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[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

CNN just did a little report on Occupy Wall Street. I found it funny how they tried to find the lamest people there to downplay it. CNN exists for Wall Street...

Actually you sound more bitter than someone who found something funny.

 

[Marleyman]

I do remember people being hired as mortgage brokers, and they would COLD CALL people and tell them they could qualify. You know they have phone lists based on economic data right? They would comb neighborhoods looking for people who may have been rejected before, people in bad neighborhoods, apt complexes, they would call them up and offer them a chance at a new home. And guess what? People went for it, believe it or not. The housing boom. Just refinance it. Everyone knew that, everyone heard that lie. Most of us trusted it.

It's not that hyperbolic.

Exactly. I work with them in the online education field right now. Their scummy tactics fit right in here, actually.

 

[dave is ok]

We could have paid the balance of every single homeowner in one of those predatory subprime adjustable rate mortgage and still came nowhere near the trillion dollar plus that the collapse ended up costing us.

Yet it's the public who is at fault. Gotcha

 

[brucewaynegretzky]

Exactly. I work with them in the online education field right now. Their scummy tactics fit right in here, actually.

Um but don't the same principles apply? Whatever happened to caveat emptor? I'm not saying they weren't pushing a shitty product, but people BOUGHT it.

We could have paid the balance of every single homeowner in one of those predatory subprime adjustable rate mortgage and still came nowhere near the trillion dollar plus that the collapse ended up costing us.

Yet it's the public who is at fault. Gotcha

Not entirely obviously, but people are horribly underinformed in the US.

 

[Marleyman]

Um but don't the same principles apply? Whatever happened to caveat emptor? I'm not saying they weren't pushing a shitty product, but people BOUGHT it.

Sure, buyer beware. Most of the blame goes on the lenders who pushed this shit on people who were easy prey. I can't blame the majority of the public for this - are you?

 

[dave is ok]

Um but don't the same principles apply? Whatever happened to caveat emptor? I'm not saying they weren't pushing a shitty product, but people BOUGHT it.

If caveat emptor were the only regulation (as most of the right wish it was) there would be no such thing as fraud. Unfortunately for them, it isn't. Fraud exists and was committed many many times in the years leading up to the collapse.

 

[Enosh]

THIS is why I am all for this protest/rally.

Once again, joke them all you want, at least they are attempting to do something.

the second part is hilarious
Michael Moore threatening to pull his books from Georgia!
oh noes, I am sure they are trembling in fear
(his publisher can't actually do it)

 

[akira28]

Um but don't the same principles apply? Whatever happened to caveat emptor? I'm not saying they weren't pushing a shitty product, but people BOUGHT it.



Not entirely obviously, but people are horribly underinformed in the US.

People used to literally sell shit and people bought it thinking it was hamburger. To be completely fair it was probably ground up rat meat, mystery meat, actual beef, saw dust, clay, and then feces, but still, people BOUGHT it. They didn't tell them it had shit in it though. That's not legal anymore. They wrote a book about it, and eventually we got some laws. Thank god no hipsters were involved though right. What's for lunch?

 

[Deku]

If caveat emptor were the only regulation (as most of the right wish it was) there would be no such thing as fraud. Unfortunately for them, it isn't. Fraud exists and was committed many many times in the years leading up to the collapse.

Fraud by whom against whom?

There's a case about how much the taxpayers should shoulder in terms of bailouts, but what happened was a bunch of people who couldn't pay for their debts being a party to a great property bubble.

A bunch of assumptions were made at the time that made such risks worth taking
1) propety values would keep climbing - so people went out and took cash in lieu of equity from their homes, which is now worth much less while their debts haven't depreciated

2) easy money allowing lenders to seek out the lowest common demoninator of lenders to lend money to for short term brokerage commissions.

3) government policy that saw the US consumer as an endless piggy bank and a imbalanced trading scheme relying on cheap capital from China to finance america's deficits.

I see lots of people to blame here.

 

[brucewaynegretzky]

If caveat emptor were the only regulation (as most of the right wish it was) there would be no such thing as fraud. Unfortunately for them, it isn't. Fraud exists and was committed many many times in the years leading up to the collapse.

Fraud applies to factual misrepresentations. I don't think that's what we're talking about here (in most cases).

I'm not arguing here that what the banks did was correct or that the public deserves most of the blame. I just don't understand why someone can't be in the middle without being some sort of corporate shill.

 

[Wazzim]

How many weeks do you guys give this situation? I say 4 weeks until the country blows up in rage.



Hopefully.

 

[kame-sennin]

That's the point, the person is more likely to exaggerate what occurred, minimize their culpability, and increase the actions of the officers. It's in their best interest. The detail of the man being arrested in this recounting doesn't really go with what the videos show.

I see, you were criticizing me for posting someone's personal account instead of an unbiased article. I feel it's relevant to post first-hand accounts because they're interesting and because most people in this thread won't get the chance to be their in person. Obviously first-person accounts are biased by their very nature, I didn't think that warranted a disclaimer, or even exclusion from the thread.

 

[Deku]

How many weeks do you guys give this situation? I say 4 weeks until the country blows up in rage.



Hopefully.

Country is mostly laughing.

 

[Cmagus]

the second part is hilarious
Michael Moore threatening to pull his books from Georgia!
oh noes, I am sure they are trembling in fear
(his publisher can't actually do it)

His publisher couldn't so he is donating all his sales from Georgia to youth projects in Georgia.They aren't going to tremble in fear but that's not the point.

 

[kame-sennin]

Fraud by whom against whom?

Packaging sub-prime mortgages in with AAA-rated mortgages and selling the entire package as a AAA investment is fraud by banks against investors.

 

[Kevitivity]

This has become one of the most pathetic protests I've followed in recent memory. The sheer ignorance and stupidity of the people involved is quite entertaining... (but not quite as entertaining as the anti-war rallies ANSWER coalition organized during the Bush years)

20,000 protesters turned out to be more like about 100 - and for a cause of some sort... What is that cause btw? Nobody seems to know.

The civil rights movement was so effective because it had a clear, easily communicated cause that was easy to get behind. What the hell are these retarded hipsters in Wall St. protesting? I've asked many people and I get a different answer each time.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

I see, you were criticizing me for posting someone's personal account instead of an unbiased article. I feel it's relevant to post first-hand accounts because they're interesting and because most people in this thread won't get the chance to be their in person. Obviously first-person accounts are biased by their very nature, I didn't think that warranted a disclaimer, or even exclusion from the thread.

I think it's fair to point out it may be inaccurate, especially since some of the video doesn't go with what the person is saying.

 

[kame-sennin]

Since the conversation has moved towards why people are angry at Wall Street in the first place, I think this article by Matt Taibbi is pretty relevant (post taken from my thread about the article):

Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world's wealth — and nobody went to jail. Nobody, that is, except Bernie Madoff, a flamboyant and pathological celebrity con artist, whose victims happened to be other rich and famous people.

The rest of them, all of them, got off. Not a single executive who ran the companies that cooked up and cashed in on the phony financial boom — an industrywide scam that involved the mass sale of mismarked, fraudulent mortgage-backed securities — has ever been convicted. Their names by now are familiar to even the most casual Middle American news consumer: companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. Most of these firms were directly involved in elaborate fraud and theft. Lehman Brothers hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the born-to-lose toxic mortgage deals it was selling. What's more, many of these companies had corporate chieftains whose actions cost investors billions — from AIG derivatives chief Joe Cassano, who assured investors they would not lose even "one dollar" just months before his unit imploded, to the $263 million in compensation that former Lehman chief Dick "The Gorilla" Fuld conveniently failed to disclose. Yet not one of them has faced time behind bars.

Instead, federal regulators and prosecutors have let the banks and finance companies that tried to burn the world economy to the ground get off with carefully orchestrated settlements — whitewash jobs that involve the firms paying pathetically small fines without even being required to admit wrongdoing. To add insult to injury, the people who actually committed the crimes almost never pay the fines themselves; banks caught defrauding their shareholders often use shareholder money to foot the tab of justice. "If the allegations in these settlements are true," says Jed Rakoff, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, "it's management buying its way off cheap, from the pockets of their victims."

That's the way it's supposed to work. But a veritable mountain of evidence indicates that when it comes to Wall Street, the justice system not only sucks at punishing financial criminals, it has actually evolved into a highly effective mechanism for protecting financial criminals. This institutional reality has absolutely nothing to do with politics or ideology — it takes place no matter who's in office or which party's in power. To understand how the machinery functions, you have to start back at least a decade ago, as case after case of financial malfeasance was pursued too slowly or not at all, fumbled by a government bureaucracy that too often is on a first-name basis with its targets. Indeed, the shocking pattern of nonenforcement with regard to Wall Street is so deeply ingrained in Washington that it raises a profound and difficult question about the very nature of our society: whether we have created a class of people whose misdeeds are no longer perceived as crimes, almost no matter what those misdeeds are. The SEC and the Justice Department have evolved into a bizarre species of social surgeon serving this nonjailable class, expert not at administering punishment and justice, but at finding and removing criminal responsibility from the bodies of the accused.

The most amazing noncase in the entire crash — the one that truly defies the most basic notion of justice when it comes to Wall Street supervillains — is the one involving AIG and Joe Cassano, the nebbishy Patient Zero of the financial crisis. As chief of AIGFP, the firm's financial products subsidiary, Cassano repeatedly made public statements in 2007 claiming that his portfolio of mortgage derivatives would suffer "no dollar of loss" — an almost comically obvious misrepresentation. "God couldn't manage a $60 billion real estate portfolio without a single dollar of loss," says Turner, the agency's former chief accountant. "If the SEC can't make a disclosure case against AIG, then they might as well close up shop."

As in the Lehman case, federal prosecutors not only had plenty of evidence against AIG — they also had an eyewitness to Cassano's actions who was prepared to tell all. As an accountant at AIGFP, Joseph St. Denis had a number of run-ins with Cassano during the summer of 2007. At the time, Cassano had already made nearly $500 billion worth of derivative bets that would ultimately blow up, destroy the world's largest insurance company, and trigger the largest government bailout of a single company in U.S. history. He made many fatal mistakes, but chief among them was engaging in contracts that required AIG to post billions of dollars in collateral if there was any downgrade to its credit rating.

A year later, after the crash, St. Denis wrote a letter about his experiences to the House Government Oversight Committee, which was looking into the AIG collapse. He also met with investigators for the government, which was preparing a criminal case against Cassano. But the case never went to court. Last May, the Justice Department confirmed that it would not file charges against executives at AIGFP. Cassano, who has denied any wrongdoing, was reportedly told he was no longer a target.

Shortly after that, Cassano strolled into Washington to testify before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. It was his first public appearance since the crash. He has not had to pay back a single cent out of the hundreds of millions of dollars he earned selling his insane pseudo-insurance policies on subprime mortgage deals. Now, out from under prosecution, he appeared before the FCIC and had the enormous balls to compliment his own business acumen, saying his atom-bomb swaps portfolio was, in retrospect, not that badly constructed. "I think the portfolios are withstanding the test of time," he said.

The Revolving Door isn't just a footnote in financial law enforcement; over the past decade, more than a dozen high-ranking SEC officials have gone on to lucrative jobs at Wall Street banks or white-shoe law firms, where partnerships are worth millions. That makes SEC officials like Paul Berger and Linda Thomsen the equivalent of college basketball stars waiting for their first NBA contract. Are you really going to give up a shot at the Knicks or the Lakers just to find out whether a Wall Street big shot like John Mack was guilty of insider trading? "You take one of these jobs," says Turner, the former chief accountant for the SEC, "and you're fit for life."

But the real fireworks came when Khuzami, the SEC's director of enforcement, talked about a new "cooperation initiative" the agency had recently unveiled, in which executives are being offered incentives to report fraud they have witnessed or committed. From now on, Khuzami said, when corporate lawyers like the ones he was addressing want to know if their Wall Street clients are going to be charged by the Justice Department before deciding whether to come forward, all they have to do is ask the SEC.

"We are going to try to get those individuals answers," Khuzami announced, as to "whether or not there is criminal interest in the case — so that defense counsel can have as much information as possible in deciding whether or not to choose to sign up their client."

All of this paints a disturbing picture of a closed and corrupt system, a timeless circle of friends that virtually guarantees a collegial approach to the policing of high finance. Even before the corruption starts, the state is crippled by economic reality: Since law enforcement on Wall Street requires serious intellectual firepower, the banks seize a huge advantage from the start by hiring away the top talent. Budde, the former Lehman lawyer, says it's well known that all the best legal minds go to the big corporate law firms, while the "bottom 20 percent go to the SEC." Which makes it tough for the agency to track devious legal machinations, like the scheme to hide $263 million of Dick Fuld's compensation.

"It's such a mismatch, it's not even funny," Budde says.

But even beyond that, the system is skewed by the irrepressible pull of riches and power. If talent rises in the SEC or the Justice Department, it sooner or later jumps ship for those fat NBA contracts. Or, conversely, graduates of the big corporate firms take sabbaticals from their rich lifestyles to slum it in government service for a year or two. Many of those appointments are inevitably hand-picked by lifelong stooges for Wall Street like Chuck Schumer, who has accepted $14.6 million in campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other major players in the finance industry, along with their corporate lawyers.

As for President Obama, what is there to be said? Goldman Sachs was his number-one private campaign contributor. He put a Citigroup executive in charge of his economic transition team, and he just named an executive of JP Morgan Chase, the proud owner of $7.7 million in Chase stock, his new chief of staff. "The betrayal that this represents by Obama to everybody is just — we're not ready to believe it," says Budde, a classmate of the president from their Columbia days. "He's really fucking us over like that? Really? That's really a JP Morgan guy, really?"

More at the link:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216

 

[Enron]

His publisher couldn't so he is donating all his sales from Georgia to youth projects in Georgia.They aren't going to tremble in fear but that's not the point.

What was hilarious was Gov. Deal's office response to this.

Brian Robinson, a spokesman for Gov. Nathan Deal, found the filmmaker’s rant amusing.

“We think it’s cute that he thinks anyone in Georgia would buy his book, but if any Georgian does, I’m happy to double the royalties and buy a pack of gum for a charity of Michael Moore’s choice,” Robinson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

 

[dave is ok]

Fraud by whom against whom?

Investment banks -sold securities to investors and then bet against those very same securities because they knew they were going to fail.

Ratings agencies - rated the CDOs, containing mortgages of people that should have never had been loan approved in the first place, as AAA investments - allowing them to be traded to "safe" investments like peoples pensions and 401ks.

Lending banks - massive fraud to get customers they normally would have rejected, even by 2005-2007's ridiculously loose lending requirements. I work in real estate and saw the loan officers doing this daily.

There are more that fall under 'illegal' but not 'fraud' (ignoring capital requirements, over leveraging) but I don't feel like to going into it. On the very rare occasions where a bank is brought in to answer for their financial crimes to the SEC, they pay a fine which amounts to a fraction of what they made from the dirty deals in the first place and are sent on their way. The system is broken, no one is ever jailed for breaking laws and harming millions of lives.

 

[kame-sennin]

I think it's fair to point out it may be inaccurate, especially since some of the video doesn't go with what the person is saying.

Absolutely.

 

[akira28]

I'm not arguing here that what the banks did was correct or that the public deserves most of the blame.

One mo gin. Was what the banks did wrong? Do they deserve more blame for pushing those bad transactions than the public?

The civil rights movement was so effective because it had a clear, easily communicated cause that was easy to get behind. What the hell are these retarded hipsters in Wall St. protesting? I've asked many people and I get a different answer each time.

Bullshit. Spoken like it was read from a book on history. The Civil Rights movement was just so easy to bandwagon and everyone wanted to get behind it right? Instead of threads like this making fun of them they had people throwing bricks and actually just going at them with clubs. This was citizens, not cops. So no, you're wrong. It wasn't easy to get behind and anyone who did deserves to be spoken of for their courage. They started from Day 1 like anyone, just like this protest did. I think a better parallel, try the protests against poverty that MLK tried to get together. They weren't organized, but the people he brought, they were so widely varied that if they had ever gotten off the ground they probably would have changed this country. He was going to march on Washington for the poor whites of the rural South. He was already at the height of his power and had won major victories. He had to go. And so he died.

 

[remnant]

Get back to me when you understand the actual causes of the crash, high tuition and stringent lending and not the conservative propaganda versions.

Hence why this protest is a waste of time with no real solutions. You have no answer to that. All you can do is blame the easiest target, the banks or markets or corporations. Blaming bad public policy would require you to be critical of your government, which you can't do and being critical of the american people, which you can't do.

Bullshit. Spoken like it was read from a book on history. The Civil Rights movement was just easy to bandwagon and everyone wanted to get behind it right? Instead of threads like this making fun of them they had people throwing bricks and actually just going at them with clubs. This was citizens, not cops. So no, you're wrong. It wasn't easy to get behind and anyone who did deserves to be spoken of for their courage. They started from Day 1 like anyone, just like this protest did.

The civil rights movement started with a well coordinated boycott of business and services that discriminated against blacks. It had a specific tangible end goal. Not riding a bus hurts a bus company. What does camping in a fucking park accomplish?

 

[Wazzim]

Country is mostly laughing.

History says that something has to happen on some point in these times, unless the current government has implemented the best propaganda/censoring strategy ever.

Like always: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

My red colored popcorn is ready.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Absolutely.

That's more for what I was going for, vs first person accounts in general.

 

[elsk]

One mo gin. Was what the banks did wrong? Do they deserve more blame for pushing those bad transactions than the public?

Yes, both the banks and the government. They knew people couldn't pay the loans, etc. They just wanted more and easy money.

 

[Slayven]

One mo gin. Was what the banks did wrong? Do they deserve more blame for pushing those bad transactions than the public?



Bullshit. Spoken like it was read from a book on history. The Civil Rights movement was just so easy to bandwagon and everyone wanted to get behind it right? Instead of threads like this making fun of them they had people throwing bricks and actually just going at them with clubs. This was citizens, not cops. So no, you're wrong. It wasn't easy to get behind and anyone who did deserves to be spoken of for their courage. They started from Day 1 like anyone, just like this protest did. I think a better parallel, try the protests against poverty that MLK tried to get together. They weren't organized, but the people he brought, they were so widely varied that if they had ever gotten off the ground they probably would have changed this country. He was going to march on Washington for the poor whites of the rural South. He was already at the height of his power and had won major victories. He had to go. And so he died.

I think he meant easy in the way that the people had a clear idea of what they were fighting for.

 

[dave is ok]

Hence why this protest is a waste of time with no real solutions. You have no answer to that. All you can do is blame the easiest target, the banks or markets or corporations. Blaming bad public policy would require you to be critical of your government, which you can't do and being critical of the american people, which you can't do.

Sure I can. I don't think you should take out loans you can't afford, but many of these people aren't even smart enough to know what an adjustable rate mortgage is. I saw closings where the loan officer explains in very vague terms what the mortgage says and the closing attorney doesn't even speak their language.

As hard you want to believe it, poor people can't make trillion dollar money holes appear.

Just to confirm a suspicion I have, give me your thoughts on the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1970. Was that responsible for the collapse?

 

[Deku]

Packaging sub-prime mortgages in with AAA-rated mortgages and selling the entire package as a AAA investment is fraud by banks against investors.

How is that fraud. The underlying theory is sound. The problem is with the quality of the loans not the fact that it's a subprime mortage.

If you work retail, you know a certain % of your stock is going to be lost from theft, and wear and tear.

You can also treat that as a guaranteed loss. The same concept applies in reverse to the securitized subprime cash payments.

The underlying secuirty is shit, but it's not fraud. And again, the borrower is completely out of the equation in your analysis. That's a total cop out.

 

[Enron]

The Lawrence O'Donnell video posted somewhere in this thread shows a guy being tossed head first into the front of a Volvo.

Oh, you mean this video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMoKsZp5iao

At :42 seconds is where it occurs - the officers try to wrestle the guy down and he TUMBLES towards the front of the Volvo, but doesn't appear to actually hit it and if he did, it was with his back after he'd gone to the ground.

TOTALLY THE SAME THING, HE WAS HURLED HEAD-FIRST INTO THE CAR!

 

[akira28]

Yes, both the banks and the government. They knew people couldn't pay the loans, etc. They just wanted more and easy money.

Well I actually wanted bruce to answer that .

remnant you're acting like the culmination of 20 years of private organization that we all saw on tv and the documentaries wasn't an aggregate of small informal disorganized community organizations and church groups and student groups coming together. You act like MLK way back in 1952-53 left a meeting and suddenly marched on Washington. Didn't happen that way. Give these folks 10 years of momentum and then maybe you'd have an argument.


What does it accomplish? We know they're out there. When we start getting organized to boycot and move our money and close businesses or prevent things from happening, when we start causing trouble, when we start throwing our wooden shoes in the works, it all starts somewhere. Sitting in a park makes it easy to find them. Sends a message too. Wait till they're no longer sitting but acting.

 

[dave is ok]

The underlying secuirty is shit, but it's not fraud. And again, the borrower is completely out of the equation in your analysis. That's a total cop out.

There is no 'borrower' in this situation. The person holding the mortgage doesn't even know his loan was packaged together with some other shit and sold to some European investment firm or whatever, and if the underlying security is shit why should it be rated AAA?

 

[Kevitivity]

Bullshit. Spoken like it was read from a book on history. The Civil Rights movement was just so easy to bandwagon and everyone wanted to get behind it right? Instead of threads like this making fun of them they had people throwing bricks and actually just going at them with clubs. This was citizens, not cops. So no, you're wrong. It wasn't easy to get behind and anyone who did deserves to be spoken of for their courage. They started from Day 1 like anyone, just like this protest did. I think a better parallel, try the protests against poverty that MLK tried to get together. They weren't organized, but the people he brought, they were so widely varied that if they had ever gotten off the ground they probably would have changed this country. He was going to march on Washington for the poor whites of the rural South. He was already at the height of his power and had won major victories. He had to go. And so he died.

I was merely arguing that the civil rights movement was effective. These morons camping out on Wall St. are doing nothing but making themselves look like asshats without a cause.

I take it you have no idea what they're protesting either?

For other people who are entertained by these fools, here's an embarrassing youtube vid of Cornel West's Wall Street Chant... wheres the mace when you need it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H31XN8zgXlI

 

[Wazzim]

How is that fraud. The underlying theory is sound. The problem is with the quality of the loans not the fact that it's a subprime mortage.

If you work retail, you know a certain % of your stock is going to be lost from theft, and wear and tear.

You can also treat that as a guaranteed loss. The same concept applies in reverse to the securitized subprime cash payments.

The underlying secuirty is shit, but it's not fraud. And again, the borrower is completely out of the equation in your analysis. That's a total cop out.

It's still fucked up and only possible by their power on the government. Why would you take the stance of the banks anyway? You have to protect your own group, they won't protect you. Ever.

It's the same with my history teacher, we're discussing the New Deal politics but he still defends the big companies while those tried to undermine every kind of regulation set in place by FDR. I mean seriously? People need to stop living in a dream land and start looking at how we can punch those sneaky old in-suit walking fucks in the face for the shit they've done to the public.

 

[Kevitivity]

I think he meant easy in the way that the people had a clear idea of what they were fighting for.

Bingo!

 

[Marleyman]

Since the conversation has moved towards why people are angry at Wall Street in the first place, I think this article by Matt Taibbi is pretty relevant (post taken from my thread about the article):















More at the link:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216

Taibbi is a fucking beast. He knows his shit and isn't afraid of exposing the elite.

 

[akira28]

Don't help him Slayven. His reasoning for why the Civil Rights movement succeeded still seems bullshitty to me.

 

[kame-sennin]

Oh, you mean this video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMoKsZp5iao

At :42 seconds is where it occurs - the officers try to wrestle the guy down and he TUMBLES towards the front of the Volvo, but doesn't appear to actually hit it and if he did, it was with his back after he'd gone to the ground.

TOTALLY THE SAME THING, HE WAS HURLED HEAD-FIRST INTO THE CAR!

Yes, that's the video I was talking about. I don't know that the officers were intentionally throwing the man against the Volvo, but they were certainly throwing him and he did hit the car. The woman claimed this happened more than once and you said there was no video evidence of this. The Lawrence O'Donnell video seems to back up the woman's claim rather and refute yours. And again, I'll agree that from my perspective, in that particular video, it did not appear that the officer intended to slam the man's head against the car.

Additionally, I'm not sure why your tone comes off as hostile and baiting. I don't think I've been rude to you in this thread, though if I have, I apologize. I think we can discuss the issue without aggressively mocking each other.

That's more for what I was going for, vs first person accounts in general.

And that's a fair point of view to have, but I think first-person accounts are valid and important in and of themselves. I think everyone here knows that they are subject to the witnesses' perception.

 

[dave is ok]

I thought of some more fraud. Banks have robbed state governments of millions by using a company called MERS to trade mortgages between eachother and further obscure who actually holds which note.

 

[Enron]

Yes, that's the video I was talking about. I don't know that the officers were intentionally throwing the man against the Volvo, but they were certainly throwing him and he did hit the car. The woman claimed this happened more than once and you said there was no video evidence of this. The Lawrence O'Donnell video seems to back up the woman's claim rather and refute yours. And I again, I'll agree that from my perspective, in that particular video, it did not appear that the officer intended to slam the man's head against the car.

Additionally, I'm not sure why your tone comes off as hostile and baiting. I don't think I've been rude to you in this thread, though if I have, I apologize. I think we can discuss the issue without aggressively mocking each other.

The claim was "he was thrown head-first" into the car. He doesn't even look to have even HIT the car, merely landed in front of it. So yeah, there's no video evidence of people being thrown into cars on purpose. And there's definitely no evidence of any billy-clubbing of peaceful protesters, either.

This whole thread has been hostile and baiting.

 

[Princess Carl]

The claim was "he was thrown head-first" into the car. He doesn't even look to have even HIT the car, merely landed in front of it. So yeah, there's no video evidence of people being thrown into cars on purpose. And there's definitely no evidence of any billy-clubbing of peaceful protesters, either.

This whole thread has been hostile and baiting.

HES BEING TACKLED FOR NO REASON. COPS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT.

How are you downplaying this? Why?

 

[akira28]

HES BEING TACKLED FOR NO REASON. COPS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT.

How are you downplaying this? Why?

nickquote.

 

[remnant]

Sure I can. I don't think you should take out loans you can't afford, but many of these people aren't even smart enough to know what an adjustable rate mortgage is. I saw closings where the loan officer explains in very vague terms what the mortgage says and the closing attorney doesn't even speak their language.

As hard you want to believe it, poor people can't make trillion dollar money holes appear.

But they can vote for politicians who can, and in our case absolutely did.
Case in point in the 90's Clinton and Bush the first forced Fannie Mae to lower their requirments for homeownership. Hence the real estate price increase that started in 1997. 2 years before Glass-Steagall was repealed.

Bad fucking policy.

Just to confirm a suspicion I have, give me your thoughts on the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1970. Was that responsible for the collapse?

No.

Will you please do some real research instead of acting on suspicions?

 

[Marleyman]

I thought of some more fraud. Banks have robbed state governments of millions by using a company called MERS to trade mortgages between eachother and further obscure who actually holds which note.

The issue with this whole situation is that the majority don't even understand how this shit is happening. They are pissed but don't know what is going on behind the scenes. With other movements things were more clear cut.

 

[kame-sennin]

How is that fraud. The underlying theory is sound. The problem is with the quality of the loans not the fact that it's a subprime mortage.

If you work retail, you know a certain % of your stock is going to be lost from theft, and wear and tear.

You can also treat that as a guaranteed loss. The same concept applies in reverse to the securitized subprime cash payments.

The underlying secuirty is shit, but it's not fraud. And again, the borrower is completely out of the equation in your analysis. That's a total cop out.

Another poster addressed this, but I want to clarify. My original post was not as clear as it should have been. The reason why this was fraud was because bankers knew many of the mortgages were not going to be repaid. We know they knew this because they turned around and bet against those same mortgages. Selling an investor a package of mortgages, claiming that they are AAA-rated investments while knowing that those homeowners would default is fraud.

 

[ToxicAdam]

The interesting thing about Wall Street and their lobbying of government (and the economic collapse that resulted) is that organization or conspiracy is actually not necessary. All parties involved, Wall Street investors and Washington politicians, are acting independently in their own self-interests. Individual investors will constantly push against regulations in order to turn a profit, and Washington politicians will consistently deregulated in order to gain campaign funds from Wall Street (as well as trying to appear pro-business, a major factor during the Clinton administration). No one planned for things to go the way they did, but when Wall Street lobbyists saw that the government was willing to remove certain regulations, they were bound to push for more deregulation. It's a machine without a brain. These protests are necessary to get that machine under control.
?

Well, that's exactly how I feel. I just bristle when certain people use this coded conspiracy lingo to create this paradigm (us versus them) that doesn't really exist.

 

[Wazzim]

Well, that's exactly how I feel. I just bristle when certain people use this coded conspiracy lingo to create this paradigm (us versus them) that doesn't really exist.

But he just explained it does...? I guess it just is how you fit it in your world view.

 

[dave is ok]

But they can vote for politicians who can, and in our case absolutely did.
Case in point in the 90's Clinton and Bush the first forced Fannie Mae to lower their requirments for homeownership. Hence the real estate price increase that started in 1997. 2 years before Glass-Steagall was repealed.

You do realize that Fannie and Freddie didn't get hit as hard as other subprime lenders because of federal regulations saying they couldn't take certain risks that other banks did?

To say that this collapse happened because of a Fannie and Freddie taking especially risky loans only works when the other banks weren't, which wasn't the case.

 

[kame-sennin]

The claim was "he was thrown head-first" into the car. He doesn't even look to have even HIT the car, merely landed in front of it. So yeah, there's no video evidence of people being thrown into cars on purpose. And there's definitely no evidence of any billy-clubbing of peaceful protesters, either.

It looked to me like his head bounced against the bumper. It's not a clear video, so there are going to be differing interpretations, and that's ok. And I of course agree that none of the videos posted show anyone being hit with a billy club. But I've only seen a small handful of videos in this thread, I doubt that selection represents all that's available. Further, the protest is still underway, so I imagine more videos will be uploaded in the coming weeks. Having said that, we certainly can not verify the woman's claim until we see video evidence.

This whole thread has been hostile and baiting.

Yea, that's unfortunate. I'm trying not to participate in that and I hope you're willing to do the same.

Well, that's exactly how I feel. I just bristle when certain people use this coded conspiracy lingo to create this paradigm (us versus them) that doesn't really exist.

I think that dynamic has causes. The first being the fact that Wall Street has completely co-opted the federal government. Wall Street investors may not be intentionally waging class warfare on the rest of society, but they have removed the means by which the citizenry can protect itself from Wall Street maleficence. When people can not convince the government to regulate Wall Street because nearly every member of both parties is financially beholden to them, it's going to create an adversarial sentiment. This is compounded by pundits and politicians who are in fact waging a PR war against the poor. So while it's true that there is no organization to the class conflicts that are occurring, the effects of formal class warfare are being felt. To paraphrase Warren Buffet, there was a class war, and the middle class lost.

 

[Enron]

HES BEING TACKLED FOR NO REASON. COPS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT.

How are you downplaying this? Why?

The guy being tackled is the bandana-guy from all the photos and the other videos. He ran in there to assist or film the guy in the street that the police were cuffing. He got RIGHT UP on and behind the police after being told to stand back. Then as the police push him away, he lunges forward and puts his hands on the cop. All of this happens starting at :38 seconds in.

Did you even watch the video? Or is this a case of seeing only what you want to see?