Forum Post: If you are successful in crashing the financial system who will bury the millions who will starve to death?
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 7, 2011, 3:41 p.m. EST by foreverleft
(233)
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The ability to process and deliver food will stop immediately. I know a lot of you live through magical thinking but reality is the trucks stop running millions will be dead in two weeks.
What will magical thinking do to prevent that?
Is the crash the new fear that is being used to defeat the movement?
It is going to crash with or without the OWS movement!
Everybody is beginning to realize how the 1% have taken the world to the brink of financial collapse by “owning” 40% of the “virtual” money and by having the citizens deeply in debt to them.
If they want to stop the crash then they need to start investing in America and quit being profiteers. They are the only ones that can stop the impending crash. Stop collecting wealth and start circulating money now!
Worry about America first and the rest will take care of itself. Ignore America and nobody wins.
It almost sounds like you are making an argument for not caring if there is a more severe crash than the one we've already faced, like it's not our fault if it does so it doesn't matter if we make it worse, and that just sounds incredibly irresponsible. Rather than say "It is going to crash with or without the OWS movement", say "we are trying to do everything in our power to keep it from crashing". I support many of the principles for which OWS stands for, but I just can't believe that so many people upvoted that statement. Maybe they were just upvoting that last tag-line, cause I would upvote that, but I can't upvote a cavalier attitude toward financial ruin. Sorry if I misinterpreted your meaning, but that's what it sounds like to my... eyes...
I just don't want some propagandist pinning it on a two month old movement of enlightenment.
The people responsible need to be known and held accountable (they are becoming known) There accountability is coming.
What can the 99% do to stop their next engineered crash and money transfer? Nothing!
It's the same people and their “Ponzi, government approved” banking scheme that crashed it last time and it is the same people this time.
We are in a raft in a river of fraud and corruption. We can only steer the raft. We can’t stop the buildup of fraud and corruption from breaking the levee
Did you hear that Fannie Mae has reported hugh losses and they want 6 billion or something like that from the government which means from us the tax payors? They should eat their losses.
Do you know who Fannie Mae actually is?
I guess what I am trying to say is, who would get the 6 billion dollars?
That would be some interesting knowledge. Does that sound like free enterprise or is it like they were gambling in a game that you still win even when you lose that was rigged with government collusion with the gambler.
There's nothing more pathetic then a generalizer.
You wouldn't know the first thing about "investing in America".
That's funny, you just made your own point (-:
So tell me how do you feel about your pathetic generalizing self?
I'm not the one throwing the term around like "99%", like an ignorant buffon. You do not represent the 99%.
Wow you jumped to name calling that quick. You righties always do that as a last resort.
I take it as a complement when I expose that fact that you have nothing to really say
Usually you go through the making shit thing first. Well I guess you did that in you first post, I just didn't catch it.
Saying you represent 99% is the fiction in this story. You do NOT represent the 99%
I didn't say I represented the 99%. That’s just more of the simple-minded shit you are making up
If you have a beef with people saying that, go find one of them and parrot your right wing bullshit to them
As a matter of fact, why don't you create your own forum and just shout it out to the world
Exercise your freedom of speech in a manor where more people can see your point
You said the "What can the 99% do to stop their next engineered crash and money transfer? Nothing!". Sure sounds like you are trying to speak for the 99% to me.
As usual with righties you can rationalize anything to feel that you are right
I asked, what can they do, Not what can we do?
Why do THEY need to do anything? Again, you're speaking for them. I think it's rather rude of you to characterize 99% of the population as a single entity. I also think it's disgusting of you to make any sort of assumption that I'm a "rightie". Again, more generalization. Stop trying to segregate this country, and act viloently towards those who MIGHT not believe everything you have to say.
The amount of wealth owned by the top 1% today is right in line with historical figures over the last 100 years. Click the link below for a graph. The idea that the top 1% owning 40% is something new is a fallacy.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/images/wealth/Figure_5.gif
That's bullshit, believe it if it makes you feel good.
Did you actually look at the graph? I don't believe it because it makes me feel good. I believe it because it is true.
I tried but the link didn't work. I have seen graphs that are contrary to the graph you talk about.
I have to say your claim sounds pretty farfetched. It would take a huge conspiracy to fool so many people.
Is that what you are claiming?
There has been a conspiracy to cover up the real truth.
Can you point me to a source that shows that the amount of wealth held by the top 1% today is significantly different than the levels seen over the past 100 years or so? It should be fairly simple if it as common knowledge as you say it is.
15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#the-gap-between-the-top-1-and-everyone-else-hasnt-been-this-bad-since-the-roaring-twenties-1#ixzz1d6PBhqY5
First of all I didn't say it was common knowledge
The graph I saw was a link from another poster. I think it showed a steady rise of the 1% from around 1960 I believe
I do know the 1% had 40% of the wealth in 1929 but after the crash I think it declined substantially due to heavy tax in the next 20-30 years
They also had around 40% in the 50s and early 90s which were hardly bad economic times.
Check this out http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#the-gap-between-the-top-1-and-everyone-else-hasnt-been-this-bad-since-the-roaring-twenties-1
What do you think about that graph?
Does it look like the one you saw?
You neatly twisted his question into talking about the 1%, when his point was that the kind of disruptions that a lot of people in this movement aim at would harm the 99% a lot more. Like the shutdown of the Port of Oakland did, for example, when 11,000 workers lost wages as a result of the protest.
I disagreed with his paranoia and who the villians are
And you are wrong. :)
Prove me wrong. How about some facts and figures
Read my responses in this very thread, it'll be good for you! Enlightenment is just minutes away! :)
Nope didn't see any facts or figures.
Only some fearful righty trying sell his delusional opinion to others
Then you didn't read the thread, how leftish of you!
Be more specic. What thread?
Ummm, this one? Is it too hard?
The 1% hasn't taken the world to the brink of anything except prosperity heretofore unknown in the history of mankind. Can you tell me how and why the financial elite have accomplished this astounding bit of brinking and collapsing chicanery?
We need to get control of our profligate government before there will be any semblance of the confidence needed to move forward. Stop the insane spending of money we don't have.
You are in the dark.
The information is out there. If you choose to ignore it, then you will continue making false statements and believing that you are right
You blame the government. Let me guess, it is one particular party or president. Why do I ask? It’s because your whole thing stinks of right wing propaganda and fear tactics
I am an Obama fan. Let me make that 100% clear. I voted for him last election. I will vote for him again.
Now let me make this clear:
I do not blame the 1%. I blame the government.
Now let me explain why:
The laws put into place to allow the corruption we see today was put in place by our government. They wrote the tax code, they afforded the loopholes.
Wall Street, GE, Oil Companies... they have done nothing illegal.
You are protesting the wrong people.
You are half right (my opinion)
It is our government in collusion with multinational corps and major financial institutions that are destroying America
Yes if our government was doing their job we wouldn’t have these problems. But when many in our government officials are put into place by the 1% and are the 1%, I think you can easily see who their loyalties are with
This movement (the way I see it) will eventually address all three culprits.
This movement is, in my opinion, officially wasting time and resources at this point.
When it all began, sure... most of us were on board with telling Wall Street what we think of them...
But now? Months later? The focus needs to shift. We need to demand Washington get Wall Street out of their pocket.
We have no power over Wall Street. None. We do, in theory, have power over our elected officials.
The continuing focus on Wall Street and a blanketed 1% is silly. The point is made with Wall Street... and I, personally, have nothing against the majority of the 1%, to be honest. The Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg's of the world are ok in my book.
The crooked, bought-and-paid-for politicians? Not so much.
But we are never going to change that by yelling at Wall Street. We have to demand it from the source. The politicians themselves.
It's like yelling at your kid because there is chaos within his daycare center. Makes no sense. You take it up with the director and demand they get it under control. You look for reform from the leaders... not the children misbehaving as a result of bad policy.
Very good post. I agree with most all of it. I
Instead of a daycare facility let’s use a drug cartel. Who do you blame? Is the cartel innocent because the police are being paid to look the other way?
I am not saying that corporations are evil like drug a cartel. But I am saying they are not innocent like children in daycare.
Look what the banks, (not being regulated) cost American citizens. I know a lot of people that lost huge chunks of their retirements through what was basically legal fraud. Was that the governments fault? Should the Wall Street banks get a free pass, should they be allowed to do it again
It is nothing like a group of dirty cops, because the cops are not re-writing policy to allow the drug cartel's actions to be legal. Washington isn't merely "looking the other way"... they've rewritten tax codes and policies to make what Wall Street is doing 100% legal. So, yes. It's the government's fault.
Wall Street should not get a "free pass"... but what is yelling at them really going to accomplish? I mean, really?
Go to Washington. Demand policy reform. Make them force WS to pay back every one of our tax dollars... with interest. I'll even help.
You think the protest is not doing any good, but what are we doing now? We are getting involved one way or another and trying to figure out why the country is in this mess
Keep in mind that this thing is only less than two months old. Its a baby that is growing at a rapid rate. I think the government issues are going to get addressed big time before it is over
I look at this as sort of an awareness building period. People that like OWS or not are becoming aware of a bunch things they knew nothing about.
I the movement died tomorrow, millions of people would still be more informed and less gullible
"We have no power over Wall Street. None."
Oh, that's bullshit. Wall Streeters bleed like everyone else, and they will absolutely cower before the barrel of a gun....
Ah, and in rings the voice of reason.
You showing up with guns now, are you? Lemme know, cuz I'm pretty sure I don't want to live in your "New Order" America.
Well, you're partly right and you're partly wrong. We have politicians that are out of touch with the American people. The words spouted here will allow them to properly steer the next election. And for that, they will pay anything.
Oh come on. Dems have been preaching "abolish tax loopholes" and "even out the tax code" for eons. Nothing I say will offer anything more than they've already used in the past.
For crying out loud, the loophole issues and tax breaks for businesses who take their jobs overseas issues were an enormous part of Obama's talking points. He's yet to carry through on it. Just like all the other Dems. Or Reps, for that matter.
The only way to get them back in touch with the people is to get so loud they can't ignore us. With a clear message. These are aspects this movement is currently missing.
Therefore: it is routinely dismissed as merely a nuisance by Washington. OWS is a mosquito in their ear right now.
I'm hopeful it will change. But not confident.
Obama only started talking outsourcing when he realized it was an issue with so many. Which was before OWS but still, relatively recently. And how do you suppose that happened?
What? No.
Obama talked about abolishing loopholes and ending tax benes for shipping jobs overseas during his campaign. I remember the speech in which I first heard him say it.
Unless you mean a different outsourcing entirely, you are mistaken.
I don't recall the 'shipping jobs overseas." I've only taken notice of it recently, perhaps over the past six months. But I haven't seen Obama make a single attempt to right either. Believe me, he has no intention whatsoever of addressing my concerns about outsourcing.
Oh, he talked it on the campaign trail, alright. One of his many promises. Overall, I do not regret my decision to vote for him... but I have been disappointed at times.
But no, there's been no follow-through. Not with any of them up to this point. It's high time we demanded they make that change.
Which was basically my point from the beginning.
"The laws put into place to allow the corruption we see today was put in place by our government. They wrote the tax code, they afforded the loopholes."
LOL...and who paid for the election victories of those government officials?
So, rather than think you would prefer to yell right wing boogieman! Ma save me!
I'm in the dark? Square all the ignorant tripe you spout with the reality that greets you every time you open your door in the morning (assuming you are lucky enough to be an American). Does it grate on your world view to see clean streets, shiny cars, 90% employment (Obama is doing his best to destroy The economy and there are STILL 90 percent of the proles still working), civil order and god help us a generally happy populace, what's a good lefty to do??
I know you idiots see this as a real opportunity for the long awaited class warfare that will throw off the bonds of freedom and return us to our rightful place as serfs of the government but look out of the darkness for a minute and see the ragtag band of smelly hippies who would be the anti-war protestors if a Republican were in office and realize this is as good as it's going to get for you, there will be no revolution, you will fail.
I nailed you when I said paranoia
I should have said paranoid brainwashed righty. That would have been more correct
Re-read what you just wrote. Look at all of the stupid assumptions you made based on only your fear and imagination
Good thing you addressed his points logically
Hey I am doing my best. I am really trying to see the logic. (-:
So, still no enlightenment for you, truly sad. So do you have a computer, internet, a car, a home, a job?
Yeah I do, how about you. Maybe you could just quit beating around the bush and just enlighten me
How about the fact that capitalism got society to this point, where an inordinate amount of people have luxuries that weren't available or even imaginable 20 yrs ago.
No other system provides the incentive scheme combined with freedom as our current economic and political setup
There were better days
In 1979 I had a house, 2 decent cars and my wife stayed home and raise the kids
I had new RM 400, Motocross bike, A 28' motorhome and a swimming pool.
All that with one income working as a supervisor in the construction industry
You are among the unfortunate who refuse to see, so eaten up by your ideology truth becomes irrelevant. In what way do you consider yourself enlightened?
You are starting to babble!
Maybe you could just quit beating around the bush and just enlighten me
Why don't you want to share your enlightenment, don't actually have any? Are you being coy? :)
Is the crash the new fear that is being used to defeat the movement?
It is going to crash with or without the OWS movement!
Everybody is beginning to realize how the 1% have taken the world to the brink of financial collapse by “owning” 40% of the “virtual” money and by having the citizens deeply in debt to them.
If they want to stop the crash then they need to start investing in America and quit being profiteers. They are the only ones that can stop the impending crash. Stop collecting wealth and start circulating money now!
Worry about America first and the rest will take care of itself. Ignore America and nobody wins.
You copied that from this thread, I already answered it, I think you just jumped the shark. :)
"Can you tell me how and why the financial elite have accomplished this astounding bit of brinking and collapsing chicanery?"
With fractional-reserve banking and fiat currency, that's how....
Can you explain that or is it merely some buzzwords you know?
If the euro falls we'll find out in short order.
Seriously, The majority of people in this country just want to improve the way our system functions. Not see a total crash...
How does one "control" the crash? You people can't even successfully run Zucotti Park.
I'm not at Zucotti park. I wouldn't fit in as I'm not a team oriented individual and I also possess a personal tendency of being extremely impatient.
Why do you present worst case scenarios and than use them as a basis of discussion just to rile up the natives? Why do you make assumptions and use generalizations to marginalize people you disagree with?
It actually isn't a worst case scenario. I don't think people understand how fragile our infrastructure really is. Every third post here is calling for the destruction of the financial system, voting system, political system or some other system that someone is pissed off about. They call it reform but depend entirely on magical thinking to get from point A to point Z.
The entire OWS movement consists of generalities with no clear controlled path to replacement of anything.
Its fragile because of corruption and greed and our government has been bought by corporations. The damage has been done and we are just beginning to experience the destruction it has produced.
If the movement does not succeed, at least they tried which is more then I can say about the people that are critical of them.
It's fragile because it an be likened to a pyramid scheme. The banking industry all over the world creates boom and bust cycles because they can make money off of that cycle.
They can do this because they are in control of the money supply.
Money creation is the responsibility of the public sector in accordance with demand.
Don't just spout liberal platitudes barb, give me some hard facts.
They have no power and it would be up to individuals to make a charge for change through the system. Why worry about or blame a perception of impending destruction on their generalities?
Because, like children, they have no idea of what they are doing, no concept of what their desires will even do to themselves. As it stands right now they are the hapless tools of anarchists and environmentalists who know exactly what would happen if half the crap they are "demanding" came about.
My purpose is to hopefully cut through the fog of righteousness that blinds so many of these kids milling around being all revolutionary and everything.
Then why don't you help them since you are so smart? Because for the life of me I don't understand how so many people could be so blind and believe America is not crumpling.
barb, I am trying to help, trying to make you think beyond the left wing narrative and look at the world around you with clearer eyes.
Help is not welcome here unless you preach the same babble everyone else does.
I have approached several serial posters with questions, comments or concerns. I have offered alternate solutions, asked why one thing or another wouldn't work... rather than trying to halt the economy for a day or so...
I am greeted with hostility. Everytime.
Unless you speak Occupy Speak, you are dismissed.
It's unfortunate.
So many voices not represented.
You live in a world that is doomed to failure. And then when it does come down you blame the people who saw it coming and warned you that we have to do things differently.
Ah.... so you are OWS's Annie Sullivan so to speak. That's a large title to proclaim for yourself. Are you qualified for the task?
I ask because normally if you want to convince or "educate" someone you have to show them that your way is better than theirs by developing trust and leading by example. I just don't see that in your posts.
So you would rather keep on supporting a system who robs you of your freedom, steals your retirement, and takes away your job.
I like your tone 'barb'. It's good to just call it as it is.
Thanks
you're right. That's why they're called "useful idiots".
I wish you would come up with a new slogan, I'm growing bored with reading it. Get creative already.
It's not a slogan , it's what they are.
Yeah. But you're kinda like a broken record. You used to make valid points now and again. Not so much anymore.
I'll try harder, but sometimes, that's the only reply/explanation to describe some of the people.
This is true. There are many generalities in play, many have more than a kernel of truth though. 'foreverleft', your grim forecast may be spot on - don't forget the wide spread self sustainability efforts. The corporate citizen and crummy political system are running amok: I think OWS is just trying to serve as a leash or issue some civil obedience. It's all good. Besides, mathematically, your forecast may be inevitable no matter what happens with OWS.
OWS is a symptom, not a cause, not an answer, nothing, Just a primal cry of frustration.
The frustration is legitimate. Seriously, through, you can't be satisfied with the condition of the economy and the nature of our politicians.
I'm dissatisfied with the mindless platitudes as to the cause and the solutions of our problems. The left has developed an entire alternate universe wherein endless deficit spending is a good thing, Americans who sincerely want our country to succeed are disparaged and called names but a crowd of thieves, rapists, druggies, drug dealers, anarchists, communists, socialists who go unwashed on someone's private property are heralded as the answer to the left's wet dream.
All told, no, I'm not satisfied.
Magical thinking is thinking that extracting money from the 99% for the 1% can go on forever without consequences.
Examples please.
We're trying to prevent that crash, you idiot. The wizards of greed at Wall St. and the Fed are busy delivering that future. Glass-Steagall would be the first step in disgorging the parasitical vampire speculators.
It's hard to know if the 1% is greedier than it is stupid, or stupider than it is greedy.
I don't think you would get very far in pursuit of a degree in economics with your limited knowledge and understanding. :) If you truly want to help prevent collapse of the currency and the absolute horror that would follow, insist that your government stop spending us into oblivion.
That my friend is the biggest problem our country faces at this very moment, the lack of fiscal prudence. Well put
Cut spending in a depression -- smart, very smart.
Why, yes it is, thanks for understanding! Let's restore confidence and stop acting like drunken sailors. :)
yap scare tactic
If wallstreet stock market crashes, it will be because of them and not the movement.
To which we may add that the stock market crashed before the movement was born. And it was born because the market crashed.
Unless we're lucky. Seriously though, the equity market isn't the issue, it's the debt market. The amount owed (bond market) in this country is more than 100x the value of the actual underlying assets in the USA. The big buzz words are 'CDS' - Credit Default Swaps, simply put these are investments of various loans (municipal as well) that are packaged like a hot dog: many different sorts of parts all in one CDS. The gamble is that there will be more performing loans than not. And these trades constitute Billions and Billions in daily trade. It's a very serious game of 'hot potato'.
How, exactly, does that work barb?
The same people who will bury the millions already starving to death because of corporate greed.
Do you people ever think for yourselves? Every response is leftwing talking points, why don't you engage me and prove me wrong instead of just nattering about corporate greed, what is that anyway?
As opposed to right-wing talking points?
The people didn't crash the economy, rich speculators did, repeatedly, and profited from it. The people bailed them out, though not by choice.
If you can't see corporate greed, or the iron grip that money holds over the entire political process including both Democrats and Republicans, you are either blind, stupid beyond comprehension or one of those who profits on the misery of others.
It's like the holocaust. We can fight from the ghettos or we can march quietly to the ovens and gas chambers where our everything from our skin, hair and the gold and silver in our teeth will be a source of profit for the corporate financial complex.
Actually, the people did crash the economy by over borrowing on houses they could never afford. The housing bubble was caused by the government loosening lending requirements so "everyone" could own a home.
What actually happened was the buying pressure of millions of people on the housing market caused the fantastic increases in value we saw from the late 90s to the bust in '07. Everybody became a real estate speculator, remember all the flipping that went on?
Suddenly, what the Bush administration had warned about came true and the housing bubble came crashing down and ruined a lot of good people, people who should have never been given access to money they couldn't afford.
So when you toss out meaningless talking points like "corporate greed" you would be mortified at what a fool I believe you are. You say nothing of value.
Do you honestly think that they loosen the lending requirements out of stupidy? They already knew that more corporations were leaving the country before we did so before anyone lost their job they made it easier to get a home for the immediate profit.
Lenders changed some of the information on applications so it could approved. This allowed many people in the housing industry to stay employed and everyone from the realtor to the mortgage company got their cut.
They knew if they did not create this ability for people to get a home before reality of our jobs leaving the country sunk in that the housing crisis would have started much sooner then it did.
I think like most liberal policies they had no clue of the unintended consequences of loosening the lending requirements. Millions of people chasing a finite amount of property has an inflationary effect on the prices.
People noticed they could sell a house they bought a year before for a nice profit, so they did and then bough another thereby increasing the buying pressure and the prices again. I think Barny Frank and friends really wanted to help people get a home and when the easy, cheap money began to create an unsustainable bubble they had no idea how to stop the train so it crashed into the wall.
barb, don't be blind to reality, think these things through. Government gave buyers and lenders a track to run on and they did, faster and faster until it all came crashing down. Banks couldn't have done what they did unless it was legal, were they greedy? yes, were the borrowers greedy indeed they were, was the government in error for setting the casino up in the first place? why yes they were.
The Community Reinvestment Act was passed in 1977. If that was the cause, why did it take 40 years to collapse the economy? Because it wasn't the cause. CRA loans were only 6% of the failed mortgages.
The cause was investment banks trying to bail themselves out of the housing bubble they created in a speculative frenzy that resulted in massive over-development. On the hook for building loans on properties that couldn't be sold, banks gave loans to people who could never afford them, often adding the necessary down payment to the loan amount, creating loans that were underwater from the moment they were signed.
Having transferred the responsibility to a buyer, often with an interest only ARM balloon set to explode in a few years, the banks packaged and sold the loans - rated AAA by bribed rating agencies - globally and to their own customers as well.
Regulations that allowed this to happen include the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which eliminated post depression regulations separating banks from investment houses and radically reduced capital requirements, allowing banks to engage in more speculative behavior with far more leverage and far less security.
This was the model adopted by Iceland, which went from a fishing economy to a global financial player to bankruptcy within a decade.
You really need to educate yourself. Beck, Limbaugh and Fox are a notoriously poor source of factual information.
You cut and paste from some liberal site that supposedly explains why it's all the big bad banks fault but I really don't believe you have actually read it. Where in there does it prove anything you contend?
How did "Investment banks" (I don't believe you have a clue what an investment bank does) create the speculative frenzy? Cheap money and buying pressure caused the housing bubble, you can't have a frenzy without willing customers. People took out sub-prime loans backed by fannie mae and freddie mac, is that so hard to understand?
I know you've been told to blame everybody except those who actually created the collapse but open your eyes, learn the other side of the story.
Here's some pretty pictures that may help explain the genesis of the sub-prime bubble...
http://youtu.be/cMnSp4qEXNM
http://youtu.be/_MGT_cSi7Rs
http://youtu.be/2UZ9l_AxKjA
Like I said, FOX is a notoriously poor source of factual information.
Here is a non-partisan, non-US source:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10860
So actual Democrats, using their own mouths, on the floor of the house, is Fox propaganda? wow.
Ignore the non-partisan source and stick to your belief system.
There is not much difference between one political party and another, as they both feed from the same trough.
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
-- Gautama Siddharta 563-483 B.C.
Could you quote some actual lies that can be attributed to Fox News? Remember, a lie isn't necessarily just something you disagree with and left wing sites saying Fox News lies doesn't count either. Misstatements are not lies either, if that were true the NYT would top your list of "liars". :)
The problem with Fox for leftwingers is it is less partisan than their usual sources. Pew did a study and found more balance at Fox than any other major news source and that's what drives lefties nuts. They like the NYT where 92% of the "journalists" are admitted Democrats, therre's some balance for you! :)
You still ignore the non-partisan source, and instead try to convince me that your source is not biased?
AND you think the NYT is liberal? This is the paper that took 6 years to come out against the Iraq war, that fired a journalist (Chris Hedges) for his anti-war stance, that recently opined AGAINST democracy (the Greek referendum on more Eurpoean debt), etc.
Long past time to educate your self, my friend.
http://www.aim.org/press-release/saudi-billionaire-boasts-of-manipulating-fox-news-coverage/ http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1160 http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fox_News#.22Fair_and_balanced.22_slogan_a_misnomer
Do you really think an organization with 92% Democrats is fair and balanced? Where is the NYT on reporting the Solyndra scandal? Silent. Where is the NYT in reporting on the tragic murders committed using weapons from the Fast and Furious gun running scandal? Silent. Where is the NYT in reporting that government loan recipients are invariably Obama donors? Silent
I know you are completely at sea as far as reality so lets use a device that can perhaps make it clear how biased you and the NYT really are. If GWB had done any of the things I just mentioned how would you and the NYT respond? Bush give governent loans to cronies, Bush has secret government gun running operation that has resulted in the deaths of three US lawmen and 200 Mexicans, The recipients of loans guaranteed by the Bush whitehouse for failed business venture all turn out to be Bush donors.
You and the media would have gone insane if Bush had done any of those thing but silence for Obama. Why?
A couple of other double standards that you lefties have a hard time wrapping your heads around:
Bush dunks people in water, saves lives, press go insane for 8 years.
Obama kills American citizens without trial or authorization. Silence
Bush institutes Patriot act, media goes insane for 8 years.
Obama continues every single policy of the Bush administration and expands on many. Silence.
Bush gets congressional approval for Iraq and Afghanistan, media beats him up for 8 years.
Obama takes us into war in Libya and three other countries with no congressional approval at all, silence.
I realize none of this will penetrate your fog of ideology but if you get a moment of clarity look at this actual reality and know what a fool millions of people think you are. :)
Critical thinking is not required by ows, in fact it's an impairment
Gee wiz, the financial system already crashed, and we the people had to foot the bill and we don't like it. They'll be taxing my grandkids to pay of the debet. The fat cats that did it ain't paying the full fright on the damage, there having fund raisers for thier favorite politicans with thier bonus checks, and lobbeying away as it is back to business as usual with ther new pat on the tush banking regulations.
Not to worry. As OWS evolves, co mingles, and mind melds, it comes ever closer to finding itself and what it actually wants to achieve. As a non participant un biased observer I see that more each day AND I'm fairly convinced "Crashing the Market" isn't an objective of the Majority of the movement.
Eliminating Corruption and regulating Excessive profits is about the closest you'll find.
Ah yes, who get to decide what is "excessive"? :) OWS sinks each day further into depravity and pointlessness. :)
Forcus and Protest on the real problem-BIG OIL !! has anybody noticed the media has not even mentioned the 2nd and 3rd quarter 2011 profits. 175% in the 3rd over the 2nd !! Who or what is so powerful it can squelch the media ? We can not except this !! $4.50 gallon in 2008 started it all, it got down to $2 and recovery was on the way NOW at nearly $4 again and no recovery .. SEE THE CONNECTION !!
Exxon earns 1200 dollars per second in profit, they pay 4000 dollars per second in taxes.
The mark of the right-wing is that you always blame the victims for their victimization. To right-wingers victimizers and predators are never wrong.
Would that be more left wing talking points? :) How does stating what actually happened become blaming the victim? That's like repeating something a liberal said and then getting accused of a smear, you guys are priceless! :)
I wish it would crash! Dont really have any money anyway, if nobody else does either maybe it would be easier to reboot this country! Think about it, if the currency is worth nothing then there is no 1% anymore really,
The 1% is already exchanging their US dollars for foreign currency since they already know its going to be worthless soon.
You have inadvertently stated the truth at the heart of this mess. Absolute hatred of those who have more than you, hatred and envy so strong you would destroy society to make sure everyone is just as poor and miserable as you.
It's a good thing you are all such ineffectual clowns who will never, ever get control of the levers of power. :)
Oh, and by the way, i am farrr from poor, just have my money tied up in equipment and a farm and other business related assets, but the equipment will still run if theres no money and i will still grow lots of produce on my farm and barter for what i need if the money isnt worth shit. I am cash poor, and cash is what will suffer if the currency and financials crash.
If money becomes "not worth a shit" everything on your farm will be taken within weeks, believe it.
By whom?
By the same type people who want free shit now but much meaner, hungrier and more heavily armed. If you get your wish and the currency collapses try to remember this conversation just before they take you out. :)
Fortunately i an quite proficient with my AR, its also amazing how much damage 3" 00buck does, and body armor doesnt give up much, so is my girlfriend, and we have a pretty close comunity with people who view things like i do, but if it gets sooo bad that everybody is killing eachother, i really dont care about my stuff, it then becomes a game and life is the only prize.
And you'll be able to take such pride in knowing you helped bring it about, happy hunting! :)
Yes, yes i will
Nope i dont have any animosity toward folks with more than me, have many very wealthy close friends, but the are not fools either and have tucked money where it will hold value if the us dollar and euro crash, i simply think that we need the whole thing to crash so that the current system and un sound fiscal policies can be changed to a sustainable system with the proper safeguards in place to prevent or at least minimize a repeat
So what is the sustainable system, how will it be implemented for billions of people before billions die in the chaos? Can you even comprehend what you are suggesting?
Oh i can comprehend, we live on a small island though, so most likely wont have the carnage like the mainland, subsistance and comunity still mean somethimg here
How nice for you, that makes it OK then!
No but some things are beyond our controll
Oh the hungry ones will find you, a starving man will do anything it takes to live.
Perhaps i help feed the hungry! Make a little camp and band together, strength in numbers
The ugly truth. America's wealth is STILL being concentrated. When the rich get too rich, the poor get poorer. These latest figures prove it. AGAIN.
According to the Social Security Administration, 50 percent of U.S. workers made less than $26,364 in 2010. In addition, those making less than $200,000, or 99 percent of Americans, saw their earnings fall by $4.5 billion collectively. The sobering numbers were a far cry from what was going on for the richest one percent of Americans.
The incomes of the top one percent of the wage scale in the U.S. rose in 2010; and their collective wage earnings jumped by $120 billion. In addition, those earning at least $1 million a year in wages, which is roughly 93,000 Americans, reported payroll income jumped 22 percent from 2009. Overall, the economy has shed 5.2 million jobs since the start of the Great Recession in 2007. It’s the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression in the 1930’s.
Another word about the first Great Depression. It really was a perfect storm. Caused almost entirely by greed. First, there was unprecedented economic growth. There was a massive building spree. There was a growing sense of optimism and materialism. There was a growing obsession for celebrities. The American people became spoiled, foolish, naive, brainwashed, and love-sick. They were bombarded with ads for one product or service after another. Encouraged to spend all of their money as if it were going out of style. Obscene profits were hoarded at the top. In 1928, the rich were already way ahead. Still, they were given huge tax breaks. All of this represented a MASSIVE transfer of wealth from poor to rich. Executives, entrepreneurs, developers, celebrities, and share holders. By 1929, America's wealthiest 1 percent had accumulated 44 percent of all United States wealth. The upper, middle, and lower classes were left to share the rest. When the lower majority finally ran low on money to spend, profits declined and the stock market crashed.
Of course, the rich threw a fit and started cutting jobs. They would stop at nothing to maintain their disgusting profit margins and ill-gotten obscene levels of wealth as long as possible. The small business owners did what they felt necessary to survive. They cut more jobs. The losses were felt primarily by the little guy. This created a domino effect. The middle class shrunk drastically and the lower class expanded. With less wealth in reserve and active circulation, banks failed by the hundreds. More jobs were cut. Unemployment reached 25% in 1933. The worst year of the Great Depression. Those who were employed had to settle for much lower wages. Millions went cold and hungry. The recovery involved a massive infusion of new currency, a World War, and higher taxes on the rich. With so many men in the service, so many women on the production line, and those higher taxes to help pay for it, some US wealth was gradually transferred back down to the majority. This redistribution of wealth continued until the mid seventies. By 1976, the richest 1 percent held less than 20 percent. The lower majority held the rest. This was the recovery. A partial redistribution of wealth.
Then it began to concentrate all over again. Here we are 35 years later. The richest one percent now own over 40 percent of all US wealth. The upper, middle, and lower classes are sharing the rest. This is true even after taxes, welfare, financial aid, and charity. It is the underlying cause. No redistribution. No recovery.
The government won't step in and do what's necessary. Not this time. It's up to us. Support small business more and big business less. Support the little guy more and the big guy less. It's tricky but not impossible.
For the good of society, stop giving so much of your money to rich people. Stop concentrating the wealth. This may be our last chance to prevent the worst economic depression in world history. No redistribution. No recovery.
Those of you who agree on these major issues are welcome to summarize this post, copy it, link to it, save it, show a friend, or spread the word in any fashion. Most major cities have daily call-in talk radio shows. You can reach thousands of people at once. They should know the ugly truth. Be sure to quote the figures which prove that America's wealth is still being concentrated. I don't care who takes the credit. We are up against a tiny but very powerful minority who have more influence on the masses than any other group in history. They have the means to reach millions at once with outrageous political and commercial propaganda. Those of us who speak the ugly truth must work incredibly hard just to be heard.
You see the world through the prism of your politics. You take the history of the causes of the depression and make them fit your politics. You selectively report only what might be twisted to that end.
You are practically frothing at the mouth over "income inequality" and distribution of wealth, riddle me this, what difference does it make if one person has more than another as long as opportunity exists for both?
If you think opportunity doesn't exist in America then you never look out the door of your comfortable middle class abode. :)
That's easy. The economy is a pie. It isn't always the same size. It changes year by year, but it is still a pie. The same goes for bottom line wealth. When you slice out 40%, the lower 99 percent get screwed. That's why.
And don't put words in my mouth. I never said the wealth is static or finite. But at any given time, it's a pie.
What makes my part of the pie subject to your greed?
[Removed]
Brother, can a financial system be founded upon human and moral principles? Can you and I engage on a transaction with top fairness and the good-heart that our souls are endowed with? Can human beings conduct themselves humanly and morally right in their business life just like the try to do in their personal lives? To think that we need to remove the tools in order for man to behave morally right is truly a fiction and a digression. There is nothing wrong with '2+2=4'; it is when immoral men take this knowledge and use it for its own self-gratification with complete disregard for humanity and morality when wrong is being done! Our tools are not doing the wrong, we are the ones directing our tools to do wrong... There is not a need to reinvent economics, science, mathematics, physics, etc. We just have to re-educate our people to ensure they use these tools at the dispose of all of us for humane and morally right purposes...
What is morally right to you? No property? No profit? No ownership of production? Free shit for all?
Brother, All Humans have been endowed with the same moral compass. We all know when something is wrong or right. At times our moral compass may be a bit out of focus. And that is perfectly acceptable! What is not acceptable is to be completely aware of what your moral compass is indicating and do exactly the opposite over and over and over. That is what religions call 'sin'.
To conduct the day to day operation of living is a necessity! It is a demand of our temporal and mortal being. But there is not need for greed when doing the living. When justice, fairness and honesty instead greed drives our markets we'll still have property, production, profits, and debts. Just like we will have clothes, houses, food, water and all the other things that our ingenious minds may developed to easy up our living. It is not about getting rid of the grid but about extracting the greed out of the grid...
What about your greed at coveting the possessions of others? Is that moral?
Brother, I am not trying to covet anybodies possessions. I am trying to promote the development of a society that conduct its day to day operation of living without greed. Nevertheless, because the way the wealth has been unfairly amass by a few, the dishonest and unfair wealth will have to be redistribute in order to bring fairness to our markets. But that is just plain physics. I am not advocating a socialist commerce, or a capitalist commerce, or trying to depict myself as an expect on business. I am advocating for a commerce that has human and moral values as the foundation of its doing...as simple as that brother. Now if you ask me how I would use my wealth if I was wealthy I would tell you this:
1.- I Shall judge my wealth and all its sources, by the highest principles of justice, honesty, and fairness.
2.- I Shall immediately disburse and/or restitute any part of my wealth that has been derived through fraud, theft, dishonesty, or unfairness.
3.- I Shall not take profit from any transaction which knowingly I would not accord to pay to a fellow trader in a similar transaction.
4.- I Shall never amass wealth-power by the enslavement or unfair exploitation of my fellow men.
5.- I Shall never employ my wealth-power to gain unfair advantage over struggling fellow men.
6.- As my wealth enlarges I Shall stern my fairness and honesty as regards its growth as well as my voice in its subsequent distribution.
7.- I Shall ensure to not stoop to the practice of usury when lending my honest wealth.
8.- I Shall not lend for profit any amount of a dishonest wealth.
9.- I Shall not selfishly presume to lay claim to all of the advantages and blessings to be derived from a discovery of Nature’s horded resources.
10.- I Shall remember that the ownership of my wealth is temporary, just like my path through this life. Therefore I Shall make fair provisions for the sharing of my wealth in helpful ways by the largest possible number of my fellow men.
Who gets to decide all those things, you? :)
It has been already decide by all human beings that believe on humanity and its preservation. None of us can pretend to be human while conducting our lives inhumanely. Can you? By the same pattern, our civilization cannot pretend to be human while destroying humanity... It is not about enforcing, regulating or dictating our humanity. It is about acknowledging that we are human and that all aspects of our lives must be humanly driving... Some of our brothers skeptical of a Creator at times ask: "If God is so good why does he not comes down and enforce goodness?" I don't have the answer to that. But if not even God is suppose to enforce goodness, who am I to dictate anything? Nevertheless, I definitely can do one thing to teach by example; to conduct my live with human and moral values present at all times. Who knows maybe other will see the goodness on it and follow...
Why not try to deal with the reality of human nature rather than some dream world in which suddenly everyone is following your conception correct behavior?
And what is that brother, human Nature? Brother, I have mention this on other post…humanity strives to better itself; It is not stagnated on a form of being or a way of thinking. Humanity is in constant spiritual, moral and knowledge evolution. Human Nature was designed to evolve…otherwise You and I would have never talked, and we will probably be throwing stones to a rabbit or some other poor little animal so we can have dinner.
I fear you are not kidding when you ask what is human nature. How's your cult coming along?
What causes the financial system to crash is a lack of diligent regulation. Why do you assume OWS is out to crash the financial system? It is the "magical thinking" that goes on on Wall Street that is f*cking everything up.
Wall Street operates within the law as provided by the politicians, no more no less. Why do you think there aren't thousands of "banksters" in prison after the collapse? They weren't doing anything illegal, they acted within the law as written by the government.
Why is this so hard for you to understand?
Goldman Sachs for one did indeed break the law. It's called fraud. And why would the government give the banksters immunity from prosecution if they did nothing wrong? And if you think the system isn't going to crash on its own without OWS 'help' then read this:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-collapse-our-corrupt-predatory-pathological-financial-system-necessary-and-positive
Yes, because they fund the politicians who make the laws with loopholes so technically they did not break the law even when we all know they did.
And the politicians change those laws at the behest of Wall Street and other special interests whose lobbyists in many cases actually write the laws.
Why is this so hard for you to understand?
If business runs government why has oil exploration come to almost a halt in America? Why are there lawsuits and regulations from the EPA that are strangling American business, why does it cost Intel one billion dollars more to build a new plant in America than it does in the rest of the world? Why has America dropped to 10th in the world in ease of doing business?
Are you pissed at all the jobs being shipped overseas? Do you ever wonder why? Taxes, regulations and unions, that's why. What company would be stupid enough to arbitrarily ship jobs off shore for no particular reason? More profit you say? Make it easier for business to make a profit here and they will stay. They don't leave America for more profit, they leave just to maintain profit to stay in business, the anti-business government in America is killing us, not business.
So what you're saying is Obama and the Democrats aren't completely corrupt yet, because, otherwise, business would be in complete control. I agree with that part. The other crap is just about you wanting the government to be run by business. Pretty sick fascist dogma if you ask me.
Obama and the Democrats are a force of corruption never seen in America before, why are all the investors in the failed green companies with half billion dollar government guaranteed loan all turning out to be Obama donors?
You choose to call "dogma" concrete examples of government restrictions on business because it disturbs your pathetic world view. So calling facts a name makes them go away, right? :)
You are blind with no will to see.
....and it costs to ship goods back to the states. How bad is it when a company can more efficiently produce overseas and pay to ship goods back? We need to make it easier to do business in the states and you will see more "MADE IN USA"
The economic "system" was crashed by Wall Street and the U.S. Congress.
The issue now is how to rebuild and restore it in a more equitable way that better reflects and supports the American Dream of equal opportunity and fairness for all who work hard.
Yet you have a home, a computer, internet access and a full belly.
Right now we do, but soon we won't have our home, computer, etc.
Who says?
They are getting ready to sign a NAFTA with Asia-Pacific region so more jobs will be going overseas.
And a retirement fund worth a third of what it was worth in 2006.
You also ignore the millions of Americans who's retirements and home equity were wiped out by the banksters.
My food budget was cut in half in the past four years while inflation caused by this mess has continued to increase at a faster pace to pump even more money into the banks.
Your selective, myopic and egocentric reasoning invalidates any legitimacy you may try to claim for your argument. Just because you have not been hurt or you choose to ignore your own victimization by the economic collapse does not mean that millions others were not victimized and continue to be victimized by the banking predators and Wall street that you irrationally, callously and unpatriotically protect and defend.
I'm not denying the obvious, we have economic difficulties, we disagree as to the cause and the solutions. Blindly blaming banks for what was primarily caused by misguided liberal policies is myopic and selective.
The Bush administration sounded the alarm about sub-prime loans as early as 2001, visual proof is a click away at youtube but reality doesn't fit your world view so it must be ignored or suffer a good liberal "debunking" (a bunch of liberals say something isn't true and voila, it isn't true! Yippee!).
You should come out of the liberal bubble and see how the world actually operates rather than just parroting the lib line.
The Republicans created the problems in 1999 with the passage of S-900, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley financial Services Modernization Act A bill opposed by Barnie Frank and other "liberals" who predicted during the floor debate that S-900 would lead to a financial calamity within ten years. go read the congressional Record on the debate. I have.
This law did three things that directly contributed to the real estate collapse.
S-900 repealed Glass-Steagall. In doing this the law opened the door for "too big to fail" combinations of commercial and investment banks.
S-900 lowered regulatory standards for "toxic derivatives" that these banks then used in these fraudulent ways with impunity.
S-900 reorganized the Community Reinvestment Bank by lowering borrowing standards and allowing the kinds of predatory mortgage practices that underpin recent federal law suits against major banks for defrauding Fannie May and Freddie Mac out of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Not so coincidentally of the thousands of people who have passed through congress since 1999 nine of the twelve members of the congressional debt super committee voted in favor of S-900 in 1999.
Members of the Congressional Budget Super Committee who voted for S-900: Toxic Pat Toomey - PA (R) Sen. Kyl, Jon [R-AZ]
Rep. Camp, Dave [R-MI-4]
Rep. Upton, Fred [R-MI-6]
Sen. Murray, Patty [D-WA] Sen. Baucus, Max [D-MT]
Sen. Kerry, John F. [D-MA]
Rep. Clyburn, James E. [D-SC-6]
Rep. Becerra, Xavier [D-CA-31]
My freshman U.S. senator "Toxic" Pat Toomey, was in the House in 1999 and stood on the floor to defend both the repeal and the derivatives. Here is his floor speech:
"The repeal of Glass-Steagall is necessary so that consumers can get the products and services they desire and American financial firms can compete in the global marketplace.
Madam Speaker, I would like to highlight just one small part of this sweeping legislation. I am particularly pleased that this bill includes an important provision regarding certain derivative transactions, especially credit and equity swaps. These somewhat obscure products are actually very important tools used by businesses, including financial service firms, to manage a variety of risks that they face. This bill reaffirms that swap contracts are legitimate bank products that can be executed and booked in banks and are adequately regulated by and will continue to be regulated by banking supervisors."
The substance of this S-900 issue can be found in the Congressional Record for Nov. 4, 1999.
Why do liberals think posting some cut and paste of some out of context information that says nothing about the point the lib is trying to make? Have you actually read that or did they tell you at lib central that posting this would be like kryptonite and send conservatives reeling at your magnificence. You have no comprehension of what you posted, you are parroting your masters.
Speaking of your masters, here, in their own voices, are your masters defending freddie and fanny to the death of our financial system. I particularly enjoy the one in which Barny Frank denies pushing home ownership in one clip and they show him pushing home ownership on the floor of congress inn 2005.
http://youtu.be/cMnSp4qEXNM
http://youtu.be/_MGT_cSi7Rs
http://youtu.be/2UZ9l_AxKjA
You are a boring propagandist.
LOL, so providing links to the actual lefty politician on tape, in his own words, on the floor of the house is propaganda to you? Pathetic. :)
When Bush sounded the alarm , Barney Frank said not to worry. Months later the housing market crashed.
Provide valid and complete citation for that claim. Not an out of context snippet of a phrase.
Do your own research on Dodd Frank, fannie mae , freddie mac , janet reno and non income verification loans.
Yeah, hunger is no longer much of a problem in America. Even the dirt poor can afford to get morbidly obese on cheap fast food. In fact, fast food is the only thing poor people can often afford to eat!
However, the real flaw in your whole "aahpat has his basic needs met and enough left over for a computer and internet" argument is that it's completely irrelevant. So he's not dirt poor, but he still supports a fairer deal for his poorer countrymen? That doesn't prove we're wrong, it proves we're not assholes.
Actually, it does prove you're assholes. Fair in your mind depends on the theft of another citizens property. You've absolutely convinced yourself that you are owed (I know, it's always for the "poor" but what you really want is more free shit for yourself too) some of what I produce so that our outcomes will be "fairer". You have absolutely convinced yourself that I'm greedy for not wanting you to take my shit and that you aren't greedy for wanting something that doesn't belong to you. Doesn't that seem a bit insane to you?
Hey, we're having two arguments at once! Quite the multitaskers, aren't we? So, foreverleft, you're using the old taxation is theft argument? Pretty libertarian of you, eh? So is it fair to assume that you would agree with ending corporate welfare? Certainly, if the government stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is bad, then stealing from everyone and giving to the rich must be even worse? Or does it make it okay, since they worked so hard playing golf and creating new corporate synergy paradigm shifts for it?
What exactly, is corporate welfare? Is it a buzz word you heard and think it's cool to toss around? What is it and who gets it?
Durrr whats taxation. Whats socialism. Google is your friend, I'm not.
So, you're clueless?
I fail to see why refusing to define a word you when you're obviously using a computer with internet access makes me clueless. But since I'm feeling nice today, I'll even give you a link. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=corporate+welfare
I understand your reticence in discussing the term. :) It's merely a leftwing buzz word used as a part of an overall effort to demonize American business. It has no actual meaning beyond that effort.
Well that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard and you're terribly deluded. If I may, I'd like to try to explain what you sound like to me in your terms.
Welfare doesn't exist. It's nothing but a right-wing buzzword used as part of an overall effort to demonize the working class. Can you tell me what welfare is? You can't, because it doesn't exist.
See? Pretty dumb sounding, eh? I guess you're nothing but a troll. You use big words to make yourself sound smart, but you're utterly devoid of any actual logic, and you engage in constant diversions from the topic at hand. I'mma ignore you now.
For whatever reason I can't reply to your post. Reckon the thread is too long. But anyway, a troll is someone who deliberately uses faulty logic to piss people off. Either you're that or you're deluded as hell.
LOL, if only saying it could make it so. :) You can't defend the term so you go to the usual lefty standby play which is calling people who are handing you your ass silly names. Thanks for the win!
Amen. Too many of these protesters are looking for instant gratification. And this is such a new mindset... it boggles mine, actually.
What happened to the days when people graduated with student loans and just paid them?
The days when people went out and bought a "handyman special" as their first home and expected as much?
The days when they graduated and couldn't find a job in their field right away so they found work doing something... sometimes anything... to support themselves?
These days really weren't so long ago, you know. 10 years even.
I am not saying there isn't a need for change... but attacking the 1% isn't going to do anything. They aren't even the problem.
But no one here wants to hear that.
The days was when student loans were much lower to get an education. Now education cost so much it ridiculous.
I agree.
But.
That's your state's fault. Not Wall Street.
If Wall Street's making money off the interest, it's in their best interest to drive up the loans. What, you think they wouldn't go there?
The bulk of student loans are federal. Wells Fargo and Bank of America have little to do with this.
Again. Take it up with the government. Not the banks doing what the government has allowed them to do. That's all I'm saying.
We should all just start using Cash for everything, stop using credit cards, debdit cards, etc. It would have an impact on big banks like Chase, Bank of America, Ameican express, these institutions will slowly feel it, They need some pressure from the public that we are not going to take it anymore, Homeowners need help, families are suffering, foreclosures need to be Stopped! Banks got bailed out what about the families!
We should all just start using Cash for everything, stop using credit cards, debdit cards, etc. It would have an impact on big banks like Chase, Bank of America, Ameican express, these institutions will slowly feel it, They need some pressure from the public that we are not going to take it anymore, Homeowners need help, families are suffering, foreclosures need to be Stopped! Banks got bailed out what about the families!
i will do it. i will bury them if you need me to.
let me know
Why should a healthy financial system crash? Are you saying that the OWS protesters are going to somehow crash an otherwise healthy, vibrant financial system? LOL! How does that work?
I'm saying through stupidity and ignorance they are attempting that very thing and I have been happily pointing out the folly of that for two days now. :)
OWS will crash nothing except the plumbing at the McDonalds, they can't even run a camp much less accomplish anything.
We do not have to do anything to crash the financial system. It is doing a fine job of doing that itself!
Im not talking for OWS, but I believe there was in history a time before this current financial system that we could easily transition to. Also, there are a number of communities associated with a green movement that have gathered with local produce and manufacturers to formally set up a system when things do go south. Contingencies are in place.
Ah yes, twigs and berries, well good luck with that.
When you are sitting their twiddling thumbs at the former alter of capitalism, please refrain from plundering my twigs and berries. :P
I will be a captain of raiders and we will ravish your twigs and berries and eat all your women...um, I'm still working on that sequence.
Directed by Micheal Bay.... or possibly Ron Jeremy.
The financial system has maxed out their credit cards and that is the fact. It is the ultimate Ponzi scheme.
Gee wiz, the financial system already crashed, and we the people had to foot the bill and we don't like it. They'll be taxing my grandkids to pay of the debet. The fat cats that did it ain't paying the full fright on the damage, there having fund raisers for thier favorite politicans with thier bonus checks, and lobbeying away as it is back to business as usual with ther new pat on the tush banking regulations.
So, is the problem the bankers or the politicians who ultimately write the laws that screw you?
The financial system != Food services.
If we are successful in criminalizing banking fraud, the trucks will not stop running. But the folks driving them will have a bit more money in their pockets for it.
Banking fraud is already criminalized, unfortunately government fraud isn't. Who wrote the laws the banks operate under. Think!
Since Prescott Bush financed Nixon's campaign with his investment bank & securities firm, (Brown Brothers Harriman, right across the street from the Red Thing side of Zucotti), which set the way for Nixon to boost up GHW, I've ceased to distinguish who's doing the banking and who's writing the laws.
They are the same people.
Yet you choose to demonize the banks rather than go after the politicians who write the laws under which the banks operate. This is not a chicken or egg thing, the government does not have to write laws that destroy America but yet they do, why?
Oh, well--the people who broke the financial system should have thought of that ahead of time. But they didn't, did they? And now we all have to pay. Life's a bitch!
Yes, the government's mistakes will cost us all for many years to come.
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/307272_315672861781250_100000156154826_1561321_1357002768_n.jpg
HOW the kleptocracy works
What a crock of shit. Just cut up all your credit cards, pay in cash, and continue to purchase...Wall Street elite goes down, and business stay up. It is that simple.
Yes, that is indeed simple. :)
OWS wants to fix the broken economic and financial system. You see that as crashing the system. The only people benefiting from the current system are the people who have broken the system.
You seem to really fear the idea of fixing the economy and financial system so that fewer predators are empowered to harm Americans.
Why do you hate the middle class?
Why do you hate Americans?
OWS is a bunch of clueless misfits who would be anti-war protestors if a Republican were president. Conveniently, you can state what their goals are because they can't articulate any goals themselves. Unfortunately for you I can impute intent just as easily. These idiots have no clue what would happen to them if they were successful.
For the sake of argument, how do the OWSies intend to fix the financial system?
it is frankly getting too hard to read through your hate and bigotry to bother formulating a reasoned response. You stereotyping and partisan divisiveness are very off-putting. You come off like nothing but a right-wing bully and thug with a loud mouth and no intellect.
In other words, I'm beating your flawed ideology with truth so you can dismiss me by calling me a few names and flouncing off. How leftish. :)
No "in other words". I wrote precisely what I meant to write.
You are a dishonest debater if you need to redefine and rephrase what another is writing in order to make you point. You are arguing with your own misrepresentations rather than with me. Typical right-winger.
Ah, even more name calling, that'll show me! Your debating skills rank right there with your analytical abilities. :)
I don't believe anybody wants to crash the financial system though some want to displace it, which is not the same thing at all.
My point is you can't control how and what happens. You have no clear path to change, no analysis of how change will effect peoples lives. You are working from so many erroneous assumptions you can never make a coherent plan because you don't have a real clue as to actual cause and effect.
You have no clear path to change, no analysis of how change will effect peoples lives.
Our path to change is embodied in the title of our movement: Occupy Wall Street. That is our first goal and we have yet to accomplish that. Along the way we need to keep organizing until we are a clear majority. Our greivances are explicitly stated in the Declaration of the Occupation. Once we are a clear majority we will be able to address our greivances directly and reorganize society democratically from below in the interests of everyone. Clear enough?
You remind me of the sock gnomes on the Simpsons:
1.Steal socks
Why do you wrongly believe that the goal of OWS is to crash the economic system?
People protesting FOR jobs and economic fairness do not sound like anti capitalist anarchists to me.
To me the real anarchists are the Wall Street predators who are willing to destroy the livings of millions of middle-class Americans for their short term profit.
You have a real problem seeing reality.
I see idiots marching around with signs stating that that is your purpose I see calls to move accounts from banks to credit unions, I see calls for strikes against banks. I see calls to disrupt business by leaving shopping carts full of merchandise in check out lines and other idiocy.
Reality is no one is trying to destroy the middle class except Obama. March on him to stop regulating the middle class out of existence, stop taxing the middle class out of existence, stop union greed and theft.
It is truly crazy to assert that moving deposits out of banks that are deemed "too big to fail" automatically equates as seeking the collapse of the economy. Just the opposite. Moving those deposits makes them safer and reduces the size of the big banks making them less dangerous to the economy.
If Americans consider retailers to be predatory and in need of an education in fair practices that is their right.
Obama is a construct of Wall Street and the Chicago commodity pits. I don't defend him.
Building a middle-class is not "union greed".
Stop supporting wars and police state social policies that cost hundreds of billions a year and taxes will decline. It is your stupid right-wing aggression policies that are hurting America more than anything.
I apologize for hurting your brain but exposing you to some reality is good for you. Hopefully, some of the things we've discussed will stick with you and cause you to think through some of your false beliefs.
You are now defending your cherished positions by rote, the steam is going out of your posts and you aren't quite as sure as you were yesterday. Continue to probe, analyze, dig for the truth, question, never accept ideology as a substitute for thinking. I have great hope for you, you aren't beyond help like some of the others for whom ideology is reality.
My name is William Simonson. Very soon we will be producing nutritious food from soy, lentils, and various other ingredients that will be given to the poor in New York City. Cheers from the Soylent Corporation!
Mmmmm! People! :)
I thought food was processed & trucks were driven by people who worked, the 99%. Who would have thought we'd drop dead in 2 weeks if it were not for crooks bundling non-asset-backed securities.
If the truck drivers and processors stop getting paid there will be no food. They do it for the money, they really don't give a shit if you starve in the dark.
Give it a break..What about the people starving to death right now because of the current financial system..Let the chips fall now, cause it will be worse later..Besides money is just make believe...The scarcity of it, is a fabrication.
I'm the government..and I'm having a debt jubilee day..This is the only cure..or revolution...
Where in America are people starving to death?
Maybe not to death in the US.. http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR108/ERR108.pdf
But our financial system has caused, through Federal Reserve QE policies, to cause food prices to go up across the globe and people are starving to death.
A major cause of the current food imbalance in the world is the use of corn as an ethanol source in the US. US growers stop producing other grains to produce more corn to use as ethanol causing shortages of other food grains around the world.
Why blame the US financial system for a problem caused by the US government? If you really want to be useful march on Washington and demand a stop to the incredibly destructive use of ethanol in our fuel.
It's dirtier, less efficient, harmful to automobiles, causing world wide food shortages and fills the pockets of big agriculture, it's a lefties dream but your masters want you to damage the financial system, not government or big ag. Ever wonder why?
Wall Street is Washington and Washington is Wall Street...
I think you identified a problem, but it's not "the" problem.
I know your masters tell you that but the problems can invariable be traced back to government. Businesses operate in the environment provided by regulations and laws, there can be no other way. That's why the "banksters" didn't go to jail after the crash, they were following the laws and regulations provided by the government.
The government repealed Glass Steagal on behest of the Bank$ters...So yea government being bought off, to pass laws that will screw the average American is the problem..Wall Street wasn't just following the rules, they made them up, to f*ck over people.
Still fraud was committed in 2008..No one goes to jail, because our government is still bought off...
You are wrong. Can you see how silly it is to blame everything on the banks? Banks are a conduit for government policy nothing more nothing less. If you really believe banks have bought the government why are you trying to destroy banks? Government has betrayed you, not banks. Why are you on Wall Street when you should be on Pennsylvania Ave?
Blaming banks for following the rules promulgated by the government is akin to blaming a kid for having red hair.
I don't blame everything on the banks...Although our politicians are corrupted, incompetent and greedy, and are just as culpable as the banks, it was the Banks who asked for deregulation, and actually destroyed the economy by implementing this new legislation that they wrote for themselves..
All because it's legal, or something was made to be legal, doesn't mean that the victims have no reason or right to want justice for the larceny they were victims of...Politicians and the bankers who were involved with the deregulation..Need to be tried for treason..
The only reason that no one is going to jail right now is because Obama, and Holder are in the back pockets of the Banking industry...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Leach%E2%80%93Bliley_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000
Why do liberals think that linking to legislation somehow proves their point?
Again, you refuse to look where blame belongs, you simply can't point your finger at mother government as the genesis of our problems even though you admit it in your response. How could a bank "force" government to create legislation that would destroy the middle class as you claim and even if they did who is actually to blame? The bank for asking or the government for passing laws against the American people? Think!!
I completely understand you position, you are of the left and as such are of government. It is simply impossible for you to place the blame where it belongs so you find yourself in the ridiculous position of having to blame the water boy for the failures of the coach. It makes it easier for you to accept the pain of what your government has done to you to project these failures on the banking system.
Whether the banks "bought" them or not it was government that allowed these things to happen.
Agreed..But I blame them both...One for being corrupted and the other for trying to corrupt...So the idea of the Direct Democracy comes in: http://www.scribd.com/doc/71752240/A-Vision-for-a-New-Democracy
@foreverleft..You sir are are liar...and the only thing you think about is yourself. "Government has ultimate responsibility for our well being". No, WRONG. You do and I know who ripped the American People off and I know who fucking helped them...
It doesn't matter, all your fucking heads on a pike...
There is no blaming them both. Government has ultimate responsibility for our well being, banks do not. Blaming the banks for the genuine evil done to the American people is ridiculous on it's face.
Liberals simply cannot bring themselves to go to the source of the evil because it is government and liberals are of government so they must externalize their anger. Liberals find themselves in this position because they substitute ideology for thinking.
foreverleft check this out its from http://zmca.org/understandings/understandings
"For example, in our culture, "ethics" is really is a matter of degree, for our social system promotes and rewards competition and self-interest. This perspective doesn't just "lead" to aberrant behavior... it creates it directly. Corruption is the norm in our society and most people do not see this, for since the society supports this behavior, it is considered right and normal... or as a matter of degree. Given this understanding, there is a fallacy that has emerged where certain groups are deemed "corrupt" and everyone else is "good". This is the age old "us and them" world view which has no basis empirically, for it is, again, all a matter of degree."
by the way you seem like a hateful angry person. I really think you have some work to do inside yourself. whether these people are right or wrong, they're just expressing their beliefs of what they feel would be best for this country and the world even. you should appreciate that whether or not you feel they're right on what needs to change. have some love for your brothers and sisters.
There are dozens of philosophies to justify any number of ways to an end. Like your example, the authors had a result they want to get others to accept as truth so they make their case as persuasively as possible and some buy it, some call bullshit.
Angry?? Are you reading some of the stuff these people are saying to me?? :)
Anyone you're seeing talk about wanting to crash the money system is propaganda that does not represent the true interests of what most in Occupy want. This is because those calling for crashing the system RIGHT NOW and doing so the loudest are being disingenuous about their real intent (or innocently repeating it without understanding what it really will mean). The real intent is to "get the money out", but not in the way you'd think at first. It means get the money decentralized and out of the government's control so that only those who are already rich and who have squirreled their money away somewhere will have any wealth in the form of real currency. If, at the same time, the government is collapsed (which these same folks are also calling for RIGHT NOW), wealth becomes literally the only law of the land, and those who have it will use it in any way they like without answering to any other law. They want to do it RIGHT NOW, before people have too much time to question their motives or the wisdom of doing such a rash thing, and in the grandly deluded hopes that they've been successful at creating such a "buzz" of market-savvy manufactured rebellion that people will be just swept up with emotion and agree to seal their own fate. They want to do it RIGHT NOW because they have already hoarded their wealth and they want to limit the amount of other people who will be able to do so. They want to do it RIGHT NOW so people will blame the government and not them. And they want to do it RIGHT NOW to quickly have as desperate a populace as possible who have no choice but to depend on those who have what's left of the nation's money supply in their private and unfettered control. Always be wary of anyone who wants you do anything absurd and especially if they want you to do it RIGHT NOW.
Answered you above.
great point, and why we need to focus on meaningful resolution of those problems not crashing the system.
where do you "enlightened" propose they get that money from? Another question; what exactly is a profiteer? I work over the summer along with all of my friends to make as much money as absolutely possible, am I a profiteer? Just one more question; do you understand the mortgage bubble? (as in its causes and effects?) I lied- I have one more question(for real this time;) ; Have you ever studied history?
Did you ever watch that movie soilent greens in the early 70s?
I don't see how political and financial reforms will prevent trucks bringing food from farms to processing centers, and then from processing centers to grocery stores? Is it that only the board of directors of the Lehman brothers can drive a semi, and they happen to personally drive every food shipment around the country? That must be it.
Oh, or maybe the banking ubermenschen use their powers to create all of the diesel fuel that the trucks run on, and their powers only work in the presence of corruption?
How do you control the collapse of the financial system you wish to replace? If a truck driver doesn't get any money why would he drive a truck? If the banks are shut down how will bills get paid, where will you get internet service? Telephone, food, electricity? Where will the trucks get the fuel to run?
You want "reforms" but you have no idea how they will be accomplished or by who, yet you are quite sure the food truck will roll, you sir are an idiot.
Ah, I get it! So the bankers are the only ones with any money to pay the truckers!
And obviously Wall Street executives are the only ones competent enough to run a bank, without them you'd have a bunch of bumbling fools running the place. Probably try to open the vaults with a rock or pointed stick.
Indeed, think of the bunch in Zucotti park running your local bank. :) It is a conceit of the left that executives aren't worth what they are paid but they are. There's a reason minimum wage people make minimum wage and executives make 400 times that amount or more.
I know it drives you people crazy that your failings are so evident to anyone who cares to look but that is how the human race operates. If you were successful in eating the rich in less than a generation there would be a new elite and if you aren't elite in this society you ain't gong to be elite in the new one. Losers will continue to lose.
I don't see how financial and political reforms will result in hippies running all the banks? See, the idea isn't to completely reorganize society so that hippies are in control of all major institutions, but to bust some trusts, increase some taxes on the rich, end corporate influence on government, etc.
Strawman arguments don't befit an omniscient superhuman such as yourself. Or I guess us plebs just don't see the light, and the real way to engage in rational discourse is insults and bullshit.
What, exactly, are the reforms that are going to make it better? Your initial comment suggested that indeed idiots with sticks will be trying to figure out how to open the doors. I merely pointed out the folly of allowing idiots to do things they aren't capable of.
Tell me what you propose to fix the financial system, I am hungry for your wisdom.
Well, I'm sure a good number of the issues are over my simple head, and it would take someone so supremely intelligent such as yourself to figure out solutions, but I have a few ideas.
For instance, you could reinstate the Glass-Steagall act, which kept investment and commercial banking separate so that maybe next time irresponsible greedheads crash the market, maybe fewer people will lose their homes.
And the tax system ought to be restructured as to be more equitable, and to allow social mobility. The increase from the first to the second tax bracket is 5%, and from the second to the third is 10%, the biggest increase. From 3rd to 4th it's only 3%, 4th to 5th it's 5% again, and from 5th to 6th the increase is a measly 2%. So the biggest increase goes to the poor moving into the middle class, and the smallest increase is when you go from wealthy to incredibly wealthy. Seems to me that the people who make more would be able to take a bigger hit when moving between tax brackets, but that's just me I guess, and I'm a dumb plebeian.
Another thing you could do is ban riders, so that laws can't be snuck into the books.
Or maybe some kind of campaign finance law or regulation or abolition of lobbying, so no small but wealthy groups can disproportionately affect government.
Or hey, we could just keep everything the way it is because we have achieved a completely perfect system.
reinstating glass steagall is a good start to break up too-big-too-fail banks and discourage overspeculation. this group has just started an effort to complement feet on the ground and is offering films to communities. http://theflaw.bullfrogcommunities.com/flaw_endwallstreetgreed
How about repealing Frank Dodd as well? Show me how the commingling of commercial and investment banking caused the crash. People lost their homes because they bought homes they couldn't afford to pay for, no evil bankers there just a housing bubble brought on by easy, cheap money.
The tax system is indeed inequitable, every citizen should pay taxes, we all should have some skin in the game. Government has created a tiered society of non-payers and payers and oddly enough the non-payers think the payers need to pay more do they can have free shit.
I won't insult your intelligence by pointing out the wealthy carry the vast majority of the tax burden now, What we need to do is stop deficit spending. We need to get control of our finances and stop spending like drunken sailors. If we increase taxes do you think it will go to deficit reduction or just more spending?
I would not be averse to a tax increase if we developed a budget that stopped deficit spending and made iron clad reductions in the debt, how about that?
Do you know what the most influential special interest is? Unions. They gave half a billion to democrats last presidential cycle, business was no where in the neighborhood.
Cheap, easy money provided by bankers in bad faith. What is also known as predatory lending. Canada, for instance, which had far more sound banking practices, did not experience nearly so deep of a recession. No vast plains of vacant McMansions here.
So we both agree that the tax system needs reform, but obviously the fundamental difference here is that you seem to think that the obscenely wealthy are actually over taxed, and that people who are struggling to make ends meet and usually stuck in a welfare trap (In which a person will have no incentive to work a shitty job rather than stay on welfare) should pay more. That just means more people will have no incentive to get off welfare.
And a good way to get control of your finances would be to say, take out half of the military budget. That would free up about 25% of the total budget for deficit reduction, and then increased taxes on the rich could be used for a better social safety net!
And I can't imagine that Unions are actually the most influential special interest. Union membership in the US has been decreasing since the Red Scare, so logically they must have had total control of the government in World War II! Out of curiosity, though, how much money did business give? Are Unions involved in ALEC? Are most politicians Union men? No and No.
But that's beside the point anyway. Money should be out of politics entirely. Each candidate should get equal funding.
Where do bankers get easy, cheap money? Do they control the money supply? The interest rates? The government controls how much and at what rate money is available, combine that with government relaxation of lending practices and you have a recipe for financial disaster.
The banks and borrowers ran on a track provided by the government, they operated within the law as written by the government yet you want to blame the conduit for the cash provided by the government. Can you see how silly that is?
Its odd, then, that the Federal Reserve is a private institution, then, run by bankers as much or more as run by the government?
I don't think you really realize that government doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a considerable degree of corruption, and disproportionate corporate influence in general and of the financial sector specifically over the government. The banks may have operated within the framework of the law, but it's law that they used their clout to get passed.
Can't you see how silly the idea that government operates in a vacuum and is not influenced by the people who give it money or hold its posts?
Who appoints the bankers to the Fed? Be serious. How can you ignore that it is ultimately government responsibility that determines law? It's even more evil than evil bankers could ever be. Government has ultimate responsibility for the welfare and safety of it's citizens yet you claim they pass laws against that welfare and safety and then you say the banks are the most culpable! How can you be angry at business when you have been betrayed by government?
Can you see that you are locked in to a position by your ideology? Try to sort out the pieces without the filter of your politics, you'll be amazed.
Then how about we begin working to prevent this?
As others have mentioned the system will crash by itself. Fraudulent forms of debt are increasing at unsustainable rates, international economies are beginning to collapse, and we have at least a 700+ trillion dollar derivative bubble just waiting to burst.
If you are truly concerned about helping people when the economy collapses keep these ideas in mind.
America's #1 crop is... lawn turf which consumes many gallons of water. How many edible crops could that equate to?
Also when a currency collapses, another form of trade can easily be used in its place. Communities aware of the economic issues can create their own competing currencies to maintain their means of trade. Or they may resort to bartering. Advanced communities may even utilize a gift economy if everyone agrees to adhere to an honor system.
As for infrastructure, it 'will' collapse and it already is. See video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52dQ2EU1ips
Nuclear power plants, aging dams/watersheds/bridges, and the sort will have to be maintained or preferably, safely decommissioned by local government and municipalities. The fact that we remain dependent on these 'DANGEROUS' structures/facilities points once again to the problems of a monetary system. (Do anything to make a buck)
Incidentally from a technical perspective the areas which could potentially be least affected are high density urban areas. Because of their high concentration it is easier to provide power, heat, and food to greater numbers of people within a smaller area. The city would only require a relatively small fraction of their population to volunteer to distribute food, water, energy, and healthcare to the city. More people would be available to participate since all normal forms of commerce would cease.
From a social perspective they could very well be f*ed. This depends on how many enter panic mode, and how many hoarders will stockpile supplies to the detriment of others. So where things get fubared is again, greedy people. And no, other individual's acting out of greed does not justify acting greedily.
2 general scenarios
1) A majority of the people are capable of collaborating and living without money. New technologies and methods of organizing emerge locally to meet the demands lost with the outdated monetary system.
2) A majority of the people justify acting with greed and hatred. Many kill each other in mass fighting over scraps. Catastrophic destruction of our infrastructure wreaks additional havoc. The government eventually steps in using militant force.
So either we as a people collaborate or the cycle of greed continues to destroy this nation.
OMG, how will all these good people do all these things? You will be sitting in the dark with whatever food you have on hand, people who have no food will come looking for yours. There will be chaos, not cooperation, people won't put on diaphanous robes and waft out and start gardening, life will be brutal and short for those not prepared to fight for it.
Is that what you really want for your family? You are willing to end what we have on the off chance something better might take it's place? Are you insane?
Sounds like you live in fear without much community interaction. Or perhaps you are surrounded by like-minded fearful people.
Either way, you havn't seen other countries go through revolution otherwise you'd understand that how the overall economic change occurs depends COMPLETELY on how the people react to such changes.
If I were you I'd start making friends with people and becoming more self-sustainable. Better yet help your community become more sustainable. The more people you have working with you the easier these situations are.
Also, look into recent economic crises that have occurred in Greece, Egypt, and other countries.
I live in reality not lala land where everyone will throw over 40 thousand years of human development and start holding hands and singing kumbahyah. If the United States has a currency crash the world will crash. There will be chaos on an unimaginable scale, millions will die, most likely you and I included.
Humanity will instantly be reduced to an animal state. Remember the crowds of feral teenagers this summer swarming, robbing and beating people? Do you think they will want to grow veggies with you or do you think they will kill you and take your shit?
You have no clue the horror we will face if these OWSies actually brought the system down.
Who says the OWSers are going to bring the system down?
The system itself is on its way to collapse. Austerity measures have been applied to 'secure' the economies of several foreign countries and we havn't really felt the impact of that economic instability yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUmQbf1AyA8
We have trillions of dollars in derivatives waiting to burst, a national debt created out of fraudulent practices (fractional reserve lending, fiat currency) and no simple way of simply 'forgiving' these fraudulent debts within the current system.
All OWS is doing is turning more attention to these sort of problems so less people will be caught off-guard. There's a difference between a collapse occurring because of the people or because the economic leadership was blatantly corrupt/ignorant.
Personally, I don't think crashing the economy purposely would have a positive effect but 'I am' being realistic. Our economy is unsustainable from a financial and ecological perspective.
And unless our society adopts a more sustainable economy from within the current system 'it will collapse'. Sustainability isn't an option, it's a necessity.
If you think a financial collapse will be bad, just wait for the ecological collapse that will occur if we remain in the infinite growth paradigm.
Show proof of these derivatives waiting in the wings to crash us down, proof, not a link to some leftwing site that says it but some SEC filings from whatever corporations that are supposed to be holding all these trillions, trillions now not the few hundred billion that might actually exist..
Abit old but it'll do:
OCC’s Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities First Quarter 2008
http://occ.treas.gov/topics/capital-markets/financial-markets/trading/derivatives/dq108.pdf
Simplified (just banks): http://www.mindcontagion.org/derivatives/usbdh.html
2008? Do you think there might have been some improvements since 2008? The very height of the financial crisis? Is it possible there have been some write downs? Do you feel comfortable is relying on four year old data? In order for your position to be valid this information would have to remain static and obviously it hasn't.
I would say, based on the information you provided 600 trillion waiting in the wings to destroy us all is a bullshit statement, do you agree?
Ha, I thought you'd say that
Since you did.
Here's one from 2011 showing that the situation has not improved because the same culprits that allowed the financial crisis ~2008 to occur are still in charge.
http://occ.gov/topics/capital-markets/financial-markets/trading/derivatives/dq111.pdf
From the Bank for International Settlements (2010): http://www.bis.org/statistics/otcder/dt1920a.pdf [This is only OTC derivatives]
Did you actually read that? How do you get catastrophic losses from profitable enterprises? I notice you edited out your 600 trillion claim but reality is much closer to my position than yours.
Admit it, you've been "told" derivatives will be the end of us all but until this minute you have never questioned the truth of it and now you've inadvertently provided the truth in an effort to support the lie.
The banks are profitable, derivative products are in no more danger than any other banking product. In fact, as it stands right now the biggest danger to banking is your band of merry fools.
uh no.
I didn't edit it out. You misquoted my original post.
And exactly how would we be able to 'pay back' these corporations if they were ever to fail? Remember the old "too big to fail" line we were told during the bank bailouts?
Inside Job: http://vimeo.com/25491676
These private corporate banks are now FDIC insured which means they are not isolated if they fail. Public money will be used once again to bail them out. Except the whole world's GDP won't be able to cover the loss of a single bank because derivatives are not a zero sum game.
The practice of usury, fractional reserve lending, and quantitative easing are just legal methods for corporate groups to get something from nothing. Yet when people do this, it is called fraud.
Point is: These groups are only profitable at the expense of the public.
Defend the status quo all you want. What they are doing is unethical, unsustainable, and you know it.
edit:
there's no response button to the post below so I'm responding here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaiL4h55rzk
The republicrats and democans work for the same people. Government and economics are interlinked. If politicians wore sponsor patches they'd look like nascar drivers.
So yes, government is also to be held accountable. No one is denying that. But corrupt politicians are just a symptom of the economic system. There wouldn't be a congress filled with bought politicians if such activities were not promoted. And getting a majority of the bought congress to step down or admit (then fix their) wrongdoings isn't very likely to occur.
The people are not being represented, corporations are. So the question is, how do you fix a corrupt government filled with politicians paid to maintain the status quo? If you can't then once again the foundation of this society collapses.
Of course there are alternatives to transition into without sacrificing our quality of life. There exist libertarian groups promoting self managed communities with competing currencies. And there are also Resource Based Economic advocates promoting a more technological/scientific version of a gift economy. For either group to function major economic changes must occur.
So again, the primary point is we need to develop a sustainable system and the defenders of the status quo won't just allow it to occur. They'd lose trillions!
The figure 600 trillion in derivatives is/was in this thread. The depositors assets are insured by the FDIC not the banks assets. No where is it written that banks are too big to fail, the Democrat congress came up with that one.
Why can't you comprehend the banks only do what government allows them to do? Wouldn't it make more sense to put pressure on the government to make your changes? Going after the banks is like beating up a kid because he has red hair.
Government is your problem, not banks Try to understand that.
Don't listen to the extremist bullshit-- it's fake. Anyone you're seeing talk about wanting to crash the money system is some other infiltrating entity that does not represent the true interests of what most honest people in Occupy want. This is because those calling for crashing the system RIGHT NOW and doing so the loudest are being deceptive about their real intent (or innocently repeating it without understanding what it really will mean). The real intent is to "get the money out", but not in the way you'd think at first. It means get the money decentralized and out of the government's control so that only those who are already rich and who have squirreled their money away somewhere will have any wealth in the form of real currency. If, at the same time, the government is collapsed (which these same folks are also calling for RIGHT NOW), wealth becomes literally the only law of the land, and those who have it will use it in any way they like without answering to any other law. They want to do it RIGHT NOW, before people have too much time to question their motives or the wisdom of doing such a rash thing, and in the grandly deluded hopes that they've been successful at creating such a "buzz" of market-savvy manufactured rebellion that people will be just swept up with emotion and agree to seal their own fate. They want to do it RIGHT NOW because they have already hoarded their wealth and they want to limit the amount of other people who will be able to do so. They want to do it RIGHT NOW so people will blame the government and not them. And they want to do it RIGHT NOW to quickly have as desperate a populace as possible who have no choice but to depend on those who have what's left of the nation's money supply in their private and unfettered control. Always be wary of anyone who wants you do anything absurd and especially if they want you to do it RIGHT NOW. Oh, and especially if they try to mock your "fear".
When did I say we must crash the economy? What advice did I give to crash the economy?
I'm advocating sustainability because the economy is on its way to collapsing. (actually it has been for a long time) The only reason it continues to function is because people allow corrupt activities to prop it up. Now with OWS, those same tactics are made much more difficult. e.g. the federal reserve
Plus fixing the economy/government isn't at all simple.
You're right about rushing into this. But I am being realistic unless there's a completely different trend occurring.
There are two levels of leftists operating here, those sincere folks who believe what they are saying and truly mean no harm and those old hard line leftists/anarchists who dream of the death of our society so that they may rebuild it in some fashion, they really haven't thought that through, mostly they just love the idea of the destruction.
So yeah, you have to pay attention to because they really are serious. The hard left see this as perhaps finally the beginning of the long awaited class war that will bring the destruction and death they long for, the final validation of their belief system, however fucked up it may be.
I will agree with you that there may be in fact a few extreme hard left who could actually sincerely want this (and most, sadly, out of naivete rather than destructiveness). But I think it's more likely some small group in the extreme right. If for no other reason than they already have a lot more money and would be in a top position if everyone else goes bankrupt. (I am basing this on the socio-political reality that those on the right tend to be the wealthy and those on the left the less-wealthy, generally speaking.) Of course none of us knows exactly who it could be, left or right or something else, we don't know. But whoever this rogue sector is knows they are already in some kind of advantage position were everything to crash around them. Or else they wouldn't be pushing it so hard.
What would be the advantage to this "hard right" group in crashing America? Business exists to make a profit, with no customers they can't exist, have no reason to exist. A lot of thinking on the left simply isn't logical.
The real ill-logic we should ALL be asking ourselves is why it is already starting to happen? Why are all these measures being pushed towards weakening the buying power of businesses’ own built-in customer base, the citizens? Measures that keep an ever-increasing portion of the populace down, like action to remove unemployment benefits, jobs, SS, affordable healthcare, collective bargaining rights, minimum wage, a fair balance of taxation... all of these things increase the number of poor people. The more people are poor, in this country, as you rightly noted above, the less they can contribute to these businesses' profits via spending money. So these types of policies keeping people down is where the illogic is. Not in me pointing it out. Because it's a fact that these policies are being pushed. The only apparent answer is that they still have the few rich customers here in the U.S. and they still have all the customers overseas. They don’t care about the rest. Obviously, or else they wouldn’t be so actively trying to keep them down.
You are angry at the loss of entitlements. Actually, that is what this whole OWS thing is about at the end of the day, a cry for the death of the welfare state.
How did we get here? Simply put, we have spent the next five years income as of today. There is no more money for all the entitlements you talk about, the money is gone.
The left is desperately casting about for more money to continue the welfare state, that is what the screaming about taxing the rich is all about, more money to redistribute. But the awful truth is there is no more money. We have spent our future and it's time to pay the bill.
Liberals cry that if we just tax enough we can go on but the brighter ones know it isn't true. If you took all the assets of all the American billionaires and the next 400 multimillionaires you would have 1.6 trillion dollars, barely enough to cover this years deficit and nothing next year because we took their assets not just their income. Our debt is tapping 15 trillion this very minute.
How do we go on? How do we pay the entitlements when there really is no more money?
We have to tame the government beast, we have to stop spending and reformulate the government to become pro-business again rather than the business killing machine it has become. The only solution to our problems is to create more money through value added transactions and only business can do that. Get your foot off business and the tax dollars will roll in like before.
You can't have both, you can't regulate business to death and have a comfortable welfare state. Think it through.
And WHY is the money gone? And WHERE? The welfare for the rich! Big business was bailed out with billions of OUR tax dollars, the middle class, while the super-rich get tax beaks! Our jobs have been sent overseas. That's where the money went-- not Social Security, which by the way we all pay for from our own earnings! If you and others on the Right could get over whatever problem you have with the social contract that says we all pitch in a bit into society for a mutually-beneficial social safety net ---if you could get over that extra few bucks that is hardly denting you while others starve--- you might pay more attention to how we are ALL being completely fleeced. It's more important to the Right to worry about some low-income mother's welfare check and how she's spending it than it is about where the hell billions and billions of ALL of our money went. Unbelievable. We are ALL getting destroyed. Big business is not giving back, which it has proven for 30 years of Reaganomics it will never, ever, ever do on its own. How many times do you have to be robbed, how much worse do things have to get for you to see that? We are going to be an impoverished country soon, on our knees, and people like you are more concerned about some woman's welfare check. I hope you don't ever find yourself in a position where you wish you had one.
All the bail out funds have been repaid as far as Wall Street, the car companies still owe us but the trillion Obama spent on porkulus is long gone.
It's time to quit bitching about it and do something about it. Only prosperity can get our tax base where you want it to be. To have prosperity we have to have healthy business, no way around it. You can't tax your way to prosperity you have to turn lose the dogs of commerce.
Business creates tax revenue, how hard is that to understand? Obama is the most anti-business president in our history, replacing him will be a huge start on getting America moving again.
OccupyWallStreet needs to state their demands so that the people in power know how to respond and improve the system.
2 worthy demands that should IMMEDIATELY create jobs in the US: - Impose a tax on any job that is shipped overseas - Impose tariff on imports
Other companies such as China, South Korea, and Taiwan are already doing the 2 steps above. It's time the US does the same to salvage the jobs in this country.
You really must educate yourself on the realities of economics. Jobs are shipped overseas because of taxes, also over regulation and unions. No company wants to outsource American jobs but if it becomes the choice of folding or outsourcing the bye bye jobs.
Companies don't outsource to increase profit they outsource just to stay in place, just to be competitive. If you reduce the cost of business in America they will happily stay here and provide jobs to their customers. Do you think California if collapsing because of corporations or rapacious government and public unions. Think man, thinkQ
How did Stalin do it?
the bankers are causing the crash
How are they doing that?
with absurdly leveraged derivatives.
google $600 trillion in derivatives.
Sht if we do not fix our roads we are the path anyway.
doom
If we don't change the system before it's too late it will crash on it's own.
We are very close to being forced to bail out Europes banks, don't you get that? The system is falling, we are trying to change the ride.
No you aren't, depending on your level of understanding you are either standing around in a park freezing your ass off or you support those that do or you cynically understand the outcome of this silliness would be the collapse of a system long desired by the people who actually back this little party.
Which are you? A useful idiot or a soulless cynic who won't mind killing a few million to achieve victory.
Wait wait wait...
Your statement is "If the financial institution crashes, which it is likely to anyway, we are incapable of eating food."
Dude... people can eat food from OUT. SIDE. If anyone dies It's because they failed to eat food from the ground.
Are you even sure who you are replying to? :)
.every war has its dead.
And you're the creepiest of all.
local farming and public garden will feed us. we have a right to the earth.
http://wesower.org
What will you do when the armed (meaner and with more guns than you) bandits come to take your produce?
too much TV - get off the nascar fumes, they messin you up. what do you do now when they come for your gold rings and ceramics? lol
LOL, so you don't want to think about your little dreamy commune getting raped and pillaged by reality do you? :) I don't blame you, it's harsh out here in the real world.
We don't want it to go broke, just badly bent.
They grow food on Wall street now? I did not know that. lol.
Permaculture, Degrowth, Slowmoney.
all in the financial system with half a brain know it's collapse is inevitable and even neccessary to reset and re establish new global monetary systems if we must have monetary systems at all.
all in the financial system with half a brain know it's collapse is inevitable and even neccessary to reset and re establish new global monetary systems if we must have monetary systems at all.
Actually, I have a whole brain and I know what you suggest will lead to death for millions considering the mish mash of poorly thought out touchy feely tossed out as solutions.
It's most likely not poorly-thought and it sure ain't touchy-feely. The rhetoric about "we don't need monetary systems" that you'll see on here is in many cases the same kind of propaganda--- they're attempting to get OTHERS used to the idea of having zero money while they, of course, hoard it all for themselves.
But somehow, the movement will survive the stunning idiocy of some it's followers? How are you going to get mom and pop to get past the raping shitting and no money?
I think cooler heads will prevail. Things are still pretty new, and most of the lunatic fringe elements hop on early to try and take advantage of the confusion. Every day, though, people are becoming more discerning about what they're listening to. Also, it's in the nature of groups to end up somewhere "in the middle".
Why would the 1% worry about that? Even if that happens, clearly if you're making a million dollars a year and storing Goldline pirate treasure in your wall-safe, you'll be able to buy concubines and the precious, precious fuel from the Humongous and his gang of dystopian raiders.
(if we're running off into sillyland anyway, we might as well go full ass. :)
Why would they worry about it? Buddy, we're all in this together regardless of what lib central tells you to think. If you got everything you wanted, all the property was put in a pot, within one generation 1 % will own 34 % of everything.
People fail for a reason, changing the circumstances won't make you succeed. You may change the people who will own you but you will be owned. Will your new masters let you have cable TV? :)
If they don't, we'll overthrow them too ;D
The system is headed for collapse. We know that is a fact. The details of the collapse cannot be accurately predicted. The question is whether people will idly stand by while it collapses or whether they will try to ease the impacts by creating alternative systems of economic and social support.
In other words, we want your shit and we don't want to pay for it. Right? :)
Someone should correct the wrong translation of "save" (comment) in Spanish, which appears as "ahorrar", which means save money, and change it to "guardar".
The financial system has crashed itself without nobody's help.
IC were to blame if the next bubble bursts? I guess like you idiots blamed Freddie and Fanny for the last burst? How is it your ilk never seems to do anything wrong, its always someone else that's to blame for your fuck ups?
Calm down, breathe, sunny thoughts...breathe...breathe. Now, all better?
Name calling without any supporting data is a fools game. Are you a fool?
I was only a kid when they had the protests in the 60s. The protests were about stopping a war and a huge bully government that kicked anyone in the butt that did not do things "our way". In contrast the Occupy protestors are simply out to blame a small group of people for all our problems past and present. In 1930's Germany it was "blame the Jews." Today it's "blame the rich". The protests are about scapegoating plain and simple. In our politically correct world prejudice against a group of people is acceptable as long as we’re not talking about an ethnic group or a religion.
Amazingly, Americans put no blame on themselves. After all they elected the very politicians that they hate so much. The American public made up the buyers and sellers that participated in the real estate pyramid game with the help of the banks and cheap dollars from the FED. Just as the bankers were greedy to make money on loans so buyers were greedy to invest in real estate (even if they could not afford it) to sell it later for twice the price.
Of course I expect plenty of unapologetic "yes the rich are at fault" and “what about Peter, Paul and Mary” replies. Ok. Is Bill Gates to blame? What about Warren Buffet? Steve Jobs? George Soros? Ted Turner? Go down the list of the Forbes 400 and point out who deserves blame for the credit crises. Among the few people I just named above the businesses they created employ a few hundred thousand people. Funny how the Occupy Wall Street crowd caste themselves as heros while people who give others a livelihood and create goods and services people want are the villains. And while yes the bankers are rich too just what percentage of the rich are bankers? You see. And while I know it is not popular to defend the rich… what is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right. Once you start to really look at facts it is clear that the protests are about scapegoating … not justice.
First of all don't expect to get up one day to total collapse of our infrastructure system. Food products will be available at the markets. Water will be pumping to the toilets. Gas will still be sold by the gallon. The government changes will take years to happen.
If US currency collapses which could very well be an unintended consequence of this idiocy there will be starvation within two weeks. Think it through.
People die from starvation as every second ticks by. Death happens and people look the other way. Always have and always will. But mankind will survive the death of an economy even if it's the worlds economy.
Well, if we're talking magic, I see no reason to bury them.
They're all going to become Zombies anyway.
the next world war will be nuclear/biological, billions will perish
Oh no! The Movement? Oh how funny!
The government.
The majority of people have no clue how the food gets to the store, let them find out the hard way.
Well, if you're in decent shape you can go far longer then 2 weeks without food. I'm a truck driver (Teamster) but have a pantry full off food from my garden and farmers market for the stuff I don't grow. Big deep freeze full of food, but I'm one of those survivalist whackos that believes in being prepared, not to mention hunting season.
Anyway, they won't crash anything except for their Prius when they're too stoned to drive.
You should join us. Your cause is our cause, our cause is your cause. We all need to prepare for that possible crash.
How is my cause your cause and your cause is my cause when nobody really knows what your cause is? That and frankly, with all the liberals, socialists, nazis, commies and Lord knows what else attracted to your movement I don't see what it would offer me or that i could offer it.
I'd seriously be embarressed to go to a protest and be associated with some of the people there.
Well you're not one of the Sky People. Wall St. wants us all to be Mud People.
LOL I'm concerned about the millions of liberals who will sit on their asses waiting for someone to rescue them. :)
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Don't confuse them with details and unintended consequences.