EPTOn topic, I'm pretty excited about the scale of response that people are showing here. The democratization of ordinary people is always a good thing: bringing local people together, having them solve problems and organize a giant group, and showing them that they can effect change together is an incredibly empowering thing.
Occupy Wall Street - Page 24
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Expurgate
United States208 Posts
On topic, I'm pretty excited about the scale of response that people are showing here. The democratization of ordinary people is always a good thing: bringing local people together, having them solve problems and organize a giant group, and showing them that they can effect change together is an incredibly empowering thing. | ||
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jmack
Canada285 Posts
On October 02 2011 16:07 ryanAnger wrote: Good luck trying to get that to work on a scale large enough to support rent/car payments/food. Either you have a lot of money and are just ignorant of how bad the economy is right now, or you're just an idiot. Or both. Probably both. It's absurd to think you're attacking protesters out there fighting for YOUR equal and fair slice of the pie. No one is saying people shouldn't reap what they sow but they also need to earn it legitimately and pay those who do the work fairly. Unless your one the elite MEGA-RICH-government-puppeteers the protesters are out there fighting for you, for your right to be different yet treated equal. | ||
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Expurgate
United States208 Posts
On October 02 2011 16:25 jmack wrote: It's absurd to think you're attacking protesters out there fighting for YOUR equal and fair slice of the pie. No one is saying people shouldn't reap what they sow but they also need to earn it legitimately and pay those who do the work fairly. Unless your one the elite MEGA-RICH-government-puppeteers the protesters are out there fighting for you, for your right to be different yet treated equal. He's on your side, bro. | ||
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Gnial
Canada907 Posts
On October 02 2011 16:25 jmack wrote: It's absurd to think you're attacking protesters out there fighting for YOUR equal and fair slice of the pie. No one is saying people shouldn't reap what they sow but they also need to earn it legitimately and pay those who do the work fairly. Unless your one the elite MEGA-RICH-government-puppeteers the protesters are out there fighting for you, for your right to be different yet treated equal. Perhaps my bias in this case comes from knowing many of the people involved in the Vancouver movement. They have no clue what they are doing at all. Its significantly more disorganized and for an even wider array of causes than even the protest in NY. They are not job-seeking types of people. They are pot smoking layabout types of people. They're even holding the protests at the Art Gallery where all of these same people go every April 20th to get high. Perhaps my personal bias comes from the lack of information that people protesting Wall Street have with respect to the financial crisis. If people are upset about the bad economy right now, the least they should do before wasting days of their time protesting is learn about it. There were several pages between page 8 and 10, I think it was, where a bunch of us tried to explain why it doesn't make any sense to target Wall Street and Corporate America unless they put a whole ton of research into it - which I guarantee over 99% of them have not done. + Show Spoiler + On September 25 2011 18:39 Gnial wrote: People should really learn about the financial crisis before they get all uppity and waste their time chasing ghosts on the streets of wall street... There were so many forces in effect, from every single part of the economy, that caused the bubbles(housing and credit), the crash, and delayed the recovery. An economics professor from stanford, for instance, says that if the government hadn't lowered interest rates in 2002-2004 to deal with the early 2000's recession, then the whole bubble issue would have been avoided and so many of the MBS's and CDO's wouldn't have gone toxic, and people wouldn't have lost money, jobs, etc. John B Taylor, Professor of Economics at Stanford, author of the book "Getting Off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged and Worsened the Financial Crisis" But even if we ignore that, why blame wallstreet? The worldwide funds for investing in fixed-income assets doubled between 2000 and 2006 up to $70 TRILLION due to the money China has made selling products to the U.S., and due to Middle East oil revenues. Meanwhile the number of things to invest in didn't increase at a similar pace - some sort of bubble was bound to form somewhere just based on supply of fixed-income assets increasing at a slower rate than demand for fixed-income assets. Do we blame wallstreet for that? Or should we blame China and the middle-east for investing all their money in the U.S.? Or do we blame the U.S. for being the (formerly) best place to invest your money, drawing all the funds into their fixed-income asset sector? You can blame wall-street for creating CDOs and MBSs from sub-prime mortgages, or you can blame the banks for selling sub-prime mortgages to the CDOs and MBSs, or you can blame the government for failing utterly to regulate the private investing sector, or the credit agencies for mistakenly rating CDOs and MBSs with subprime mortgages as safe, or investors for overly trusting credit agencies...at the end of the day the network of companies/trusts that had investments in companies/trust that had investments in companies/trusts was just so complicated that investors likely were unable to chart just what proportion of their investment portfolios were in subprime or variable-rate mortgages. Never mind that there are 50 other issues that popped up, such as low banking reserve ratios, great hordes of financially irresponsible property owners, and the government mischaracterizing the initial problem as a liquidity crisis instead of a counter party crisis. (according to some, others say it was actually too weak of a response to a liquidity crisis - and I'm talking about pre-tarp, there were several actions the government took to avert disaster starting in 2007) I bet you most of these protesters don't even know what a CDO is...which isn't surprising, given that regulators and creditors even had trouble with the complicated ones that were created to satisfy the demand in the rapidly growing fixed-income asset market. If your hate for wall-street is based on the financial crisis - save yourself some energy and learn a little bit before you waste your time and energy protesting it and down talking it. I still don't understand enough to have a very strong opinion and I've spent hundreds of hours researching it. Most of everyone is still trying to figuring it all out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_financial_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late-2000s_recession http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_lending http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateralized_debt_obligation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage-backed_security Here is some reading to get started on. Now, while its mostly good, there are some errors on these pages...so read everything with a grain of salt. (Its not surprising there are errors since there is about 10,000 pages of reading there alone) Of course, you probably won't understand most of what is being said there so you will have to read the links to other items as well. Until you have at least invested a sizeable amount of time into this, you shouldn't be giving opinions on the financial crisis, or the character of wall street as a result of the financial crisis. There are conspiracy theories everywhere among the protester supporters, everyone seems to have some weird ass theory to protest, and none of it makes any sense. edit. I should add that watching stupidity and non-nonsensical shit like this spread is obnoxiously irritating, like the Tea Party, hence the raging. I thought this girl being an idiot was obvious in this context...but I guess not everyone has read the whole thread. Take the post 2 down from me for instance. It doesn't actually say anything other than the top 1% of income earners are to blame for everyone else losing money... because all they care about is money. Reality check: the financial crisis wasn't a redistribution of money...there was a massive net loss in money. Those few who made money through hedging and options didn't hurt ANY of you. The financial instruments they used to hedge are zero-sum contracts, and banks didn't go under because of them. Read the wikipedia articles at least, so that the comments don't feel like a random attempt to lynch rich people. | ||
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David451
United States491 Posts
On October 02 2011 14:08 chaoser wrote: You do know that people thinking they're special isn't a recent phenomena right? The idea of American exceptionalism has existed since the 1800s. Sure. Not sure how that invalidates what I said. Lots of pointless angst has been spent on American exceptionalism. Anyway, done with this thread. If this protest is still around in a few weeks, maybe I'll poke back in. Until then, these so-called 99% can eat shit. | ||
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ryanAnger
United States838 Posts
On October 02 2011 16:39 David451 wrote: Sure. Not sure how that invalidates what I said. Lots of pointless angst has been spent on American exceptionalism. Anyway, done with this thread. If this protest is still around in a few weeks, maybe I'll poke back in. Until then, these so-called 99% can eat shit. What's with the unwarranted hostility? This is what I don't understand. None of these people are doing anything to harm anyone except those at the very top, the few who have enough money to effectively pay certain politicians to implement the policies that benefit them, and not others. Yes, many of them don't know what they're talking about. Yes, many of them are slacking job-less hippies. But there ARE those in support of this movement that do know what they're talking about, and there ARE some who aren't slacking job-less hippies. Take me for an example, I'm almost 3 years into a 6 year enlistment in the USAF as an Air Traffic Controller. Despite my military experience in this career, when I get out of the military, I am going to have difficulty finding a job as an ATC. The economy is fucked, less people fly because less people have money, which means less planes, which means less demand for Air Traffic Control. There are people to blame for the economic changes in the last couple years and it's not me, or you, or anyone else in this thread. It doesn't matter if you are a self-proclaimed right or left, Dem or Rep, because the people at the top aren't any of these things. They are united by their overwhelming desire to make money, at the expense of others, and all differences are set aside to achieve this goal. It is our time to set aside differences to achieve a goal, and that's what this movement is. | ||
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Expurgate
United States208 Posts
On October 02 2011 16:54 ryanAnger wrote: What's with the unwarranted hostility? This is what I don't understand. None of these people are doing anything to harm anyone except those at the very top, the few who have enough money to effectively pay certain politicians to implement the policies that benefit them, and not others. Yes, many of them don't know what they're talking about. Yes, many of them are slacking job-less hippies. But there ARE those in support of this movement that do know what they're talking about, and there ARE some who aren't slacking job-less hippies. Take me for an example, I'm almost 4 years into a 6 year enlistment in the USAF as an Air Traffic Controller. Despite my military experience in this career, when I get out of the military, I am going to have difficulty finding a job as an ATC. The economy is fucked, less people fly because less people have money, which means less planes, which means less demand for Air Traffic Control. There are people to blame for the economic changes in the last 4 years and it's not me, or you, or anyone else in this thread. It doesn't matter if you are a self-proclaimed right or left, Dem or Rep, because the people at the top aren't any of these things. They are united by their overwhelming desire to make money, at the expense of others, and all differences are set aside to achieve this goal. It is our time to set aside differences to achieve a goal, and that's what this movement is. Well said. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
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Gnial
Canada907 Posts
On October 02 2011 17:06 Danglars wrote: Wish these guys made a big statement so you could really debate on a core subject in American politics. As it stands, they stand for unity and togetherness and standing against the rich guys which are assumed to be against the little guy. Literally, I got on their website and see a lotta good-sounding make-a-difference and send-out-your-message but at its core, there is no main statement. They're against the rich and believe them to control quite a bit of the American economy (and deserve to fall). Ughhhh. Thats exactly it! Its so painful to watch people being moved by it...and that its spreading. It makes sense, people want an easy and convenient answer, and a scapegoat...but...uuugh...its so nonsensical at the same time. | ||
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OsoVega
926 Posts
I don't know if this is actually official or represents the people protesting but it's hilarious either way. | ||
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ParasitJonte
Sweden1768 Posts
First of all; Wall Street is no different than any other business sector. They/We are all "greedy" and want to make money. People who are shocked at greed must've been born yesterday. The point of a society with a free market system combined with a working judicial system is that greed becomes something good. In such a system, the only way to get money is to provide a service to a fellow human being. In effect, the more money you have, the more people you have helped. It doesn't matter then if you are an egotistical bastard; actions speak louder than words and your money means you've helped a lot of people and have something to be proud of. Another major part of our system is that individuals who take risks have to not only reap the benefits when life is good, but also take the heat when life turns sour. Right now, this doesn't come close to matching reality. Goldman Sachs recommended products to clients that they then internally commented on as "shitty deals" (youtube it) and went short on - hoping for the products to perform poorly. That's questionable. They helped Greece mask its national debt. In fact, the "Controversies" section on their wikipedia entry constitute a third of the entry! During the financial crisis, a lot of big companies that were in trouble received enormous amounts of tax payers' money. AIG had sold CDSs on mortgage-backed securities - promising to pay buyers of the CDSs if the mortgages went bad. AIG took on unprecedented risk, betting on the housing market not going down. The CDSs gave them insurance premiums that resulted in huge profits. When housing prices finally declined and AIG was supposed to honor its commitments it couldn't and was bailed out. The profits were since long gone (into the pockets of the owners, the board, the executives and the employees) and the losses were now being paid by taxpayers. Before that, JP Morgan had received a favorable non-recourse loan of 29 billion dollars to help buy Bear Stearns. Of course, most people know what happened to the automotive industry. And no list would be complete without mentioning TARP. These are just a few examples. Whether you believe some actions were necessary or not, their existence is proof of a system that doesn't work. Besides giving failing companies financial support using taxpayers' money; what else did politicians and the FED do? For one thing politicians accepted funding for their campaigns from the financial industry and signed bills accordingly. The deregulations effectively made it legal to take out fire insurance on someone elses house and trying to commit arson against it. The FED on it's part kept interest rates so low that you'd be a fool not to borrow. Banks found themselves being leveraged at ratios of 30 to 1. The low interest rates and other government policies fueled the housing bubble and made real estate prices soar. But it's easy to point the finger on Wall Street bad guys and incompetent & corrupt politicians. The truth is that if you want to stand face to face with someone who shares equal part of the blame, all you have to do is look in the mirror. After all, you voted these politicians power and you supported the system. You didn't complain when you were allowed to purchase a house even though you clearly couldn't afford it. You didn't think of the risk of interest rates rising. You didn't consider whether the market may be terribly overvalued. You didn't critique your friends purchases either. The truth is, you were happy as long as prices kept going up. Above all, you didn't feel bad when you couldn't make your payments and laughed as you left the house and the unpaid mortgage with the bank. The bank on it's part didn't care as the mortgage had already been bought by Fanny Mae. But in the end of course, these bad decisions eventually found their way back to the initial bad decision makers; the people who bought the houses. That's why these sorts of protests are a joke. The people protesting are as guilty as the ones they are protesting against. | ||
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ryanAnger
United States838 Posts
On October 02 2011 17:13 OsoVega wrote: https://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-st-moveme/ I don't know if this is actually official or represents the people protesting but it's hilarious either way. Not official. There are a lot of people out there who are not expert economists coming up with "ways to fix the system." For now, I'd take this "demands" with a grain of salt. As of right now there is no specific, official demand. To be honest, I'm worried that when something official does come it, it will be ridiculous and totally alienate a majority of the people involved in the movement. | ||
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jdseemoreglass
United States3773 Posts
In every aspect of life you see this often ugly instinct rear its head: Clique vs. Clique, Gang vs. Gang, Nation vs. Nation, Race vs. Race, Religion vs. Religion, Sport team vs. Sport team, red state-blue state, left-right, SC2-BW, and on and on... Some political philosophies are entirely based on this emotion. Perhaps one of the most universal divisions is the so-called "have's vs. have-not's." That's why you read threads like this and hear so much vitriol and anger and accusation against an invented grouping of people. The real danger of these instincts is when politicians try to tap into them, try to evoke these emotional divisions for personal gain and power, or when an organized group becomes emboldened to resort to violence to achieve their ends. Most commonly violence through the organization which enjoys a monopoly on the use of force: the government. I guess I am thinking I could reason my way past these emotional instincts, but that's probably a pipe dream... These protests won't accomplish anything, partly because protesting doesn't do much, and partly because they have no specific idea what they actually want to accomplish. It all seems more like an exercise in stoking these emotional "us vs. them" instincts instead of doing anything productive to achieve a specific goal. | ||
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Traeon
Austria366 Posts
he point of a society with a free market system combined with a working judicial system is that greed becomes something good. In such a system, the only way to get money is to provide a service to a fellow human being. In effect, the more money you have, the more people you have helped. This is unrealistic. The more money someone has, the more they are able to circumvent the judicial and political systems meant to guide the "greed" into a positive force for society. You're explaining a theory behind the current system, but the point of protesters is that the theory has cracks and holes in practice. | ||
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Kaitlin
United States2958 Posts
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ParasitJonte
Sweden1768 Posts
On October 02 2011 17:41 Traeon wrote: This is unrealistic. The more money someone has, the more they are able to circumvent the judicial and political systems meant to guide the "greed" into a positive force for society. You're explaining a theory behind the current system, but the point of protesters is that the theory has cracks and holes in practice. Only if you give politicians enough power to enable them to do so (which is one of my main points). | ||
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Traeon
Austria366 Posts
On October 02 2011 17:44 ParasitJonte wrote: Only if you give politicians enough power to enable them to do so (which is one of my main points). Sorry I don't believe in the myth of the self regulating and ethical market. | ||
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OsoVega
926 Posts
On October 02 2011 17:41 Traeon wrote: This is unrealistic. The more money someone has, the more they are able to circumvent the judicial and political systems meant to guide the "greed" into a positive force for society. You're explaining a theory behind the current system, but the point of protesters is that the theory has cracks and holes in practice. There doesn't need to be any political system to guide "greed" (rational self interest) into a positive force for society. The only way to make money in a capitalist society is to produce and engage in mutually beneficial transactions. On October 02 2011 17:47 Traeon wrote: Sorry I don't believe in the myth of the self regulating and ethical market. This is an honest question. Have you done a significant amount of reading about capitalism, enough to mostly understand the arguments for it? | ||
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Traeon
Austria366 Posts
The only way to make money in a capitalist society is to produce and engage in mutually beneficial transactions. Delusional nonsense. If you can't see that this is not true in reality for yourself, then no explaining from me will be able to help you realize it. | ||
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Expurgate
United States208 Posts
On October 02 2011 18:28 OsoVega wrote: There doesn't need to be any political system to guide "greed" (rational self interest) into a positive force for society. The only way to make money in a capitalist society is to produce and engage in mutually beneficial transactions. This is all largely theoretical. While economics can describe very accurately what should happen, the field as a practical discipline is largely involved with explaining why economic models only halfway describe reality. Statements of this broad a nature belong in introductory econ textbooks only, not any real debate. This is an honest question. Have you done a significant amount of reading about capitalism, enough to mostly understand the arguments for it? Sorry to jump in for Traeon here, but this is such a lame way to argue. The problem is not that capitalism, as a system, is fundamentally bad or evil in the way that many people seem to think. The problem is that we are not being honest in our treatment of it. If we can't even be realistic in our discussions of its advantages and disadvantages, what are we accomplishing? Every human society, at every time throughout history, has thought that it was in possession of the ultimate system for organizing economic activity. It's just part of human nature, to treat temporary convenience as eternal truth. While capitalism has been the most powerful force in history for increasing standards of living over the last few centuries, it is complete and utter foolishness to pretend it's some sort of divine revelation. What is so hard about admitting that it's not perfect? | ||
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