Occupy Wall Street - Page 205

On December 30 2012 08:12 TheRabidDeer wrote:

Money has only been what you could consider a manufactured good since we left the gold standard. Money exists to simplify the basis of trade: the coincidence of wants.

If money did not exist, trading becomes much more difficult. You have a car that I want? I have to have something that you want, or something that is of greater value than the car that you can then trade for something that you want. Why does it need to be of greater value? Because then you have to put in the effort of trading for something else instead of it being directly what you wanted.

What is your proposal to solve the problem that you perceive with money? Bartering still exists to some degree:
http://www.autointhenews.com/teen-trades-up-on-craigslist-from-phone-to-porsche-in-2-years/

So, what would you do?

the Federal Reserve Act is hereby amended to raise the Reserve Requirement ratio for financial institutions, in equal monthly increments of eight and one-half percent (8.5%), to one hundred percent (100%)

...
...

The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and directed to purchase, in open market operations or otherwise, all outstanding Federal Debt held by the public, with United States Notes; thereby the net (public) National Debt is to be completely retired and replaced with United States Notes.3 Treasury Deposits are to be created for intra-U.S. government debt in quantity sufficient to extinguish the remaining gross National Debt.

On December 30 2012 08:22 sCCrooked wrote:


My views along with those of many others who have partaken in this act of trying to get an "official response" to the proposed solution are summarized http://www.themoneymasters.com/monetary-reform-act/ <-- at that web address.

Exerpt:

Nobel Prize Winning Economist Milton Friedman is probably one of the most notable names signed onto this Monetary Reform Act.

On December 30 2012 08:27 TheRabidDeer wrote:

If you raise the reserve requirement to 100%, then you completely get rid of the money multiplier. If they have to have 100% of the money deposited at all times, how can they invest and lend money?

On December 30 2012 08:31 sCCrooked wrote:


They can still invest and lend money to people, but they can only invest and lend what they actually have. In the current system, the debt you're given is actually 1/10th of the money that was just created. With a flick of a pen, they give you a debt (a loan) and create 9 times that amount for their own personal use. They don't owe anything and yet you just inherited a debt while they got paid 10x the amount of your debt!

Raising reserve requirements to 100% doesn't mean its always in there. Reserve requirements means they can actually account in physical money what they're lending out.

Are you allowed to print imaginary certificates redeemable at any location or for any purpose while basing them on nothing? Also when you print that certificate, you get 9 of them for yourself while that guy you gave one to owes you 100% value of whatever he gets for that back plus interest! That's what is happening right now. Its a stupid system and anyone who looks at it (even children) would say "That's just not fair".

On December 30 2012 08:44 TheRabidDeer wrote:

No, a reserve requirement is what they must hold in reserves of what is DEPOSITED. Deposits are what they use to lend money. If they must have an amount equal to the amount of deposits, what money do they use to lend? They would have to use their own money. So, how would a bank start up? Why would a bank start as a bank and not purely an investment firm? Why waste money on employees taking deposits and handling withdrawals from customers if they cant use that money to make more money?

If the reserve requirement is 10%:
You deposit $100
They can now lend out $90, with $10 being held for the reserve requirement.
So this $90 is loaned to somebody that wants to buy something. They buy something for $90 and now somebody else has the $90, and they then deposit this into the bank.
So, $90 is deposited into the bank
They can lend out $81, with $9 being held for reserve requirement.
This process repeats

This is how banks make money, by DEPOSITS. If they cant lend any deposits, they cant multiply money. Money is not created by debts unless the money from that debt is then re-deposited into the banks. And even then, the money may not go to the same banking institution.

EDIT: An example at 100% reserve requirement:
You deposit $100
The bank must keep all $100 you deposited.
The bank has no money to invest with.

Sec. 9. FULL RESERVE BANKS. After the transition period, institutions using the word bank in their name or title, may not engage in lending, except that the capital of the owners may be invested or loaned on the open market, but may charge fees for their services and may invest deposits in Treasury Department Deposit accounts. These: full reserve; one hundred percent (100%) reserve; deposit; check or narrow; banks, as they, exclusively, may also be titled, must treat deposits received as trust-funds of money held for depositors. By the end of the transition period, for every dollar deposited, banks must have a dollar of United States Notes on hand or invested in a Treasury Department Deposit account. All bank deposits shall be in demand accounts. Banks shall be free to pay any rate of interest on accounts. Only bank deposits may be transferable by check, credit card, electronic transfer or any substitute therefor. At the beginning of the transition period, entry into such one hundred percent (100%) reserve banking shall be open to all persons having no criminal record, subject to minimal bonding requirements to be established by the Secretary of the Treasury.6

On December 30 2012 07:15 acker wrote:

MY solution, or a solution proposed by OWS? And concerning what event or topic?

Some protestors have favored a fairly concrete set of national policy proposals. One OWS group that favored specific demands created a document entitled the 99 Percent Declaration, but this was regarded as an attempt to "co-opt" the "Occupy" name, and the document and group were rejected by the General Assemblies of Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Philadelphia.

However others, such as those who issued the Liberty Square Blueprint, are opposed to setting demands, saying they would limit the movement by implying conditions and limiting the duration of the movement. David Graeber, an OWS participant, has also criticized the idea that the movement must have clearly defined demands, arguing that it would be a counterproductive legitimization of the very power structures the movement seeks to challenge.

In a similar vein, scholar and activist Judith Butler has challenged the assertion that OWS should make concrete demands: "So what are the demands that all these people are making? Either they say there are no demands and that leaves your critics confused. Or they say that demands for social equality, that demands for economic justice are impossible demands and impossible demands are just not practical. But we disagree. If hope is an impossible demand then we demand the impossible."

In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, pollster Douglas Schoen wrote that polling of the protesters revealed "a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas."

The New York City General Assembly (NYCGA) is the main OWS decision-making body and provides much of the leadership and executive function for the protesters. At its meetings the various OWS committees discuss their thoughts and needs, and the meetings are open to the public for both attendance and speaking. The meetings are without formal leadership, although certain members routinely act as moderators...

Even with the perception of a movement with no leaders, leaders have emerged. A facilitator of some of the movement's more contentious discussions, Nicole Carty, says “Usually when we think of leadership, we think of authority, but nobody has authority here,” – “People lead by example, stepping up when they need to and stepping back when they need to.”

First of all. There are no Official Demands of the Occupy Movement. that being said, multiple factions of the movement have been assembling to discuss and vote on the output and message for the movement. Below is a LIST OF PROPOSED "DEMANDS FOR THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT" proposed by the website (occupywallstreet.org) which does not entirely represent the Occupy Wall Street General Assembly. Below this list is a list of grievance that citizens have provided nationally and have voted on in solidarity of the movement

On December 30 2012 08:18 TheRabidDeer wrote:

What does removing physical money do? How then are interest rates managed? Exchange rates?
What do you mean by strong arm control of financial companies? Also, you are aware that banks must keep a reserve? You are also aware that their reserves are higher than ever before in history?
How do you separate investment from primary business? What do you mean here?
The government already increases taxes when the market is booming (see: Clinton raised taxes during the internet boom)
How far do you enforce anticompetition law but still promote business to grow?

On December 30 2012 08:59 sCCrooked wrote:
@radscorpion

You would not believe how many agents they had infiltrate our ranks attempting to put out publicly that it was us stating all these things. Most if not all of the things you mentioned from wikipedia were manipulated by media or agents infiltrating our organization posing as our "leaders" so it made it look like the messages came from us when in fact they were all fabricated.

The truth is that the movement was nothing more than a fabrication of theirs once they actually gave it media attention. The real protesting and the real goals were lost in the early days of action when they started arresting us in mass and trying to force us to be silent. All the real creators left the movement and the organization once it became the newest media sensation because the moment it became "ok" to put on the media everywhere, it was already controlled by the system we had sought to expose.

These guys are relentless and they have literally all the power. We're completely helpless as a people in this day and age with the powers of distribution of fake information at the elites' fingertips.

On December 30 2012 08:50 sCCrooked wrote:


You are correct, I was mistaken in my interpretation of the term "reserve requirement". However this is an easy fix as stated in the page I linked earlier (guess it didn't get read thoroughly).

That being said, I pose another question to you:

"Why should a bank, which is supposed to be little more than a safe storage place for money, be investing anything at all?"

Its a bank! Not an investment firm.



If I interpret them correctly, they basically state that banks should not be able to move money around like they do. They were created as simply a storage facility and that's how they should stay. Banks should not be lending huge sums of money to make themselves richer. That money belongs to people and its not their place to use it as they please.

On December 30 2012 08:58 radiatoren wrote:

Mostly understanding questions. I am not the primary source of them but to some degree I see the reasoning behind them:

- Removing physical money means that the money only exists on computers with no physical tokens except for credit and debit devices for handling money transfers. Interests are managed exactly as today while exchange would be a reciept for a bank transfer to or from your account, when the physical foreign currency is handled. It is mostly the same as today really. The only real gain is not having to handle physical currency of the nation in banks.

- Strong financial control will mean legislation to keep the right to run a banking business. (Yes I know about reserves and a way to legislate it would be a demand for a certain ratio between loans and liquid money they cannot go above like 15 as an example. Do you have a source for that reserve and how it is calculated?)

- Primary business for a credit union is exactly what I am implying as the banks primary business. Investments are speculation and should be kept separate to keep the risk to the customers low to non-existent. The exact specification is up for grabs here, but the intention is the protection of the money on accounts from speculative practise.

- The only change from the Clinton taxes would be to spefically target financial gains I suppose.

- As for the growth vs enforcement it is a difficult debate, but when crime pays it is a problem for society and in this area a lot of shady behaviour is going on (If you look at the amount and size of cases EU is constantly investigating). Actually the most recent suggestions in this area is more legislation requiring more open books for the people to look at. In that way the shady behaviour would have to be hidden through double bookkeeping or by reducing it to a level where the values are non-suspicious. That is "passive" enforcement and could make for a better trust between suspicious citizens and "clean" larger companies.

On December 30 2012 09:13 TheRabidDeer wrote:

So now that you understand what a reserve requirement is, do you still think 100% should be required?

Banks should be investing because otherwise there would be no banks. If there is no profit to be seen, would you start a bank or an investment firm?

Let me pose a question to you: Why should an insurance agency be a business? Why is the wellbeing of a human a business?

Also, that section sounds like they want to make it so banks sit on money and charge fees to people to sit on the money. At least that is how it would turn up if they can no longer lend. I prefer how it is currently where I can make money in a savings account rather than lose money. No doubt the banks would charge a % based fee too, kind of a "store your money here for only 1% annually". It is entirely unreasonable to me, there are so many banks and jobs in the bank industry that in order for them to stay in place fees would have to account for a substantial amount of money to make up for the lost income of loans.

February 9: Mortgage Foreclosure Settlement: Several big banks agree to pay $25 billion to settle charges of sloppy and/or downright fraudulent mortgage-foreclosure practices. Already on this day, financial stocks were up 13 percent on the year, matching the full-year performance of the S&P 500.

March 13: Stress Test Fails: Citigroup and three other major banks flunk Federal Reserve "stress tests," meaning they didn't plan to have enough capital to survive a major downturn. Bank stocks were up 18 percent on the year.

March 14: Greg Smith Eruption: Former Goldman Sachs banker Greg Smith takes to The New York Times to explain that he left Goldman because it had become a soulless place that existed only to rip off clients. Bank stocks still up 18 percent.

April 5: London Whale Surfaces: Bloomberg writes that a trader working for JPMorgan Chase's chief investment office in London has accumulated such a massive position in credit derivatives that he is known as the "London Whale." JPMorgan dismisses the story. Bank stocks up 19 percent on the year.

April 13: The Tempest: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon dimisses the London Whale story as a "tempest in a teapot." Bank stocks were up 16 percent at this point amid worries about Europe and maybe some very short-lived anxiety about the London Whale.

April 17: Citigroup Rejection: Shareholders deliver Citigroup a stunning reversal, rejecting its pay plan for CEO Vikram Pandit. Bank stocks are back up 19 percent on the year.

May 10: London Whale Resurfaces: JPMorgan admits its London Whale's trades were actually "egregious" and warns it could lose billions. Bank stocks now up a mere 15 percent on the year.

May 18: Facebook Flop: Facebook's IPO, overpriced by Morgan Stanley and other banks and overhyped by the media, flops miserably. Bank stocks up a mere 6 percent on the year, oh noes.

June 15: Gupta Guilty: A jury finds former Goldman Sachs board member Rajat Gupta guilty of insider-trading charges. Bank stocks now up 10 percent on the year.

June 27: Barclays Settlement: British bank Barclays Capital agrees to pay $450 million to settle charges of manipulating the key interest rate Libor. The bank was done in by moronic trader emails. Within days of the settlement, both the chairman and CEO of Barclays step down. Bank stocks still up about 10 percent.

July 3: JPMorgan's Power Problem: The Financial Times reports that JPMorgan, already dealing with its London Whale problem, is also under investigation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on charges of manipulating the market for electricity in California and other states. Bank stocks back up nearly 14 percent on the year.

July 16: HSBC's Money-Laundering Problem: A Senate subcommittee report accuses British bank HSBC of years-long failure to monitor money laundering in its branches by Mexican drug lords and other ne'er-do-wells. HSBC executives apologize to the Senate and promise to do better. Bank stocks up 13 percent.

August 6: Standard Chartered's Money-Laundering Problem: New York's bank regulator accuses British bank Standard Chartered of ignoring money being laundered by Iranians in its U.S. branches. Bank stocks up 14 percent.

Sep. 12: Bank Of America Layoffs: BofA announces 30,000 job cuts. Bank stocks up 21 percent.

Oct 1: Bear Stearns Sued From Beyond The Grave: New York's attorney general brought civil charges against Bear Stearns, now owned by JPMorgan Chase, accusing it of lying to investors about the quality of mortgages it sold before the crisis. Once again, dumb emails were involved. Bank stocks up 20 percent.

Oct 15: Greg Smith Eruption II: Details from Greg Smith's book, "Why I Left Goldman Sachs," start circulating around Wall Street. Most focus on details like a naked Lloyd Blankfein and mild cruelty to interns. Bank stocks up 23 percent.

Oct. 16: Pandit's Defenestration: Just a day after hosting an earnings conference call, CEO Vikram Pandit is unceremoniously shown the window. Bank stocks up 24 percent.

Nov. 6: Worst Trade Of The Year: After spending heavily on the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney, Wall Street watches in horror as Romney is drubbed by the man they backed in 2008 but abandoned in 2012, President Obama. Meanwhile, bete noir Elizabeth Warren is elected to the Senate. Bank stocks up 24 percent.

Nov. 16: Swiss-American Settlement: JPMorgan and Credit Suisse together agreed to pay $400 million to settle charges that they misled investors about the quality of mortgage bonds they sold before the crisis. Bank stocks up a mere 17 percent, following a minor post-election market selloff.

Dec. 5: Deutsche Bank Big Losses: The Financial Times reports that former employees are accusing Deutsche Bank of hiding $12 billion in losses to make itself look better during the financial crisis. Separately, Citigroup announces 11,000 job cuts. Bank stocks up 21 percent.

Dec. 10: HSBC's Big Wrist Slap: The British bank agrees to pay $1.9 billion to settle charges that it ignored money laundering, but it will not be charged with any crime. Bank stocks up 22 percent.

Dec. 18: UBS's Bigger Wrist Slap: Swiss bank UBS agrees to pay $1.5 billion to settle charges that it rampantly manipulated Libor for years. A couple of its former traders are arrested, and the bank's Japan unit pleads guilty to criminal charges, a rarity. Bank stocks up 27 percent.

On December 30 2012 09:17 TheRabidDeer wrote:

How is money created in a digital world? The FR printing money is how interest is managed today, and exchange rates are based on interest rates.


The only source I have was from my economics book, I actually made a whole thread posing the question about the reserves
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=378174


You can keep investment in banking and keep the risk to customers low, they just have to tighten up legislation on loan practices again.


Taxes already do this, do they not? It is standard government practice to raise or lower taxes based on the economy.


I have no issues requiring open books, but to limit growth that might be an issue to me.

In the first jury trial stemming from an Occupy Wall Street protest, Michael Premo was found innocent of all charges yesterday after his lawyers presented video evidence directly contradicting the version of events offered by police and prosecutors.

Premo, an activist and community organizer who has in recent months been a central figure in the efforts of Occupy Sandy, was one of many hundred people who took part in a demonstration in Lower Manhattan on December 17 of 2011, when some protesters broke into a vacant lot in Duarte Square in an attempt to start a new occupation.

In the police version of events, Premo charged the police like a linebacker, taking out a lieutenant and resisting arrest so forcefully that he fractured an officer's bone. That's the story prosecutors told in Premo's trial, and it's the general story his arresting officer testified to under oath as well.

But Premo, facing felony charges of assaulting an officer, maintained his innocence. His lawyers, Meghan Maurus and Rebecca Heinegg, set out to find video evidence to contradict it. Prosecutors told them that police TARU units, who filmed virtually every moment of Occupy street protests, didn't have any footage of the entire incident. But Maurus knew from video evidence she had received while representing another defendant arrested that day that there was at least one TARU officer with relevant footage. Reviewing video shot by a citizen-journalist livestreamer during Premo's arrest, she learned that a Democracy Now cameraman was right in the middle of the fray, and when she tracked him down, he showed her a video that so perfectly suited her needs it brought a tear to her eye.

On March 02 2013 11:19 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:


Ah the NYPD. Making me just a little more cynical every day.

On March 02 2013 11:24 EatThePath wrote:

Don't forget the crummy DAs who violated discovery for the sake of a sham case. I'm seriously baffled, I'm sure they have better things to do.

On March 02 2013 11:38 iheartEDM wrote:

They probably do, like fighting the war on drugs. Marijuana has killed more people than cigarettes fo sure!