Occupy

[The Rev]

Oh, I'd LOVE to have my debt wiped out, don't get me wrong.

However, I fail to see how getting all debt "on the planet" abolished will be accomplished.  As you said, Cain, unachievable.

Also, there's the bit where I believe that I DID borrow the fucking money, I need to pay it back.

Now...  Set it up so that all interest is on debt is capped at 5% so people have a chance to actually pay the money OWED instead of interest forever, and I'm all for it.  THAT I can see happening...  But we'll never see universal debt forgiveness.

Self-enforced double standard when you have been forced into a position that it is nearly to get out of by paying your debt off? This is why we declared bankruptcy, we applied for a government bailout and never heard a word back.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I don't really like the punitive approach to making bad decisions under a bad system where there is little choice.

I vastly prefer a solution-based approach. Our governments have managed to fuck shit up royally, but taking the view that we made that bed and now we have to lie in it is profoundly unproductive.

I am far more interested in the question of what can be done to fix it.

[rong]

I don't understand why mortgage interest is tax deductible, but credit card interest is not

[Disco Pickle]

I'd first like to say that the following reply is in no way a personal remark on you Cram.  You've got some really good stuff bouncing around in that head of yours and I've questioned a few of the things I've learned over the years by reading your posts.  Though we disagree on a few things know that anything I write below is not a personal attack in any way, even as it may attack what you think and believe.  When I use the term "you" it's not to say you specifically, but it does point to the general feel I get from a group that exists on this board, and if it seems like I'm talking to you (any of you) then I probably am.  If it sounds aggressive, that's because that's the easiest way I found to get it out of my head.  See also O:KM & Effective Methods of Ranting.  (I'm sure it's here somewhere)

The first thing I'd like to note is that it's perfectly ok to make fun of a protest movement as a whole, or even just the fringe elements of it, just so long as you don't agree with the movement.

That's what I took from the posts following my share of that clip.  You agree with them so making fun of them: pointing out someone who is uninformed about an issue that is part of the protest, making funny comments about their clothing and accessories, pointing out that they are protesting corporate excess while spending their money on major corporations, buying Gatorade and walking around with top tech, it's all off limits.

(I have to admit, a bunch of unemployed 20 somethings wearing designer clothes, using G3 phones and carrying macbooks is pretty funny.  I don't buy designer clothing, I have a 3 year old phone, my laptop is a PC I built myself and getting on in years and I've only ever been unemployed 3 months in the last 10 years)

Please to see every single thread about the Tea Party on this board, and apply the same logic. 

And you know what?  That's fine.  It's perfectly ok, just so long as you're not putting yourself out there as an impartial judge sitting in the middle of the bell curve, laughing at the extremes.  When you stop laughing at the extremes, you are one, or are becoming one.

That's not to say I'm using a broad brush here.  Many of the people here (Cain, you come to mind specifically) are more than able to point out ridiculousness even when you probably agree with the sentiment.

So what did I like about the segment?  I'll address everything you posted below but broadly speaking, I liked it because it was pretty damn funny coming from a financial analyst who's made her living talking about financial matters and is informed enough for CNBC and CNN to have employed her for many years.  I'll admit I'm partial to her in much the same way you may be partial to Olberman or Matthews.  I am at a loss to post a left leaning financial analyst to compare her to because that's a species that I've never encountered.  If anyone knows of one I'd love to read their take on the whole thing.

Okay ... what exactly did you like about that segment? From where I'm sitting, all she communicated was that she didn't understand the protests in the slightest.

That's the thing, no one really does because it's not coherent.  It has no central message other than "we're unemployed and we're angry"
which COULD be a message, except that the people who's attention they're trying to get have likely been unemployed and angry before in their lives and they solved it by compromising on their wants in favor of their needs and doing whatever they had to do to keep the lights on.  They didn't go join a protest and they can't now even if they wanted to because they'd loose their job to someone who was more hungry for it.  That, IMO, is as it should be, but that's another post entirely.

It's summed up pretty well by the title of the segment "Seriously??" - that is to say, her objection is purely tonal, not substantive. It's like debating with somebody who's only rebuttal is "Come on, really?"

It's a play on the SNL skit "Really?" but I expect you worked that out.  It IS tonal, the way humor is supposed to be.  It was substantive by picking "one from the crowd" and pointing out to him that one of the things that is commonly misunderstood by people who protests against TARP. (I'm one of them FTR.  I thought the institutions mired in those securities should have failed and been bought up at a lower price by people with real capital, as it would have been without a central bank to intervene on behalf of their buddies.  The fact that the Treasury made money on it does nothing to sway me from that.)

If this was not substantive then the Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone where he talked with one couple who were the perfect storm of hypocrisy as small government people, and implied they were indicative of the entire protest group, should be dismissed on the same grounds.

First half of the video: commentary that the protest didn't look protesty enough. They were wearing DESIGNER CLOTHES. OMG.

Talked about that earlier. 

Second bit: she cherry picks an unemployed software developer and informs him that taxpayers made money on the bailout. He says he did not know that, and she basically rolls her eyes at him. This is irrelevant because (a) the protests are barely about the bailouts, (b) the dude's unemployed -- is this supposed to comfort him?

Again, pulling someone from the crowd (and really, she could have been much less impartial and pulled one of the "bring wall street to a halt" types, if she'd really wanted to color the sentiment a shade of crazy) to gauge the sentiment is only ok and funny if you disagree with what the group is protesting.  Got It.

I didn't interpret her follow up as rolling her eyes at him, but again, I am biased toward her way of giving information.  It's her PROFESSION to give information like this to people who need it, to people without it, and to people who dig in their heels and reject it because it does not fit into their world view. 

If the protest is barely about the bailouts, then what the hell are they about?  If the firms they are protesting against (investment banks) had been allowed to fail as they would in a system without government safeguards, the billion and millionairs they are protesting against would have found themselves homeless, or at the very least, in bankruptcy and very close to their same situation, except for their networking contacts.  They're barking up the wrong god damned building.  They should be in D.C. or at every Federal Reserve Bank building in the country.

Third bit: A factoid about how much money taxpayers made on the bailout. Who is this addressing? Do you know anybody who feels that they "made money" on the bailouts? She is not investigating the reasons for the protests, she's just reframing them as a non-issue. And in doing so, she chooses to do a style column instead of journalism.

It's addressing the misinformation that taxpayers paid these guy's salary and fueled giant bonuses on our dime.  As much as I hate to admit it, the Treasury made money on the thing, and that's a bad precedent IMO.   No, the guy on the street isn't going to feel that, unless they had money invested with one of those major banks and didn't move it around before the crash took a big chunk of it.  Otherwise, yes.  He's going to think it was a good idea.  Now that I think about it, I'll change what I wrote to say yes, I do feel that I "made money" from the bailouts because (and this is hard for me to admit, because I was asleep at the wheel a bit in 08, having just had a kid) my entire investment didn't go up in smoke and electrons.  The money I had tied up in several mutual funds didn't completely disappear and had a place to go.  I knew from the start that the money was a gamble.  That's how a risk/reward system works.  I still think that collectively, as a species, we'd have learned a lot more had the banks been allowed to fail. 

I think I addressed all of your points.  This entire post took me an hour to write and refine.  PickleGF even called me from her class to ask if I was still writing the same post.   

I've been feeling a bit nostalgic for some old C&C:Tiberian Sun and had plans to do that tonight, so any ignoring of replies TTP are not personal.  I will not come back to it until tomorrow at 7am and I'll probably be a little bitchy.  I'll try and not be bitchy in my replies. 

TRY.

[ETA: Cain, I agree with you on the jubilee, but only if it's understood that we can never allow that amount of debt to be a driving force for economic growth, ever again.  I have low hopes that would ever happen.]

[Cramulus]

just a quick note to say thanks for the detailed reply, pickles. I can appreciate where you're coming from, and I'll return the favor a bit later. Presently, all these guys named Sam Adams want to hang out and I don't want to be a bad host. 

[Scribbly]

I don't really like the punitive approach to making bad decisions under a bad system where there is little choice.

I vastly prefer a solution-based approach. Our governments have managed to fuck shit up royally, but taking the view that we made that bed and now we have to lie in it is profoundly unproductive.

I am far more interested in the question of what can be done to fix it.

(And in general to the 'debt forgiveness' side of things)

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Mostly because my dad told me he expects my generation to spend our lives paying off the debt his generation made, much like the post-WW2 generation spent their lives paying off war debt. This is entirely fair, he says, because we reaped the benefit of that debt as we were growing up. Not, entirely sure I buy into that argument.

Cain's right - and he and I have both said it before on this forum - wiping out the debt, completely, and starting over is a very sensible idea. There are massive logistical problems with organizing it, but I personally don't believe that I will live long enough to see the economy recover if we're labouring under this debt burden. My children might, but I wouldn't like to guess where we'll be in twenty years time. Bearing in mind that resources are limited, and we're running towards the end of those reserves, the cost of basic living is going to massively increase right alongside us ploughing billions upon billions back into the pockets of our debtors.

A debt writeoff would probably be catastrophic in the short term, due to the fact that many banks would go down, and even if personal savings were secured, they'd take the ability of businesses to borrow with them - something which would take a fair number of businesses who do not have enough money stockpiled to pay their payrolls. However, from where I'm sitting, if you need to borrow huge amount of money just to meet the obligations you have to your staff, then your business is basically dead and on life support anyway. It is a legitimate concern, though, and I'm not sure how you'd get through that short-term pain.

Obviously, there's also the issue with capturing the debate and actually convincing people that this path is an acceptable one. If I remember my figures right, all the money in the world is equal to approximately 1/5th of world debt. Which means if you gathered it all in one place, down to the last cent, congratulations! You can pay off 1/5th of what we owe ourselves.

The situation is patently insane. What we need to do is start discussing it, loudly, and get politicians to discuss it... after a certain point, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If the banks even suspected that it were to be a remote possibility, their share prices would begin to dive. As they dive, the effect of the debt would be felt more harshly (because banks will squeeze to try and recoup their losses), which will feed into the rhetoric about scrapping the debt altogether... which will cause the share price to dive, etc.

... that's my thought, anyway. It is getting that initial legitimacy to the idea which is hard. Since the vast majority of people would benefit hugely if they suddenly owned their house and had no outstanding debts, it will become attractive very quickly to the average person. But most people think it is just plain unrealistic. But we have eaten our elites in the past. This may actually be one of the few ways of bringing them low with comparatively little open bloodshed and violence. You'd think they'd be grateful!

[Cain]

Elizabeth Warren has just called on the protestors to obey the law.  Not the police, just the protestors.

[Scribbly]

You know who supports Occupy Wall Street? communists

One of the best-kept secrets in the United States over the past two weeks seems to be the protest on and near Wall Street in New York.
More than 1,000 people protested on the first day, September 17, marching and chanting slogans. Yet the demonstration, known as Occupy Wall Street, did not appear on the major networks' evening news or in major newspapers the next day.

The protest, now in its 14th day, only got limited coverage last Saturday when heavy-handed police arrested close to 100 people and pepper-sprayed several female demonstrators. But most coverage that day was not in-depth.

While there are many videos of harsh police action on the Internet, I have witnessed how the formerly helpful police patrolling the streets have suddenly resorted to force in Zuccotti Park, also known as Liberty Plaza, in Lower Manhattan.

In one scene, several policemen jumped on one skinny man who was not acting violently. They pushed him down and handcuffed him. Just five minutes later, a policeman waved his fist at a man. That day, seven people were arrested, with one suffering a serious leg injury.

Again, none of these incidents made the major networks' evening news or the major newspapers.

As a journalist, I have wondered why the so-called mainstream US media, which is either headquartered in New York or maintains a strong presence in the city, has chosen to ignore the prolonged demonstration since it started. Why have those journalists, who made their names covering various protests around the world, suddenly become silent in reporting the mass rally? That clearly does not match their enthusiasm to cover demonstrations in recent months in places such as North Africa and the Middle East.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2011-09/30/content_13823311.htm

[Cramulus]

I haven't read it yet, but here's the OCCUPIED WALL STREET JOURNAL, the DIY newspaper which was distributed at the protests on Saturday.

I had a hard time finding a PDF of it, so the image quality is iffy. It looks like I'm the first one to upload it to scribd, which surprises me. EDIT: nm, found a copy on scribd.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/67613880/The-Occupied-Wall-Street-Journal

take a look, let us know what you think

[Cramulus]

The first thing I'd like to note is that it's perfectly ok to make fun of a protest movement as a whole, or even just the fringe elements of it, just so long as you don't agree with the movement.

That's what I took from the posts following my share of that clip.  You agree with them so making fun of them: pointing out someone who is uninformed about an issue that is part of the protest, making funny comments about their clothing and accessories, pointing out that they are protesting corporate excess while spending their money on major corporations, buying Gatorade and walking around with top tech, it's all off limits.

I think I must watched that clip with the wrong expectations.

I thought she was reporting on the protests.

I totally didn't realize it was a humor piece.

(I have to admit, a bunch of unemployed 20 somethings wearing designer clothes, using G3 phones and carrying macbooks is pretty funny.  I don't buy designer clothing, I have a 3 year old phone, my laptop is a PC I built myself and getting on in years and I've only ever been unemployed 3 months in the last 10 years)

There was this clip on fox news a few weeks ago examining "what poverty looks like". They framing the people complaining about poverty as a bunch of cry babies because they have luxuries like refrigerators and microwaves.


(I love how they put the word "poor" in quotes, like "these guys are just PRETENDING to be poor. Do they think we're suckers? They're not even starving, lol!")

I get this sense that people think poor people are supposed to look like Tiny Tim or something. Like these protests would be valid if only the protesters looked a little more destitute. If they were limping around on a crutch and dying of cholera, then they'd have a point.

The unemployment rate is above 9%, but that's clearly not a big deal because these guys aren't wearing fingerless gloves and huddling around a trash can fire for warmth. "If these guys were REALLY poor, they would be wearing shittier clothes!" ---- in the end, you are dismissing the reality of the situation because it has the wrong aesthetics. It's like saying "This isn't a revolution - nobody's wearing berets!"

I'll admit I'm partial to her in much the same way you may be partial to Olberman or Matthews.  I am at a loss to post a left leaning financial analyst to compare her to because that's a species that I've never encountered.  If anyone knows of one I'd love to read their take on the whole thing.

I think you make some incorrect assumptions about me right here! 

That's the thing, no one really does because it's not coherent.  It has no central message other than "we're unemployed and we're angry"
which COULD be a message, except that the people who's attention they're trying to get have likely been unemployed and angry before in their lives and they solved it by compromising on their wants in favor of their needs and doing whatever they had to do to keep the lights on.  They didn't go join a protest and they can't now even if they wanted to because they'd loose their job to someone who was more hungry for it.  That, IMO, is as it should be, but that's another post entirely.

I would be extremely surprised to find out that a significant number of the people who comprise the top 1% wealthiest have ever had to choose between luxury and food/electricity.

Your language here suggests you believe the protesters are merely unwilling to get jobs or make sacrifices.

The absurdly high unemployment rate is not a result of some personality defect that jobless people have. It's not like they're these losers who just need to man up and put their nose to the grindstone. The dollar is falling, jobs are moving overseas, cost of living is rising, should these guys just wait patiently with their hands folded until there are jobs again?

It's a play on the SNL skit "Really?" but I expect you worked that out.  It IS tonal, the way humor is supposed to be.

Ah I missed the SNL reference. And I didn't realize Erin Burnett was a humor writer.

It was substantive by picking "one from the crowd" and pointing out to him that one of the things that is commonly misunderstood by people who protests against TARP.

It's just kind of silly because the dude is at the protest because he doesn't have a job.

She suggested that he made money off of the bailout, and in her mind, this addressed his problem.

Then why is he at the protest?

Again, pulling someone from the crowd (and really, she could have been much less impartial and pulled one of the "bring wall street to a halt" types, if she'd really wanted to color the sentiment a shade of crazy) to gauge the sentiment is only ok and funny if you disagree with what the group is protesting.  Got It.

But we don't actually hear the guy's opinion. She doesn't show his side of the story.

Her goal was to paint a picture of the protesters as uninformed, that's why she shows a clip of her explaining things to the protester rather than him explaining his position.

I didn't interpret her follow up as rolling her eyes at him, but again, I am biased toward her way of giving information.  It's her PROFESSION to give information like this to people who need it, to people without it, and to people who dig in their heels and reject it because it does not fit into their world view. 

that's a curious way to do journalism - usually a journalist ask somebody involved what's going on, rather than explaining it to them. 

btw the dismissive gesture occurs at 1:25

If the protest is barely about the bailouts, then what the hell are they about?  If the firms they are protesting against (investment banks) had been allowed to fail as they would in a system without government safeguards, the billion and millionairs they are protesting against would have found themselves homeless, or at the very least, in bankruptcy and very close to their same situation, except for their networking contacts.  They're barking up the wrong god damned building.  They should be in D.C. or at every Federal Reserve Bank building in the country.

dude, after the tax payer funded bailout, AIG gave out 1.2 billion dollars in bonuses.

a lot of the signs I see people holding also protest the bailouts

It's addressing the misinformation that taxpayers paid these guy's salary and fueled giant bonuses on our dime. 

Maybe I've been misinformed. I was under the impression that the fed gave zillions of dollars to bail out banks, who then gave massive bonuses to their employees.

In March 2009, Obama said, "It's hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay. How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?" and "In the last six months, AIG has received substantial sums from the U.S. Treasury. I've asked Secretary Geithner to use that leverage and pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole."

Is that a lie?

Now that I think about it, I'll change what I wrote to say yes, I do feel that I "made money" from the bailouts because (and this is hard for me to admit, because I was asleep at the wheel a bit in 08, having just had a kid) my entire investment didn't go up in smoke and electrons.  The money I had tied up in several mutual funds didn't completely disappear and had a place to go.  I knew from the start that the money was a gamble.  That's how a risk/reward system works.  I still think that collectively, as a species, we'd have learned a lot more had the banks been allowed to fail. 

So you think you made money, not because you actually have more of it, but because some other people lost money?

And when Erin Burnett says that the protesters are misinformed because taxpayers actually made money on the bailout, she really just means they didn't lose everything?

I've been feeling a bit nostalgic for some old C&C:Tiberian Sun and had plans to do that tonight

nice! oldschool gaming at its best

[Triple Zero]

99.6% have a refrigerator and that's a GOOD THING. Having a fridge is a basic necessity for living. Maybe not like clean water and shelter, but the next thing. Especially if you live on a tight budget, you need a fridge, otherwise you'd be throwing away food all the time.

I know preaching to the choir here.

Funny how they didn't say 99.6 has a TV, right? Because the numbers are probably pretty high as well. Except to a corporate media entity like Fox, a TV is more a basic life necessity than a fridge It doesn't understand these hu-mans. They just need to watch, not eat, wtf?!

[Cramulus]

the people who's attention they're trying to get have likely been unemployed and angry before in their lives and they solved it by compromising on their wants in favor of their needs and doing whatever they had to do to keep the lights on.

right after I wrote my reply, somebody linked me to this onion article, which has a cute symmetry to the above bit

Layoffs Are Necessary If We Want To Keep The Lights On,' Says CEO Halfway Through Tasting Menu

[Cramulus]

woah, have you guys seen this clip?

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/80727/wall-street-demonstrators-meet-champagne-club-during-protest

Protesters march down wall street

The traders come to the balconies to drink champagne and laugh at them

pretty cocky!


                   
     

[Doktor Howl]

woah, have you guys seen this clip?

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/80727/wall-street-demonstrators-meet-champagne-club-during-protest

Protesters march down wall street

The traders come to the balconies to drink champagne and laugh at them

pretty cocky!


                   
     

Why the hell not?  I would.  It's not like the hippies are going to DO anything, right?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

99.6% have a refrigerator and that's a GOOD THING. Having a fridge is a basic necessity for living. Maybe not like clean water and shelter, but the next thing. Especially if you live on a tight budget, you need a fridge, otherwise you'd be throwing away food all the time.

I know preaching to the choir here.

Funny how they didn't say 99.6 has a TV, right? Because the numbers are probably pretty high as well. Except to a corporate media entity like Fox, a TV is more a basic life necessity than a fridge It doesn't understand these hu-mans. They just need to watch, not eat, wtf?!

Ugh, I know! WTF people. Plus, if you don't have a fridge and a way to heat food, you end up having to buy vastly more expensive pre-prepared food in order to eat.

Yes, the poor mostly also have indoor plumbing, as well.

The thing is, due to housing codes, the urban poor HAVE to have these things. It's not like one of the rental options in NYC is "dirt floor shack".