Occupy Wall Street Protests Go Global 944
Hugh Pickens writes "Tens of thousands of people around the world took to the streets Saturday to reiterate their anger at the global financial system, corporate greed and government cutbacks, with rallies held in more than 900 cities in Europe, Africa and Asia. 'United in one voice, we will let politicians, and the financial elites they serve, know it is up to us, the people, to decide our future,' said organizers of the global demonstration. The demonstrations by the disaffected coincided with the Group of 20 meeting in Paris, where finance ministers and central bankers from major economies were holding talks on the debt and deficit crises afflicting many Western countries. Crowds around the world were largely peaceful, but the demonstration in Rome turned violent as clashes in the Italian capital left dozens injured, including several police officers. In London, WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange made a dramatic appearance, bursting through the police lines just after 2:30pm, accompanied by scores of supporters. He climbed the cathedral steps near St. Paul's to condemn 'greed' and 'corruption,' and attacked the City of London, accusing its financiers of money laundering and tax avoidance."
Quick Hitsory Lesson (Score:5, Interesting)
Only around 20% of the population were sided against the king during the time America was being formed.
Why is that relevant? Well it just means that it takes a lot less people than you think to get things rolling.
Re:Quick Hitsory Lesson (Score:4, Interesting)
But it takes even fewer people to keep the status quo. Less than 5% of the population of Nazi Germany were die-hard Nazis.
Re:Quick Hitsory Lesson (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
They also had to waste a lot of Tories and chase away the rest.
No bad thing but a small barrier nonetheless.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm going to pretend you didn't just compare the founding fathers to these hacky-sacking douchebags.
why? founding fathers were hacky-sacking douchebags, and terrorists!
Excellent article on what's wrong (Score:5, Informative)
After reading this article http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10 [businessinsider.com] and seeing Inside Job http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk [youtube.com] I am tempted to join them!
Re:Excellent article on what's wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise, just throw your money down a rabbit hole.
Re:Excellent article on what's wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are lower or middle class and ever have any hope of enjoying life when you are of retiring age, you better join them.
Why exactly is that? Sitting around in a park won't change anything. In the US, we have a perfectly functional system for overthrowing the government on a periodic basis: voting. You want *actual* change, then actively work to vote out the current regime. That generally means doing your part to convince at least your family and friends of your position. Few if any will be convinced to change their vote just because some people are camped out near Wall Street, and the politicians will ignore you unless you actually threaten their ability to be re-elected (see original point).
Re:Excellent article on what's wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Because even though Congress has an approval rating of less than 20%, it is always all the OTHER members who are causing the problem. Not MY Congressman/Senator. At least, that seems to be the way the voting goes.
The deck is stacked in favor of incumbents. In both Houses -- at least in the United States -- power comes from which committees you are on or Chair. Those are divvied up by seniority. The longer you are in, the more power you have.
That is a big selling point during a campaign. "Sure, I'm scum. But I bring home the bacon and I've been in long enough that I get my voice -- your voice -- heard. Vote me out and it'll take decades before any real projects come back to this district."
Re: (Score:3)
The *why* wasn't my point. I was rejecting the implication that the only way to fix this is to camp out in a park. ("If you are lower or middle class and ever have any hope of enjoying life when you are of retiring age, you better join them.") My point is that they only way to fix this (at least, within our current legal framework) is to fix the vote. Protests *might* help with that, but saying that not joining in the protest means you have no hope of enjoying life at retirement age is nonsense.
Re:Excellent article on what's wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
with such a low uid you should know better.
voting is broken in the US. coke or pepsi? yeah, real choice.
sorry dude but you are signing the song that keeps us dumb. 'vote vote vote! for change'. bullshit. a guy in a suit and a guy in a suit are NOT your friends, now.
voting is broken.
what's the next thing up from that? I forget.
Re:Excellent article on what's wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
voting is broken.
I argue that it's the PEOPLE who are irreparably broken, and voting is functioning just fine. We get exactly what we vote for; no one gets installed into office who wasn't voted in, and no one stays in office who has been voted out.
That said, let's allow for the premise that I'm some idiot who doesn't understand the issues. What, then is the goal of these sorts of protests? Outside of voting, the only other way to really change government is a violent overthrow. That won't work in this case; if people won't vote in their own self-interests, they sure as hell won't FIGHT in their own self-interests.
To me, the only way to fix this mess is changing the way people vote. It's a damn difficult proposition; that's why we're in the mess we're in! If it were easy to change, it would already have been done.
You *might* be able to convince me in some way that the awareness the protesters raise will change how we spend and invest our money, thus reducing corporate America's influence on politics. But I think you'll have a far more difficult time convincing people to vote differently than change their cushy lifestyles. (I loves me my Starbucks...)
So what, then? What, aside from pushing people to voting or violent overthrow, is the point? I ask this truly seeking enlightenment, because you seem to see something that I don't.
with such a low uid you should know better.
Eh, a low uid doesn't in any way convey intelligence or experience; it just means that I needed to sign up in order to customize my slashboxes.
Re:Excellent article on what's wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea that you can only change things by voting or by violent overthrow is simplistic. It is also possible to influence how people vote. For example: Nelson Mandela started out with the idea of violent overthrow of govt. (since voting was not a real option), then he moved on to sitting in his jail cell and protesting until the ruling class gave up. And that caused real change -- S. Africa has not had a serious race riot or violence because their leader renounced it. Or in the case of Gandhi, he pretty much convinced his nation (which early on did not care) that the British were a bad idea by repeatedly getting beaten up or thrown in jail for non-violent protests.
This is the age old idea of marketing -- you have to convince the "user" that he needs your product even if the user would not have picked it out from a self-made list of "needs". I believe sitting around in a park may convince some of the electorate that some sort of change is required.
Re:Excellent article on what's wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Financial transaction tax
accountability for financial executives
closing of corporate tax loopholes
To name just a few, now tell me who I should vote for that will pass these measures...
On the other hand, mass protests send a clear message about what people want, and pressures individual congressional and senatorial candidates to address those concerns while on the campaign trail. Either they will lie, or they will support such measures. Claiming that voting is the only democratic duty of the citizen, and/or the only way he/she can cause change, is dead wrong, you have to shift the debate towards the questions that matter to you, you have to make it clear that the candidate who promises the most things you want will get your vote. The fact that the US has a 2 (1.2) party system makes this especially difficult as the democrats can easily say "well the republicans are going to make more tax loopholes, so you have no choice but to vote for us and we don't promise to close any". In countries with a parliamentary system however, protesting and demonstrating is a clear civic duty and has a significant effect on politics.
Re:Excellent article on what's wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't think that The US, Great Britain etc are safe, we have big issues our selves.
Re:Excellent article on what's wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
I recommend reading the work of Steve Keen, an academic economist who went public in 2005 predicting this crisis. He's just published his second edition of "Debunking Economics" a text that systematically destroys the very foundations of "neoclassical" economics. He's also been working on dynamic modelling of the economy that has the potential to actually be useful.
Our lives are going to suck until all the debt our banks created is destroyed. There's no way we can afford to pay it all back, that would cripple the global economy for the next 30 years. Instead these debts should simply be abolished.
Unfortunately our governments don't have the will, or the know how, to actually fix things.
Facebook page of the ocw (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyWallSt [facebook.com]
Occupy Wall Street Protests Go Global (Score:5, Informative)
What's the alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd love to see something better, but the rhetoric sounds a WHOLE lot like the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. How'd that work out?
In fact, as often as it's been tried, none of [wikipedia.org] them have [wikipedia.org] worked out [wikipedia.org].
Listen, I understand that you're mad, but you have to provide a solid alternative. Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, and no matter how badly you want something to not be so, still it remains. These revolutions have a history of plunging their respective people into the dark ages.
Re:What's the alternative? (Score:4, Insightful)
you have to provide a solid alternative.
Get the corporate money and lobbyists out of Government. Return democracy to the 99%.
Re:What's the alternative? (Score:5, Interesting)
Stop the fear mongering. The protesters simply want to return to sanity. Between the New Deal and the beginning of Voodoo Economics capital was used to produce actual goods instead of financial bubbles. Why not simply return that? Other main concerns are the inefficient privatized health-care and education system. Changing to a european style public system would solve this. Finally, most of the American infrastructure is crumbling while people are unemployed, why not fix two problems at the same time?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that we need to return to sanity. Perhaps protests like these are a first step, but if I listen to the solutions proposed by some of these people, I thi
Re:What's the alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not true. Here in my country the "Occupy .+ street" event was lead by the local communist party, and among the statements some participants said that that protest was organized because "capitalism was dead, and we are here to bury it". The protest isn't a big homogeneous mass, and there are established political organizations which are opportunistically trying to take advantage of this to impose their agenda. So, although it is in everyone's best interests to jumpstart some change, we should pay attention to what change some want to impose. After all, the change they are trying to impose may not be in our best interests.
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Bullshit. What we have is too much fake money. There are plenty of resources to go around with our current population, we just need to use it.
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Not quite. Oil production, for instance, has been basically flat for years, while the prices are still around record high levels. Most oil fields in the world are past their peak, and are facing declining production, some quite rapidly.
In the mean time, demand from Asia is rising rapidly, as well as internal consumption from OPEC countries. The monetary problems the western world is facing are just a symptom.
Re:What's the alternative? (Score:5, Interesting)
A political system where corporations do not have a seat at the table? A justice system where we get to see the rich and powerful do the perp walk more often? A monetary system that doesn't foster bubbles?
Re:What's the alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
What does using an iPhone have to do with protesting inappropriate wages/bonuses/other exploitations?
They're protesting abuse, not the production of consumer goods o.O
Re:What's the alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your accusations regarding the protesters' hygiene habits and the crass lack of consideration for others that you are exhibiting does absolutely nothing to refute the point which is being made by these protests. In fact, the only thing you are accomplishing is to portray yourself as a modern-day version of Archie Bunker, with all the considerations that goes for his intelligence and insight on social affairs.
Regarding your meaningless abuse of the worn-out cliché of "OMG THEY USE IPHONES!!1!1!ONE!", just because someone is against the racketeering and ponzi schemes that defines the financial institution, along with all the corruption and manipulation of the democratic process, it doesn't mean that everyone should suddenly avoid using any tool at their disposal, go Luddite and protest wearing nothing but something they built out of hemp and straw. the civil rights movement also wasn't a hypocrite for using the telephone system, no matter ho big Ma' Bell was.
So, your pathetic attacks on the protesters only goes to show how full of blind hate you have become, and how you are letting your stereotypical bigotry cloud your judgement.
Well, I can see how the government and corporations will do their best to derail this movement, but I seriously doubt that "the bulk of the populace will be against you". Only the useful idiots among us, which includes the little archie bunkers such as yourself, will believe that violent suppression of a political movement does anyone any good, let alone be compatible with a democratic system of government. But in order to do that, you first need to explicitly and blatantly violate your countrymen's rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and even freedom of petition. That means that in order to enact your "violent" opposition of a political movement you first will have to violate the very core of what defines your country. To put it in simple terms for you to understand, the actions you are suggesting are blatantly un-american, and against everything your country stands for.
So, guess who is screwing up your country, mr Bunker?
Re:What's the alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
How abut charging bankers with the crimes they have committed.
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My idea was to not give them free tax-payer money to begin with, and let them starve to death. That was the free-market solution, and we should have tried that first.
Re:What's the alternative? (Score:4, Interesting)
Nobody is even looking for the crimes so of course they will never be found. In the S&L crisis, 1000 FBI agents investigated banking fraud and 1000 bankers went to jail. The current meltdown 40x the size of the S&L crisis, there are 120 agents spread out over the country. Just going after Enron took 100 investigators, so 2 or 3 in each state isn't going to accomplish anything at all.
You should hear William Black, top litigation director in the S&L crisis -- not even a hint of hippie: http://www.financialsense.com/financial-sense-newshour/guest-expert/2011/09/14/william-k-black-phd/why-nobody-went-to-jail-during-the-credit-crisis [financialsense.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the outlines of a convincing alternative are coming into view.
The sources of the worlds current problems are complicated and messy. But there are two big themes.
One is that democracy increasingly feels undemocratic, a hobsons choice between two nearly identical sets of alternatives. Party democracy was for the longest time the only reasonable way of doing things, but modern technology offers us the potential for something better, namely delegated voting [google.com]. By allowing people to automatically delegate
Re:What's the alternative? (Score:4, Interesting)
I won't say the 70s and 80s of the past century didn't have their own problems but at least in Europe we all had a chance to a decent life without a hazy group of top brass manipulating politics and thus legislation trying to keep it all to themselves.
I'd say it the other way around (Score:5, Informative)
Spanish protests go global. Spanished followed the Arab Srping, then there were protests in many cities in Europe, then Israel, then it was the US, and now the whole world. Don't be that stupid centered.
Re:I'd say it the other way around (Score:5, Insightful)
That what I was thinking. The indignados who occupied Sol on the 15th of May didn't choose to protest on the 15th of October because of something which started in New York in September.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Protests started in Greece earlier than in Spain. Not to mention Iceland.
In fact the US are just the last ones joining this global movement. But be welcome, fellows!
Re:I'd say it the other way around (Score:4, Informative)
Umm, yes. To say that it is the US movement that went global is indeed a bit US-centric.
But, while the indignados movement is one of the strongest and a great inspiration for the rest of the world, Greece (May 2010), Tunisia (Oct 2010), Libya & Baharain (Feb 2011), Chile (May 2011), and probably a lot others I don't remember, started sooner. "World 2011 (201X?) protests" would be a better label by now.
Why aren't they really occupying Wall Street? (Score:3)
Years of mistaken priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
I think 20 years of skewing the system to favor the wealthy while neglecting the majority is finally starting to sink in. It's not that people can't be rich, that there is anything wrong with being rich, or that there is something wrong with capitalism generally. In principle these things are all fine. It is the way that it has been twisted so that every time an economic issue comes up, the majority of people end up paying (bailouts, wage cuts, etc.) while the people at the top manage to skim off an ever-widening fraction. Regular wages barely keep up with inflation or even decline. We're told companies have to remain competitive, which is true, but if that's the case then why have CEO salaries climbed *far* in excess of inflation over the last 2 decades whether there's an upturn in the economy or a downturn? Meanwhile there is a race to the bottom in terms of corporate taxes world-wide, with countries like Ireland luring companies there with exceptionally low rates, then practically going bankrupt the moment there is an economic downturn. Personal taxes go down, but it's a game where the very wealthy get theirs reduced far more than the average Joe. Between corporate tax decreases and disproportionate tax cuts or tax systems that favor the wealthy (capital gains), the middle and lower class ends up shouldering an ever-larger fraction of the total tax burden to run government services, which get cut anyway. Everyone is expected to tolerate "austerity" measures due to a screwed-up financial system that wasn't their fault. Governments cut taxes before paying down debts when times are good (you're supposed to run a surplus in the good times to get rid of the debts so you are ready for the next economic cycle instead of hitting borrowing limits, and so you aren't stealing money from the next generation). The list of grievances is long.
Look, I like capitalism. Like democracy, it's the least-bad economic system that I think we have. But the simple fact is, this was a grand experiment in "trickle-down" economics. Early on, the results were kind of fuzzy, but the result is now becoming clear to everyone: you can't shaft the majority of workers for a generation and expect that things are going to be fine economically. You also can't say you are running a democracy while favoring the wealthy at every possible opportunity. You can't let money buy such strong influence in politics that ordinary people start believing their vote is worthless. You can't do these things for so long and expect that the system is going to remain sustainable.
Unless the rich and powerful eventually want to live in medieval-style castles to keep the common peasants out, they're going to have to realize that they need to pay more into the society that they live in, and focus a little less on their own individual wealth. They need to care more about the future of society as a whole, and bring things back to a more sustainable, balanced system like we used to have in western democracies and economies. This is the wake-up call. Heed it, like a democracy is supposed to do when its people speak up, and things will be okay. Ignore it at your peril.
Re: (Score:3)
."that there is anything wrong with being rich, or that there is something wrong with capitalism generally..."
Capitalism naturally leads to this outcome because there is no check on how much you can accumulate and no democratic control over pricing and resources. There is no ideal capitalism that has existed in some fairy fairy land in your head.
This is the natural outcome of capitalism _in the real world_ the evidence is more then abundant.
Every Continent, Except Antarctica (Score:5, Funny)
What do the penguins know that the rest of us don't?
Daniel Shay, anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone else reminded of Shay's Rebellion? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays'_Rebellion [wikipedia.org]
Damned Wall Street 1% (Score:5, Funny)
Terra currency (Score:4, Interesting)
Slightly on topic: Does anyone here have any opinion over the Terra - a common world currency that is based on the top 10 or so produce of the world (gold, corn, oil etc.), and so is much more stable and less prone to inflation. I saw it a couple of days ago, and I can't help but feel it would save trillions in efficiency and help benefit the world.
Whitepaper here:
http://www.terratrc.org/PDF/Terra_WhitePaper_2.27.04.pdf [terratrc.org]
Someone needs to organize these guys (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been watching these protests, interested in seeing what might come out of them. Unfortunately, no one has stepped out and tried to distill all the chaos down to simple talking points that the masses can understand. Left-wing protestors have a much higher barrier to overcome to be taken seriously. The right wing pundits, Tea Party guys, etc. seem to understand this and keep their rantings simple. They appeal to a wide swath of the country by doing that -- it's easy to convince a plumber that the Evil Government is preventing them from becoming a hugely successful entrepreneur because they're "stealing" his tax dollars. That's where I think a lot of the non-rich right wingers have their thinking misplaced -- they're inadvertently supporting business owners who turn around and make average peoples' lives miserable.
My take on this whole thing is as follows. I don't want communism, anarchy or the guillotining of investment bankers. What I do want is the social contract that companies used to have with their workers put back in place. The world is going to get even more divisive as automation and cheap labor start taking away all those nice safe service jobs. I like the model of Germany and the Scandinavian countries. There are plenty of business owners in those countries who are successful and get rich, but they seem to have a perspective and deal with the burden of paying taxes to support the rest of society. This is similar to the 50s-style social contracts many employers had -- hard work and loyalty were rewarded with a commensurate income ladder, paid health insurance, and paid retirement.
Think about it this way -- you're probably well-educated, worked hard to get where you are, and most people have health insurance, a nice stable job, good income and a few possessions. What makes you think that businesses are always going to need network administrators, Java programmers and other IT people? We're already seeing evidence that businesses would rather deal with sub-par service and skeleton staffs...and most people are a couple of paychecks away from being totally broke short of their retirement funds.
I see why everyone's mad at Wall Street though -- a lot of the reason that social contract went away in the first place is a constant demand for corporate earnings regardless of economic conditions.
If I were leading this thing, I think my simple, Tea Party-style talking points would be as follows:
1. Make everyone pay their fair share of taxes. Don't fall for executives' scare tactics about moving to China -- they're going to do that anyway.
2. To ensure this tax money gets spent wisely, limit corporate influence on the political system. It's amazing how quickly universal health insurance could be funded once some of these tax loopholes are removed.
3. Reduce the hyper-focus on the financial markets. Get individual retirement investors out of the market and into something safer like a pension or annuity. Let average people have a stable retirement, but encourage investment on their own if they want. Let companies breathe for a couple of quarters so they can actually plow money back into things that will produce results further down the road.
These things would resonate with average Americans, and it would be very hard for the right wing pundits to call me a dirty hippie if I came to the table with a good set of arguments.
They're getting organized (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been watching these protests, interested in seeing what might come out of them. Unfortunately, no one has stepped out and tried to distill all the chaos down to simple talking points that the masses can understand.
The Occupy Wall Street demands are starting to focus. [occupywallst.org] They're all quite reasonable. This is a revolutionary movement that wants to pass HR 1489, the "Return to Prudent Banking Act". That's something that real conservatives ought to be supporting. It's about returning to the system that worked from 1933 to 1999, where banks had to stay out of the stock market and brokerages couldn't accept deposits. This separation prevented trouble on Wall Street from taking down banks.
The Occupy Wall Street movement wants the Department of Justice to get tough on crime on Wall Street. That, too, is completely in line with conservative tradition. They want a tougher Securities and Exchange Commission and restrictions on campaign spending. None of this is even slightly radical.
Everything on that list would have been supported by President Eisenhower, arguably the best Republican president in the last century. (Eisenhower delivered peace and prosperity while facing down the Soviet threat, which was quite real back then. He made it look easy; he'd often knock off around 3PM and go play golf. Of course, he'd already been in charge of winning WWII in Europe; compared to that, the presidency was a vacation. His greatest skill was that he could pick the right subordinate for the job and keep them on mission. He managed both Patton and Montgomery effectively during WWII.)
The Republicans have lost their way. (Look at the collection of losers and weirdos running for the Republican presidential nomination.) Republican moderates should be supporting Occupy Wall Street.
Political systems worldwide. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Political systems worldwide. (Score:4, Interesting)
"Why is there no political system anywhere where the campaigns are funded by a flat levy, and ALL levels of government have equal elections where union and private donations, as well as politician's OWN FINANCES are banned from participating?"
There are. France [loc.gov] runs elections that way. "Campaign finance is strictly regulated. All forms of paid commercial advertisements through the press or by any audiovisual means are prohibited during the three months preceding the election. Instead, political advertisements are aired free of charge on an equal basis for all of the candidates on national television channels and radio stations during the official campaign."
It really works that way. French campaigns are short and intense. I've been in Paris for one. The official poster boards go up in sets, one board for each candidate, and the candidates poster boards go on them. The minor and major candidates get equal billing. Everybody makes their pitch on TV in their allotted time slots, and it's discussed to death in Le Monde and ranted about in Libe. Then the citizens vote. France uses a two-round presidential election; if nobody gets an absolute majority on round 1, there's a runoff two weeks later.
Wall Street Should Be Afraid (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Wall Street Should Be Afraid (Score:5, Funny)
At least we're not afraid of paragraphs.
Break up the banks (Score:4, Insightful)
Those banks that are "too big to fail" need to be split into smaller pieces that do not represent a systematic threat.
The government has split up AT&T in the 1970s, Standard Oil before that and had anti monopoly laws in place that should be used to prevent another bailout.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is about our parents, our grandparents, and our future. Our grandparents and parents because their retirement disappeared when bankers toying with other peoples money failed.
Us because, as it stands now...we have no guaranteed retirement plan. At any time any idiot can do the exact same thing and take away our retirement.
Companies are gouging the consumer, stealing from their employees, and then asking them to pay for their own expensive healthcare.
Not only that, but these same companies are claiming no one wants to work for them and asking for overseas employees.
This world that has been created by the Corporations has put enough pressure on the lower and middle class. It is time, once again, to tell them "we are tired and we aint gunna take it no more".
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I see your point about Freddie and Fanny, government backing allows people to go to college, which means more educated people and more higher paying jobs. Of course this leaves a lull in the service industry, because those that went to college cant afford to work for minimum wage while paying off college loans.
Good intentions, and an attempt to level the playing field has yielded an educated country promised the dream only to be slapped in the face.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Informative)
government backing allows people to go to college, which means more educated people and more higher paying jobs. Of course this leaves a lull in the service industry
In the UK, we have the opposite problem. We have scores of university graduates (the majority with 'proper' degrees, not just dross like 'hairdressing' and the like), and almost no white collar jobs outside the banking sector. When there are multiple university graduates competing for a part-time job at the local supermarket, something is horribly wrong.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:4, Insightful)
"When there are multiple university graduates competing for a part-time job at the local supermarket, something is horribly wrong."
I resemble this comment. Sadly.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Insightful)
If that's what you think, then you're packed full of shit and completely out of touch with reality.
The real reason there are no young EEs in the UK and America is because you older fools shipped off all of the entry-level jobs to India and China. Thus the students who do study EE in college and university graduate, but then find that they can't get any sort of a job in the UK or America because they need at least 5 years of on-the-job experience even to be considered for an interview. They don't even have the chance to gain that experience at all, even those who would gladly work 18 hours days for that whole period of time. So they move on to other endeavors, often in fields totally unrelated to EE.
You older guys can't have it both ways. You can't cut costs by handing off the simpler work to third-worlders, but still expect there to be American- and UK-born/trained EEs ready to take your places.
Holy non-sequitur, Batman? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because you can make a lot of money doing something doesn't mean a degree in it isn't a Mickey Mouse qualification.
I mean, if there was such a thing as a degree in kicking an inflated cow's stomach around for 90 minutes, would the existence of Wayne Rooney and David Beckham mean that said qualification was equivalent to a Master's in engineering from MIT?
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:4, Informative)
tl;dr making bad loans was not compulsory to private lending instututions. They did it because they saw dollar signs instead of what it really was: a plan designed to fail for private institutions due to the inherent risk. Subprime means less than optimal. If you're putting your own money up, you're not going for subprime.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Insightful)
The 66% were companies not covered under the CRA, which did not have to give out the loans. The only reason the loans were a good investment was because they could be repackaged into CDOs and sold off, leaving the risk with the last sucker holding the bag, which was not the underwriting firm.
The investment vehicles used were created to offload bad debt in the 80's, but rapidly became frowned upon because everyone who did it went belly-up and it simply didnt look like the government would tolerate it on a large scale..
It was only when the worst Fannie and Freddie loans started being packaged that way in the 90's that the rest of the market then saw an opportunity to also offloaded bad loans in the same way, with the idea that the government was now never going to crack down on the practice of rating worthless paper as AAA and further that paper wasnt so worthless if the government was guaranteeing at least some of it.
So it was indeed a market distortion caused by government influences.
The individuals who could not pay the mortgage lacked the sophistication to tell they couldn't afford it was only part of the problem.
This is bullshit that assumes that people that take loans that they cant afford simply don't know what they are doing. Poor people arent naive. Most of the time they know exactly what they are doing.
This idea that there is a large class of people too stupid to make decisions is fallacious.. in fact the idea that a lot of people need government to help them was the fucking problem to begin with. Families that bring home $35K/year know that they cannot afford a fucking $300,000 home. Don't let some twat trying to lay all the blame on the banks tell you differently.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:4, Interesting)
They can't, because it's bullshit. Here's a link to the act itself [federalreserve.gov]. Note the words "consistent with safe and sound operations."
Then there's the fact that most bad subprime debt was issued by institutions outside the scope of the act, and that commercial real estate - also outside the scope - is in an equally bad or worse state than home loans.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Insightful)
"So wtf happens? Of course the banks do as required and make loans to people who really shouldn't be getting those loans, the government said they have to."
That's simply wrong. Nobody required banks to make bad loans. NOBODY. Government only required to use the same criteria for loans in 'bad' and 'good' areas.
And facts show that delinquency of loans in 'bad' areas is the same as for the loans in 'good' areas. So government had absolutely no part in it, apart from allowing banks to build CDO scams.
Re: (Score:3)
more educated people lead to lowered paying educated jobs
This is likely true on a local scale for a particular area. The relationship may not be so clear overall since more educated people can, if used correctly, generate more opportunities for doing things a) by buying more and b) using the output of other educated people. Think, for a slightly different example, that the value of theatre graduates increases as there are more people who are able to appreciate the difference between a good and a bad play. The same goes for mathematicians. If there are engine
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't the point that they want the government to grow some balls and bring down actual justice to the economy sector? If we punished people in proportion to the damage they caused half of wall-street would have life sentences by now and the other half would probably think twice before they do stupid shit to get 0.5% more profit.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Interesting)
As an example of how ball-less, consider the S&L crisis where 1000 FBI agents investigated white collar crime. About 1000 bankers went to jail. The S&L crisis was 1/40th the size of the current meltdown.
Instead of investigations, there ate 120 FBI agents spread out across the country (even Enron required 100 investigators and WA Mutual is even bigger). Obviously, not even a single indictment let alone a conviction, despite the problem being 40x bigger.
If the Executive branch wanted to do something about it, it could very easily just by hiring more investigators.
William Black, lead prosecutor in the S&L crisis, has been trying to get this point understood, but googling him in google news leads to a real dearth of results. This is a good interview transcript:
http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/09/why-nobody-went-to-jail-during-the-credit-crisis.html [creditwritedowns.com]
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem here is most of the stuff the banks did, and that caused the crash, wasn't really illegal. It was immoral but not really illegal. You see, the banks have anough control over the Fed and the Congress that they can make whatever they want to do legal so they don't have to break the law. If there was illegality most of it was at the low level where loans were originated and the easiest people to nail are the people who lied on loan applications which is the wrong group of people to go after.
One place there was law breaking by the banks was robosigning and other foreclosure abuses but that was after the crash, not the cause of it, and chances are the banks will pay a hefty fine and walk away otherwise unscathed.
Much of the crisis was caused by repealing Glass Steagel. Why was this done? Because Citi and Travelers wanted to merge in to a giant mega corp offering all financial services. Glass Steagel made this illegal, so what did the do? Bob Rubin, Larry Summers and Phil Graham pushed a new law that that repealed Glass Steagel under Clinton. Bob Rubin then went to work for Citi, Graham went to work for UBS, to reap the benefits of what they had sowed. Summers was hired by Obama to run the economy despite being as much to blame as anyone.
The solution to the 2008 crisis is, unfortunately, not criminal prosecution. You need to prevent the Fed and Washington from being completely controlled by Wall Street, and making everything they do legal. Unfortunately this is a very difficult thing to accomplish, but it is exactly what OWS is all about.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Tea Party isn't organized, it's a true grass-roots movement. Hence, there's no one to really say exactly what it is. But this much is clear - it was named for it's root cause - excess spending/taxation with no effective representation of the people.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Interesting)
While the OWS does tend to be more liberal in their proposed solutions (instituting a 'living wage', supporting public sector unions, opposing Citizens United) and the Tea Party tends to be more conservative (support for term limits, opposition to health care reform, etc), there is real value in the fact that everyone is recognizing that something really big is wrong - and now it's time to talk about how to fix it.
Do the Tea Party and OWS agree on the solutions? Probably not, but these two groups are the heart of America. This is the debate that we should be having. Instead, we have two parties pandering to the highest bidder. Stop letting the career politicians drive these groups apart. Instead, both should be rallying against the political class that rules them, convincing their fellow Americans that the system is broken, and coming together to discuss the solutions. We can be united in our cause and divided on the solution.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with the Tea Party is it was coopted by people like Bachman, Palin and DeMint largely with the help of the main stream media and Republican establishment who wanted to gut the Tea Party's populist economic message and defend the status quo. They did a really great job at it too. They managed to turn the Tea Party image from economic populism in to right wing social conservatism. Social and racial issues have absolutely no place in the Tea Party. I really hope OWS saw what happened to the Tea Party and use their diffuse leadership structure to avoid being coopted. Unions and the Democratic party, in particular, will be pure poison to OWS if they manage to insert themselves in the spotlight. Unions are a nice idea in theory to counter corporate excess but in practice they've become just as bad, and corrupt, as corporations and just as much a part of the problem. They are a complete turn off to most American as a result. Its a total farce for Obama to think OWS is on his side, the second he hired Summers and Geitner to run the economy he proved he was part of the problem, not the solution, and "Change you can believe" was total bullshit.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Insightful)
While you're right about the origins and original anger of both...
Firstly, the Tea Party seems to had started in opposition to the bailouts. That is fine. I actually think the bailouts needed to happen...and all such receiptients should have been broken up afterward. But I understand the anger, and why people think they shouldn't have happened at all. (And since no one can change the past, it's a moot point. At this point, everyone can agree corporations that cannot fail should not even exist.)
That was the one shining moment of sanity. And then the Koch brothers hijacked them into nonsense. They started complaining about utterly imaginary taxes they thinks were raised, when we're actually under some of the lowest taxes ever. And they seem to think the debt has something to do with their individual financial situation, and that the government should balance the budget, something which has absolutely no bearing at all on any individual. They also demand the government stop 'printing money' and causing inflation, apparently completely unaware that inflation has, for the last for years, utterly and completely stopped. (Because the superich keep sucking money out of the system faster than we print it.)
I'm sorry, but any movement that operates from such ignorance is not very useful, because the demands make no sense. But that was just random stupidity, and could be understood, at least. In fact, some of that stupidity has shown up on OWS, like cries to 'audit the Fed'. Look, idiots, auditing the Fed isn't going to do anything. The Fed is doing nothing illegal.
But that was ignorance, not malice. It happens in any actual grassroots protest movement.
But then the Tea Party was hijacked (1) to oppose government health care, which had nothing to do with their original complaints. In fact, the cost of health care is the major cause of bankrupcy, so at this point the Tea Party is literally facing backwards in trying to make things better for themselves. Thanks to that idiocrary, we ended up with a 'solution' that essentially let the insurance companies run it. Good work, Tea Party!
Then after that, more nonsense kept getting added. Oh, look, the Tea Party is now against abortion. Or whatever.
And, look, the Tea Party is now the Republican base.
I'm sure there are a lot of Tea Party members out there with basically the same complaints and near identical goals as OWS...and they need to look around at where they are standing, and then need to ask themselves what they actually want. And if, perhaps, they are standing in the wrong protest movement.
1) The 'Tea Party' was never really hijacked. Protests managed to exist outside corporate control for a few weeks. But the second it was given a name, it was in corporate control, it was the very first thing corporations did, making it about 'freedom from taxes' instead of 'freedom to not have our government hand shitloads of money to people who blew up the economy'.
The Federal Reserve operates behind closed doors (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, some of that stupidity has shown up on OWS, like cries to 'audit the Fed'. Look, idiots, auditing the Fed isn't going to do anything. The Fed is doing nothing illegal.
Without an audit of the public-private beast that is the Federal Reserve System, how would you know whether they've done anything illegal or not? I don't know if the Ron Paul's version of the audit was ever passed, but Senator Sanders got an amendment inserted into some-bill-or-another. His office has this page:
"Audit the Fed" was Ron Paul's effort to hold the Federal Reserve accountable. It was a preliminary step to ending the system whereby "Wall Street" loans the economy its money supply. If you have a dollar bill in your pocket, it's only there because someone borrowed it from a banker - the bills are printed by the treasury and purchased by the Federal Reserve at cost [2 cents?]. If you have a quarter or a dime or a Susan B. Anthony dollar in your pocket, the Fed bought these from the Mint for face value.
The initial "Tea Party" rallies were held by Ron Paul's supporters in the 2008 presidential campaign, in response to the bailouts. Paul eventually dropped out of that race, but the "powers that be" thought the "tea party jingle" would be useful to perpetuate the concentration of power.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Interesting)
Due to the failure of government to block an unending stream of bank mergers, leading to ever more greater concentrations of financial risk and power, that's true.
But it doesn't excuse the fact that a year later the banks turned obscene profits, offshored those profits, and paid virtually NOTHING in taxes. The bailouts should have been LOANS -- every single bank financial statement I've seen for the year shows they made enough money to pay back their bailout funds, but not ONE offered to do so.
One thing the TEA party and Occupy definitely seem to agree on is that corporate bailouts need to stop. No business should be allowed to grow so large and powerful that it's failure can bring down the economy of an entire nation. Allowing it to get to that point was insanity; government's refusal to correct the issue is criminal.
Power OF the People (Score:3)
Occupy is supposed to be about the will of the people, not a rally for any one political party Whichever Occupy groups you may be a member of, beware of those who are trying to co-opt the movement for their own agendas. Democracy not dictatorship!
My views are no more important than anyone elses. That's the beauty of Occupy. It looks like it may be the first truly democratic movement to ever wield the power of the internet. I've always believed that with the internet, we could achieve true democracy wher
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are terrific similarities between the two groups. They are both angry about the bank bailouts, but one focuses its rage on the government for providing the bailout and the other focuses its rage on Wall Street for taking it. In fact, the biggest difference between the two may be their demographic: Tea Party is mostly older and OWS mostly younger, making this a conflict of generations rather than classes. The problem is the manipulators are hard at work keeping people from finding any common ground by demonizing the other side instead of addressing their grievances.
The Tea Party got this treatment from the Huffington Post, who focused on the most racist signs [huffingtonpost.com] from the protesters. Now we're seeing the same thing, with Andrew "we have the guns" Breitbart's photographer blatantly staging a photo [bearwitnesspictures.com] of a protester supposedly defecating on a police car. Brietbart's previous credits include videos edited to make USDA employee Shirley Sherrod look like a racist [wikipedia.org] and ACORN employees look like they were giving tax evasion advice on running child prostitution rings [ca.gov].
I sympathized with the early Tea Party. Now I sympathize with these protesters, and this constant demonization of them is so heartbreaking. For the first time in my life I'm confronting these people on Facebook, forcing them to support their statements with references or showing them how they are being manipulated (90% of the time by a story I can trace back to Breitbart). For a week they fought back, but then they toned down their attacks... Unfortunately, watching the new Facebook Ticker, I can see that they have merely taken their hatred to where they think I can't see it. Wonderful social experiment that new Facebook Ticker, see what you're "Friends" are saying about you behind your back and there's no way to turn it off.
All we can do is try to get people to see the human beings behind the villainous caricatures. When they try to connect the movement to the "sinister machinations of George Soros," I point out that Soros is a prolific philanthropist and humanitarian [wikipedia.org]. When they call the protesters scum, slackers, and anarchists, I point them to the We are the 99% blog [tumblr.com] and ask them to justify their position with references from that site.
People in the Tea Party should be doing the same thing, putting a human face on their movement. We should be finding common ground. Keeping us fighting each other is exactly what the powers that be need to prevent any significant change.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Interesting)
Social Democracy works just great however. Pretending that there isn't a middle ground between Capitalism and Socialism is stupid.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:4, Interesting)
All "ism"s fail. Capitalism has just managed to blunder along longer by playing shell games with numbers.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:4, Informative)
They are touting economic models that have failed in every single country they have been tried (communism, Marxism, socialism).
You don't even know what the terms communism, Marxism, and socialism mean, do you? Hint: The Occupy movement has nothing to do with them.
Fucking idiot.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:5, Interesting)
The OWS crowd have deliberately avoided touting any specific economic models. The fact that you don't know that only shows how ignorant you are of the movement and renders the rest of your comment irrelevant. Yes, I have heard a few protesters condemn capitalism, but I've heard even more say that they simply want capitalism with fairness. They want justice for the crimes of the banksters and less "corporate capture" of government.
As for taxes, the ratios you cite are very similar to those in the USA. However, that's only for income tax revenue. If you include sales tax, property tax, and all the rest, the lower and middle classes pay a much higher percentage of their gross income to the government than the rich do.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:4, Interesting)
First of all, I think the OCWS crowd wants return to social democracy as it existed or exists in the west (even in America, 50s and 60s with 90% highest tax bracket could be considered social democratic), which, not capitalism, was probably the most successful system tested on national scale.
Second, socialism (= worker ownership of capital) has been tested, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondrag%C3%B3n_Cooperative_Corporation [wikipedia.org], and it seems to lead to more productivity than the actual capitalism.
Re:Plutocracy. (Score:5, Insightful)
The US economy in recent years has followed Adam Smith about as much as the USSR followed Karl Marx. I agree with the GP that government is part of the problem, but that is largely due to the ever-increasing influence of "big money" in politics, culminating in the horrific Citizens United ruling a year and a half ago. Unfortunately, the only way to cut the octopus tentacles away is a constitutional amendment to strip corporations of their "personal" rights. Only then will our government be able to function properly to protect the people from "inhuman" corporate avarice.
As for how to protect us from the conglomerates, I suggest: 1. a STET tax [wikipedia.org]; 2. get out of NAFTA, and reinstate reasonable tariffs as Adam Smith intended; 3. reinstate Glass-Steagall; 4. break up too-big-to-fail banks into smaller units; and 5. put some banksters in JAIL!
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Informative)
Straight from horse's mouth:
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
- Benito Mussolini.
The Boomers have always been fucking up. (Score:5, Interesting)
When you say "our parents" and "our grandparents", it's likely that you're talking about the so-called Baby Boomers. We shouldn't feel sorry for them at all. These people have fucked up everything they've gotten involved with, for decades now. Hell, they're largely responsible for the current situation.
They were born into one of the most, if not the most, prosperous times in the history of humanity. The foundation of this prosperity was planted by their hard-working ancestors, and they grew up in it and eventually inherited it, so they can't actually take any credit for it. In hindsight, this was the peak of middle-class America. Rather than trying to improve further on this already-amazing economic situation, many of them ended up becoming hippies fighting against the very system that provided them the best standard of living of all-time.
I'm not a conservative by any means, but neither can I respect those who grow up in a near-perfect environment, yet go ahead and do everything they can to trash this environment. But that's exactly what many Boomers did during the 1960s. They caused some damage, but thankfully were limited in their ability to cause real harm, and their movements fizzled out.
When the 1970s rolled around, some of them finally outgrew these youthful shenanigans. They got involved with corporate America and the American government, which up until that time actually did treat middle-class American workers extremely well. Even lower-middle-class workers could afford vehicles and homes without having to go into debt. But the Boomers would put an end to this as they started moving up the management ladder.
By the mid-1970s, the Boomers were starting to get into positions of corporate and government power. Given the huge amount of people around the same age, many of these Boomers tried to be as outrageous as possible to differentiate themselves from their peers, in order to further their careers. They would suggest courses of action that their parents or grandparents, the previous leaders of corporate America, would think of as being totally asinine and wrong-headed. One such concept that they embraced was outsourcing/offshoring.
They had unfortunately embedded themselves well within American corporations and government by the mid-1980s. They had become the leaders of business and society, and to put it bluntly, they fucked everything up. Every policy they made served to fuck over the American middle class. This is the very same American middle class that begat these Boomers!
The Boomer's precious offshoring, outsourcing and "free trade" destroyed the American manufacturing sector in the 1980s and 1990s. Although younger generations tried to negate some of this damage via the Internet boom, far too much damage had already been done. By the 2000s, the Boomers had started to offshore even the best-paying technical jobs.
As everyone today knows, the Boomers' policies have absolutely destroyed the American economy. They caused the very problems that have rendered many of them "poor" today. The only people they should hold accountable are themselves.
Re:The Boomers have always been fucking up. (Score:4, Interesting)
I... have nothing to add to this.
It's a shame you posted this as AC. People should read this. It's not everything, but it's pretty damn close.
Re:Not the Boomers (Score:4, Informative)
Outsourcing/offshoring was not a boomer idea, it was an integral part of Reaganomics. Up until the 70's, a third of government revenue came from import/export tariffs. So-called "free trade" had already been a longstanding desire of conservative business interests for many years, and Reagan started the process that culminated with NAFTA under Clinton.
I agree with the rest of your analysis, but the idea of "free trade" did not originate with the Boomer generation, it had been around for quite a while already.
Re:The Boomers have always been fucking up. (Score:5, Insightful)
More likely, the foundation of this prosperity was a new and plentiful source of energy, oil. The prosperity of human civilization has always been very closely tied to the availability of energy, and for a while oil has been extremely cheap, and basically unlimited.
Now, as the era of (cheap) oil is over, the prosperity will go back to the norm, except that we now have a lot more expectations and a lot more people to feed.
Re:The Boomers have always been fucking up. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm afraid I have to disagree with some of your conclusions.
They were born into one of the most, if not the most, prosperous times in the history of humanity. The foundation of this prosperity was planted by their hard-working ancestors, and they grew up in it and eventually inherited it, so they can't actually take any credit for it.
They were lucky. Their immediate ancestors were the group of people who caused the Great Depression, still considered to be the worst economic collapse this country has ever experienced. The government was largely unsuccessful at fixing it until World War II rolled around and restarted our economy. Suddenly the manufacturing capacity was needed to supply ourselves and our allies with weapons.
In hindsight, this was the peak of middle-class America.
I'll agree with that, but point to WWII as the source again. Must of the rest of the industrialised world had been destroyed by war. Factories and production through out Europe and Japan had been destroyed to win the war. The US responded by rebuilding them, which involved selling our industrialised services to them. When you are the biggest or only source of an item or service, of course you will be doing well.
One such concept that they embraced was outsourcing/offshoring.
This to me is just the conclusion of the rebuild efforts. The US being the only source of high tech products was not a sustainable model. Other countries were sure to develop similar abilities. An example, you never hear much about non-American cars from the 50s. But with the 60s you start to hear more about European cars (like the VW bus so popular with the hippies you metioned) and with the 70s you start to see the sales of some of the now iconic Japanese cars (like the Honda Accord). Similarly during the 50s airliners were generally a US product from companies like Boeing, Lockheed, and Douglas. Once the 70s rolls around and you see the start of Airbus.
The Boomer's precious offshoring, outsourcing and "free trade" destroyed the American manufacturing sector in the 1980s and 1990s.
No, our economy would have declined even had none of those practices ever been employed. We had it good selling to the entire world after a major war. The rest of the world caught up, wanted their share of the pie, and were willing to do things cheaper than we were. We would have lost sales to the rest of the world either way.
So in conclusion, the Boomer's ancestors f-ed things up every bit as badly as we did (the Great Depression), WWII saved our economy and we were lucky there were no major strikes on the US mainland, and finally the world recovered and our position as the dominant producer became unsustainable.
Re: (Score:3)
The thing that caused the latest world recession has yet to be fixed.
So two things must be done. The government must create laws that prevent what caused the recession and the banks, Wall Street, and the government must restore our faith and provide protections against our retirement being destroyed through investment firms that like to play games with peoples money.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:4, Interesting)
The only sound argument you can make is that these companies lied, with their AAA ratings and so on. This is almost certainly true, but I suppose this goes to the core of the concept of marketing products: how much of the bullshit the droids come out with is really true? Is this face cream really going to make me look younger? Will these vitamin pills really improve the functioning of my immune system? We are surrounded by bollocks. It isn't just the big corporations that engage in it. Even the guy at the market selling potatoes from the back of his van does it. We should always be on our guard to see through it. We should teach our children to see through it. Maybe if we did, we these things wouldn't happen quite so often.
Re:Assange condemns greed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
At my office, we have a perfect "beer money" job we advertise from time to time when college is back in session -- 6 hours/week, minimum wage, flexible hours within the 9-5 confines. We use the person to do random little things around the office that tend to get left undone.
This last time around, I've round filed resumes from people with Masters and Ph.Ds, none of them in things like pottery making or basket weaving.
After thirty years of job exportation, we should be realizing that educating everyone is no
Re:"they have iphones" and other garbage comments (Score:4, Insightful)
It's still wrong though. I wouldn't even call it a bad argument, as that would mean admitting it's an argument. It's a good textbook of the ad hominium fallacy: "These people are hypocrites, therefore what they say is wrong."
Re:"they have iphones" and other garbage comments (Score:5, Insightful)
It might not technically be a valid form of argument; but this is forum were we are reacting to and pontificating on a protest movement. Its hardly an academic debate we are having here. So even if its not a valid argument form its still worth pointing out the hypocritical nature of some of what they are doing and asking for.
Generally in my practical experience when you find people preaching something other than what they practice one or both of the following is true. They are profoundly lacking in self awareness and understanding of their own situation, or they preaching something that is impractical and often impossible. They may or may not admit it.
I listened to NPR interviewing one of these protesters, he talked about no knowing how he was going to pay all the debt he had, yet called himself middle class. This is the United States, class here is supposed to be about what you have and what you do not what you are. If your net worth is negative, you are not middle class. That is called poor. Is it good to be poor, no, but it does not have to be a permanent condition. I can understand the desire to protest over the lack of mobility, even support it. I find it hard to take political prescriptions from someone who can't even admit or can't understand, perhaps both; his own situation though.
Re:"they have iphones" and other garbage comments (Score:4, Interesting)
The middle class IS poor! Look at the mean net worth [wikipedia.org] of the 25-50% (the lower half of middle class) is dangerously near $0. (Though actually I think net worth can be misleading... most people are stuck in a hand-to-mouth mentality that guarantees their net worth will never grow, even if their income was good and their standard of living was high).
But, secondly, if this guy is protesting, don't you think he KNOWS is situation is in jeapordy? That he might not be so "middle-class" after all? I think what he's saying is, "I have skills, I'm economically productive, yet I'm stuck scraping by. That can't be right."
Re:"they have iphones" and other garbage comments (Score:5, Informative)
Do you realize what absurdity you are spouting? Democracy cannot be stolen from the majority. If the majority is not in control, you don't have democracy. If this statement confuses you because you think we used to have democracy, it's ok. Your lazy teachers didn't explain to you that our nation is NOT a democracy. We live in a republic. The majority DOES NOT RULE. We may democratically select our representatives, but we have no direct control over the laws of our country. If we did, our country would be a very different place.
That being said, what we have now is not a republic, nor a democracy. What we have now is defined as an oligarchy. You are upset at the rich, I am upset at the politicians. A lot of rich people have done horrible things and they deserve some blame. A lot of politicians are responsible as well. At the end of the day though, the rich would have no power over you if the politicians didn't give it to them. The government is responsible. Tell all the politicians to go home. Don't vote democrat. Don't vote republican. Vote 3rd party for EVERYTHING. If there is no 3rd party running, run for office yourself. If you don't succeed, tell your representative to support the CONSTITUTION, not some sort of bullshit called bi-partisan compromise. If the government follows the Constitution, all they can do is defend your rights... Nothing more. Of course realize that then they won't be able to violate anyone else's rights as well, so don't expect free stuff.
Re:And it will come to nothing. (Score:5, Interesting)
There might be some complaining, but nothing will happen.
Right now your troops are being sacfificed (and sacrificing thousands of civilians in the process) to keep the Job CReators profits flowing, where is the outrage there ?
Your healthcare system is a joke, yet the worlds most expensive, your educational system is collapsing and is rapidly approaching Third World outputs, yet where is the outrage ?
Your government is seizing up, you're not even going to have a Postal Service soon...so where is the outrage ?
The right wing consistantly proclaim their 'right to bear arms' as the refuge of the people against government that doesn't give a shit about them, except as cattle...and yet here we are.....where is the outrage ? Where is the militia marching upon Washington ?
The average US citizen has been neutered, their passions diverted off to silly by-ways like reality TV and the weak-wristed practice of american sports. Imbeciles like Glenn beck and Rush Limbaugh are actually given the time of day and the attainment of scholastic achievement is belittled.
Forgive me, this isn't a anti-us rant, but the system there is so fundamentally broken and yet there's no sign of it being fixed. Even the louder political groups, such as the Tea Party, are in reality simple folk bamboozled by the skilful words of the spin doctors to suit their Corporate masters agendas.
So when the Boomers wake up that their 401k's have been plundered, well, they should have realised that was taking place years beforehand and there won't be a thing they can do about it.
I mean, hasn't a bankrupt government, almost Third World educational and healthcare standards, a truly colossal debt and unemployment through the roof ( not forgetting that the average income in the US is woeful) made the penny drop yet ?
The time to fix this is NOW, not in 12 months..not in 2 years...now...it SHOULD have been 10 years ago.
But you will do nothing except complain about gas prices and why there are so many mexicans around these days.
Re:About Rome (Score:5, Insightful)
Since they're a movement and not an organisation, no they do not have any specific demands.
The core of the movement is the idea that the 1% should be forced to share their wealth with the other 99%, which will have to happen sooner or later, or we'll get another French revolution.
The specifics of -how- the 1% should be forced to share, and how their wealth should be distributed is not an area where there is any notable unity yet.
Re:What does this have to do with "News for Nerds" (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, I thought this was a place to argue with nerds on the internet. Is there any news for nerds that doesn't revolve around phones and tablets anymore?
Re:Power OF the People (Score:4, Interesting)
My goodness, what a terrifying prospect. It would be a disaster if people could propose legislation and vote on it directly. That would mean cataclysm. How would the people formulate a national budget? People can't even manage their own personal finances (housing bubble, college loans), much less those of society more generally.
Limited power? Yes. Constitutional rights? Yes. Representative Democracy? Yes. Direct political participation? NO.
Direct democracy would just end up in dictatorship anyway. Direct democracy would fuck everything up so badly in 5 years that the current predicament would seem like good times in retrospect. For example, people would pass a law which says that Social Security benefits must be tripled and their taxes halved, or something similar. Or that we'll institute a "living wage" while increasing salaries for the middle and upper-middle classes too. Or we should take all investment capital from the top 1% and distribute it equally for consumption. Or we should stick it to the drug companies. Or the Chinese. Or we'll fight global warming and phase out nuclear (Germany). After which, all the accountants in government would quit at some point, which would be "OK" because they're a bunch of uptight elitist asshole suits anyway (and maybe traitors besides). Then there wouldn't even be any consistency in legislation, or any way to know what to expect next. Then everything would collapse. Then people would vote for a dictator who promised to restore order and who promised a return to the "good old days." Since people ultimately don't want freedom (they want a condo and Netflix, and that's what they'd try to achieve by direct voting), they would vote for a dictator at that point who promised to fix everything, and they could accomplish it by amending the constitution directly to allow dictatorial powers.
Take a look at the Greek protests, which have people simultaneously demanding high benefits and chanting "I won't pay" for basic taxes and tolls.
Right now the people themselves are the main impediment to rational policies. Any rational and well-thought-out policy is always profoundly unpopular because it cannot be explained in 8 seconds or less to someone with no prior understanding.
If people can't be trusted to monitor their politicians, then they can't be trusted to govern. Right now politicians are corrupt because voters don't even read a single word of the thousands of pages of legislation that politicians pass. How would things be better, if people voted directly upon that legislation? Or if we decentralized this function to non-experts? People would vote for legislation based upon the "gist" they received from the first few sentences of that legislation, and the result isn't hard to predict.
Almost all of our problems are caused by hyper-democracy already. The solution is not more democracy. Remember that most of our crises (dot-com bubble, real estate bubble, and the coming disaster of unrepayable college loans for millions of people) were caused by people trying to invest, something which they simply cannot do. Warren Buffet can invest; "the people" cannot.
What we need is more elitism. The people should restrain themselves to ordering their own personal lives, to punishing politicians who made serious mistakes, and to punishing unconstitutional usurpations of political power. The peoples' only function should be to say "no" on occasion to ideas proposed by elites. They should never, ever try to implement their own ideas directly. It would make more sense if they started designing bridges directly, or performing surgery on each other without prior training.