Forum Post: Poll: Washington to blame more than Wall Street for economy
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 19, 2011, 7:39 a.m. EST by Capitalist111
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Most Americans blame Wall Street for the nation's economic predicament — but they blame Washington more.
The poll shows that most Americans are paying attention to the protest movement. But most don't know enough to take a position. Even among those who have followed the protests closely, 43% don't know enough to say whether they support or oppose the movement's goals. Is the U.S. economic system fair to you personally?
Source: USA TODAY/Gallup Poll Saturday and Sunday of 1,026 adults ages 18 and above. Margin of error +/3 percentage points.
About a quarter of poll respondents describe themselves as supporters of the movement; 19% call themselves opponents.
Get the extreme Leftist Radicals out of your movement and maybe people will side with you, leave them in and your cause is lost.
Too many here siting Marx quotes. This is the last day for me. Sorry this movement has sold out to Soros., Moveon.org, adwatch and other George Soros funded groups.
Even though Government and Politicians are the root cause of the current situation, I think the greedy corporations are the one who caused the escalation of the problem. Corporate greed and their unethical ways to make profit caused much of the problems we face now. Here the government is controlled by these corporations and they are stronger than the politicians. The politicians change, the government change but the corporates never change. Whoever comes into political power is controlled by these corporates. Hence it fair to attack the super power corporates than the government. Ideally the protest is against the current system which includes government and politicians.
"Get the extreme Leftist Radicals out of your movement and maybe people will side with you"
Would you like to speak with the manager, sir?
What a pathetic right-wing failure to understand the basis of the real grass-roots democratic movement.
Disclaimer: I'm not in NY and not a lefty (I'm off the radar).
Its not a right wing failure, when you say something like that you are essentially saying you are a radical leftist. Do I really need to post photos showing you the radical elements on both sides?
Radical leftist is definitely not me. Though I believe in shared ownership of the means of production, I see it as a Christian idea, diametrically opposite of the greed-is-all-we-need nonsense. I am radical anti-right.
We do not need the "anarchists" and those who would destroy property either. The media will only cover that crap, they won't cover the 65 year old grandmother holding a sign. Can we also get some decent P.R. people out front? Interviews with untelligible stoned folks also hurting this. It's kind of the Tea Party people in motorized scooters yelling about Medicare. Made so sense. Please folks, we need to make sense. can we at least get behind campaign finance reform and get that out front?? Most will agree with getting money out of politics!
I agree you don't need those coward anarchist and lefties who hide their face.
I think as far as the banks go, we bailed them out then they start paying themselves big bonuses, in addition to wanting to charge us more for our own money. Is this how you treat the people that helped you out? Heck no.
Then there are steps you can take, close your account, get others to do the same. You have a choice support or don't support.
Agreed unions had their part
The Leftist radicals are the ones keeping me from supporting them, they keep citing Karl Marx and other extremist and to me that is sickening.
I don't like the marxists but the hipocrasy of union involvement stops me
I agree Unions were a great thing for American Workers, then they became as greedy as corporations and have morphed into nothing but organized criminals.
They are so behind this movement I hope America sees that
There are many misguided efforts, and it seems that the OWS movement has become a platform for just about any concern. A movement needs to focus and be very clear on what it seeks to accomplish.
First let me say that this problem is not liberal or conservative, democrat or republican but it is a common problem we all share. One key point must be stressed we are all affected by the issue at hand.
Now, let’s look at the laws. If you look at the fall of the exchange in 1929, its cause and the reaction by the government you will find most of the problem. In 1929 only ~10% of all businesses were public and the remainder was private. ~2% of the population were involved in trading stocks and most of the individuals we very heavily leveraged (They bought on credit).
Next the market dropped, individuals lost their ability to pay off their margin accounts and wiped out the capital overnight in the banking system, Couple that with the hysteria of the people running on the banks to get there gold out and you have a recipe for disaster.
For most they were not initially affected by the falls of the exchange in 1929 but when banks failed they felt it. Businesses lost credit to operate, accounts were wiped out and small private business failed. No fault of their own but the fault of the overzealous banks. Individuals found there savings wiped out alongside the private businesses and the world plunged into the abyss.
The reaction to this was FDR and the 1933 securities act and the 1934 securities and exchange act. What these two pieces of legislation did was strip the ability of the small private business (who did not cause the market collapse) to raise capital in a traditional form, Bonds. Direct investment was for many years the mainstay of the entrepreneur. It put the restrictions on who could invest (Qualified institutional investor) and how the investments could be sold. It stripped the ability of the individual to invest and make the high returns they became accustomed to and placed all of it into the hands of the very few 1%.
Today if you are a business owner there is a glass ceiling of about $3 million dollars where a business could potentially get debt to expand, retool, or modernize. The Wall Street and Banks prefer an Equity offering. How often do small business owners sell the majority share of the company they own under a public offering or private sale (sale to high net worth’s) to raise the capital they need. The horror stories of this arrangement are very clear. They give up control, get voted out of the company and the new share holders shut them down move the product manufacture to China to maximize the return to the High Net Worth investor (new owner).
The laws perpetuate the problem. Now remove the Glass-Steagall Act and it becomes a high net worth orgy.
Focus, access the laws, and fix the system that perpetuates the behavior.
FIX THE LAWS
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