I was recently thinking about the dichotomy in the way support for the Occupy Wallstreet movement and the Tea Party has panned out. Perhaps expected, but at the same time what we have, as far as the media is concerned, is a right-wing movement, followed by a left-wing movement.
I don't really see it like that.
Here we see (a biased but informative piece) on how the two are separated. Consider Cenk's own take on the Tea Party in the past and his support for the Occupy Wall Street movement:
Now, what I find interesting is that when I look at the baseline of both movements, they're very similar. They're both anti-corporatist in nature, with the difference being one focuses on the governments role in the machinations of the Corporate Capitalism and one focuses on the Corporations. They're still opposed to the same system.
I don't understand why we can't recognize the fact that both movement actually have valid points, and are share a lot of similar ground. It's the two main political parties and the media that puts the distance between the two and misinforms the public about what each really is. So many people have this visceral knee-jerk reaction to both movements on both sides of the spectrum that I feel like any real conversation gets lost in the political rhetoric of "liberal-conservative".
I personally support both movements for various reasons, and draw lots of fire from friends who support one and disparage the other for my stance.
I suppose I just want to know if I'm alone in this reasoning, because it feels like everyone else I know is so caught up in the left-right politics of the day, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I really do need to "pick a side".
Edit: Just to clarify, I do think there are key differences between the two movements, however I feel most of that is generated by which party chose to adopt the movement after it was started. Yet they clearly exist. Edit 2:I'm not saying that the movements should "unite" but rather that the public should acknowledge the similar ground they're trying to cover and recognize that they both have valid points to their protests instead of pigeon holing themselves into the division of left/right politics and supporting one movement over the other because the TV/Internets told them so.
I never really expect the movements as they exist now to coalesce in any substantive way given the demographic make ups of each. That's just silly.
I agree with OP. Both movements should unite on common ground and take down the corporatism system we have in the USA right now which I think the great majority of americans are against(or would be against, if they were more informed).
The moment OWS tries to achieve its goals through the existing political process is the moment that it fails. The Tea Party has already been swallowed by the system, and that's a sad thing.
The movements can't really combine because they have different targets and objectives. The Tea Party's ire is focused on the federal government. The Tea Party believes that the federal government, its policies, and its regulations are responsible for the current mess that we are in. Yes, the Tea Party is mad about the bailouts and the money that went to Wall Street, but they don't necessarily blame the banks for playing by the rules that the federal government set for them. Instead, the Tea Party blames the corrupt/establishment politicians that sold us out. The Tea Party is also very concerned about the national deficit. As such, the Tea Party wants to slash federal spending, pare back the role of the federal government, and commensurately cut taxes.
OWS, on the other hand, is focused on Wall Street and the banks that got bailed out. OWS sees the same corruption from the other side of the same coin. Oddly, OWS seems to largely be giving the federal government a pass. Unlike the Tea Party, OWS sees the current situation as a systemic failure of our capitalist/Constitutional system. Accordingly, many elements of OWS are looking to replace that capitalist/Constitutional system with something else, which is something that the Tea Party does not support (and quite frankly, it's an idea that the Tea Party reviles).
Personally, I agree with the Tea Party. Moreover, I don't understand why OWS gives the federal government a pass. Let's be honest here: the subprime market emerged because, during the 1990s, federal government politicians decided that everyone deserved a house, regardless of whether they actually could afford it. As such, the feds leaned on banks to give out bad loans, which banks did. Then, presto! The birth of the subprime market, which led to all of the derivatives trading as banks tried to make something of value out of the bad loans by bundling them into other financial instruments. It's a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences and why it's usually better for the federal government to simply not get involved.
Long story short, it's fine that OWS is giving hell to Wall Street and the banks. However, they also need to go after the federal politicians who enabled and encouraged the banks to engage in these risky practices in the first place. Furthermore, they should start with the two greatest enablers who oversaw the unfolding disaster over the past decade: Chris Dodd and Barney Frank.
The last thing we need in America is two new groups to form one new one. The Tea Party is already analogous enough to Republican efforts, which makes it not even it's own deal.
We need more ideas, we need more parties, we need more options.
Also, this should have been in the OWS thread, IMO
On October 20 2011 01:40 bonifaceviii wrote: The moment OWS tries to achieve its goals through the existing political process is the moment that it fails. The Tea Party has already been swallowed by the system, and that's a sad thing.
The Tea Party hasn't been swallowed up by anyone. It's still out there and it's still giving the republican establishment fits. Sure, there aren't the same types of mass protests that were seen in 2009 and 2010. Instead, the tea party has become more organized and is working more behind the scenes at a local level. If you have any doubts, I have two words for you: Mitt Romney. The fact that he can't get more than 25-30% of the vote in the republican primary, and the fact that Herman Cain has vaulted to the top, is all of the evidence that you need.
TP tried to solve our problems with government thru conventional means and became what they sought to destroy. OWS can't unite with them because the moment they do it's another protest lost at sea. But if the Tea Party can redeem itself maybe we can see something.
I have a bit of a problem with the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street is that while they have noble goals and OWS is still using noble means to achieve those goals. However what we may see is the problem in government intensifying. Let's not forget that a big problem is that there's such a big gap between Democrats and Republicans in Congress that they cannot agree on ANYTHING. Radicals on both sides of the spectrum might just make the problem worse.
On October 20 2011 01:53 xDaunt wrote: The movements can't really combine because they have different targets and objectives. The Tea Party's ire is focused on the federal government. The Tea Party believes that the federal government, its policies, and its regulations are responsible for the current mess that we are in. Yes, the Tea Party is mad about the bailouts and the money that went to Wall Street, but they don't necessarily blame the banks for playing by the rules that the federal government set for them. Instead, the Tea Party blames the corrupt/establishment politicians that sold us out. The Tea Party is also very concerned about the national deficit. As such, the Tea Party wants to slash federal spending, pare back the role of the federal government, and commensurately cut taxes.
OWS, on the other hand, is focused on Wall Street and the banks that got bailed out. OWS sees the same corruption from the other side of the same coin. Oddly, OWS seems to largely be giving the federal government a pass. Unlike the Tea Party, OWS sees the current situation as a systemic failure of our capitalist/Constitutional system. Accordingly, many elements of OWS are looking to replace that capitalist/Constitutional system with something else, which is something that the Tea Party does not support (and quite frankly, it's an idea that the Tea Party reviles).
Personally, I agree with the Tea Party. Moreover, I don't understand why OWS gives the federal government a pass. Let's be honest here: the subprime market emerged because, during the 1990s, federal government politicians decided that everyone deserved a house, regardless of whether they actually could afford it. As such, the feds leaned on banks to give out bad loans, which banks did. Then, presto! The birth of the subprime market, which led to all of the derivatives trading as banks tried to make something of value out of the bad loans by bundling them into other financial instruments. It's a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences and why it's usually better for the federal government to simply not get involved.
Long story short, it's fine that OWS is giving hell to Wall Street and the banks. However, they also need to go after the federal politicians who enabled and encouraged the banks to engage in these risky practices in the first place. Furthermore, they should start with the two greatest enablers who oversaw the unfolding disaster over the past decade: Chris Dodd and Barney Frank.
They didn't so much lean on them, as allow banks and insurance companies to merge with one another (Gramm-Leach-Bliley act of 1999 which repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 which prevented these kinds of mergers). At that moment they opened the floodgates where everyone's, supposedly safe, investments were being thrown into much more risky markets than they should have been.
Do you blame the government for not thinking far enough ahead, or the banks for being the ones that personally risked other people's livelihoods for a quick buck?
The tea party is sponsored by corporations. There ain't much to discuss. The people are used and unrealistic hopes are installed in them (for example that a system can change through it's "democratic means" (=voting)). The conservative agenda plays into this too, I would never demonstrate with people who have that much prejudice against gays and closet racism.
Cenk Uygur makes me want to punch him in the face every time I see him. I'm amazed at how many people watch his show on youtube.
It looks like he was just trying to copy the Daily Show by splicing video clips together to make people look like hypocrites. Sadly he failed miserably. Being for one movement and against another doesn't make someone a hypocrite. Saying the Tea Party is awesome and the OWS are bums that need showers doesn't make someone a hypocrite. How retarded does someone have to be to even hold such a belief? The two groups of people have very little in common. One group wants less government and less taxes and the other wants more government services and higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for it. The 2 groups are even further from each other on the political spectrum than the current Democrat and Republican parties, so why should they come together?
The Daily Show actually did this successfully by showing Sean Hannity saying that the act of protesting was patriotic and commendable and then go on to trash talk the protests on Wall Street. That's hypocrisy because he is talking about the act of protesting in both instances. It's not hypocrisy to say one group of protesters have good values and one doesn't because their values are different!
I'm not saying that the movements should "unite" but rather that the public should acknowledge the similar ground they're trying to cover and recognize that they both have valid points to their protests instead of pigeon holing themselves into the division of left/right politics and supporting one movement over the other because the TV/Internets told them so.
I never really expect the movements as they exist now to coalesce in any substantive way given the demographic make ups of each. That's just silly.
On October 20 2011 02:09 BlackFlag wrote: The tea party is sponsored by corporations. There ain't much to discuss. The people are used and unrealistic hopes are installed in them (for example that a system can change through it's "democratic means" (=voting)). The conservative agenda plays into this too, I would never demonstrate with people who have that much prejudice against gays and closet racism.
And this is exactly the problem I try to address in my post. No, the Tea Party isn't "sponsored by corporations", it was ideologically hijacked by the GOP because of the internal threat it represented to the status quo of the right. The core of the Tea Party is still the same.
Ron Paul in the House Financial Services Committee, September 10, 2003
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on the Treasury Department's views regarding government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for taking time out of their busy schedules to appear before the committee.
I hope this committee spends some time examining the special privileges provided to GSEs by the federal government. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the housing-related GSEs received $13.6 billion worth of indirect federal subsidies in fiscal year 2000 alone. Today, I will introduce the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act, which removes government subsidies from the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and the National Home Loan Bank Board.
One of the major government privileges granted to GSEs is a line of credit with the United States Treasury. According to some estimates, the line of credit may be worth over $2 billion. This explicit promise by the Treasury to bail out GSEs in times of economic difficulty helps the GSEs attract investors who are willing to settle for lower yields than they would demand in the absence of the subsidy. Thus, the line of credit distorts the allocation of capital. More importantly, the line of credit is a promise on behalf of the government to engage in a huge unconstitutional and immoral income transfer from working Americans to holders of GSE debt.
The Free Housing Market Enhancement Act also repeals the explicit grant of legal authority given to the Federal Reserve to purchase GSE debt. GSEs are the only institutions besides the United States Treasury granted explicit statutory authority to monetize their debt through the Federal Reserve. This provision gives the GSEs a source of liquidity unavailable to their competitors.
The connection between the GSEs and the government helps isolate the GSE management from market discipline. This isolation from market discipline is the root cause of the recent reports of mismanagement occurring at Fannie and Freddie. After all, if Fannie and Freddie were not underwritten by the federal government, investors would demand Fannie and Freddie provide assurance that they follow accepted management and accounting practices.
Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.
Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government's interference in the housing market, the government's policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.
Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing GSE debt and pumping liquidity into the housing market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever. In fact, postponing the necessary, but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall. The more people invested in the market, the greater the effects across the economy when the bubble bursts.
No less an authority than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed concern that government subsidies provided to GSEs make investors underestimate the risk of investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to once again thank the Financial Services Committee for holding this hearing. I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for their presence here today. I hope today's hearing sheds light on how special privileges granted to GSEs distort the housing market and endanger American taxpayers. Congress should act to remove taxpayer support from the housing GSEs before the bubble bursts and taxpayers are once again forced to bail out investors who were misled by foolish government interference in the market. I therefore hope this committee will soon stand up for American taxpayers and investors by acting on my Free Housing Market Enhancement Act.
The political spectrum isn't actually a line that goes left and right. Technically it's a circle that goes clockwise and counterclockwise. If you keep going to pure liberalism and pure conservativism what you get is totalitarianism (Nazis vs. Communists, the two had radically different ideals but probably had more in common than the Dems and Reps we have in Congress). If they manage to converge on the other side of the circle then there's no reason for them not to unite.
One of the biggest beliefs of the OWS movement is that wealth distribution is unfair in America. The Tea Party is firmly opposed to this line of thinking.
Also, OWS wants corporations to have less say in government. The Tea Party movement wants the government to have less say in corporations. I dunno why you'd think they're so similar.
So many people are missing the point and only reading what they want to read -_-
"I'm not saying that the movements should "unite" but rather that the public should acknowledge the similar ground they're trying to cover and recognize that they both have valid points to their protests instead of pigeon holing themselves into the division of left/right politics and supporting one movement over the other because the TV/Internets told them so.
I never really expect the movements as they exist now to coalesce in any substantive way given the demographic make ups of each. That's just silly."
Again.
On October 20 2011 02:21 overt wrote: One of the biggest beliefs of the OWS movement is that wealth distribution is unfair in America. The Tea Party is firmly opposed to this line of thinking.
Also, OWS wants corporations to have less say in government. The Tea Party movement wants the government to have less say in corporations. I dunno why you'd think they're so similar.
In both cases doesn't that demonstrate a common understanding that the two entities are far too embedded with one another? There's your similarity.
Ron Paul in the House Financial Services Committee, September 10, 2003
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on the Treasury Department's views regarding government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for taking time out of their busy schedules to appear before the committee.
I hope this committee spends some time examining the special privileges provided to GSEs by the federal government. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the housing-related GSEs received $13.6 billion worth of indirect federal subsidies in fiscal year 2000 alone. Today, I will introduce the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act, which removes government subsidies from the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and the National Home Loan Bank Board.
One of the major government privileges granted to GSEs is a line of credit with the United States Treasury. According to some estimates, the line of credit may be worth over $2 billion. This explicit promise by the Treasury to bail out GSEs in times of economic difficulty helps the GSEs attract investors who are willing to settle for lower yields than they would demand in the absence of the subsidy. Thus, the line of credit distorts the allocation of capital. More importantly, the line of credit is a promise on behalf of the government to engage in a huge unconstitutional and immoral income transfer from working Americans to holders of GSE debt.
The Free Housing Market Enhancement Act also repeals the explicit grant of legal authority given to the Federal Reserve to purchase GSE debt. GSEs are the only institutions besides the United States Treasury granted explicit statutory authority to monetize their debt through the Federal Reserve. This provision gives the GSEs a source of liquidity unavailable to their competitors.
The connection between the GSEs and the government helps isolate the GSE management from market discipline. This isolation from market discipline is the root cause of the recent reports of mismanagement occurring at Fannie and Freddie. After all, if Fannie and Freddie were not underwritten by the federal government, investors would demand Fannie and Freddie provide assurance that they follow accepted management and accounting practices.
Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.
Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government's interference in the housing market, the government's policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.
Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing GSE debt and pumping liquidity into the housing market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever. In fact, postponing the necessary, but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall. The more people invested in the market, the greater the effects across the economy when the bubble bursts.
No less an authority than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed concern that government subsidies provided to GSEs make investors underestimate the risk of investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to once again thank the Financial Services Committee for holding this hearing. I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for their presence here today. I hope today's hearing sheds light on how special privileges granted to GSEs distort the housing market and endanger American taxpayers. Congress should act to remove taxpayer support from the housing GSEs before the bubble bursts and taxpayers are once again forced to bail out investors who were misled by foolish government interference in the market. I therefore hope this committee will soon stand up for American taxpayers and investors by acting on my Free Housing Market Enhancement Act.
On October 20 2011 02:21 overt wrote: One of the biggest beliefs of the OWS movement is that wealth distribution is unfair in America. The Tea Party is firmly opposed to this line of thinking.
Also, OWS wants corporations to have less say in government. The Tea Party movement wants the government to have less say in corporations. I dunno why you'd think they're so similar.
In both cases doesn't that demonstrate a common understanding that the two entities are far too embedded with one another? There's your similarity.
Libertarians, Neo-Nazis, Communists, and Anarchists all dislike our current form of government and would want to replace it with something else (or nothing else). That doesn't make them similar.
Both groups dislike how intertwined corporations and government are but they have radically different opinions on how to handle them. In the same way, both Pro-Lifers and Pro-Choicers would agree that teenage pregnancy isn't a good thing but they'd differ pretty heavily on how to handle the situation.
On October 20 2011 02:09 BlackJack wrote: Cenk Uygur makes me want to punch him in the face every time I see him. I'm amazed at how many people watch his show on youtube.
It looks like he was just trying to copy the Daily Show by splicing video clips together to make people look like hypocrites. Sadly he failed miserably. Being for one movement and against another doesn't make someone a hypocrite. Saying the Tea Party is awesome and the OWS are bums that need showers doesn't make someone a hypocrite. How retarded does someone have to be to even hold such a belief? The two groups of people have very little in common. One group wants less government and less taxes and the other wants more government services and higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for it. The 2 groups are even further from each other on the political spectrum than the current Democrat and Republican parties, so why should they come together?
The Daily Show actually did this successfully by showing Sean Hannity saying that the act of protesting was patriotic and commendable and then go on to trash talk the protests on Wall Street. That's hypocrisy because he is talking about the act of protesting in both instances. It's not hypocrisy to say one group of protesters have good values and one doesn't because their values are different!
I didn't know you worked with Cenk Uygur. Your post is mostly straw man, though. It sounds like you've got more issues than what you've made up in that post. I don't watch his show much anymore but I think he was saying they're both against corruption and the government and corporations being in bed together. I don't have the energy (sick atm) but I'm sure if you actually try you'll find more than just a little that both have in common, and further that the fact that one wants more of something and the other wants less doesn't mean it's something different.
On October 20 2011 02:21 overt wrote: One of the biggest beliefs of the OWS movement is that wealth distribution is unfair in America. The Tea Party is firmly opposed to this line of thinking.
Also, OWS wants corporations to have less say in government. The Tea Party movement wants the government to have less say in corporations. I dunno why you'd think they're so similar.
In both cases doesn't that demonstrate a common understanding that the two entities are far too embedded with one another? There's your similarity.
Libertarians, Neo-Nazis, Communists, and Anarchists all dislike our current form of government and would want to replace it with something else (or nothing else). That doesn't make them similar.
Both groups dislike how intertwined corporations and government are but they have radically different opinions on how to handle them. In the same way, both Pro-Lifers and Pro-Choicers would agree that teenage pregnancy isn't a good thing but they'd differ pretty heavily on how to handle the situation.
They all dislike the current government, why doesn't that make them similar? And in a country like the US, I think that similarity is enough to join them together. If you recall a lot of the great movements in american history were made through seemingly opposing forces. It's only through this process that you americans boast that you've become so great.
If your only point in bringing up those cases is to show that they are different then fine. Sure they are different. When more people show up to something and it continues on for a period as long as this then stuff like that is bound to happen. It is less to do with what they are protesting and their views on it and more to do with the fact that they are people. it's not like they are all raping exposing perverts. That's just a way to draw attention away from what their arguments actually are.
Also implying that the 1 percent has just worked too hard and earned too much money is the only reason they are being persecuted is a silly one. Sure some of them worked their asses off to get to where they were, and I doubt many protesters would have a problem with that. An honest individual doing an honest days work to become honestly rich. Their point is that the vast majority of that "1%" did not do that and are making their riches off of the misfortune of others. That just because they may have been born with more privileged than others and so it was easier for them to go to college or succeed in life shouldn't make them any more entitled to a good life. In my opinion I see their protest as anger toward the way our society is and how it gives benefits to those already well off while shitting all over those who don't get a fair chance. Its more about individual stories than anything else.
On October 20 2011 03:06 Xardean wrote: Their point is that the vast majority of that "1%" did not do that and are making their riches off of the misfortune of others. That just because they may have been born with more privileged than others and so it was easier for them to go to college or succeed in life shouldn't make them any more entitled to a good life.
Do you know many rich people? Most of them work VERY hard and are not making money off the misfortune of others. I was born to a family making under $10k/year and got rich partly through very hard work and partly through being smarter than average (which I admit is a god given trait that I do not deserve but merely lucked into) I have siblings with higher intelligence and the same background who did not work as hard and do not make as much money.
This rhetoric about "making riches off of the misfutunes of other" comes strait out of Nazi Germany attributing jews financial success to unfair advantages and exploitation of the christians. It is outrageous.
On October 20 2011 02:09 BlackJack wrote: Cenk Uygur makes me want to punch him in the face every time I see him. I'm amazed at how many people watch his show on youtube.
It looks like he was just trying to copy the Daily Show by splicing video clips together to make people look like hypocrites. Sadly he failed miserably. Being for one movement and against another doesn't make someone a hypocrite. Saying the Tea Party is awesome and the OWS are bums that need showers doesn't make someone a hypocrite. How retarded does someone have to be to even hold such a belief? The two groups of people have very little in common. One group wants less government and less taxes and the other wants more government services and higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for it. The 2 groups are even further from each other on the political spectrum than the current Democrat and Republican parties, so why should they come together?
The Daily Show actually did this successfully by showing Sean Hannity saying that the act of protesting was patriotic and commendable and then go on to trash talk the protests on Wall Street. That's hypocrisy because he is talking about the act of protesting in both instances. It's not hypocrisy to say one group of protesters have good values and one doesn't because their values are different!
I didn't know you worked with Cenk Uygur. Your post is mostly straw man, though. It sounds like you've got more issues than what you've made up in that post. I don't watch his show much anymore but I think he was saying they're both against corruption and the government and corporations being in bed together. I don't have the energy (sick atm) but I'm sure if you actually try you'll find more than just a little that both have in common, and further that the fact that one wants more of something and the other wants less doesn't mean it's something different.
I essentially only made one point and that point is supporting one group and opposing another doesn't make someone a hypocrite. Just watch how he ends the segment:
Guy says: Tea Party is Great! OWS are dopes that need to take a shower!
And Cenk says "oh so first people that protest are great and then they are dopes! My god the hypocrisy!"
If you support a group of protesters then you have to support every single protest for every single cause or else you're a hypocrite? Such a belief is so illogical that I am forced to conclude that the person saying it is a moron. That's not a straw man that's pretty much his exact words.
P.S. How many people that support OWS also supported the Tea Party when it started? Why doesn't he go after those "hypocrites"? It's pretty hypocritical not to (LOL)
On October 20 2011 03:15 meadbert wrote: Do you know many rich people? Most of them work VERY hard and are not making money off the misfortune of others. I was born to a family making under $10k/year and got rich partly through very hard work and partly through being smarter than average (which I admit is a god given trait that I do not deserve but merely lucked into) I have siblings with higher intelligence and the same background who did not work as hard and do not make as much money.
This rhetoric about "making riches off of the misfutunes of other" comes strait out of Nazi Germany attributing jews financial success to unfair advantages and exploitation of the christians. It is outrageous.
I too was born into the working class but my father got lucky, and because the man he worked for had no sons he thought deserved his business he gave it to my father. Now he can afford to send me to school and he makes quite a bit of money when business is good. Granted most of his money is going down the shitter in stocks but that's a different story.
It's not like I'm saying all rich people are bad people and should be forced to give all of their money to stupid people. But part of the reason they got to be where they are is because our country gives them the opportunities necessary to make the money that they do, and they should be giving back a fair amount to the country that made the allowances for them to get so rich. And by rich i mean wealthy, like over the 200k a year mark. But here is my problem, with the idea that there is a direct correlation between intelligence and hard work, with making lots of money. Because then you can lump everyone who is not rich into either "not being smart enough" or "not working hard enough" and using that as justification for the wealth disparity in our country when social privileged and social class plays a huge role into it. Me and you are EXCEPTIONS to the millions of people in the working class who may not ever have the opportunity to experience upward social mobility. My family got lucky and now I get to go to college, that doesn't make us any better than my peers who can't go to college and have to live back where I am from. It is not right.
Disagreements over how much income redistribution there should be are fine. Saying rich people were on average fortunate because they were born smart, or were lucky enough to receive good educations payed for by others is fine. Blaming the plights of others on the existence of rich people is scapegoating. Signs encouraging people to "kill" or "eat" the rich are over the top and dangerous. I realize that most of those holding such signs are doing so out of hyperbole, but it does not make them less dangerous. I have family that survived the holocaust and do not want to see it repeated. Some segments of the OWS protests frighten me.
On October 20 2011 02:09 BlackJack wrote: Cenk Uygur makes me want to punch him in the face every time I see him. I'm amazed at how many people watch his show on youtube.
It looks like he was just trying to copy the Daily Show by splicing video clips together to make people look like hypocrites. Sadly he failed miserably. Being for one movement and against another doesn't make someone a hypocrite. Saying the Tea Party is awesome and the OWS are bums that need showers doesn't make someone a hypocrite. How retarded does someone have to be to even hold such a belief? The two groups of people have very little in common. One group wants less government and less taxes and the other wants more government services and higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for it. The 2 groups are even further from each other on the political spectrum than the current Democrat and Republican parties, so why should they come together?
The Daily Show actually did this successfully by showing Sean Hannity saying that the act of protesting was patriotic and commendable and then go on to trash talk the protests on Wall Street. That's hypocrisy because he is talking about the act of protesting in both instances. It's not hypocrisy to say one group of protesters have good values and one doesn't because their values are different!
I didn't know you worked with Cenk Uygur. Your post is mostly straw man, though. It sounds like you've got more issues than what you've made up in that post. I don't watch his show much anymore but I think he was saying they're both against corruption and the government and corporations being in bed together. I don't have the energy (sick atm) but I'm sure if you actually try you'll find more than just a little that both have in common, and further that the fact that one wants more of something and the other wants less doesn't mean it's something different.
I essentially only made one point and that point is supporting one group and opposing another doesn't make someone a hypocrite. Just watch how he ends the segment:
Guy says: Tea Party is Great! OWS are dopes that need to take a shower!
And Cenk says "oh so first people that protest are great and then they are dopes! My god the hypocrisy!"
If you support a group of protesters then you have to support every single protest for every single cause or else you're a hypocrite? Such a belief is so illogical that I am forced to conclude that the person saying it is a moron. That's not a straw man that's pretty much his exact words.
P.S. How many people that support OWS also supported the Tea Party when it started? Why doesn't he go after those "hypocrites"? It's pretty hypocritical not to (LOL)
i think he did support the same thing in the tea party, he just knows they're being misdirected by corporations....you're letting your bias get in the way so much. i just need to ask what you really have against cenk?
I highly doubt anyone is taking that inbred anarchist idiot in that picture seriously. Hes probably just looking for some attention and misunderstanding what the main points behind the protest are, or again just using it as an excuse for attention. Now if the whole movement was like that then I would be frightened as well, but until they start marching with pitchforks in chef attire I wouldn't worry about it. Just some idiots.
"Eat the Rich" goes far beyond just one idiot. I have seen that sign at multiple protests personally and a quick google search for "occupy wall street" and "eat the rich" got 158,000 hits. There are only 10,200 hits for "occupy wall street" and "kill the rich."
On October 20 2011 03:06 Xardean wrote: Their point is that the vast majority of that "1%" did not do that and are making their riches off of the misfortune of others. That just because they may have been born with more privileged than others and so it was easier for them to go to college or succeed in life shouldn't make them any more entitled to a good life.
Do you know many rich people? Most of them work VERY hard and are not making money off the misfortune of others. I was born to a family making under $10k/year and got rich partly through very hard work and partly through being smarter than average (which I admit is a god given trait that I do not deserve but merely lucked into) I have siblings with higher intelligence and the same background who did not work as hard and do not make as much money.
This rhetoric about "making riches off of the misfutunes of other" comes strait out of Nazi Germany attributing jews financial success to unfair advantages and exploitation of the christians. It is outrageous.
You... Do understand what being "rich" is right? ... This isn't make 500 grand a year and having box seats to a philis game, this is about people making incomes of 10 + million anually and just sitting on their asses "investing" and doing no literal hard work, or allowing their money to increase with interest and above all tax lawyers cut a huge chunk away from them paying also, so its not about wealthy, its about rich people.
The media is in the business of selling bullshit. Formulaic mass appeal makes it profitable for them to portray the two movements as right- and left-wing. As far as I can tell, the occupy wallstreet movement is more genuine and less partisan. On those criteria, I would choose their side.
One group believes in redistribution of wealth and the other group believes in getting the government out of our wallets. There is no way these groups would ever unite, and I hope they don't. The Tea Party started as essentially a libertarian movement, and the Occupy Wall Street sounds more and more marxist by the day.
On October 20 2011 04:00 VWSChe wrote: The media is in the business of selling bullshit. Formulaic mass appeal makes it profitable for them to portray the two movements as right- and left-wing. As far as I can tell, the occupy wallstreet movement is more genuine and less partisan. On those criteria, I would choose their side.
The fact that you would choose from two diametrically opposed sides based on your perception of who's more "genuine" reveals that you have no understanding of the issues at hand. You have no underlying principles or philosophy to base your political/economic leaning. This is the problem with mob protesters, so many people are in it because they think it is 'cool' but they don't know what they are fighting for.
On October 20 2011 02:16 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: The political spectrum isn't actually a line that goes left and right. Technically it's a circle that goes clockwise and counterclockwise. If you keep going to pure liberalism and pure conservativism what you get is totalitarianism (Nazis vs. Communists, the two had radically different ideals but probably had more in common than the Dems and Reps we have in Congress). If they manage to converge on the other side of the circle then there's no reason for them not to unite.
This is the most stupid thing I ever heard. Communism is radically different from Liberalism, Conservativism is as different from Nationalsocialism as everything else. What you mean is a dividing line between Authorianism/ Totalitarism and liberal/ anti-authoriatian positions which are a dividing factor within ideologies. Democracy and Dicatorship are not limited to certain ideologies, I could tell you an example and a counter-example for _every_ ideology that had a fair share of advocates.
On October 20 2011 04:00 jdseemoreglass wrote: One group believes in redistribution of wealth and the other group believes in getting the government out of our wallets. There is no way these groups would ever unite, and I hope they don't. The Tea Party started as essentially a libertarian movement, and the Occupy Wall Street sounds more and more marxist by the day.
I believe that marxism (if done right) is the most logical form of government, to an extent... IT has to be reworked, quite a bit, but if you study his actual concept and how he perceived it (and not how the russians murdered it) socialism and Karl Marx's views were very very good for society as a whole.
On October 20 2011 02:09 BlackJack wrote: Cenk Uygur makes me want to punch him in the face every time I see him. I'm amazed at how many people watch his show on youtube.
It looks like he was just trying to copy the Daily Show by splicing video clips together to make people look like hypocrites. Sadly he failed miserably. Being for one movement and against another doesn't make someone a hypocrite. Saying the Tea Party is awesome and the OWS are bums that need showers doesn't make someone a hypocrite. How retarded does someone have to be to even hold such a belief? The two groups of people have very little in common. One group wants less government and less taxes and the other wants more government services and higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for it. The 2 groups are even further from each other on the political spectrum than the current Democrat and Republican parties, so why should they come together?
The Daily Show actually did this successfully by showing Sean Hannity saying that the act of protesting was patriotic and commendable and then go on to trash talk the protests on Wall Street. That's hypocrisy because he is talking about the act of protesting in both instances. It's not hypocrisy to say one group of protesters have good values and one doesn't because their values are different!
I didn't know you worked with Cenk Uygur. Your post is mostly straw man, though. It sounds like you've got more issues than what you've made up in that post. I don't watch his show much anymore but I think he was saying they're both against corruption and the government and corporations being in bed together. I don't have the energy (sick atm) but I'm sure if you actually try you'll find more than just a little that both have in common, and further that the fact that one wants more of something and the other wants less doesn't mean it's something different.
I essentially only made one point and that point is supporting one group and opposing another doesn't make someone a hypocrite. Just watch how he ends the segment:
Guy says: Tea Party is Great! OWS are dopes that need to take a shower!
And Cenk says "oh so first people that protest are great and then they are dopes! My god the hypocrisy!"
If you support a group of protesters then you have to support every single protest for every single cause or else you're a hypocrite? Such a belief is so illogical that I am forced to conclude that the person saying it is a moron. That's not a straw man that's pretty much his exact words.
P.S. How many people that support OWS also supported the Tea Party when it started? Why doesn't he go after those "hypocrites"? It's pretty hypocritical not to (LOL)
i think he did support the same thing in the tea party, he just knows they're being misdirected by corporations....you're letting your bias get in the way so much. i just need to ask what you really have against cenk?
My hate for Cenk comes from classical conditioning. TheYoungTurks likes to post youtube videos with very interesting titles and thumbnails. So I click them expecting to see an interesting story and instead I get Cenk's fat head sitting behind a desk rambling on about said story. So I get annoyed that the video isn't about what I thought it would be about at the same time I see his fat head. Eventually I began to associate his fat head with that feeling of annoyance. This practice is something he does intentionally to get more clicks for his youtube videos and it wastes my time, so screw him and his fat head. This is a somewhat common practice on youtube but pretty much everyone that does it gets down voted and flamed endlessly for their deception. The fact that he gets away with it also annoys me. I don't think he is particularly intelligent or charismatic so I don't know why people choose to use the greatest entertainment medium ever invented to watch a radio show starring him. Even our parents gave up radio once the t.v. was invented.
Well, if over 50% of people had the capacity to consider matters the way you do maybe, just maybe, democracy might work. Unfortunately I'd say the actual number is closer to a couple percent. The rest just internalize whichever political or religious dogma happens to advertise beliefs they are willing to adopt because autonomous thinking is too difficult and / or inconvenient. Sad.
On October 20 2011 02:15 xDaunt wrote: Fairly prescient from Ron Paul:
Ron Paul in the House Financial Services Committee, September 10, 2003
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on the Treasury Department's views regarding government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for taking time out of their busy schedules to appear before the committee.
I hope this committee spends some time examining the special privileges provided to GSEs by the federal government. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the housing-related GSEs received $13.6 billion worth of indirect federal subsidies in fiscal year 2000 alone. Today, I will introduce the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act, which removes government subsidies from the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and the National Home Loan Bank Board.
One of the major government privileges granted to GSEs is a line of credit with the United States Treasury. According to some estimates, the line of credit may be worth over $2 billion. This explicit promise by the Treasury to bail out GSEs in times of economic difficulty helps the GSEs attract investors who are willing to settle for lower yields than they would demand in the absence of the subsidy. Thus, the line of credit distorts the allocation of capital. More importantly, the line of credit is a promise on behalf of the government to engage in a huge unconstitutional and immoral income transfer from working Americans to holders of GSE debt.
The Free Housing Market Enhancement Act also repeals the explicit grant of legal authority given to the Federal Reserve to purchase GSE debt. GSEs are the only institutions besides the United States Treasury granted explicit statutory authority to monetize their debt through the Federal Reserve. This provision gives the GSEs a source of liquidity unavailable to their competitors.
The connection between the GSEs and the government helps isolate the GSE management from market discipline. This isolation from market discipline is the root cause of the recent reports of mismanagement occurring at Fannie and Freddie. After all, if Fannie and Freddie were not underwritten by the federal government, investors would demand Fannie and Freddie provide assurance that they follow accepted management and accounting practices.
Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.
Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government's interference in the housing market, the government's policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.
Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing GSE debt and pumping liquidity into the housing market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever. In fact, postponing the necessary, but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall. The more people invested in the market, the greater the effects across the economy when the bubble bursts.
No less an authority than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed concern that government subsidies provided to GSEs make investors underestimate the risk of investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to once again thank the Financial Services Committee for holding this hearing. I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for their presence here today. I hope today's hearing sheds light on how special privileges granted to GSEs distort the housing market and endanger American taxpayers. Congress should act to remove taxpayer support from the housing GSEs before the bubble bursts and taxpayers are once again forced to bail out investors who were misled by foolish government interference in the market. I therefore hope this committee will soon stand up for American taxpayers and investors by acting on my Free Housing Market Enhancement Act.
On October 20 2011 02:15 xDaunt wrote: Fairly prescient from Ron Paul:
Ron Paul in the House Financial Services Committee, September 10, 2003
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on the Treasury Department's views regarding government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for taking time out of their busy schedules to appear before the committee.
I hope this committee spends some time examining the special privileges provided to GSEs by the federal government. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the housing-related GSEs received $13.6 billion worth of indirect federal subsidies in fiscal year 2000 alone. Today, I will introduce the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act, which removes government subsidies from the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and the National Home Loan Bank Board.
One of the major government privileges granted to GSEs is a line of credit with the United States Treasury. According to some estimates, the line of credit may be worth over $2 billion. This explicit promise by the Treasury to bail out GSEs in times of economic difficulty helps the GSEs attract investors who are willing to settle for lower yields than they would demand in the absence of the subsidy. Thus, the line of credit distorts the allocation of capital. More importantly, the line of credit is a promise on behalf of the government to engage in a huge unconstitutional and immoral income transfer from working Americans to holders of GSE debt.
The Free Housing Market Enhancement Act also repeals the explicit grant of legal authority given to the Federal Reserve to purchase GSE debt. GSEs are the only institutions besides the United States Treasury granted explicit statutory authority to monetize their debt through the Federal Reserve. This provision gives the GSEs a source of liquidity unavailable to their competitors.
The connection between the GSEs and the government helps isolate the GSE management from market discipline. This isolation from market discipline is the root cause of the recent reports of mismanagement occurring at Fannie and Freddie. After all, if Fannie and Freddie were not underwritten by the federal government, investors would demand Fannie and Freddie provide assurance that they follow accepted management and accounting practices.
Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.
Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government's interference in the housing market, the government's policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.
Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing GSE debt and pumping liquidity into the housing market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever. In fact, postponing the necessary, but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall. The more people invested in the market, the greater the effects across the economy when the bubble bursts.
No less an authority than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed concern that government subsidies provided to GSEs make investors underestimate the risk of investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to once again thank the Financial Services Committee for holding this hearing. I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for their presence here today. I hope today's hearing sheds light on how special privileges granted to GSEs distort the housing market and endanger American taxpayers. Congress should act to remove taxpayer support from the housing GSEs before the bubble bursts and taxpayers are once again forced to bail out investors who were misled by foolish government interference in the market. I therefore hope this committee will soon stand up for American taxpayers and investors by acting on my Free Housing Market Enhancement Act.
Not every topic is a Ron Paul topic. Please stop treating it as such.
Is internet the only place where this nonsense Ron Paul-mania happens?
"The State is responsible for every evil in the world gneee". Level 0 of political thought.
Well, he did... apparently from the text, map out exactly what would happen. Go figure, someone seeing past the 4 (to 8) years pres. terms, and picturing what would happen.
Though this topic (like the post quoted 2ndly) is right, this isn't a Ron Paul topic.
I don't understand this need to create a false dichotomy between the tea party and ows. When you say the tea party wants federal government out of business, that's half the story. When you say ows wants business out of federal government, that's half the story, too. The whole story is this: They are currently in a mutually beneficial relationship.
Capitalism has gotten a bit of a bad reputation from OWS, admittedly, but this is mostly because of a fundamental misunderstanding of what capitalism is, and what the current socioeconomic policy of the U.S. is. What we have is crony capitalism.
On October 20 2011 02:15 xDaunt wrote: Fairly prescient from Ron Paul:
Ron Paul in the House Financial Services Committee, September 10, 2003
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on the Treasury Department's views regarding government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for taking time out of their busy schedules to appear before the committee.
I hope this committee spends some time examining the special privileges provided to GSEs by the federal government. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the housing-related GSEs received $13.6 billion worth of indirect federal subsidies in fiscal year 2000 alone. Today, I will introduce the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act, which removes government subsidies from the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and the National Home Loan Bank Board.
One of the major government privileges granted to GSEs is a line of credit with the United States Treasury. According to some estimates, the line of credit may be worth over $2 billion. This explicit promise by the Treasury to bail out GSEs in times of economic difficulty helps the GSEs attract investors who are willing to settle for lower yields than they would demand in the absence of the subsidy. Thus, the line of credit distorts the allocation of capital. More importantly, the line of credit is a promise on behalf of the government to engage in a huge unconstitutional and immoral income transfer from working Americans to holders of GSE debt.
The Free Housing Market Enhancement Act also repeals the explicit grant of legal authority given to the Federal Reserve to purchase GSE debt. GSEs are the only institutions besides the United States Treasury granted explicit statutory authority to monetize their debt through the Federal Reserve. This provision gives the GSEs a source of liquidity unavailable to their competitors.
The connection between the GSEs and the government helps isolate the GSE management from market discipline. This isolation from market discipline is the root cause of the recent reports of mismanagement occurring at Fannie and Freddie. After all, if Fannie and Freddie were not underwritten by the federal government, investors would demand Fannie and Freddie provide assurance that they follow accepted management and accounting practices.
Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.
Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government's interference in the housing market, the government's policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.
Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing GSE debt and pumping liquidity into the housing market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever. In fact, postponing the necessary, but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall. The more people invested in the market, the greater the effects across the economy when the bubble bursts.
No less an authority than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed concern that government subsidies provided to GSEs make investors underestimate the risk of investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to once again thank the Financial Services Committee for holding this hearing. I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for their presence here today. I hope today's hearing sheds light on how special privileges granted to GSEs distort the housing market and endanger American taxpayers. Congress should act to remove taxpayer support from the housing GSEs before the bubble bursts and taxpayers are once again forced to bail out investors who were misled by foolish government interference in the market. I therefore hope this committee will soon stand up for American taxpayers and investors by acting on my Free Housing Market Enhancement Act.
Not every topic is a Ron Paul topic. Please stop treating it as such.
Is internet the only place where this nonsense Ron Paul-mania happens?
"The State is responsible for every evil in the world gneee". Level 0 of political thought.
Those are your words not Paul's. This is a typical straw man attack that we hear very often against Paul in the media. I can use the same tactics to pigeonhole your arguments: "The state is the panacea for every problem in society." If you want to pigeonhole Ron Paul you can say something more astute like: "Government intervention has been at the root of our economic problems."
And no the internet is not the only place where Ron Paul "mania" happens
On October 20 2011 04:46 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On October 20 2011 02:29 aksfjh wrote:
On October 20 2011 02:15 xDaunt wrote: Fairly prescient from Ron Paul:
Ron Paul in the House Financial Services Committee, September 10, 2003
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on the Treasury Department's views regarding government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for taking time out of their busy schedules to appear before the committee.
I hope this committee spends some time examining the special privileges provided to GSEs by the federal government. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the housing-related GSEs received $13.6 billion worth of indirect federal subsidies in fiscal year 2000 alone. Today, I will introduce the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act, which removes government subsidies from the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and the National Home Loan Bank Board.
One of the major government privileges granted to GSEs is a line of credit with the United States Treasury. According to some estimates, the line of credit may be worth over $2 billion. This explicit promise by the Treasury to bail out GSEs in times of economic difficulty helps the GSEs attract investors who are willing to settle for lower yields than they would demand in the absence of the subsidy. Thus, the line of credit distorts the allocation of capital. More importantly, the line of credit is a promise on behalf of the government to engage in a huge unconstitutional and immoral income transfer from working Americans to holders of GSE debt.
The Free Housing Market Enhancement Act also repeals the explicit grant of legal authority given to the Federal Reserve to purchase GSE debt. GSEs are the only institutions besides the United States Treasury granted explicit statutory authority to monetize their debt through the Federal Reserve. This provision gives the GSEs a source of liquidity unavailable to their competitors.
The connection between the GSEs and the government helps isolate the GSE management from market discipline. This isolation from market discipline is the root cause of the recent reports of mismanagement occurring at Fannie and Freddie. After all, if Fannie and Freddie were not underwritten by the federal government, investors would demand Fannie and Freddie provide assurance that they follow accepted management and accounting practices.
Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.
Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government's interference in the housing market, the government's policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.
Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing GSE debt and pumping liquidity into the housing market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever. In fact, postponing the necessary, but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall. The more people invested in the market, the greater the effects across the economy when the bubble bursts.
No less an authority than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed concern that government subsidies provided to GSEs make investors underestimate the risk of investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to once again thank the Financial Services Committee for holding this hearing. I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for their presence here today. I hope today's hearing sheds light on how special privileges granted to GSEs distort the housing market and endanger American taxpayers. Congress should act to remove taxpayer support from the housing GSEs before the bubble bursts and taxpayers are once again forced to bail out investors who were misled by foolish government interference in the market. I therefore hope this committee will soon stand up for American taxpayers and investors by acting on my Free Housing Market Enhancement Act.
Not every topic is a Ron Paul topic. Please stop treating it as such.
Is internet the only place where this nonsense Ron Paul-mania happens?
"The State is responsible for every evil in the world gneee". Level 0 of political thought.
Those are your words not Paul's. This is a typical straw man attack that we hear very often against Paul in the media. I can use the same tactics to pigeonhole your arguments: "The state is the panacea for every problem in society." If you want to pigeonhole Ron Paul you can say something more astute like: "Government intervention has been at the root of our economic problems."
And no the internet is not the only place where Ron Paul "mania" happens
Well said scaban.
In case you haven't realized yet, Biff is no stranger to straw man arguments. In fact, that's his bread and butter on TL.
There is a glaring problem with the relationship between government and corporations in the modern economy, and it's been a growing issue of concern both for the left and right for some time now. This dichotomy between the left's and the right's answers to the problem is as old as the problem itself, and its manifestation in OWS vs the Tea Party shouldn't surprise anyone.
Some people believe that corruption necessitates regulations, others believe that regulations cause corruption, by giving the government the power which others want to corrupt. Often, the argument on my side goes, the market regulations aren't only a precedent for corruption but are themselves the corruption, for example when the government creates artificial monopolies in order to more easily regulate a given industry. Or when to keep the market safe from faulty products, new standards and licences are introduced which make it harder to start up a new business and thus give already established companies a competitive edge.
So long as the masses at OWS believe that more regulations are needed, that more government involvement will solve our problems, while the Tea Party believes the opposite, even though they both acknowledge the same growing problem in our society they are movements representing particular solutions to it above all, and their disagreement is fundamental.
That said, the Tea Party does represent all the usual problems with modern conservative political parties, that being their stance on just about every moral issue. Typically, the right wants the government out of the economy but thinks that your sex-life and other things are every bit the governernment's purpose, while the left think that morals are an individual matter while your money is everybody's business.
They're only similar in that they're both very angry radical offshoots of their respective political groups (ows - liberalism and TP - libertarian/conservative). There's a whole bunch of different and crazy smaller ideas within each group, but those are the main concepts.
those are two pretty damn far apart ideologies. The Tea Party hates the government, and wants it be as small as possible (no Obamacare, free market, etc). OWS is regulate and tax the shit out the rich to provide for all of those below even moreso than is currently already going on.
The only area that those two groups cross up at all is that they did not like the bailouts, but for different reasons (TP is pretty much everyone sink or swim, consequences be damned, whereas OWS is support the lower class, fuck the rich). That is pretty much it—hardly common ground to be standing on.
Regarding bailouts - I have the suspicion that OWS wouldn't be all that opposed to the bailout of General Motors which helped save a lot of good blue collar jobs with decent pay and benefits. The Tea Party hated the GM bailout even more than the bank bailouts.
On October 20 2011 05:51 BlackJack wrote: Regarding bailouts - I have the suspicion that OWS wouldn't be all that opposed to the bailout of General Motors which helped save a lot of good blue collar jobs with decent pay and benefits. The Tea Party hated the GM bailout even more than the bank bailouts.
The mere mention of the GM bailout actually makes my hair stand on end. I hate that bailout with every fiber of my being, and I'm pretty sympathetic to OWS.
On October 20 2011 05:51 BlackJack wrote: Regarding bailouts - I have the suspicion that OWS wouldn't be all that opposed to the bailout of General Motors which helped save a lot of good blue collar jobs with decent pay and benefits. The Tea Party hated the GM bailout even more than the bank bailouts.
Yeah I should have said financial bailouts. The TP definitely hated that shit, but I agree, based on the union support for OWS, they would have definitely been in support of that.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zAGTj.jpg)
