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[kame-sennin]

Honestly though, don't hate the players hate the game. You want change, then convince your elected officials that seem to have a great disconnect with their own people to push for changes in how the tax system and its loopholes are exploited.

That's what these protests are for.

 

[lawlohwhat]

I hear business is booming at the bootstrap factory. They're probably hiring

i lold

 

[aronnov reborn]

Good; do you feel the same way about Goldman Sachs and others, who have brought down the world economy? I mean, isn't that worse than firebombing a bank?

they should have been allowed to crash and burn with the free market. they should not have been given any money from the governemnt. CEO's are getting 10 million dollar bonuses during all this with tax payer money. Tea Party and OWS agree on this.

I blame the thief known as the government. not the dumb banking industries. they shouldn't even exist anymore. they should have went under.

 

[aronnov reborn]

Defend the hive, drone.

except my hive consists of my family and that's it. everyone else stay out.

Biggest problem with this movement is clear in the first hour and a half of the Dave Ramsay show.. every caller so far is protesting something different... there's no message except everyone's pissed about something.

 

[remnant]

Has this been posted yet?

2008 Redux: Taxpayers to help bailout Merrill Lynch and Bank of America



Bloomberg article

Not to say that the article is wrong or anything, but BoA is going to move their funds out of Europe whether it goes belly-up or not.

 

[venne]

except my hive consists of my family and that's it. everyone else stay out.

Yet, here you are defending the status quo.

You aren't benefiting, you are sacrificing time from your daughter slaving for minimum wage to pay that money into the next bubble, higher education.

You think government is the problem, it's merely a symptom. Don't treat symptoms. Treat diseases.

Greed is destroying this country.

 

[Flying Toaster]

The sad bit of this is that guys like arronov and Flying Toaster probably see themselves as hard working people, while the leeches of society are loafing around waiting to steal their tax dollars. The truth of the situation is that to the world at large - including your elected officials and the banks that OWS are protesting: you are no different from those leeches.

The reforms you think you want: changes to the tax code, cutting spending, etc. all hurt you.

I actually am a hard working individual, and I am also strongly for an increase in taxes that will pay for the programs in place. Nothing needs to be cut, perhaps restructured but not cut. America is in a unique position that we have a social obligation to make sure that everyone has a chance at bettering themselves.

Some would call that handouts, I disagree strongly with that viewpoint.

But honestly, be realistic. Business gets away with murder because of political funding, the only way that will even have a chance to change is if the people refuse to vote in people with extreme ties to funding. We would have to go back to the days of serving on congress or the senate was a job that a farmer, a store keeper, a lawer would put a few years into as a civic duty instead of making it a career.

So I believe sitting around Washington would make a bigger impact then sitting on Wallstreet.

 

[kame-sennin]

I dont make alot of money. I'm lower middle class if that. I'm not envious of what anyone else has. I'm happy for them. I dont want anything they have and i dont want anyone to have what i have.

Are you bothered that some of those people you are so happy for stole some of your money?

 

[Marleyman]

they should have been allowed to crash and burn with the free market. they should not have been given any money from the governemnt. CEO's are getting 10 million dollar bonuses during all this with tax payer money. Tea Party and OWS agree on this.

Good, but do you support them being prosecuted?

 

[dave is ok]

So I believe sitting around Washington would make a bigger impact then sitting on Wallstreet.

http://occupydc.org/

They're there too. I don't think the OWS are ignoring the other half of the equation, clearly government has a huge role in the shit that these huge banks get away with.

 

[aronnov reborn]

Yet, here you are defending the status quo.

You aren't benefiting, you are sacrificing time from your daughter slaving for minimum wage to pay that money into the next bubble, higher education.

You think government is the problem, it's merely a symptom. Don't treat symptoms. Treat diseases.

Greed is destroying this country.

I'm sacraficing time from my daughter just as much doing a 40 hour job.. that's 40 hours a week i could be with her too right.. what's 12 more hours to give her the best possible future?

 

[kame-sennin]

Biggest problem with this movement is clear in the first hour and a half of the Dave Ramsay show.. every caller so far is protesting something different... there's no message except everyone's pissed about something.

I actually am a hard working individual, and I am also strongly for an increase in taxes that will pay for the programs in place. Nothing needs to be cut, perhaps restructured but not cut. America is in a unique position that we have a social obligation to make sure that everyone has a chance at bettering themselves.

Some would call that handouts, I disagree strongly with that viewpoint.

But honestly, be realistic. Business gets away with murder because of political funding, the only way that will even have a chance to change is if the people refuse to vote in people with extreme ties to funding. We would have to go back to the days of serving on congress or the senate was a job that a farmer, a store keeper, a lawer would put a few years into as a civic duty instead of making it a career.

So I believe sitting around Washington would make a bigger impact then sitting on Wallstreet.

Awesome. But with regards to the bold, both Obama and McCain took money from Goldman Sachs during the last election cycle (Obama more than McCain). In the election before that, you had George Bush, an obvious Wall Street supporter, against John Kerry - who received more money from the financial sector than any other democrat. I could go on, but I think the point is clear. So who do we vote for?

 

[aronnov reborn]

Are you bothered that some of those people you are so happy for stole some of your money?

i'm not happy at all with the government policies.

So who do we vote for?

Ron Paul time?

 

[Flying Toaster]

http://occupydc.org/

They're there too. I don't think the OWS are ignoring the other half of the equation, clearly government has a huge role in the shit that these huge banks get away with.

I just think that they need to all pool together and show up in DC. Right now half of Washington has the out of site out of mind mentality with these protests. The government has a lot more to account for than just letting banks get away with bad business practices.

 

[Flying Toaster]

Awesome. But with regards to the bold, both Obama and McCain took money from Goldman Sachs during the last election cycle (Obama more than McCain). In the election before that, you had George Bush, an obvious Wall Street supporter, against John Kerry - who received more money from the financial sector than any other democrat. I could go on, but I think the point is clear. So who do we vote for?

There is the issue. I didn't say I had a correct answer or even a decent theory on the way to fix these situations. But honestly a large majority of America doesnt even give a damn, they don't attempt to understand the issues and only vote to the talking points of whatever information network was last feeding them their daily dose of lies.

Well until career politics is out of the picture I guess we are screwed.

 

[SouthernDragon]

I'm working, studying, and I volunteer at a non-profit... and I support OWS.

Problem?

 

[LegendofJoe]

I agree that the protests should be centered more on Washington. The movement should be called Occupy K street, not Occupy Wall Street.

 

[ced]

So who do we vote for?

I'm not going to tell you to vote for Ron Paul, but at least do some research on the one candidate that the media, corporations and our current congress / administration don't want as president. That alone should tell you something about the guy and his proposed policies in regards to government, banks (and the fed) and unregulated corporations.

 

[Timedog]

I know there's not 25 million open jobs right this second. but if more of these people were actually looking there would be ZERO unskilled jobs open... I had my pick from thousands in middle TN for a second job and extra money.

Well alright then. Your anecdotal, short-term, personal self-interest solution is not a real solution for the problem with jobs in the country, and it makes no mention of what caused the problem with jobs in this country. Your solution is ignorant of most of the issues surrounding OWS. Current lack of jobs is ONE of those issues, although that is merely an effect of larger underlying root causes. Our financial system is fucked, and going out and getting a menial job does absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt, NOTHING to change that.

 

[Clevinger]

I'm working, studying, and I volunteer at a non-profit... and I support OWS.

Problem?

Get a second job, you bum.

I'm not going to tell you to vote for Ron Paul, but at least do some research on the one candidate that the media, corporations and our current congress / administration don't want as president. That alone should tell you something about he guy.

Except if you actually look at Paul's economic positions, he's the antithesis to what the protests are all about.

 

[Evlar]

I'm not going to tell you to vote for Ron Paul, but at least do some research on the one candidate that the media, corporations and our current congress / administration don't want as president. That alone should tell you something about the guy and his proposed policies in regards to government, banks (and the fed) and unregulated corporations.

Vote for Bernie Sanders.

... I mean, surely you don't think Ron Paul is the only person outside mainstream politics.

 

[dave is ok]

 

[NullPointer]

Bingo.

I really don't see this as a left/right issue. Its a money-shouldn't-drive-government issue.

 

[remnant]

Awesome. But with regards to the bold, both Obama and McCain took money from Goldman Sachs during the last election cycle (Obama more than McCain). In the election before that, you had George Bush, an obvious Wall Street supporter, against John Kerry - who received more money from the financial sector than any other democrat. I could go on, but I think the point is clear. So who do we vote for?

There are candidates running right now that are not getting money from Wall St, and there always is. Wall St. throws money at the candidates they think will win.

Have you considered Gary Johnson? Huntsman?

 

[Flying Toaster]

Honestly that is brilliant.

 

[Evlar]

I don't believe this Venn is accurate, sorry. Ask Tea Partiers if they oppose deregulation.

 

[Timedog]

I'm not going to tell you to vote for Ron Paul, but at least do some research on the one candidate that the media, corporations and our current congress / administration don't want as president. That alone should tell you something about the guy and his proposed policies in regards to government, banks (and the fed) and unregulated corporations.

So Paul wants more economic regulation? Oh, for a second there I thought he was a libertarian.

 

[dave is ok]

I don't believe this Venn is accurate, sorry. Ask Tea Partiers if they oppose deregulation.

Well the Tea Party's message has been astroturf'd for a long time. The waters are pretty muddy as to what the actual Tea Party wants vs. what the Republican party wants the Tea Party to say that it wants.

I don't think stricter regulation was every too high on either list

 

[Karma Kramer]

So Paul wants more economic regulation? Oh, for a second there I thought he was a libertarian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4jKNTvD53o

Paul really confuses me sometimes, but because of his stance against the wars, wars on drugs, patriot act... I personally think he is the best option of the candidates running... his economic ideas seem absurd, but at least he understands the problem.

 

[ced]

So Paul wants more economic regulation? Oh, for a second there I thought he was a libertarian.

Where did I mention economic regulation?

I mentioned gov, fed, bank and corp regulation which are responsible for the shit economy we are living in now.

I guess I should leave gov out, you don't regulate them, you just reduce them.

 

[Reprise]

I love that comic, so true ...

Someone said it best here the other day, you don't target the monkey (government) you target the grinder (wall street).

Look how upset they're getting now that the heats on them now ("won't someone think about the bankers!?!?!"), removing their campaign funding and all for the politicians who haven't toed the line, love it.

 

[Marleyman]

I agree that the protests should be centered more on Washington. The movement should be called Occupy K street, not Occupy Wall Street.

Why not the people who are lobbying heavily on K street?

 

[ced]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4jKNTvD53o

Paul really confuses me sometimes, but because of his stance against the wars, wars on drugs, patriot act... I personally think he is the best option of the candidates running... his economic ideas seem absurd, but at least he understands the problem.

Yeah he actually has scared me on a few things, but as you mentioned he is in my opinion the best candidate, or at a minimun should be considered. Unfortunately I don't see many of his stances getting through congress when it is so corrupt.

 

[Marleyman]

There are candidates running right now that are not getting money from Wall St, and there always is. Wall St. throws money at the candidates they think will win.

Have you considered Gary Johnson? Huntsman?

Right now is the key term here; as soon as they won(they won't) they would be bought and paid for.

 

[Marleyman]

Yeah he actually has scared me on a few things, but as you mentioned he is in my opinion the best candidate, or at a minimun should be considered. Unfortunately I don't see many of his stances getting through congress when it is so corrupt.

Paul would never win; even if he magically did his ideas would end up in the gutter because Congress is a joke.

 

[empty vessel]

Is it financially responsible to sit around for a month protesting intsead of actually working?

This notion that civic participation in democratic governance is worthless would be true if this were a totalitarian state. Is it? Not everything should be measured by its financial worth, nor need every waking moment of one's life be directed towards increasing economic value. There are other things in life, many of which are more important.

 

[Chichikov]

The problem with that diagram is that it's not really true, especially when we talk about Wall Street.
Wall Street have been fighting tooth and nail for the government to have less power.

 

[Dude Abides]

I don't believe this Venn is accurate, sorry. Ask Tea Partiers if they oppose deregulation.

Or campaign finance reform. Or what they think of McCain-Feingold.

 

[LegendofJoe]

Why not the people who are lobbying heavily on K street?

I'm a little confused here, what do you mean?

 

[SouthernDragon]

As evidenced by the fact that countries that cut spending, reformed regulations and strengthened their private sector saw quality of life decrease.
Oh wait the exact opposite happened.

I'm actually curious what you're using as an example here.

No, seriously. What countries did this?

 

[Marleyman]

I'm a little confused here, what do you mean?

The ones who finance the politicians; wall street. I realize that k street has the firms themselves but they originate on wall street.

 

[kame-sennin]

i'm not happy at all with the government policies.

I take it you're insinuating that the government is primarily responsible for facilitating the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthy. That is certainly true. However, there was fraudulent activity committed by the banks prior to the bailouts:

None of that would have been possible without investment bankers like Goldman, who created vehicles to package those shitty mortgages and sell them en masse to unsuspecting insurance companies and pension funds. This created a mass market for toxic debt that would never have existed before; in the old days, no bank would have wanted to keep some addict ex-con's mortgage on its books, knowing how likely it was to fail. You can't write these mortgages, in other words, unless you can sell them to someone who doesn't know what they are.

Goldman used two methods to hide the mess they were selling. First, they bundled hundreds of different mortgages into instruments called Collateralized Debt Obligations. Then they sold investors on the idea that, because a bunch of those mortgages would turn out to be OK, there was no reason to worry so much about the shitty ones: The CDO, as a whole, was sound. Thus, junk-rated mortgages were turned into AAA-rated investments. Second, to hedge its own bets, Goldman got companies like AIG to provide insurance — known as credit default swaps — on the CDOs. The swaps were essentially a racetrack bet between AIG and Goldman: Goldman is betting the ex-cons will default, AIG is betting they won't.

By the peak of the housing boom in 2006, Goldman was underwriting $76.5 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities — a third of which were sub-prime — much of it to institutional investors like pensions and insurance companies. And in these massive issues of real estate were vast swamps of crap.

Take one $494 million issue that year, GSAMP Trust 2006S3. Many of the mortgages belonged to second-mortgage borrowers, and the average equity they had in their homes was 0.71 percent. Moreover, 58 percent of the loans included little or no documentation — no names of the borrowers, no addresses of the homes, just zip codes. Yet both of the major ratings agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's, rated 93 percent of the issue as investment grade. Moody's projected that less than 10 percent of the loans would default. In reality, 18 percent of the mortgages were in default within 18 months.

Not that Goldman was personally at any risk. The bank might be taking all these hideous, completely irresponsible mortgages from beneath-gangster-status firms like Countrywide and selling them off to municipalities and pensioners — old people, for God's sake — pretending the whole time that it wasn't grade D horseshit. But even as it was doing so, it was taking short positions in the same market, in essence betting against the same crap it was selling. Even worse, Goldman bragged about it in public. "The mortgage sector continues to be challenged," David Viniar, the bank's chief financial officer, boasted in 2007. "As a result, we took significant markdowns on our long inventory positions … However, our risk bias in that market was to be short, and that net short position was profitable." In other words, the mortgages it was selling were for chumps. The real money was in betting against those same mortgages.

This is securities fraud that lead to major losses in state pension funds. They were also responsible for driving up the price of oil in 2008:

In the six months before prices spiked, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the world oil supply rose from 85.24 million barrels a day to 85.72 million. Over the same period, world oil demand dropped from 86.82 million barrels a day to 86.07 million. Not only was the short-term supply of oil rising, the demand for it was falling — which, in classic economic terms, should have brought prices at the pump down.

So what caused the huge spike in oil prices? Take a wild guess. Obviously Goldman had help — there were other players in the physical commodities market — but the root cause had almost everything to do with the behavior of a few powerful actors determined to turn the once-solid market into a speculative casino. Goldman did it by persuading pension funds and other large institutional investors to invest in oil futures — agreeing to buy oil at a certain price on a fixed date. The push transformed oil from a physical commodity, rigidly subject to supply and demand, into something to bet on, like a stock. Between 2003 and 2008, the amount of speculative money in commodities grew from $13 billion to $317 billion, an increase of 2,300 percent. By 2008, a barrel of oil was traded 27 times, on average, before it was actually delivered and consumed.

Goldman had become the chief designer of a giant commodities betting parlor. Its Goldman Sachs Commodities Index — which tracks the prices of 24 major commodities but is overwhelmingly weighted toward oil — became the place where pension funds and insurance companies and other institutional investors could make massive long-term bets on commodity prices. Which was all well and good, except for a couple of things. One was that index speculators are mostly "long only" bettors, who seldom if ever take short positions — meaning they only bet on prices to rise. While this kind of behavior is good for a stock market, it's terrible for commodities, because it continually forces prices upward. "If index speculators took short positions as well as long ones, you'd see them pushing prices both up and down," says Michael Masters, a hedge fund manager who has helped expose the role of investment banks in the manipulation of oil prices. "But they only push prices in one direction: up."

Complicating matters even further was the fact that Goldman itself was cheerleading with all its might for an increase in oil prices. In the beginning of 2008, Arjun Murti, a Goldman analyst, hailed as an "oracle of oil" by The New York Times, predicted a "super spike" in oil prices, forecasting a rise to $200 a barrel. At the time Goldman was heavily invested in oil through its commodities trading subsidiary, J. Aron; it also owned a stake in a major oil refinery in Kansas, where it warehoused the crude it bought and sold.

But it wasn't the consumption of real oil that was driving up prices — it was the trade in paper oil. By the summer of 2008, in fact, commodities speculators had bought and stockpiled enough oil futures to fill 1.1 billion barrels of crude, which meant that speculators owned more future oil on paper than there was real, physical oil stored in all of the country's commercial storage tanks and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve combined. It was a repeat of both the Internet craze and the housing bubble, when Wall Street jacked up present-day profits by selling suckers shares of a fictional fantasy future of endlessly rising prices.

In what was by now a painfully familiar pattern, the oil-commodities melon hit the pavement hard in the summer of 2008, causing a massive loss of wealth; crude prices plunged from $147 to $33. Once again the big losers were ordinary people. The pensioners whose funds invested in this crap got massacred: CalPERS, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, had $1.1 billion in commodities when the crash came. And the damage didn't just come from oil. Soaring food prices driven by the commodities bubble led to catastrophes across the planet, forcing an estimated 100 million people into hunger and sparking food riots throughout the Third World.

That's money out of your pocket, to say nothing of the human suffering that was caused.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405

 

[Door2Dawn]

Apparently OWS is airing a Tv ad.

 

[cooljeanius]

Apparently OWS is airing a Tv ad.

How did they get enough money to do that? Last I heard they only had a few thousand dollars.

 

[LegendofJoe]

The ones who finance the politicians; wall street. I realize that k street has the firms themselves but they originate on wall street.

Wall Street hands over a lot of money to politicians, but they are FAR from the only ones doing it. The Nexus of corporate influence over the federal government resides along K Street, that's why I think the protests should be focused on that location.

 

[Bad_Boy]

How did they get enough money to do that? Last I heard they only had a few thousand dollars.

Well. IIRC, they have raised up over 300k. Of course they spend plenty of it on the different support groups and needed materials (food, sleeping bags, medical supplies, etc). But they could of been saving a bit of it for television presence since the beginning when they knew they weren't getting any.

 

[Zhengi]

I'm actually curious what you're using as an example here.

No, seriously. What countries did this?

China?

 

[Marleyman]

Wall Street hands over a lot of money to politicians, but they are FAR from the only ones doing it. The Nexus of corporate influence over the federal government resides along K Street, that's why I think the protests should be focused on that location.

Financing institutions and big corporations are the main contributors, no?

 

[cooljeanius]

I agree that the protests should be centered more on Washington. The movement should be called Occupy K street, not Occupy Wall Street.

There is an Occupy K Street in DC already though. It's in McPherson Square, and it could use some more people.

 

[kame-sennin]

I'm not going to tell you to vote for Ron Paul, but at least do some research on the one candidate that the media, corporations and our current congress / administration don't want as president. That alone should tell you something about the guy and his proposed policies in regards to government, banks (and the fed) and unregulated corporations.

I'm very familiar with Ron Paul. I'm also familiar with similarly principled leftists like Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, and Ralph Nader. When I said that Obama, McCain, Bush, and Kerry were all taking money from Wall Street, I meant to illustrate the point that our entire government is wholly owned by corporations. Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders are irrelevant. Even if someone like that was elected president, they still would not be able to accomplish anything with a corporate controlled congress and a Supreme Court filled with corporate sympathizers. The point is that it doesn't matter who you vote for. There is no candidate who could separate corporate money from Washington politics.