists.
The men and women that Rand was describing were the Randell Mills and Dean Kamens of this world, not the Bernie Madoffs.
Its a perversion of Objectivism to do this, and I wish you would stop.
You are not reading what I wrote. First, if you believe I am standing up for the villian, than you are brain-locked on the idea that all banks are evil and are the enemy. That is just not true. Secondly, having something or reading something doesn't necessarily mean you comprehend or fully understand it.
I am not defending criminal acts and I wish you would stop your perversion of my statements in stating that I am.
Lol. One more time...this time I'll try and make it even more simple since stating "...the end doesn't justify the means", and "...I do not condone criminal acts" seem to have somehow whooshed right over your head:
If you have 2 children and child 1 is pulling child 2's hair, taunting her and calling her names, even after child 2 has repeatedly asked her to stop, then child 2 retaliates and punches child 1 in the face. Child 1 comes to you crying over how child 2 has hurt her and made her nose bleed. Your first reaction is to punish child 2, right? Once you know the true story what is your decision? Does it change? Mine does. They BOTH get punished. Gasp, right? I'm supposed to be the defender of evil and the unjust, lol. Why? They both get punished because while Child 1 was absolutely wrong and completely knew no good could possibly come from her actions other than to cause harm to another, Child 2 actually caused harm. They both used means of force when it wasn't needed. Child 2 had other means to rectify the situation other than retaliation. Do you understand me now? The banks COULD have done something differently. They had the money to do it. They could have rallied against the regulation, they could've taken out full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal as I've seen done with other CEOs (Andy Beal of Beal Bank), they COULD have done a lot of things, but they chose to do something wrong to counteract something wrong that was being done to them. For the record if I haven't made it clear enough already: I DON'T AGREE WITH THIS. I was answering a question on how the government had "anything" to do with this and I answered it. Period.
"Arent you also confusing banks with Wall Street?"
I would say yes, but the fact is, the Wall Street that is the Occupy movement's grievance is with is all banks which makes no sense at all. The banks on Wall Street are: JPMorganChase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley...i.e. investment banks. Not all banks are investment banks. Most are merely depositories, but the Occupy movement has stated on their site in several locations that it's not only all banks but "corporations" as well which is also another broad statement...which was addressed by Peter Schiff in the video link I posted. A corporation, as you well know since you've had one, is just a person who set up their business as a corporation to protect themselves from certain liabilities.
Again, as I stated before, there are many legitimate grievances that need attention. The lobbying, the political contributions and soliciting, but the largest of all has to do with the government being involved in ANY private business. There should not have been and should never be a bail-out of a private company. True Capitalism would've allowed them to fail and true Capitalism would've never allowed the government to enact programs forcing a private company to write loans that they knew were bad investments....AND incent them for it.
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 02:44:11 PM
So its still the governments fault that the banks committed crimes?
So when a guy goes crazy and kills his entire family, is it because we outlawed domestic abuse? Wouldnt that 'regulation' have kept his stress level down to the point that he didnt actually murder anyone? and when you think about it, isnt maiming better than murder? And who doesnt need a little discipline every now and then? Neitsche said that "What doesnt kill me, will make me stronger", you know.
This kind of logic is set up to excuse the criminal, SP.
Obviously not, however there are laws that prevent against the provoking of another individual to the point that they cause harm to another. So, if the crazy guy murdered his entire family because they locked him in the house, tied him down so he couldn't move, threw things at him and spit on him on a daily basis then he broke free one day and went "crazy"...different story. Force begets force.
What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral.
By Barry Ritholtz, Published: November 5
I have a fairly simple approach to investing: Start with data and objective evidence to determine the dominant elements driving the market action right now. Figure out what objective reality is beneath all of the noise. Use that information to try to make intelligent investing decisions.
But then, I’m an investor focused on preserving capital and managing risk. I’m not out to win the next election or drive the debate. For those who are, facts and data matter much less than a narrative that supports their interests.
One group has been especially vocal about shaping a new narrative of the credit crisis and economic collapse: those whose bad judgment and failed philosophy helped cause the crisis.
Rather than admit the error of their ways â€" Repent! â€" these people are engaged in an active campaign to rewrite history. They are not, of course, exonerated in doing so. And beyond that, they damage the process of repairing what was broken. They muddy the waters when it comes to holding guilty parties responsible. They prevent measures from being put into place to prevent another crisis.
Here is the surprising takeaway: They are winning. Thanks to the endless repetition of the Big Lie.
A Big Lie is so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. There are many examples: Claims that Earth is not warming, or that evolution is not the best thesis we have for how humans developed. Those opposed to stimulus spending have gone so far as to claim that the infrastructure of the United States is just fine, Grade A (not D, as the we discussed last month), and needs little repair.
Wall Street has its own version: Its Big Lie is that banks and investment houses are merely victims of the crash. You see, the entire boom and bust was caused by misguided government policies. It was not irresponsible lending or derivative or excess leverage or misguided compensation packages, but rather long-standing housing policies that were at fault.Indeed, the arguments these folks make fail to withstand even casual scrutiny. But that has not stopped people who should know better from repeating them.
The Big Lie made a surprise appearance Tuesday when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, responding to a question about Occupy Wall Street, stunned observers by exonerating Wall Street: “It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp.â€
What made his comments so stunning is that he built Bloomberg Data Services on the notion that data are what matter most to investors. The terminals are found on nearly 400,000 trading desks around the world, at a cost of $1,500 a month. (Do the math â€" that’s over half a billion dollars a month.) Perhaps the fact that Wall Street was the source of his vast wealth biased him. But the key principle of the business that made the mayor a billionaire is that fund managers, economists, researchers and traders should ignore the squishy narrative and, instead, focus on facts. Yet he ignored his own principles to repeat statements he should have known were false.
Why are people trying to rewrite the history of the crisis? Some are simply trying to save face. Interest groups who advocate for deregulation of the finance sector would prefer that deregulation not receive any blame for the crisis.
Some stand to profit from the status quo: Banks present a systemic risk to the economy, and reducing that risk by lowering their leverage and increasing capital requirements also lowers profitability. Others are hired guns, doing the bidding of bosses on Wall Street.
They all suffer cognitive dissonance â€" the intellectual crisis that occurs when a failed belief system or philosophy is confronted with proof of its implausibility.
And what about those facts? To be clear, no single issue was the cause. Our economy is a complex and intricate system. What caused the crisis? Look:
●Fed Chair Alan Greenspan dropped rates to 1 percent â€" levels not seen for half a century â€" and kept them there for an unprecedentedly long period. This caused a spiral in anything priced in dollars (i.e., oil, gold) or credit (i.e., housing) or liquidity driven (i.e., stocks).
●Low rates meant asset managers could no longer get decent yields from municipal bonds or Treasurys. Instead, they turned to high-yield mortgage-backed securities. Nearly all of them failed to do adequate due diligence before buying them, did not understand these instruments or the risk involved. They violated one of the most important rules of investing: Know what you own.
●Fund managers made this error because they relied on the credit ratings agencies â€" Moody’s, S&P and Fitch. They had placed an AAA rating on these junk securities, claiming they were as safe as U.S. Treasurys.
4 Derivatives had become a uniquely unregulated financial instrument. They are exempt from all oversight, counter-party disclosure, exchange listing requirements, state insurance supervision and, most important, reserve requirements. This allowed AIG to write $3 trillion in derivatives while reserving precisely zero dollars against future claims.
5 The Securities and Exchange Commission changed the leverage rules for just five Wall Street banks in 2004. The “Bear Stearns exemption†replaced the 1977 net capitalization rule’s 12-to-1 leverage limit. In its place, it allowed unlimited leverage for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. These banks ramped leverage to 20-, 30-, even 40-to-1. Extreme leverage leaves very little room for error.
6Wall Street’s compensation system was skewed toward short-term performance. It gives traders lots of upside and none of the downside. This creates incentives to take excessive risks.
7 The demand for higher-yielding paper led Wall Street to begin bundling mortgages. The highest yielding were subprime mortgages. This market was dominated by non-bank originators exempt from most regulations. The Fed could have supervised them, but Greenspan did not.
8 These mortgage originators’ lend-to-sell-to-securitizers model had them holding mortgages for a very short period. This allowed them to get creative with underwriting standards, abdicating traditional lending metrics such as income, credit rating, debt-service history and loan-to-value.
9 “Innovative†mortgage products were developed to reach more subprime borrowers. These include 2/28 adjustable-rate mortgages, interest-only loans, piggy-bank mortgages (simultaneous underlying mortgage and home-equity lines) and the notorious negative amortization loans (borrower’s indebtedness goes up each month). These mortgages defaulted in vastly disproportionate numbers to traditional 30-year fixed mortgages.
●To keep up with these newfangled originators, traditional banks developed automated underwriting systems. The software was gamed by employees paid on loan volume, not quality.
●Glass-Steagall legislation, which kept Wall Street and Main Street banks walled off from each other, was repealed in 1998. This allowed FDIC-insured banks, whose deposits were guaranteed by the government, to engage in highly risky business. It also allowed the banks to bulk up, becoming bigger, more complex and unwieldy.
●Many states had anti-predatory lending laws on their books (along with lower defaults and foreclosure rates). In 2004, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency federally preempted state laws regulating mortgage credit and national banks. Following this change, national lenders sold increasingly risky loan products in those states. Shortly after, their default and foreclosure rates skyrocketed.
Bloomberg was partially correct: Congress did radically deregulate the financial sector, doing away with many of the protections that had worked for decades. Congress allowed Wall Street to self-regulate, and the Fed the turned a blind eye to bank abuses.
The previous Big Lie â€" the discredited belief that free markets require no adult supervision â€" is the reason people have created a new false narrative.
Now it’s time for the Big Truth.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-caused-the-financial-crisis-the-big-lie-goes-viral/2011/10/31/gIQAXlSOqM_story.html
Re, Adam Smith:
I agree with the observations of the need for government intervention. My beliefs are not a government-free society, but one where the government acts not to protect the people from ourselves (which would mean the government basing decisions on what they deem moral or just which could supercede the beliefs of the individual), but to protect the RIGHTS of the INDIVIDUAL. Rights meaning those defined by nature...inherent rights such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of choice in what we do with our lives so long as it does not impede on the rights of another. Freedom FROM force, not "freedom" BY force.
I agree that taxes should be paid and are needed to pay for the services provided to us by our government whether at the state or federal level. What those taxes go toward, however, is another story. I also agree that the "rich" should pay more and they do. If there were a flat tax dictating that every working person pay 50% of their income into the tax system, a 30k per year earner is paying far less than a 300k earner...the more wealthy person is paying more.
I also agree that corporations can influence politics, which is apparant today with the number of dollars spent in political campaigns paid for by major players in the country's financial sector. I don't dispute that and I think it's wrong. I think where you and I disagree is what came first, the chicken or the egg. Who allowed the corruption to happen? Was it the large financial firm offering the bribe to the political candidate, or the political candidate accepting and continuing to fund campaigns and give out earmarks based on the affiliation?
As soon as you make a decision, you set a precendence. People know where you stand based on your decision and determine what your next actions may be. Reminds me of a story/joke: A guy walks up to a woman and asks her, "would you sleep with me for a dollar?" She responds, "Hell no!", he asks, "Well, how about a million dollars?" , "Hell YES!" she says. The guy then hands her a $100. She says, "What is this? I thought you said a million." He says, "Well, now that we've established you're a prostitute, it's all about negotiation."
Seems this is what is going on with Wall Street and our government. "Big business" has established what business the government is in, now it's all about price. The government shouldn't be in it at all and based upon Smith's writing, he would agree.
Fine, you just beat me to it. I was going to post the exact same article in this thread.
BTW, Moderators, you haven't set your clock back yet!
Quote from: finehoe on November 07, 2011, 04:00:02 PM
What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral.
By Barry Ritholtz, Published: November 5
I have a fairly simple approach to investing: Start with data and objective evidence to determine the dominant elements driving the market action right now. Figure out what objective reality is beneath all of the noise. Use that information to try to make intelligent investing decisions.
But then, I’m an investor focused on preserving capital and managing risk. I’m not out to win the next election or drive the debate. For those who are, facts and data matter much less than a narrative that supports their interests.
One group has been especially vocal about shaping a new narrative of the credit crisis and economic collapse: those whose bad judgment and failed philosophy helped cause the crisis.
Rather than admit the error of their ways — Repent! — these people are engaged in an active campaign to rewrite history. They are not, of course, exonerated in doing so. And beyond that, they damage the process of repairing what was broken. They muddy the waters when it comes to holding guilty parties responsible. They prevent measures from being put into place to prevent another crisis.
Here is the surprising takeaway: They are winning. Thanks to the endless repetition of the Big Lie.
A Big Lie is so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. There are many examples: Claims that Earth is not warming, or that evolution is not the best thesis we have for how humans developed. Those opposed to stimulus spending have gone so far as to claim that the infrastructure of the United States is just fine, Grade A (not D, as the we discussed last month), and needs little repair.
Wall Street has its own version: Its Big Lie is that banks and investment houses are merely victims of the crash. You see, the entire boom and bust was caused by misguided government policies. It was not irresponsible lending or derivative or excess leverage or misguided compensation packages, but rather long-standing housing policies that were at fault.Indeed, the arguments these folks make fail to withstand even casual scrutiny. But that has not stopped people who should know better from repeating them.
The Big Lie made a surprise appearance Tuesday when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, responding to a question about Occupy Wall Street, stunned observers by exonerating Wall Street: “It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp.”
What made his comments so stunning is that he built Bloomberg Data Services on the notion that data are what matter most to investors. The terminals are found on nearly 400,000 trading desks around the world, at a cost of $1,500 a month. (Do the math — that’s over half a billion dollars a month.) Perhaps the fact that Wall Street was the source of his vast wealth biased him. But the key principle of the business that made the mayor a billionaire is that fund managers, economists, researchers and traders should ignore the squishy narrative and, instead, focus on facts. Yet he ignored his own principles to repeat statements he should have known were false.
Why are people trying to rewrite the history of the crisis? Some are simply trying to save face. Interest groups who advocate for deregulation of the finance sector would prefer that deregulation not receive any blame for the crisis.
Some stand to profit from the status quo: Banks present a systemic risk to the economy, and reducing that risk by lowering their leverage and increasing capital requirements also lowers profitability. Others are hired guns, doing the bidding of bosses on Wall Street.
They all suffer cognitive dissonance — the intellectual crisis that occurs when a failed belief system or philosophy is confronted with proof of its implausibility.
And what about those facts? To be clear, no single issue was the cause. Our economy is a complex and intricate system. What caused the crisis? Look:
●Fed Chair Alan Greenspan dropped rates to 1 percent — levels not seen for half a century — and kept them there for an unprecedentedly long period. This caused a spiral in anything priced in dollars (i.e., oil, gold) or credit (i.e., housing) or liquidity driven (i.e., stocks).
●Low rates meant asset managers could no longer get decent yields from municipal bonds or Treasurys. Instead, they turned to high-yield mortgage-backed securities. Nearly all of them failed to do adequate due diligence before buying them, did not understand these instruments or the risk involved. They violated one of the most important rules of investing: Know what you own.
●Fund managers made this error because they relied on the credit ratings agencies — Moody’s, S&P and Fitch. They had placed an AAA rating on these junk securities, claiming they were as safe as U.S. Treasurys.
4 Derivatives had become a uniquely unregulated financial instrument. They are exempt from all oversight, counter-party disclosure, exchange listing requirements, state insurance supervision and, most important, reserve requirements. This allowed AIG to write $3 trillion in derivatives while reserving precisely zero dollars against future claims.
5 The Securities and Exchange Commission changed the leverage rules for just five Wall Street banks in 2004. The “Bear Stearns exemption” replaced the 1977 net capitalization rule’s 12-to-1 leverage limit. In its place, it allowed unlimited leverage for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. These banks ramped leverage to 20-, 30-, even 40-to-1. Extreme leverage leaves very little room for error.
6Wall Street’s compensation system was skewed toward short-term performance. It gives traders lots of upside and none of the downside. This creates incentives to take excessive risks.
7 The demand for higher-yielding paper led Wall Street to begin bundling mortgages. The highest yielding were subprime mortgages. This market was dominated by non-bank originators exempt from most regulations. The Fed could have supervised them, but Greenspan did not.
8 These mortgage originators’ lend-to-sell-to-securitizers model had them holding mortgages for a very short period. This allowed them to get creative with underwriting standards, abdicating traditional lending metrics such as income, credit rating, debt-service history and loan-to-value.
9 “Innovative” mortgage products were developed to reach more subprime borrowers. These include 2/28 adjustable-rate mortgages, interest-only loans, piggy-bank mortgages (simultaneous underlying mortgage and home-equity lines) and the notorious negative amortization loans (borrower’s indebtedness goes up each month). These mortgages defaulted in vastly disproportionate numbers to traditional 30-year fixed mortgages.
●To keep up with these newfangled originators, traditional banks developed automated underwriting systems. The software was gamed by employees paid on loan volume, not quality.
●Glass-Steagall legislation, which kept Wall Street and Main Street banks walled off from each other, was repealed in 1998. This allowed FDIC-insured banks, whose deposits were guaranteed by the government, to engage in highly risky business. It also allowed the banks to bulk up, becoming bigger, more complex and unwieldy.
●Many states had anti-predatory lending laws on their books (along with lower defaults and foreclosure rates). In 2004, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency federally preempted state laws regulating mortgage credit and national banks. Following this change, national lenders sold increasingly risky loan products in those states. Shortly after, their default and foreclosure rates skyrocketed.
Bloomberg was partially correct: Congress did radically deregulate the financial sector, doing away with many of the protections that had worked for decades. Congress allowed Wall Street to self-regulate, and the Fed the turned a blind eye to bank abuses.
The previous Big Lie — the discredited belief that free markets require no adult supervision — is the reason people have created a new false narrative.
Now it’s time for the Big Truth.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-caused-the-financial-crisis-the-big-lie-goes-viral/2011/10/31/gIQAXlSOqM_story.html
All of the points listed here are 100% true. What the author is leaving out our the Government Sponsored Entities which backed the subprime loans and offered incentives as well as the "innovative" lending mentioned, and are also the largest population of MBS pools in the country. The government guarantees that its investors will receive timely payments and that the loan will perform. They are 100% guaranteed by the full credit of the U.S. Government and therefore are considerd very low risk despite the fact that investors never really know what the cashflow will be.
With the GSEs jumping in with the Subprime loans (they've been allowed to back private loans not just government (VA/FHA) since the 70's), despite the fact the loans were already risky, investors viewed these pools as being low-risk because of the fact they were GSE-backed.
To me, this is what is scary and most disturbing and why I keep saying it's the White House that needs revamped. The WH should not be gambling with tax-payer money and investing in loans that they knew full and well were risky. Nor should they be lining the pockets of bankers with incentives to write bad loans and create and sell these MBS pools.
Oh, Stephen, my definition of Capitalism...the ECOMONIC definition, not Objectivist ;-) .....
A social system based on the rights of the individual.
You can not have a system of Capitalism economically, if you do not first have individual rights, i.e. property rights. From an Objectivist point of view, you would have to say that Capitalism is the only moral and just system because it is the only one dedicated to the protection of rights, whereas, Communism for instance, which deems that society be "classless" by nature would mean every person would lose their right to own property of any kind, or to own wealth, as it would be owned by the republic. Socialism would be deemed immoral as it refers to the sacrifice of one man to another. While you may still retain your right to own property, it is dictated that you must give away what you own to those deemed less fortunate. Since this system uses force to distribute what is rightly yours, it is immoral.
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 04:57:47 PM
Then you are wrong. That is not a definition of capitalism in any sense of the word.
and once again, you are blaming the rule of law itself rather than the breakers of the law.
Uh, Stephen, yes it is. It is literally a piece of the full economic definition of Capalisim which is states, "...system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market"
LOL. I think it's funny how you linked to something I specifically did NOT use because Wiki does not give a clear definition, but in fact clearly states, "There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category." You asked me for MY definition and I gave it to you. I gave you the political definition and the economic definition. I defined how it relates to Communissm and Socialism, which unlike Capitalism DO have very clear and distinct definitions. I can't be wrong if there is "no consensus", my friend.
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 04:21:17 PM
Adam Smith considered government crucial to the economy both as an investor as well as a regulator. In fact he said to beware of laws that come out of the business communities that are helpful to business, as it they are almost always at odds with the good of the public and the market.
Thats not the opinion of a person who believes that government should be out of the business of regulation, is it?
Adam Smith would probably be out on the street with the Occupy Wall Street protestors, Second Pancake. And considering how little affection Ayn Rand had for people who got rich without actually producing anything, I think she would probably be standing right next to him.
Why arent you out there with the OWS protesters?
Because of this:
http://owsworkingdocs.wordpress.com/economic-charter/
and this:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GB_9qNl1DnfgLXLQj05OPNX60qn1Jf6IwPISiD-q6kk/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1#
and this:
http://piratenpad.de/cyG2aD0YGO
and this:
https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/
and this:
http://tapnec.wikispaces.com/Alternative+TOC+-+Draft
I think this statement is one of my favorites, " Make failing impossible to assure that everyone has the same chance in the work place post-college." Awwww, that's so sweet.
Oh, wait, I almost forgot about this one: http://tapnec.wikispaces.com/Happiness
QuoteGreed isn't what makes capitalism work, but nor is it typically the culprit when capitalism goes astray. The real problem isn't greed, but rather institutional structures that reward antisocial behaviour. Which structures? Well, that depends on which particular antisocial behaviour you're talking about. And that's precisely where the Occupy movement faces its greatest challenge. You can't plausibly take aim at a hundred different social ills and presume to find the cause of them all in the single word "greed."
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blog/business_ethics/55773--greed-capitalism-and-the-occupy-movement
The problem is that so much is wrong, it's hard to know what to address first.
Lets restore Democracy first: Public Financing of Campaigns!
http://www.getmoneyout.com
FayeForCure, I was looking for the 'Like' button then realized I wasn't on FaceBook, ;-)
Here's yet another reason I'm not out there with the protestors, Stephen: http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/robbins-report/2011/oct/12/occupy-wall-street-demands-cap-banker-salaries-200/print/
Btw, I did the math on this and this and using this structure, we could run our government for 15.5 days, based on 155mm workers. If you use the total population of the U.S. (not excluding children, elderly, disabled, etc.), it would run our government for a little over a month :-) Whoo hoo!
The fundamental Meaning of Freedom is what differs most when comparing OWS with the Tea Party:
QuoteEven today, leading libertarians would rescind a host of government programs initiated over the last few generations, including Social Security and Medicare. Moreover, this view of freedom means that the Tea Partiers will not be particularly concerned about issues such as the widening income inequality in the United States. Such inequality is a product of markets, and should not be a source of worry.
On the other side -- personified by the Occupy protesters -- are those who have a more substantive and robust view of liberty than simply freedom from government.
Instead, freedom can mean
freedom from poverty and economic oppression.
It can mean freedom from discrimination.
It can mean freedom to breathe clean air or eat untainted food.
It can mean freedom to learn in decent schools and universities.
It can mean freedom from the fear that age, disease, or accident will cause you to lose your home or livelihood.
Franklin Roosevelt best articulated this positive notion of liberty when he argued that citizens had the right to "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear."
Notice that this view of freedom often requires government assistance and attention. To protect people from discrimination, you need government to penalize it. To ameliorate poverty, you need government to create educational systems, school lunch programs, and homeless shelters.
To address income inequality, the key issue of the Occupy movement, we cannot depend on the so-called "free market." (For more on how the "free" market is not so free, see my new book The Myth of Choice.) Rather, we need things that government can best provide -- oversight of executive compensation, protections for unions, a decent minimum wage, and a progressive tax system, for example.
Of course libertarians do not necessarily see all government activity as the Great Satan, and the Occupiers do not necessarily see government as the Great Savior. But the conflicting views on what freedom means will create an inevitable and deep-seated rift over the proper role of government.
No matter how similar the Tea Partiers and the Occupiers appear, they will never agree about most of the political questions that matter.
Kent Greenfield
Kent Greenfield, a professor at Boston College Law School, is the author of
The Myth of Choice: Personal Responsibility in World of Limits, forthcoming October 2011 from Yale University Press. At Boston College, he teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, business law, and legal theory. He is also the author of The Failure of Corporate Law, published in 2007 by University of Chicago Press. Before joining the faculty at Boston College, he clerked for Justice David H. Souter of the United States Supreme Court.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kent-greenfield/tea-party-occupy-wall-street_b_1065717.html
BTW, thanks second_pancake........restoring real Democracy is the best way to start.
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 05:47:15 PM
Quote from: second_pancake on November 07, 2011, 05:31:26 PM
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 04:21:17 PM
Why arent you out there with the OWS protesters?
Because of this:
http://owsworkingdocs.wordpress.com/economic-charter/
and this:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GB_9qNl1DnfgLXLQj05OPNX60qn1Jf6IwPISiD-q6kk/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1#
and this:
http://piratenpad.de/cyG2aD0YGO
and this:
https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/
and this:
http://tapnec.wikispaces.com/Alternative+TOC+-+Draft
I think this statement is one of my favorites, " Make failing impossible to assure that everyone has the same chance in the work place post-college." Awwww, that's so sweet.
Oh, wait, I almost forgot about this one: http://tapnec.wikispaces.com/Happiness
Ok. Having read through all of the links you provided, I don't understand at all. You just got through saying you agreed with every single one of the points raised in the list of greviances, and the rest of the links appear to be an ongoing conversation/debate about how to tackle the different issues. None of them were a finished product and simply consisted of color highlighted debate points.
Your final link isnt even from Occupy Wall Street.
Im beginning to think that you literally do not know what you are talking about at all.
what gives?
Perhaps it would be clearer if you explained it in your own words rather that trying to let everyone come to private conclusions after reading a chaotic collection of links.
Lol. Stephen, all of the links provided are from the original Shared Working Documents link. One link leads to another and so on. Yes, the last link is from an Occupy Wall Street supported movement (do the back track).
In reading the list of grievances, I agree on some of the points, as I stated previously, however then you start to read on and everything just gets nuts...seriously nuts, as you can see by the last link which is from the OWS Economic Charter that is listed on the Shared Documents Site. If you click on that from the page, it will give you the address tapnec.wikispaces.com and it tells you that they've moved it to the wikispaces site.
I told you what I agree with and what I don't and you asked why I wasn't out there. All of the content and dialouge in those links is why I'm not out there. They're NUTS! One person will come up with something that makes sense and another, of the same movement, will say something that is completely off the wall and then they put it in their documents for all to see as something they are considering?!?! I don't support any movement that can't even agree among themselves what it is they stand for and what it is they are looking to change. So far as the items they all seem to be in agreement on, such as "forgiveness of all student debt", I don't agree at all.
You want to know what I agree with, I stated in the previous posts. That list is not all encompassing of what the OWS movement believes, and it's those additional items that causes me and many others to lose all respect for them.
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 06:19:12 PM
An 'occupy wall street' supported movement?
that sounds terribly disingenuous.
So you dislike conversation in which some of the participants sound a little nuts?
Well I hope no one reads this conversation with your definition of the economic meaning of capitalism....lol.
You're right, it's not an OWS "supported" movement, it IS OWS. Here is the link path:
http://owsworkingdocs.wordpress.com/economic-charter/
Then click: "The American People's Charter". You should get a message saying, "The bulk of this text has now been moved to, tapnec.wikispaces.com"
Go to www.tapnec.wikispaces.com, click on, (on the left-hand side where all the chapters are listed) under "Additional Topics", "Happiness". There you will see the content for which the original link was provided. Stephen, this is OWS. This is what they and the protestors are putting out there.
In regard to the Capitalism retort. I already stated where the definition came from and how your "wiki" version supported my argument so I don't know why you're bringing it up again unless you just like to argue for the sake of arguing?
See my notes within the quote:
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 06:41:48 PM
Second Pancake.
There are definitions for 'capitalism'.
They are well known, and well established.
Your definition, derived from the works of Ayn Rand, specifically from the speech by John Galt at the end of the book, is not among them. SP - You asked me MY definition and I gave it to you. The economic definition is accurate. Google it. It's not from me, it's what I believe.
There isnt an argument to be supported here. It either is, or isnt a definition of capitalism. And it isnt. SP - It is. Google it, Mr. Internet.
It would be like claiming that the definition of Christianity is a society where everyone is a vegetarian. SP - apples and oranges my friend. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you can claim it as false. Your accusation is that my definition is wrong. The burden of proof is on you. Prove it.
Its just nonsense. Absurd nonsense.
And how do you propose that a purely 'economic' definition of an economic system is actually a social system? SP - I defined how the economic definition ties into the definition I wrote. Again, just because you don't like it and dont' agree with it, doesn't mean it's untrue.
On the subject of your 'happiness' link......are you seriously claiming that the occupy wall street movement is about legalizing psychadelic drugs? SP - I am not claiming it, Stephen. It is what it is. This is on their website. I am not making this up. You can look at it just as anyone else can and if you want to question it, they also posted the weekly conference call number along with their passcode to listen in. I plan on listening. Why don't you join in and ask them why they posted this on their site?
Considering that it took you a while to explain the tenuous connection (at best) between the New Economic Charter content and the Occupy Wall Street content, I am going to just assume here that this isnt something that you actually researched yourself, but rather a set of links that you followed and copied from some other source. SP - It took me a while because, oh, I have a JOB, and I wanted to be sure I was giving accurate information and not a bunch of B.S. for you to try and poke holes in. Next time I'll just do like you do and make a bunch of opinionated statements as if they are fact and berate others when I don't like what they have to say, lol.
Sorry, SP, it just doesnt pass muster. And you have to ask yourself, why was it removed from where ever you are claiming it was moved from to the new site in the first place? SP - Don't know why it was moved. I don't run OWS. I would suggest, as I did above to ask them on their weekly conference call. Since I read everything I can get my hands on though, and read their meeting notes from October (posted on the same wiki link) in which they stated they were transitioning for more "server space". i would imagine that's what it was for.
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 03:11:52 PM
I think you may be referring to that discredited old fraud, Milton Friedman, who had some basics correct, but his nearly mystical references to 'the invisible hand of the market' in my opinion have proven to be his oracle at delphi inasmuch as believing that 'government' is somehow 'outside' of the market.
I'm being petty here, but this has been bothering me. I read your comment yesterday and haven't been able to respond until now. Who has discredited Friedman? And do you really need to call him an old fraud? That's really over the line.
Quote from: Ajax on November 08, 2011, 03:09:49 PM
Quote from: stephendare on November 07, 2011, 03:11:52 PM
I think you may be referring to that discredited old fraud, Milton Friedman, who had some basics correct, but his nearly mystical references to 'the invisible hand of the market' in my opinion have proven to be his oracle at delphi inasmuch as believing that 'government' is somehow 'outside' of the market.
I'm being petty here, but this has been bothering me. I read your comment yesterday and haven't been able to respond until now. Who has discredited Friedman? And do you really need to call him an old fraud? That's really over the line.
Just google Milton Friedman and fraud:
QuoteMilton Friedman was a nobel winning economist and acclaimed in the corporate media as a genius and yet most if not all the countries in which his economic polices were put into practice experienced one degree or other of disaster economically. In Chile', after the dictator Pinochet (For someone who talked so much about "Freedom" his policies were surprisingly popular with authoritarian regimes) imposed Friedman's ideas the economy promptly went down the toilet, then revived in the early 1980's only to plummet again even further. Pinochet finally had to abandon many of The Chicago Boys (Friedman's deciples) policies and the economy recovered somewhat. When the former USSR collapsed Friedman's ideas were applied there in "free-market shock therapy" and the country went into severe economic depression. The U.S. lost 20% of its wealth during our great depression, the USSR under Friedman's policies lost 40% of it's wealth. The IMF forced Friedman's ideas on many countries by with holding loans needed by developing countries unless they enacted "structural adjustment" which were based on Friedman's ideas. They forced them on Argentina in the 1980s and '90's and a few years later Argentina's economy collapsed entirely. His policies couldn 't be forced on the U.S. itself to the extent that they were in so called third world countries but to the extent they have been they have caused a reduction in general prosperity, even the corporate media which were big boosters of Friedman's economic ideas carry stories today about the shrinking middle class, negative savings rates, and skyrocketing family debt. Friedman's ideas were basically recycled Laize Faire, the economic regime pushed by imperial Britain in the late 1800's, and associated with a lavishly wealthy aristocratic class, a relatively small middle class and the great mass of people in having a hard time financially or in abject poverty. With Friedman's policies still so powerful in the media and in the political establishment things are still going in that direction back from our peak GENERAL prosperity in the 1960's and early 1970's. Friedman did have one huge "success" though that explains his high stature in the corporate media and amoung politicians, he made very wealhy people MUCH wealthier. That's undeniable.
http://www.nysun.com/comments/35236
Faye,
A reader comment from the Sun? Really? I'm not even a big Friedman fan but that is no justification of the words "discredited" or "fraud" in describing this man:
Milton FriedmanFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Milton Friedman Chicago School of Economics
Born July 31, 1912(1912-07-31)
Brooklyn, New York
Died November 16, 2006(2006-11-16) (aged 94)
San Francisco, California
Nationality American
Institution Hoover Institution (1977â€"2006)
University of Chicago (1946â€"77)
Columbia University (1937â€"41, 1943â€"45, 1964â€"65)
NBER (1937â€"40)
Field Economics
Alma mater Columbia University (Ph.D.), 1946, University of Chicago (M.A.), 1933
Rutgers University (B.A.), (1932)
Opposed John Maynard Keynes, John Kenneth Galbraith, Murray Rothbard
Influences Adam Smith, Irving Fisher, Frank Knight, Murray Rothbard, Jacob Viner, Harold Hotelling, Arthur Burns, Friedrich Hayek, Homer Jones, Ludwig von Mises, Henry Simons, George Stigler
Influenced David D. Friedman, Anna J. Schwartz, Ben Bernanke, Gary Becker, Thomas Sowell, Harry Markowitz, Chicago Boys, William F. Buckley, Jr., Cato Institute
Contributions Price theory, Monetarism, applied macroeconomics, floating exchange rates, volunteer military, Permanent income hypothesis, Friedman test
Awards John Bates Clark Medal (1951)
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (1976)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (1988)
National Medal of Science (1988)
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Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 â€" November 16, 2006) was an American economist, statistician, academic, and author who taught at the University of Chicago for more than three decades. He was a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Among scholars, he is best known for his theoretical and empirical research, especially consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy.[1]
Friedman was an economic advisor to conservative President Ronald Reagan. Over time, many governments practiced his restatement of a political philosophy that extolled the virtues of a free market economic system with little intervention by government. As a leader of the Chicago school of economics, based at the University of Chicago, he had great influence in determining the research agenda of the entire profession. Milton Friedman's works, which include many monographs, books, scholarly articles, papers, magazine columns, television programs, videos, and lectures, cover a broad range of topics of microeconomics, macroeconomics, economic history, and public policy issues. The Economist described him as "the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century…possibly of all of it."[2]
Friedman was a Keynesian in the 1930s and 1940s, and always said he favored some aspects of the New Deal such as "providing relief for the unemployed, providing jobs for the unemployed, and motivating the economy to expand... an expansive monetary policy"; however, he never advocated wage and price controls. His challenges to what he later called "naive Keynesian" (as opposed to New Keynesian) theory[3] began with his 1950s reinterpretation of the consumption function. At the University of Chicago, Friedman became the main advocate opposing activist Keynesian government policies; he has been characterized as "the leader of the first recognized counterrevolution against Keynesianism",[4] although even in the late-1960s he described his own approach (along with all of mainstream economics) as still wedded to the "Keynesian language and apparatus" albeit rejecting its "initial" conclusions.[5] During the 1960s he promoted an alternative macroeconomic policy known as "monetarism". He theorized there existed a "natural" rate of unemployment, and argued that governments could increase employment above this rate (e.g., by increasing aggregate demand) only at the risk of causing inflation to accelerate.[6] He argued that the Phillips Curve was not stable and predicted what would come to be known as stagflation.[7] Though opposed to the existence of the Federal Reserve, Friedman argued that, given that it does exist, a steady, small expansion of the money supply was the only wise policy.[8]
Influenced by his close friend George Stigler, Friedman opposed government regulation of many types. He once stated that his role in eliminating U.S. conscription was his proudest accomplishment, and his support for school choice led him to found The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. Friedman's political philosophy, which he considered classically liberal and libertarian, emphasized the advantages of free market economics and the disadvantages of government intervention and regulation, strongly influencing the opinions of American conservatives and libertarians. In his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman advocated policies such as a volunteer military, freely floating exchange rates, abolition of medical licenses, a negative income tax, and education vouchers.[9] His books and essays were widely read, and his words had both underground and overt influence in Communist countries.[10][11][12][13] Friedman's economic theories had an international influence in era since 1970. Some of his laissez-faire ideas concerning monetary policy, taxation, privatization and deregulation were used by governments, especially during the 1980s. A combination of his monetary theory in regard to credit and Keynes's belief in deficit spending to stimulate growth has influenced economists such as Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve's response to the financial crisis of 2007â€"10.[14]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman
With what "economic expertise" do you call Friedman these names? Stop shivering and read... a "reader comment" is hardly an informative or even accurate rebuttal. Since you made the accusations, please elaborate.
Can you justify your accusations or not?
Do you think that the commenter's statements were true?
"Economics is extremely useful as a means of employment for economists".
John Kenneth Galbraith [economist]
So whether you worship at the alter of Freidman or Keynes, you are still exercising belief system as opposed to a scientific method.
It reminds me of a song: {AWESOMENESS}
http://www.youtube.com/v/IOMwu6OoGo4
"Keats and Yates are on your side, while Wilde is on mine."
Poets might actually be more qualified to comment on societal behavior patterns than economists!
QuoteNo, This Is The Most Dangerous Economist In The World
Simon Black, Sovereign Man
Simon Black is an international investor, entrepreneur, permanent traveler, and self-described free man
The most dangerous woman in America
Christina Romer is the most dangerous woman in America right now. As an economics professor at the University of Berkeley, she’s charged with educating the next generation of productive citizens. She also formerly chaired the Council of Economic Advisors under President Obama.
One would think that a person with that level of influence would have a bit of sense. One would think. Yet Romer rarely fails to disappoint.
In a recent New York Times editorial entitled, “Dear Ben: It’s Time for Your Volcker Moment,†Romer publicly tries to goad Ben Bernanke into doing MORE to fight the great contraction.
It’s not enough that Mr. Bernanke has expanded the money supply by an amount never before seen in the history of the world. It’s not enough that he’s nearly exhausted every policy tool at his disposal. It’s not enough that global confidence in the dollar is fading rapidly.
Romer wants Bernanke to take things to the next level.
In her editorial, Romer draws comparisons to past economic difficulties and expresses admiration for those who employed extreme tactics to deal with them. She praises for FDR for abandoning the gold standard and allowing the dollar to depreciate.
She also erroneously recounts economic history, suggesting that Roosevelt’s actions led to “the most impressive [economic] swing the country has ever seen from horrible contraction to rapid growth.â€
Swing? That’s a bit revisionist. The Great Depression languished for years. And years. Perhaps if we’re speaking in terms of a geological timeline in which millions of years are a drop in the bucket, the recovery could be characterized as a rapid ‘swing’.
Furthermore, to credit any economic ‘recovery’ on a policy of currency debasement is simply idiotic. The path to prosperity is not paved in paper currency, but rather hard work, productivity, efficient capital allocation, savings, and technological innovation.
Roosevelt cannot be credited with supporting any of these economic foundations. Yet Romer holds him up as an example of grabbing the bull by the horns and making the tough choices that led to an unequivocal recovery.
In Romer’s world, paper is wealth. And hey, why should she believe anything else? She’s been in academia and politics for her entire life. She’s never actually had to DO anything and has been free to live inside a consequence-free Keynesian bubble throughout her entire career.
The scary thing, though, is that this woman has VIP access to the halls of power in Washington DC. She advises the decision makers who set policies affecting hundreds of millions… even billions of people. And she has no clue how the world actually works. This is incredibly destructive for the rest of us.
When I was in the African wild about six-weeks ago, I witnessed a skirmish between a couple of kuduâ€" this is a type of antelope with long, spiraled horns. They’re exceptionally aggressive.
When kudu fight each other (which happens a lot), they lock horns. Once this happens, the pair is stuck… forever entwined and defenseless until they both starve to death or get eaten by predators.
Needless to say, the kudu are rapidly dying off; nature has a way of weeding out self-destructive species.
What’s happening right now in the western world is an economic version of natural selection; self-destructive economies are imploding, while countries with thoughtful, healthy balance sheets are rising.
The nice thing is that WE can CHOOSE whether we associate with the destructive ones, or diversify internationally to the healthy ones. And the more people like Christina Romer praise currency devaluation and capital controls, the more obvious international diversification becomes to anyone paying attention.
Read more: http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/the-most-dangerous-woman-in-america/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-most-dangerous-woman-in-america#ixzz1dD93Nmi8
Apologies to Faye.
Quote from: NotNow on November 08, 2011, 11:33:51 PM
Can you justify your accusations or not?
Do you think that the commenter's statements were true?
Though directed at Stephen, I will say yes, the commenter accurately describes the failings of Milton Friedman's economic theories. And the commenter does so in a very concise summary of where and how Milton Friedman's theories were tested in real life situations over a very long time frame.
Enough said.
As buckethead says, economic theories describe human behavior in the aggregate.
Milton Friedman's theories of self-interest are
destructive in a civilized society.
The commenter is right on target with this statement:
QuoteFriedman's ideas were basically recycled Laize Faire, the economic regime pushed by imperial Britain in the late 1800's, and associated with a lavishly wealthy aristocratic class, a relatively small middle class and the great mass of people in having a hard time financially or in abject poverty. With Friedman's policies still so powerful in the media and in the political establishment things are still going in that direction back from our peak GENERAL prosperity in the 1960's and early 1970's. Friedman did have one huge "success" though that explains his high stature in the corporate media and amoung politicians, he made very wealhy people MUCH wealthier. That's undeniable.
Friedman's theories being increasingly implemented ie deregulation, caused the financial melt-down, the housing crisis, our economic recession..............and the huge income inequality reminiscent of the 1920s.
Quote from: buckethead on November 09, 2011, 07:36:24 AM
QuoteNo, This Is The Most Dangerous Economist In The World
Simon Black, Sovereign Man
Simon Black is an international investor, entrepreneur, permanent traveler, and self-described free man
The most dangerous woman in America
Christina Romer is the most dangerous woman in America right now. As an economics professor at the University of Berkeley, she’s charged with educating the next generation of productive citizens. She also formerly chaired the Council of Economic Advisors under President Obama.
Read more: http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/the-most-dangerous-woman-in-america/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-most-dangerous-woman-in-america#ixzz1dD93Nmi8
Apologies to Faye.
No apologies needed...........our country suffers from a lack of insight and it's due to this:
QuoteWomen and minorities are under-represented in the economics profession. This may be because they are too often not encouraged to pursue theoretical, mathematical or scientific fields of study
Current solutions therefore lack input from the insights and skill sets of these underrepresented groups, input that could make policies more effective. Women and minorities do not necessarily experience the world or approach problems with the same paradigm often used by white males, and they are often concerned with issues that do not get on the agenda because they are underrepresented. ........
Regardless of how many undergraduate women get bachelor's degrees in economics, only 6 percent of tenured professors of economics are women, according to a report of the American Economics Association Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession.
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=3556
So when an accomplished woman says what needs to be said, sovereign man will object.
I believe the disagreement had more to do with the substance of opposing dogma rather than gender.
I could be deluding myself since, after all, I am male.
Quote from: buckethead on November 09, 2011, 08:48:05 AM
I believe the disagreement had more to do with the substance of opposing dogma rather than gender.
I could be deluding myself since, after all, I am male.
That may qualify you for a special blue parking spot...
Quote from: buckethead on November 09, 2011, 08:48:05 AM
I believe the disagreement had more to do with the substance of opposing dogma rather than gender.
I could be deluding myself since, after all, I am male.
The hit piece doesn't really address substance at all.
For example it ridicules her mentioning Roosevelt's policies leading to:
"the most impressive [economic] swing the country has ever seen"
She never called it a "rapid" swing, yet she is ridiculed for it:
"Perhaps if we’re speaking in terms of a geological timeline in which millions of years are a drop in the bucket, the recovery could be characterized as a rapid ‘swing’"
You call that substance?
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2ynrl_nJS3Q/TrqkccOf0sI/AAAAAAAASos/nr2BRPdJgDA/s1600/KLEPTOCRACY4+copy.jpg)
Aside from that "Kleptocracy" board, which is great, this is the only quote so far worth repeating in this thread:
"Furthermore, to credit any economic ‘recovery’ on a policy of currency debasement is simply idiotic. The path to prosperity is not paved in paper currency, but rather hard work, productivity, efficient capital allocation, savings, and technological innovation."
Quote from: NotNow on November 09, 2011, 12:15:39 PM
Aside from that "Kleptocracy" board, which is great, this is the only quote so far worth repeating in this thread:
"Furthermore, to credit any economic ‘recovery’ on a policy of currency debasement is simply idiotic. The path to prosperity is not paved in paper currency, but rather hard work, productivity, efficient capital allocation, savings, and technological innovation."
Really?
I don't see the finance industry mentioned at all in the quote.
CHART OF THE DAY:
Why The Financial Industry Still Has WAY More To Shrink
Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-03-19/wall_street/30061543_1#ixzz1dFGWzyOO
Joe Weisenthal and Kamelia Angelova|March 19, 2010|
Former Fed chief Alan Greenspan recently delivered a mea culpa of sorts in the form of a 60-page Brookings Institute paper about the financial crisis.
Among the charts he includes to explain the crisis is one that we've seen before, but never ceases to jar us.
(http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4ba3ca467f8b9a2063fc0b00/chart-of-the-day-finance-and-insurance-value-added-as-a-percent-of-gdp.jpg)
It's
the share of GDP* that come from finance and insurance, and though the number has begun to crest, we're still WAY above any reasonable historical norm. The bottom line is that the financial bubble still has a lot of bursting left to do (though if Bernanke and Geithner have anything to say about it, it may take awhile).
Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-03-19/wall_street/30061543_1#ixzz1dFGNZjDv
So where does gambling with other people's money fit in?
What about the financial industry? Are you proposing using the power of government to destroy an industry because you say so?
I'll say it again...if there are criminal charges against specific individuals, then state them. If you are claiming a class action civil lawsuit, then where is it? Why is the government bailing out these companies? Why aren't we demanding that the government stop right now?