this QFT If the tea party really believed what they say they do, they would be standing with OWS. They were never a true movement of what Americans really cared about.
It's not funny, it's stupid. Cars aren't made by Ford, they're made by people who work at Ford. Ford is just the name that gets stamped on it at the end.
The photo above is silly. I don't think that many of us has problems with "corporations" as a concept. A "corporation" is simply a business entity created under the law (for the purpose of permitting people to invest in a business while limiting their personal liability). This can be anything from GM and Goldman Sachs to your local grocery store. Now there might be some radicals who think this legal concept should cease to exist, thought I doubt there are many of think this way. People are protesting about the way certain specific corporate entities and their executives have acted. People are also protesting about the excessive influences that corporations/executives have on the government and the kind of privileges they have been able to extract as a result (tax breaks, subsidies, favorable government contracts to, for example, run prisons, etc.). I don't think people have a problem with Ford making cars, Schick making razors, Apple making the iWhatevers, or their local bicycle shop assembling and selling bicycles. I also don't think people have problem with corporate entities (be they corporations, partenerships, LLCs) and individuals becoming rich-- nobody is out picketing Google or Microsoft offices or Steve Jobs' home because they've been profitable. They are occupying Wall Street because of perceived abuse by certain corporate entities that are part of the "Wall Street" world of speculative finance (whether or not they are still physically located on Wall Street or not... many are now located in Midtown Manhattan).
You can almost smell the fear. Sounds like some of the same type of right wing babble percolating when it became obvious that Obama would be the Dem nominee in 2008.
There's more than some truth to that, it is the truth. The banks laundered drug money, created deceitful bubbles, and stole from pensions by selling them useless s*** knowingly---and the executives, and traders who were responsible for it all left with their heads held high, and their bonuses intact. Hell, I can't even believe the banks have the balls to try to challenge Frank-Dodd, that watered down piece of political posturing. If FDR were still around, he'd have slapped them to hell and back by now.
I haven't seen a single member of Occupy Wall Street articulate anything about speculative financial abuses. Capitalism has a mechanism for handling risky behavior, it's called going out of business and reallocation or resources. Capitalism has a mechanism for handling banks that give bad advice (intentional or unintentional). It's called not investing with banks that have a reputation for bad advice (or one could sue for fraud if the bank was not living up to contractual obligations). It's government that socializes risk, in the form of bailouts, subsidies, guaranteed loans, encouragement of lower lending standards, quantitative easing, artificially low interest rates. All endorsed and implemented by Obama (and Bush). Banks certainly encourage and endorse these policies, but they don't create/impose them. They simply petition the government and act in the best interest of their shareholders. What bank/banks were laundering drug money? Whatever deficit bubbles banks created was liability largely assumed by the taxpayer thanks to government policy. What banks stole pensions? Knowingly selling toxic assets and misrepresenting their value is a legitimate legal complaint. But how did the banks end up with all those toxic assets in the first place? Could it not be artificially low interest rates and socialization of risk?
feel sorry for museum security guards having to deal with this <iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Wo1K98Jr4jo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> scene straight out of The Walking Dead
Did you miss the news on that bail-out thing? It was pretty big back in 2008. Maybe they didn't report about it in the Liberty University school paper.
Besides the bailouts we are also seeing companies that have performed very poorly while still paying exorbitant bonuses to executives. In many cases while the company might be in trouble the executives that put them there are still making out fairly well.
The exercise of free assembly and free speech will often inconvenience people. You don't think Tea Party rallies and marches didn't inconvenience people by blocking off traffic or diverting police resources?
Also I stopped by the Occupy MN protest yesterday and it was very peaceful and law abiding. There were many police present but there appeared to be no friction at all between police and protestors. It also seemed well run with food distribution and even people going around and picking up trash. I will note that the MN one is relatively small compared to NY and other places so I can't say its typical but just my own experience. I might stop by again today and will post some pics when I can.
An army of krugmans: http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg741/scaled.php?tn=0&server=741&filename=3mkok.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=640
than you arent paying attention. why did you put bush in parentheses? he is just as responsible as obama, if not more so. you really arent paying attention, are you?
The risks and consequences of a company, especially the big banks, going bust are already "socialized" -- they affect people other than the shareholders and execs of the company. Remember the one big financial firm that was not bailed out? Lehman Bros is a big cluster**** costing a ton in attorneys fees alone and affecting everyone from pension funds to municipalities to other banks Letting much of the financial sector fail would have had much bigger consequences. The BS about just letting them fail, while satisfying to shout, just don't fly in the real world.
That photo is not "real" and also not a "hoax", it's an artist's conception of "virtual turnout" completed in mid-September, long before Occupy Wall Street became a nationwide presence. Explained by the artist here: http://scottlickstein.com/news/occupywallstreet.html
If banks run their businesses like crack addicts, and basically run up risk just because they can, with no regard for country or company, then I can see no better reason than that to advocate for stronger regulation. I mean, you're basically echoing the Greenspan apology---"I thought banks would run their businesses in their own long-term interests (and our own), but I was drastically wrong." Instead of blaming the banks themselves though, you're blaming the government, which is a bit like blaming the doctor for the disease, rather than the patient who trekked naked through Siberia for a week. The government never forced banks to have leverage ratios of 30:1. The government stayed the hell away from credit-default swaps and other derivatives, even if they essentially became a $700 trillion casino, and ultimately triggered the fall of the system in 2008. The government never told banks to pay their executives for return, rather than risk-adjusted return. Basically, even under your own theory, the whole shadow banking system is f**ked, because they have a bad business model that responds to incentives like a hedgehog on speed. You know which system works? The strongly regulated depository system. Too bad the two are now intertwined with the repeal of Glass-Stegall, which is yet another angle where government non-intervention is a form of malign neglect. Regulate derivatives. Increase leverage requirements, and capital requirements. Implement executive clawback clauses. Separate the shadow banking system from the deposits system, and if the market can do us all the favor of slowly choking the bad banking models (i.e the unregulated children---Goldman comes to mind foremost) to death, then hoorah.
the times they are a changin' Spoiler <iframe width="1280" height="720" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4QTfNEDgusQ?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
