Occupy Wall Street - Page 140

On November 03 2011 00:05 TanGeng wrote:
I believe the disagreement is on a more fundamental level in the conception of justice, and thus the handwringing and moral outrage on the two sides of the argument. On one side, there are ideas based on distributive justice. On the other side, there are ideas based on natural justice. For distributive justice, the theme of inequality and gross inequality (of economic outcomes) keeps coming to the forefront. This is because a certain degree of inequality (of economic outcomes) ipso facto is injustice regardless of circumstances. In natural justice, the themes are instead of lying, cheating, and stealing as methods of injustice, and there is examination of the ever more subtle ways of misdirection that drive the system into the inequalities (of economic outcomes).

The disagreement over justice color the definition of good government. To accomplish distributive justice, good government must redistribute wealth, and thus wealth redistribution is a natural function of government. To accomplish natural justice, good government is an excellent legal system. Wealth redistribution is a non-government function in natural justice.

On November 03 2011 07:00 semantics wrote:

Debt is an interesting construct, as we hold virtue to pay our debts yet we dam the debt collector, the lords prayer in a non kings james version is something along the lines of "forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors." original Hebrew and sanskrit sin and debt were the same word. Our ideas of freedom comes from debt, to be free was meant to be free from debt it's why American dream was to disappear from your previous obligation and start anew, not necessarily that any one can make it but that your history will not hinder you, the idea that the American dream is to get rich was only after the guiled age. Historically people default on their debts esp in society in which the wealth is lopsided to a small percent.

Why we have government now could be said was to deal with debts, before democracy/republics often the church was the arbiter to settle and absolve debt. Which was often after a revolt against those who are the debtors which often would not change government but rather burn the proof of collection or kill the one who holds the papers.

On November 03 2011 06:55 ShadowWolf wrote:


I'm reading fine. Because it's not slavery on a smaller scale (i.e. I am not enslaved for my own debts) it therefore remains reasonable that it cannot be slavery on a larger scale (i.e. I am not enslaved for the debts of my neighbor). Under what premises can you conclude that mass slavery exists but individual slavery does not?

ed: To add indentured servitude, etc. are forms of debt or sale for which some material component is a human being. All of them are absolutely different from, say, bank loans or whatever because at no point are you the collateral for any of the debt. Similar to how the american people are not collateral for the US Government's debt, I am not collateral for my student loans. If I fail to pay them then my life will suck, but I won't ever be forced in to labor for the explicit purpose of satisfying the loan in some regard.

David Brancaccio: When you think of debt, you probably think of a 30-year mortgage or a five-year car loan. But anthropologist David Graeber looks at debt differently. He examines debt through the Millennia. He's with Goldsmiths -- University of London and his new book, "Debt: The First 5,000 Years," goes into the idea of debt, and if we really, really have to pay back what we owe.

Professor Graeber, thanks for joining us.

David Graeber: Thank you.

Brancaccio: Of course, it's morally wrong not to pay your debts back. I mean, your folks didn't teach you that?

Graeber: Well, one of the things that I discovered, when looking at history, is that people always say that. But in practice, it's not really the case -- especially people on the top of the food chain. They know that everything's negotiable. The strict morality of debt tends to be for the little people.

Brancaccio: But it's so deeply ingrained. Here, you may have heard the following lines. The actor is Al Pacino, the screen writer is William Shakespeare.

Al Pacino: The pound of flesh that I demand of him is dearly bought. T'is mine. T'is mine!

Brancaccio: And I will have it. I mean, the person who wants his money back is traditionally seen as a person who needs to get his money back.

Graeber: And he's also the villain, isn't he. That's the fascinating thing. Throughout human history, people have tried to reconcile too completely unreconcilable ideas: Morality is paying your debts, money lenders are evil.

Brancaccio: So we love credit, we just don't often love the image of the person we owe the money to.

Graeber: Precisely.

Brancaccio: But this notion of that you're a bad person if you don't pay your debts back, you're saying is actually up for discussion?

Graeber: Absolutely. I mean, a debt is a promise. It's a certain type of promise, it's a promise that can be quantified. And therefore it's a promise that can be transferred to other people.

Brancaccio: But, a debt is a contract and it's argued quite persuasively that rule of law and enforceable contracts are what allowed us to achieve the standards of living that we have. Yes, contract law is not a law of physics, it is a human construct. But by accepting contract law, a lot of good flowed from it.

Graeber: Certainly, but there's contract law and there's contract law. Throughout human history, debts have been renegotiated. In fact, most of the most successful civilizations in human history always had some way of readjusting debt so you don't end up in a situation where the big people end up effectively enslaving the little people.

In Mesopotamia, for example, they had debt cancellation. It was almost a systematic thing. Every new king who'd come in would say, "All right, clean slate. Start over a gain." The biblical Jubilee was the same thing; every seven years, debts would be canceled.

Brancaccio: Are there good uses of debt?

Graeber: Absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of small-scale communities in Africa for example, where it's just considered right that everybody should owe each other a little. So, there are some places where debt and sociality are really the same thing.

Brancaccio: The term you're using is "sociality."

Graeber: Yeah, the idea that everybody should have links to each other. And debt was a way of making that real.

Brancaccio: You point out that a lot of very familiar English words actually descend from this idea of debt.

Graeber: Yes, "reckoning," "redemption." Even phrases like "a person of no account or worthy." They all go back to credit. Because when you don't have a state enforcing a debt, well then debts take on a whole different color. One's honor, one's decency and one's credit are basically the same thing. So whereas, for us, if you spend money helping the poor, that's probably going to lower your credit rating, because you're more likely to miss a mortgage payment. For most of human history, if you're a decent person or generous, that would actually improve your credit.

Brancaccio: So there's debt as social capital and is also, if you borrow some money to do something worth, like investing in plant and equipment to make medicines to cure tropical diseases. But there's also this other kind of debt -- quite familiar to many Americans and it sounds a lot like this from the 2009 movie "Confessions of a Shopaholic":

Rebecca Bloomwood: Rebecca Bloomwood. Occupation: Journalist. Jacket: Visa. Dress: AMEX. Belt: MasterCard. It's vintage! And I got 1 percent cashback.

Brancaccio: Gee, without debt she doesn't have any self-image at all.

Graeber: Well, in a way, credit has come to substitute for what used to be community.

Brancaccio: So it's no longer a social glue, a kind of social capital. It's something else.

Graeber: The fact that we want to buy a beer for our friends, the fact that we want to have a party for our children, that we want to take care of each other suddenly brings people in a situation where they're in constant fear and looking over their shoulders, because they're in [HOT] for their lives.

Brancaccio: So what's this you have an idea, maybe, another one of these biblical jubilees might be in order of mass debt forgiveness? What do you think?

Graeber: I think it wouldn't be a bad idea, and I've got a lot of criticism for this and it's a provocative idea. But I think we should at least think about it. Because we're using an antiquated idea of what money is. If money is just a credit system, it's a series of promises. Well, promises by definition can be renegotiated.

Brancaccio: Well, why? To get people out of this cycle of having to serve the debt that they owe and to do something, perhaps, more productive?

Graeber: Yes, I think that would free up a lot of energies of people doing things that they don't really want to be doing and work that doesn't even really need to be done.

Brancaccio: Look, if you could engineer a jubilee, and I wouldn't have to pay off the rest of my mortgage and the credit card debt that I still owe, I'll be first in line for that. Fabulous at first, but the thing is -- right? -- no one would lend again. People lend for a lot of reasons, but they especially lend to make an informed bet on the borrower's future. It's a way of turning my honor as a kind of guy who would pay back into ready cash. And that's just going to dry up credit into the future.

Graeber: Well, that's what people always say. But in fact, in the past, that's not been the case. Because what are people going to do with their money? The money really doesn't exist unless you lend it. Banks make up money by making loans. If they don't make loans, there's no bank.

Brancaccio: The front doors of the United States Federal Reserve are down at 20th and Constitution Avenue in D.C. I'll meet you down there. We can see how far we get. We'll have a chat.

Graeber: Yeah.

Brancaccio: Alright, thank you very much.

Graeber: My pleasure.

Brancaccio: David Graeber is an anthropologist at Goldsmiths - University of London. The book, "Debt: The First 5,000 Years."

While police and bailiffs have removed protest camps in some cities around the world, the London demonstrators have endured, in part due to their location in front of one of the city's most famous buildings. Their proximity to Christopher Wren's 300-year-old icon has embroiled the church in a conflict between bank-bashing protesters and the city's powerful finance industry.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams entered the debate Wednesday, saying "it was time we tried to be more specific" in finding answers to the vague demands represented by the protests.

"The protest at St. Paul's was seen by an unexpectedly large number of people as the expression of a widespread and deep exasperation with the financial establishment that shows no sign at all of diminishing," he wrote in a commentary published in the Financial Times.

"There is still a powerful sense around — fair or not — of a whole society paying for the errors and irresponsibility of bankers; of messages not getting through; of impatience with a return to 'business as usual' represented by still soaring bonuses and little visible change in banking practices."

The transaction tax — often called a "Tobin tax" — was proposed in the 1970s by the late James Tobin, an American economist and Nobel Prize winner. Williams said a low tax rate — 0.05 percent on each transaction — could raise more than $400 billion globally each year.

The European Commission supports the tax, estimating that it could raise euro30 billion ($41 billion) a year, but the British government has firmly opposed it, preferring a direct tax on bank assets.

Williams called for a "robust" public debate "to probe how far the government's preferred option will guarantee the domestic and international development goals central to the 'Robin Hood ' proposals."

Williams wrote approvingly of three proposals offered last week by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace: separation of high-risk investment banking from retail banking; recapitalizing banks with public funds; and a tax on financial transactions.

"If religious leaders and commentators in the U.K. and elsewhere could agree on these three proposals, not as a fixed agenda but as a common ground on which to start serious discussion, the struggles and questionings alike of protesters and clergy at St. Paul's will not have been wasted," Williams wrote.

The British Bankers Association opposes a transaction tax, arguing that unless it was applied worldwide it would harm the financial industry in higher-tax countries.

The Anglican church was caught by surprise when demonstrators against corporate greed and banking excess pitched tents outside St. Paul's on Oct. 15. They had hoped to protest in front of the London Stock Exchange, but were evicted from the private property and moved on to the nearby cathedral.

Since then cathedral officials have appeared uncertain how to respond. They at first welcomed protesters before asking them to leave; closed the building on health and safety grounds then reopened it a week later; and announced legal action to remove the tent city before suspending it and promising dialogue.

The cathedral's dean and a senior priest have both resigned over the mishandled crisis.

The Corporation of London, the local authority for the cathedral and surrounding area, also has suspended plans to evict the protesters, and the campers say they are prepared for a long stay.

Stuart Fraser, the corporation's policy chairman, said officials were meeting protesters for the first time Wednesday, "and we will take things day by day."

On November 03 2011 15:01 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Protesters/Strikers in Oakland actually managed to shut the port down, fifth largest in the U.S.

On November 03 2011 15:43 jdseemoreglass wrote:


OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Occupy Wall Street protesters have shut down operations for the day at one of the nation's busiest shipping ports.
Port of Oakland officials said in a statement late Wednesday that the peaceful rally attended by thousands of demonstrators forced them to cancel typical evening maritime activity. Officials at the nation's fifth-largest shipping port say they hope the work day can resume Thursday.
"Continued missed shifts represent economic hardship for maritime workers, truckers, and their families, as well as lost jobs and lost tax revenue for our region," the statement read.
Meanwhile, protesters left the port declaring victory with the nearly 5-hour rally that highlighted a daylong "general strike" in Oakland that prompted solidarity demonstrations across the nation.



Ok, so the self proclaimed voices for the 99% decide to cost other members of the 99% money and work hours, as well as reduced tax revenue for the area, and they call it a victory.

These people are brilliant.

On November 03 2011 15:46 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:


Or protesting NAFTA, to even outsourcing of Jobs. It's all how one spins it.

On November 03 2011 16:44 Rarak wrote:
Its not surprising to see so many young people have such strong left wing beliefs.

Once people get older and join the workforce you may change your tune a little, particularly if you work in a highly educated profession.

On November 03 2011 07:42 sunprince wrote:


While this division may apply to some, I don't think it's applicable to all of the disagreement.

I personally tend to subscribe to natural justice and view wealth distribution negatively. However, I still take the side of the Occupy protesters in many cases because their grievances have to do with the government redistributing wealth in favor of the wealthy. Put another way, my strong support for free market capitalism takes issue with the way that the wealthy benefit from econmic externalities.

There's nothing free market about the way that the government makes subisdies to massive agribusiness corporations, or failing to properly regulate financial institutions and then bailing them out, or protecting the energy industry by engaging in foreign misadventures. Why do we have 'distributive justice' for the wealthy and 'natural justice' for everyone else?

On November 03 2011 15:46 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:


Or protesting NAFTA, to even outsourcing of Jobs. It's all how one spins it.

On November 03 2011 10:51 TanGeng wrote:


I don't know if that was supposed to be a continuation of our debt discussion, but Graeber comes up with the craziest ideas. I like it.
How much panic would there be on Wall Street if all OWS protesters simultaneously stopped repaying their loans? Crazy! It still might need more people to join in to make a real dent on the balance sheets.