Forum Post: REALISTIC DEMANDS!
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 6, 2011, 4:25 p.m. EST by zweezy
(7)
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Don't make ridiculous demands to the media! Even though they are biased at making the movement seem "ignorant and immature", don't make their job easy by talking to them if you don't know what your talking about! I have been Occupying Los Angeles for a little under a week now and we REALLY need to revise and solidify our demands. Lets not waste this Occupy movement! It is a once in a lifetime opportunity! Please consider these demands and never stop researching. Thank you.
- End the Fractional Reserve Banking System.
- End the Federal Reserve.
- Stop immense government spending. The “inflation tax” is going to keep increasing which is slowly going to obliterate the middle class.
- Return to the Gold Standard so our money can be actually worth something.
- End the wars in Iraq and Afganistan; only enter wars legally through congress; This will help avoid the hazards of the Military Industrial Complex.
- End the War on Drugs.
- End the Corporate and Banking bailouts, forever.
- End corporate donations to politicians; the politicians are suppose to be there for the people, not corporate entities.
- End dependency on energy that damages the planet; push clean and renewable energy sources.
Well said zweezy! Most people are unaware of fractional reserve banking. It's actually so ridiculous that it's funny. Also, most people don't realize that the "Fed" isn't federal nor does it have any reserves. Woops I mean it has 10% reserves. It could be the most misleading name of a company ever.
I think your list is great because it gives a floor for all the other specific demands to rest on. If your list was met all other problems would dissipate. A number 10 could be a national sales tax in lieu of an income tax, but I won't be picky.
End or put severe limits on lobbying by US interests. End lobbying by all foreign interests. Foreign interests can communicate through diplomatic channels. Why are they lobbying our congress to influence our laws?
Thanks for all the support everyone! Spread the word! Put this list on your signs! Pass them out as flyers! If the media asks what your demands are, give them this! We need to show the world we are educated and we know what is going on! I couldn't care less if anyone takes this list and claims it to be their own. I just want change. I don't care who gets the credit.
It might be wise to narrow to a few broad goals/demands that are at the crux of this issue -- the rest will follow.
I suggest:
1.Restore democracy by implementing publically-funded elections
End union donations to politicians; the politicians are supposed to be there for the people and the unions are pooling people's money and sending it on to crony politicians without consent or an opt-out option of its members.
Do number 9 without government spending to "push" clean energy through subsidy, over-regulation, or any other coersion. It's good stuff and will stand on its own or fail.
I also agreed with #9 under these same conditions. Subsidies and coercion have thus far hobbled alternative energies.
That and the ban on nuclear reactor upgrades. Of course these reactors are failing, they're using 40 year old technology. What other technology that we use still employs methods from 40+ years ago?
HERE HERE!
All of these demands make perfect sense. We shouldn't be occupying Wall St. we should be abolishing the Federal Reserve because that is the actual root of everything else. No Fed means no infinite money which means no money for unnecessary wars, no money for bail-outs, and no insane government spending. Also, inflation will be stopped because we won't keep printing "money" and devaluating the currency.
Actually, we should occupy both.
We are the 99%, we already occupy everything.
Right Right
This is a wonderful start to demands.. May I add a no. 10 as a suggestion?
Simply to create steps towards a resource based economy.
I totally agree and that is the final goal. But the people in this country have had the monetary system for such a long time, that such a sudden transition would freak them out. They wouldn't know how to deal with it, so we need to take baby steps to get there and I believe these demands will help get us there.
Great list. I'll spread the word.
I think it would be great if the government would supplement an "indebted minimum wage". For example, if I'm earning $9/hour and have a ton of debt, I also earn $11/hour in debt forgiveness for a total of $20/hour as your effective minimum wage. This should be an especially easy thing for Congress to support if people's debt is from student/federal loans. Credit cards or medical bills might be a more difficult thing for them to pass. The point is, it isn't a "handout" or money for nothing - it actually doubles my incentive to work hard and pays off loans that would otherwise have crippled people for many years to come.
good points, but they're not actually solutions, it's the end game, we need a means to the end game. They're all good points except #4, because i'm not too sure the US owns any gold anymore
A good start! So to whom exactly would you make these demands? Congress?
I like your contributions. You need to google fractional reserve banking. It is the source of all the economic woes facing the people. As for the fed reserve, we dont need bankers or a central bank period. The only reason we made the Fed in 1913 was basically to fund wars and print the government money whenever they wanted to spend. Whats your beef with the gold standard??
/signed This is the best set of demands I've seen come from OWS.
again and again with the realistic demands why can't you people find a thread and stick on it? return to the gold standard? thats not realistic, thats stupid, ignorant, and insane, because theres not enough gold in the world to represent the money by four orders of magnitude.
The amount of gold in the world doesn't matter. What matters is how we split up the gold using receipt money. This will solve the problem of limited gold and give the money supply actual worth.
Fractional reserve golding? you would think you guys would have learned the lesson with fractional reserve dollars. following that logic, receipt money can be worth per dollar about one millionth of that dollar. In other words. Your playing games with gold as a phantasm STILL and trying to IMAGINE that it somehow lends solidity to money. it doesn't. it can't. one millionth of a dollar to back a dollar is pathetic. a gold standard is nonsensical and proposing it proves you are ignorant.
I don't think fractional reserve means what you think it means.
Fractional reserve banking allows bankers to lend out multiples of the money they actually have on deposit.
Backing paper money with gold does not require fractional reserve banking.
Not enough gold? What if there were only 1 ounce of gold in the world, and we want to use it to back our currency. We need 500 trillion units of new currency to replace the currency we are using now. Guess how much each gold backed currency unit is worth? 1/500 trillionth of an ounce. You can divide to infinity. The important principle is that there is something of value actually backing the money.
and you somehow manage inside of your delusional imaginal world to think that would be meaningful? all your doing is sucking the gold supply dry. No matter how you do it the phantasm will stil lexist, there wil lstill be money not back by gold. one millionth of a dollar backed by gold is still not backed by gold. Fractional reserve golding is not an answer, and you telling me i don't understand what fractional reserve lending is is again.. silly...
http://occupywallst.org/forum/transition-plan/
I would appreciate it if you could refrain from insulting me.
Fractional reserve means you only keep a portion of something in reserve. In the case of lending institutions, it means that they only need to keep $1 in reserve for every $9 they lend out. The $9 is created out of thin air.
What I described is not a fractional reserve system, it is a sound money system. If you don't like gold, then back the money with something else of value. The point is that a sound money system prevents inflation and deflation. Once you have issued those 500 trillion gold backed dollars, there is no more money printing. Those dollars will always be worth 1/500 trillionth of an ounce of gold. No inflation to rob you of your purchasing power.
sounds good until the system needs more money. What happens when we grow another order of magnitude larger. ? again, such a system is absurd.
I don't like inflation or etc mechanations either. But if the world increases its value you are now in essence putting the world into a forced form of inflation, where each dollar must now represent a larger actual real set of things.
so again, your idea is infantile, it has no merit, its out of touch with actual factual reality, unglued from systems or game theory or even real world economics, and is in essence a proof that you don't do your homework.
If you find that insulting, i'm sorry. I find it bizzare that i could be having this conversation with alleged adults.
You're need to insult people whoa re being very civil with you is most unbecoming.
When the economy grows, you don't need more currency---it changes the value of goods. What does it mean when we grow? We are producing more goods and services--supply has increased. When supply is increased, the cost or value of the thing(s) go down. So that thing you were going to buy for 1 gold backed dollar now only costs 75 cents of a gold backed dollar. It's not necessary to print more money. Doing so only increases the supply of currency and when we increase the supply of something----it's value goes down.
when REAL stuff grows- not the economy- but the actual goods and services- and the money supply is static, the only outcome must be either that the good are devalued or the money inflates. Again, you have no business in here pretending to know anything about anything and keep making clear fatal errors in your economics reasoning. Between 1930 and 2010 the size of the real things which money represents grew at an exponential rate to thousands or hundreds of thousand or millions of times more actual stuff. A static currency could not have kept the pace with that kind of growth. Things will continue to go that direction, esp as soon as we quit oil and coal. So you are entirely missing the poiint, again, displaying gross ignorance and make beleive magical thinking- and not understanding the fundamental truths of economics.
I referred specifically to the real economy. I defined growth as an increase in the production of goods and services.
A sound monetary system can accommodate growth. Worst case scenario--prices drop so low that our smallest unit of currency is not small enough. At that point, we would need to consider printing smaller units and letting people exchange their large units for smaller ones, at par. If a penny today were too large of a unit of currency and we needed something smaller, I don't think we'd have protesting going on.
Again, the insults are uncalled for. I have a whole shitload of education in economics--both from university and from years of independent study. I'm not insulting you, so please knock it off.
I'm telling you again and again. I should not have to waste my time in circles. A gold standard is impossible- ludicrous, and pointless. its a corporate oligarchy meme which they give you to make sure your fighting for something impossible and ludicrous. Its an in joke- and anybody who picks it up is harming the social energy for possible change. Its not an insult when its a fact. Promoting a gold standard only proves you are ignorant and duped and that you listened to some con scam pundit tell you what to think.
You keep throwing a fit and insisting that sound money is not possible (all the while insulting me) without providing any counter argument.
I hope your rudeness does not turn too many people off to the movement.
there is no point in calling an impossible money system "sound"
honestly most people in this movement will be floored i took so much time to explain it to you or had this kind of patience.
Oh, how I wish we could take a poll!
lol
The fact remains that money is a necessity, 'fiction' or no, a medium of exchange has to exist because goods and services take time, effort and resources.
While its true that Maslow's hierarchy of needs is increasingly able to be fulfilled at near zero cost, replicators do not yet exist. It is for this reason that a medium of exchange is necessary for goods and services to change hands. If my water heater breaks, I can't call up a plumber and barter with him, saying I will make a website for him if he will come fix it.
What do you propose to replace money (paper plastic or precious metal) with?
I don't know much about economics and all that's going on, but I had to put in here that I think you COULD barter with the right plumber and design a web page for him to fix your water heater. I work at a small web design firm and we do things like eat the cost of a golf club website to be able to play golf whenever we want. I've even designed a web page in trade for services. You just have to know the value of your service, and compare to the value of the service you need right? I don't know off the top of my head how much it costs to fix a water heater, but you would most likely be grossly over-paying a plumber to fix your water heater to build a website for him. You just have to convince him of that.
barter, micro economic systems, immediately, congressional bank money.
As long as the gold denomination is
1) out in plain sight, $1 = x grains of gold 2) a fixed amount redeemable 3) allowed to be placed into multiple competing currencies instead of a centralized bank accountable to no one
people will know what their money is worth, and can trust it as a store of value.
All paper currency eventually returns to its intrinsic value of zero. Who gets screwed? The middle class. Ask Weimar Germany how it feels about paper money. Or Zimbabwe.
What this guy said ^ and ideally fractional-reserve is what you say it is, but it has been perverted into giving money out that they don't have. Gold standard is, I think, the only way to keep people (banks, Wall St., government) honest.
again, even putting forth the idea of a gold standard proves you are ignorant.
It has been used in history before and has worked incredibly well to the countries using them. The reason they stopped using it is because they become greedy and the idea of infinite money seems to good to pass up. They understood that fiat money and fractional-reserve banking would not end up well, but they ignored it for a quick buck, albeit a lot of bucks. What I'm saying is look back at history and you'll see that time and again fiat and fractional-reserve banking have failed.
used in history. back when there was enough gold in the world to reasonably represent the money. now there is not. solve the problems the complicated and real way. "gold standard" is not a problem solution, its an ignorant battle cry from duped anti capitalists, which makes pretty much anybody with a college degree either laugh or cry at the stupidity.
Where has the gold gone too? Also I'm a capitalist that believes that the government should stay out of business except to protect the people from business itself. Also, I'm assuming your pro-fiat money, fiat money is not only morally wrong (i.e. forcing people to accept paper money under threat of imprisonment), but, as we all know, it leads to inflation. The reason I bring up fiat money is because fractional-reserve banking leads to fiat money.
the gold stayed the same. the amount of money in the world multiplied by a few million times. your a capitalist. so right there is the problem. Your con scammed by corporate oligarchy to believe we have a capitalst system. we don't. Your thus actually a pawn for their disinformation and ideology, and are not working for social change but instead for intellectual stuckness. I'm not pro fiat money, I am pro real answers and real solutions, i am also against fractional reserve banking. We can't escape fiat money, we can escape money as debt.
I have to ask, if your not a capitalist then what are you? Also, the obvious thing with the money supply is to return the money back. Say we make new receipt money where 1 new dollar is backed by an ounce of gold. To get this new dollar we would have to return say 100 old dollars. That can work can't it? We just need to find the ratio of gold to the amount of money there is.
I'm into democracy. not the fake kind which makes it hard to call myself a democrat. again, the ratio of gold to how much money there is is like millions to one. your not paying attention i answered that already. thats why a gold standard can't work. not enough gold. thats why anti capitalist corporate oligarchy chess divide and conquer con scammers GIVE you this idea. Because when you repeat it, you prove to them and everyone else that your ignorant.
I'm not so sure that corporations will want a gold standard and I'm definitely sure that banks won't want it because they are dependent on fiat money and fractional-reserve banking. Banks more than corporations. And plus, the corporations aren't even the main concern when it comes to money it's the banks and the Fed. So wouldn't it be them who spread the misinformation in the first place?
they don't spread the misinfo to get it done. they spread the misinfo so that you all go fight for something ludicrous and impossible instead of something real and meaningful. "Gold standard" is just their con scam- its the perfect way to get you all fighting for something so ignorant and silly that any intellectual runs from the room.
How about this: Big Brother made the joke that there isn't enough gold in the world for a gold standard which leaves us with fiat money and Big Brother gets to stay with all the power. How about that?
funny. some facts can't be twisted and spun out of existence.
So how do you know it's a fact that there isn't enough gold? If you're saying that Big Brother managed to convince people that there is enough gold then they have the power to convince people that there isn't.
because us adults went and measured such things when you weren't paying attention.
http://www.google.com/search?q=how+much+gold+in+the+world&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
So what you're saying is that the Fed doesn't care if a gold standard gets put into place?
the fed knows a gold standard is impossible. So they love passing that meme out and around. "if a gold standard gets put in place" that can't happen. get it? its impossible. not enough gold. how many time sdo i have to say that? not enough gold. its impossible. they LOVE it when you talk "gold standard" it makes you look like a bunch of crackpotted loons.
So. Not enough gold. But we're only a teensy bit away from manufacturing crazy amounts of the stuff. Which is it?
We can't go to a gold standard because there's not enough gold to go around.
or
It can be created out of thin air, so it is just as breakable as a fiat system.
It can't be both. Commodity money is sensible, and gold is an easy go-to because of its divisibility, its durability, its rarity (can't be created out of thin air, or barring that, is difficult to manufacture) and its recognition factor, everyone on the planet knows what gold looks and feels like. These are the things which define money.
whats most sensible is money is a legal fiction which the congress creates, each state makes its own, and they pay out to the community instead of taxes. All of your control freak hocus pocus is just more BS in an entropy system and we don't need that shit also on top of the other shit hitting the fan.
So then what do you propose to replace money with? There has to be a medium of exchange for the division of labor to exist. Barter is not an effective medium of exchange.
sure it is. why not? what did i actually say? congressional banks.
all "gold" backed money does until we have the ability to manufacture gold is put a phantasmal gold bubble into the money and its still just paper money built on fantasy and fictions and games with math. http://occupywallst.org/forum/transition-plan/
Ok, then if you refuse to abide by the gold standard (which is your opinion), what is your idea to attach value to our dollars?
first, its not my opinion, its solid fact. Second, money by its nature is and always will be a bubble. A mathematical fiction. Third, the way to attach real value to currency is to keep as few bubbles going as is possible, and to have that currency subject to meaningful regulation and laws. Form community, get off the grid, get self sufficient, and understand this; you can never escape the systemic problems of phantast money. all you can do is evolve out of money. Yes its a problem for civilization. no that problem does not have an actual solution like you seem to imagine it. http://occupywallst.org/forum/transition-plan/
Money is a solution to a problem. And that problem is civilization requiring a medium of exchange.
Read up on this, Ludwig von Mises' The Theory of Money and Credit.
agreed. that solution then causes assorted new problems. including. how we determine that money has value, given that any such determination is actually playing with socially agreed upon fictions.
haha I read your post. And I do have to say that I like parts of it and LOVE the space exploration part. But are you even remotely aware of how amazingly difficult and radical of a transition that would be? I agree that the transition should be made, but you know the people of this country.. The possibility of Facebook being down is too much for some people to handle, but you think they are ready to go off the grid??? I went off the grid for 6 months in South Africa and it was a fantastic experience, but we have to be realistic. If it does happen, its going to take hundreds of years. All we can do is take baby steps to REAL change and thank god OWS has initiated it.
of course i am aware of how radical such a transition would be. its long past time. The corporate oligarchy has been holding most technology at a stand still for 60 or 100 years. the cars we are driving are cosmetically redressed 1940s cars. etc. As soon as the elastic band slips their grip it should be long gone the other direction.
Also, you cannot "manufacture" Gold any more than you can "manufacture" any other element on the periodic table. Ignorant was an incorrect presumption on your part.
sorry, i studied quantum mechanics and physical science. You most certainly can manufacture gold in the science lab now adays. Currently it costs a fortune and can only be done in microscopic quantities, but that will change as out understanding of quantum holography improves. time after time people prove they are ignorant and no clue what they are talking about and faking it.
Very well then, if in ten years time GE starts buying up resources and turning them into gold, then this is a belief that I will abandon.
But as it stands today, and for the past 4000 years, Gold is and has always been money.
as it stands TODAY, gold is a commodity, not money.
what happens when "the full faith and credit" is no longer worth anything. When the dollar isn't worth the paper its printed on, or the hard drive it's stored in more likely?
the system crashes. whats your point?
False.
Gold is durable, it will never decay. Ever. Gold is divisible, down to the atom it can serve the needs of an entire galaxy of planets if need be.
First, let’s take durable. That’s pretty obvious – you can’t have your money disintegrating in your pockets or bank vaults. That’s why we don’t use wheat for money; it can rot, be eaten by insects, and so on. It doesn’t last.
Divisible. Again, obvious. It’s why we don’t use diamonds for money, nor artwork. You can’t split them into pieces without destroying the value of the whole.
and MOST IMPORTANTLY
It can't be created out of thin air, the way the Federal Reserve does with the printing press. Prices are going up. Why? because there are more dollars than there were yesterday, that $20 you have in your pocket is worth less than it was yesterday because there are more of them in existence.
it can be created out of thin air. we are only 10 years away from being able to manufacture it. Again. one millionth of a dollar backing is pretty much the same as zero backing. All you can accomplish with this is to screw the gold supply.
Also, when you say thin air, is there not a base material which must be used up in order to end up with the gold? Still not out of thin air, as there is still a cost to benefit ratio.
well, yeah, tho the fuel substance could be any element including air... but.. prolly more effective to start with dirt. or lead. etc.
Thermodynamics has this pesky thing called a first law. Conservation of Energy. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to affect the nucleus of an atom.
I dare say, that all energy produced by all the fossil fuels in the world would be just about enough to make a few bars worth of that $1800/oz Au that seems to be flying off the shelves of late.
We Buy Gold. <-how many of these places have sprung up in YOUR hometown lately?
yes, true points.
Also, even if manufacture of an element were possible (presumably through cold fusion, as that would be the only way to transmute the nucleus of an atom) there would be a cost to benefit ratio. How much Gold product for how much input? If it took 300 tonnes of Uranium for one ounce of Gold, that is NOT creating Gold out of thin air, it is wealth destruction that is even more colossal.
right, the cost to make one speck of gold in the lab is hundreds or thousands of times more than the gold is worth. But. that will change eventually.
It is true that the more a manufacturing process is undertaken, cost always approaches zero.
But the fact remains that as a medium of exchange, gold and silver fit the requirements of money better than paper.
the fact remains that there is not enough gold and silver to represent even a tiny fraction of the money, and the fact remains that this is a con server joke on your ignorance. Anybody who understands economics 101 knows that a gold or silver standard is not only a non answer- its actually become flatly impossible- even if we wanted to.
You would be right at home in the fairy tale Rumplestiltskin.
Gold is an element. Just like Hydrogen, Helium, or Sulfur. It is not a compound.
electrons and neutrons and protons can be arranged and played like on a pool table and you can stack them to make gold from any element. While this is not a current technology understand what happens to your mythical gold standard in 20 years when people have replicators and can make as much gold as they want.
Then money will be inconsequential, as one will be able to go to the replicator for food.
As long as a medium of exchange is necessary, Gold is a better option than paper. By a long shot.
no it isn't because there is not enough of it. if there was enough of it you'd be right. since there isn't enough of it, your literally repeating a corporate oligarchy con scam joke on you. thisis the joke. You say "gold standard" and they all go "see? proles are fooking stupid." great job.
I am going to keep purchasing silver bullion (and gold when I can afford it).
Once the bottom drops out from under the dollar, I don't want to be holding the bag.
Call me ignorant if you must, but I'll be the ignorant one capable of buying food.
the reverse. when the shit hits the fan ..your thousand dollars worth of gold won't even buy you the leftovers of a single ham sandwhich. You can't eat gold. When the shit hits the fan, only food is food. only water is water.
Google Weimar Hyperinflation and see how people who held commodities in gold fared at the time.
in the world of 1930. welcome back to the modern era.
Yes, because history is not ever known to repeat herself.
try modeling the world as it is with the actual differences. since its completely different. Gold isn't going to save you from collapse or buy you a damn thing once the shit hits the fan.