#OccupyWallstreet

[Craig234]

I definitely agree. Banks should have been allowed to fail.

Banks should have been prevented from taking on irresponsible debt that would give them gargantuan profits one way, and threaten the global economy otherwise.

But in the vicious cycle of the concentration of power, their increase in wealth gave them more political power to get more wealth to get more power.

 

[Corn]

thanks for proving my point.

Its like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

[Jhhnn]

Hahaha, "hey look at those morons over there with their little teen angst protest. Ok, that was funny, now lets go on with our day.". In other words, it was completely useless.

I'm sure that's what you want to believe, and it's probably every bit as mistaken as everything else you profess to believe.

Great cartoon on the subject-

http://i.imgur.com/wDOu1.png

 

[Corn]

LOL.

Dude take a look in the mirror.

You dont want a debate because you'd lose. So instead you call everyone that disagrees with you a robot, or idiot.

Nice representative for the OWS movement.

That moron is a mental midget with a fatty obsession. All talk, no brain.

 

[spidey07]

You're nitpicking to intentionally avoid the point. It doesn't matter if the "right" number is 1% or 0.7% or 0.54372%. If nothing else, it's not that black and white. There are undoubtedly plenty of cheats in the top 20% and plenty of altruists in the top 0.1%.

Their point is that an elite few, whatever their exact number and demographics may be, have so corrupted our economic and political system that it no longer serves the interests of the vast majority of Americans. Their 99% slogan is not meant to be precise. It's meant to communicate a complex issue in a simple, easy to grasp form. That doesn't make the issue any less real.

Yes, paint the picture of the "bourgeois". We've seen this play before. And now stoke the class warfare flames to make the proletariat rise up. Straight up Marx playbook.

 

[Jhhnn]

Because we've increased our wealth consumption whilst lowering our wealth production. Doesn't matter how much you make money zip around the economy if the underlying balance of consumption versus production isn't there. Doesn't matter how attractive you make investing if you make the smartest investments outside of the USA. By dropping our protective tariffs whilst keeping our expensive environmental, human rights, and safety regulations, we've guaranteed that even though we can make American companies profitable (by lowering capital gains taxes and offering lots of corporate tax breaks), our good-paying jobs will increasingly vanish to cheaper labor markets. Anything that CAN be outsourced, WILL be outsourced. That includes CEOs; while the American company initially profits greatly from the cheaper non-American labor, within a decade or two the foreign manufacturer is the one who understands how to push the technology and eventually pushes the now-bloated American company out of that market, if not into bankruptcy.

Which completely dances around the central issue- It's American companies paying $2/hr elsewhere vs $20/hr here, and American companies taking the difference as profit, which is reflected in their disbursement of dividends and the capital gains of their stocks. It's not really foreign companies at all, or foreign money financing them. It's American companies & American investment. It won't be foreign companies leading the charge down the road, but the foreign subsidiaries of American companies.

What's happened is that the electorate hasn't insisted on fair compensation for job loss & opportunity loss from corporate entities & their owners. Lowering tax rates on investment income doesn't do that at all, and accelerates the hollowing out process we both see.

An idea that's intrigued me involves eliminating corporate taxes altogether and taxing investment income at the same progressive rates as earned income. The flimflam of offshoring corporate headquarters would disappear, and the practice of holding profits offshore wouldn't stand up to shareholder demands for what's rightfully theirs, dividends, or what's rightfully the govt's, taxes. In many instances, the advantage of offshoring isn't in labor costs, but in corporate tax advantages.

We could use the increased revenue to create systems that currently disadvantage enterprise in this country, like healthcare, and the sort of selective subsidies that other govts use to their competitive advantage. Hell, we'd probably see foreign companies moving their headquarters to this country, bring jobs and the purchase of all the stuff it takes to run a company along with it.

Such a thing would have to involve both changes simultaneously, for sure, not the usual cut taxes first & talk about revenue loss later...

 

[spidey07]

Rape at the occupiers. Hey, what happened to spread it around?

http://www.woio.com/story/15720884/occupy-cleveland-protestor-claims-she-was-raped-in-her-tent

A downtown protestor camping out for the "Occupy Cleveland" movement reported that she was raped in her tent.

Cleveland Police are just beginning their investigation, but the victim claims she was sexually assaulted by a stranger on Saturday, October 15th. The teen tells police she was asked by rally personnel to share a tent with the suspect due to the shortage of tents.

The victim is a 19-year-old student at Summit Academy in Parma. On Monday, she went to school and told a teacher about the attack. The teacher immediately contacted police.

 

[fskimospy]

Rape at the occupiers. Hey, what happened to spread it around?

http://www.woio.com/story/15720884/occupy-cleveland-protestor-claims-she-was-raped-in-her-tent

Still breathlessly reporting on the non-event I see! Oh spidey, you're so easy to see through.

 

[Bowfinger]

[deluded tripe deleted ]

Hey Spidey! Welcome back. Man enough to acknowledge your lie earlier, or are you going to stick to your tried-and-true denial of all inconvenient reality?

 

[spidey07]

Hey Spidey! Welcome back. Man enough to acknowledge your lie earlier, or are you going to stick to your tried-and-true denial of all inconvenient reality?

Read the rest of their charter, that was just one juicy bit.

 

[Nebor]

Still breathlessly reporting on the non-event I see! Oh spidey, you're so easy to see through.

Not as easy to see through as the OWS's TRUE motives.... hippy rape. It's just an excuse for guys in skinny jeans to rape girls that don't shave their armpits.

 

[Darwin333]

Darwin, I don't agree with that either. Though I almost completely disagree with the notion of bankruptcy. I don't think it should exist. You shouldn't take debt you cannot pay back in some form. So I don't feel sorry for anyone who takes on debt they can't pay back. They should have thought that out before hand.

And you think the lender has absolutely no responsibility to make sound business decisions?

If I loan a person I know to be a crackhead a thousand dollars should I be held completely harmless because he promised to pay me back? Or do I perhaps partially deserve the damages I have incurred?

 

[Bowfinger]

Read the rest of their charter, that was just one juicy bit.

It wasn't a juicy bit you tool. More to the point, contrary to your claim, it wasn't one of their demands. In truth they specifically rejected that as a demand. You lied again, no matter how you want to spin it.

 

[spidey07]

And you think the lender has absolutely no responsibility to make sound business decisions?

If I loan a person I know to be a crackhead a thousand dollars should I be held completely harmless because he promised to pay me back? Or do I perhaps partially deserve the damages I have incurred?

But federal government forced you to loan to said crackhead.

 

[Jhhnn]

It wasn't a juicy bit you tool. More to the point, contrary to your claim, it wasn't one of their demands. In truth they specifically rejected that as a demand. You lied again, no matter how you want to spin it.

Spidey isn't lying, it's just that whatever he wants to believe he takes as fact. It's a faith based process of simulated rationality in support of foregone conclusions.

 

[Jhhnn]

And you think the lender has absolutely no responsibility to make sound business decisions?

If I loan a person I know to be a crackhead a thousand dollars should I be held completely harmless because he promised to pay me back? Or do I perhaps partially deserve the damages I have incurred?

Actually, the way it works on Wall st is they make 1000 million dollar loans to crackheads, package them up with other loans, sell the whole thing as AAA rated asset backed securities, then bet even more against them in CDS. Sooner or later, nobody will buy the securities, and they have to eat the losses themselves, which threatens the very existence of the company, so they get bailed out.

All the previous profit has left the company, into their pockets, in the form of bonuses for doing such a great job.

 

[bfdd]

And you think the lender has absolutely no responsibility to make sound business decisions?

If I loan a person I know to be a crackhead a thousand dollars should I be held completely harmless because he promised to pay me back? Or do I perhaps partially deserve the damages I have incurred?

Obviously they should have to pay for their own mistakes in lending. Why should we the tax payers bail either of the idiots out?

 

[Jhhnn]

Obviously they should have to pay for their own mistakes in lending. Why should we the tax payers bail either of the idiots out?

There is a New Deal govt agency that deals with bank failures all the time- the FDIC. They take over a failing bank on Friday, it re-opens on Monday, and customers are served as if nothing has happened. In the background, the finances of the institution are reorganized & it gets sold back into the market. Similar bureaus exist for S&L's & credit unions, but not investment banks.

The govt lacked the authority to act at the time, requiring new legislation to do so, and the process used by other nations, nationalization, was obviously off the table with the Bush Admin in charge. The fact that the failure was systemic, involving nearly all the big players, meant that even if the FDIC had been legally able to act that they simply didn't have the resources to do so effectively.

The alternate scenario, bankruptcy reorganization, likely would have destroyed credit markets entirely. Shareholders would have been wiped out, assets frozen, and the share value of of even healthy banks driven into the dirt in a cascading failure of confidence, causing them to fail as well.

The bailout preserved the system, but did nothing substantial to reform it, and the usual Free Market forces in politics are working very hard to prevent any real reform from taking place.

Which is, in part, what OWS is all about.

 

[crownjules]

And you think the lender has absolutely no responsibility to make sound business decisions?

If I loan a person I know to be a crackhead a thousand dollars should I be held completely harmless because he promised to pay me back? Or do I perhaps partially deserve the damages I have incurred?

You forgot to mention the part where you then turn around, say to the government and other investors that a bundle of these types of loans is AAA rated investments, and convince them to invest when you know there's a high chance those loans get defaulted on.

I heard a great interview last night with one of the lawyers who was involved in the prosecutions of the S&L scandals and how he'd make this case against the banksters. They quite clearly committed fraud and so far have gotten away with it.

 

[shadow9d9]

Obviously they should have to pay for their own mistakes in lending. Why should we the tax payers bail either of the idiots out?

I think the point is that one side has already been bailed out while the other hasn't.

 

[michal1980]

I think the point is that one side has already been bailed out while the other hasn't.

Bailout of the banks as was done was wrong.

So why would a bailout of the other-side be good?

two wrongs do not make a right.

 

[spidey07]

Bailout of the banks as was done was wrong.

So why would a bailout of the other-side be good?

two wrongs do not make a right.

But it's the banks fault I took out all these student loans and debt! Banks and corporations R bad, herp derp.

 

[Ausm]

Explain to me how singleing out the 1% and blaming them for all the problems you have is not demonizing them?

OWS blames the 1% for curroption
OWS blames the 1% for the economy
OWS blames the 1% for health care costs
OWS blames the 1% for not having jobs
OWS blames the 1% for their student loans.

Where am I wrong? I dailly read the OWS website, and wearethe99%. just about every supporter of the movement blames the 1% for their problems.

The 1% are just the new whipping boys.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I agree the Congressman/women who have allowed this to happen for the last 30 years should be held accountable for their incompetence.

 

[airdata]

The amount of people criticizing the movement is overwhelming.

If you are criticizing and making fun of protesters, let me assure you of one thing...

ANY cause you believe in would have equally dumb people showing up to the protest. Trust me on that. It's just a mathematical thing. Most people are dumb. Looking at a few hand picked interviews w\ confused protesters and deciding they're all dumb is the same thing as seeing some black kid trip while running across the street because his pants are so low and just assume all black people are stupid. It's the same way of thinking.

What is certain is that the cause is real. These people are protesting for injustices done to ALL americans. If you're against it, you must be ignorant of the facts of the situation, or simply dont care that people are looting our country and robbing people every day.


This isn't about some random "hippy" getting a hand out. It's about people bribing government officials into stopping progressive legislation and passing legislation in order for corporations to make money. It's about the people who are in charge of managing our economy bending and breaking the rules to steal peoples money.

This is a real problem... no matter who you are.

If corporations are people, and Madhoff got a life sentence... where is the first corporate life sentence?

 

[spidey07]

The amount of people criticizing the movement is overwhelming.

If you are criticizing and making fun of protesters, let me assure you of one thing...

ANY cause you believe in would have equally dumb people showing up to the protest. Trust me on that. It's just a mathematical thing. Most people are dumb. Looking at a few hand picked interviews w\ confused protesters and deciding they're all dumb is the same thing as seeing some black kid trip while running across the street because his pants are so low and just assume all black people are stupid. It's the same way of thinking.

What is certain is that the cause is real. These people are protesting for injustices done to ALL americans. If you're against it, you must be ignorant of the facts of the situation, or simply dont care that people are looting our country and robbing people every day.


This isn't about some random "hippy" getting a hand out. It's about people bribing government officials into stopping progressive legislation and passing legislation in order for corporations to make money. It's about the people who are in charge of managing our economy bending and breaking the rules to steal peoples money.

This is a real problem... no matter who you are.

If corporations are people, and Madhoff got a life sentence... where is the first corporate life sentence?

I don't think you understand. The progressive, far left, communist movement absolutely should be stopped as well as any legislation promoting it.

Can you explain how your money was stolen by the big bad evil corporations being all corprationy?