Quote of the Day:
“Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.”
From “Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance”
-Occupy Writers
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
"Dollar depreciation leads to higher inflation and ultimately forces foreign creditors to question their rationale and indeed their sanity for continuing purchases of U.S. Treasuries." -Bill Gross
Signs continue that European markets are getting tired. The Spanish and Italian stock markets, big beneficiaries of the sharp decline in their bond yields over the past few months are falling to the lowest since Feb 1. The European bank index is at a 1 1/2 week low after earnings reports from Commerzbank and Credit Ag (RBS bouncing although reporting weaker than expected earnings) were disappointing. This market action is in spite of the German IFO business confidence figure which rose to a 7 month high coming in a touch above expectations and Italian consumer confidence which bounced more than...
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October 20th, 2011 at 10:51 am
But there is a sort of impotence to ows isnt there? what are the protestors going to do to change anything but to fly airplanes into jpm, goldman, et al… you say go to washington but what does that accomplish? dc has to be afraid of ows before it matters. what can a disparate unorganized group do to intimidate the dominant entrenched interests?
October 20th, 2011 at 10:53 am
well…
Marches in the 60′s and 70′s helped expand Civil Rights and bring the Vietnam war to an end.
Unhappy or happy sorta depends on what side of the argument you were on doesn’t it?
October 20th, 2011 at 10:57 am
Depends on how impressive the building is.
Exhibit A:
The Third Little Pig
October 20th, 2011 at 11:04 am
Read that one to the wife,
She ask “Gaddafi?”
I said “No. Occupy movement, But he would work too.”
October 20th, 2011 at 11:04 am
Dearest Lemony:
I love you. So do my kids. I have a suspicious number of them, but an excellent explanation for how they got here.
xoxo
Julia
October 20th, 2011 at 11:06 am
crutcher Says:
“what can a disparate unorganized group do to intimidate the dominant entrenched interests?”
If the group is large enough, doing nothing at all can destroy the object of their discontent (Poland comes to mind). What scares TPTB is that this group has support, and isn’t going away when laughed at. We’re fixin’ to find out just how well capitalism works without a complacent workforce or consumers (I know we’re not there, yet, but that’s where we’re headed).
October 20th, 2011 at 11:09 am
Crutcher
It looks to me as if they have done quite well in their impotence. Their only real goal is to stir the pot and change the conversation.
I believe they can write their success story.
October 20th, 2011 at 11:22 am
OWS is not being ignored, the response to them (clubbing,pepper spray, arrests) shows they are feared.
Fear is a great impetus to change.
October 20th, 2011 at 11:23 am
“Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.”
For whom and when? Details and time matter here. Bad ending for Louis IV. Shouting people happy. Few years later are the shouting people still so happy? Bad ending for Tsar Nicholas II, shouters happy. What about a few years/decades later? Bad ending for George III/Cornwallis. Shouters happy then and after (mostly anyway).
“Be careful what you wish for” doesn’t quite cover it. More like “be careful of what you wish for and the series of events that you thereby set in motion”.
October 20th, 2011 at 11:26 am
Damn. Louis XVI
October 20th, 2011 at 11:43 am
” We’re fixin’ to find out just how well capitalism works without a complacent workforce or consumers (I know we’re not there, yet, but that’s where we’re headed).”
Well said, the whole system (which I believe in) is/was based on trust in the institutions and aquiecence of all participants. A point that is sorely missed by the Randian extremists as they seek to undermine the foundations of the past 65 years of stability.
October 20th, 2011 at 11:49 am
How long before Jamie Dimon comes forward and tells the American public this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOXtWxhlsUg
October 20th, 2011 at 11:59 am
I’m not really against what I “guess” is the OWS movement’s purpose, if they really have one at all.
I simply don’t see what would be a possible “happy resolution”.
Would you propose that each American citizen receive a stipend of some sort paid directly out of the banking sector’s coffers? I think a lot of people who love their little bit of news and would like to see national discourse take on serious issues for once get the general idea of OWS and what they represent.
I just don’t see how any of this would apply practically. They aren’t going to let you go get your money back.
Heck a large percentage of people don’t even realize that they have their money at this point. They’re too busy buying Taylor Swift and Kanye West albums.
They aren’t going to issue refunds. So what’s the point? They could start lending again and start the casino all over again. That would be kewl I had fun during the last run . hehehe
October 20th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
comedian felonius munk has a message for the OWS gang….your anger is misdirected:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO09fo4s1Vk&feature=youtu.be
warning…a few f bombs.
October 20th, 2011 at 12:18 pm
budhak0n
I obviously can’t speak for them all but it’s a change in attitude that they are looking for IMO – not a refund. Vietnam protestors weren’t looking to get dead lives back – just to keep more from dying.
October 20th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
I really don’t believe that America is ready to appease what these OWS folks are asking for. We are all pretty well paid and live pretty good lives by world standards, right? So what if we’ve got a little and some social imbalances to deal with? The alternative is to take away the privilige of the privileged, and give to those who have less. I’ve seen first hand what the less well-off do when given a windfall: they spend it on cheap chinese electronics.
The only thing that will change our society will make it worse. This march needs to be taking place in the voting booths every time there ‘s an election. We need to be speaking with our votes, collectively, organized, and voting with our dollars likewise.
October 20th, 2011 at 12:40 pm
whskyjack,
“It looks to me as if they have done quite well in their impotence. Their only real goal is to stir the pot and change the conversation. I believe they can write their success story.”
Tru dat.
Previously the national discussion was over what level of pain the Middle-class and Working Poor would have foisted upon them to pay for the federal deficits & debt.
Now it’s all about unemployment, jobs, rising income-inequality, taxing the Rich & Corporate, and unprosecuted white-collar criminality.
As far as changing the conversation goes: Mission Accomplished.
October 20th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Banks are able to borrow money from the government at near zero % interest.
Yet, every month, I receive the following notice with my credit card statement:
“If we do not receive your Total Minimum Payment by the date listed above, you may have to pay a late fee of up to $35.00 and you APRs may be increased to the Penalty APR of 29.99%.”
The difference between 0% and 29.99% goes a long way toward explaining the unhappy ending.
October 20th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Thought experiment: nothing changes structurally (same bunch of crooks running DC and NYC) but the economy recovers or at least re-bubbles. Jobs for everyone! House prices back up! Chinese crap galore at Walmart! And gasoline at $2.50 a gallon!
Would Occupy still exist? Would the Occupiers still want change or would they be happy with the New Illusion? Fundamentally, are these 99%’s pissed off because the tide went out and the 1% stole their bathing suits or do they really care about how screwed up our country is.
Most of the pre-Occupiers (those calling a spade a spade starting back in 2003 or so) were ridiculed and marginalized, called Anti-American or worse.
I agree with the movement and think we need to start buying pitchforks and torches, but would 99%’s stay and protest if they won the lottery?
October 20th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
“Changing the conversation?” That’s a euphemism for accomplishing nothing.
Ordinary Americans, though they bitch and complain about the economy, aren’t remotely economically insecure enough to consider violence as a political tool. You are a psychologically weak, coddled people, with a massive sense of entitlement. How much will have been lost before ordinary Americans draw a line in the sand against corporate/government corruption they’ll defend with their lives?
October 20th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
If I had a single recommendation for OWS it would be to avoid a specific policy agenda at all costs. Specific policies at this point are a distraction and potentially dangerous because the nation’s problems are still framed in largely conservative or, perhaps more accurately, oligarchic terms.
As we discovered with Obama the way a problem is stated, the underlying assumptions it accepts as valid, determines the ‘optimum’ outcome as perceived by elites. Success for OWS will be measured in the ways the national conversation changes, the assumptions that are accepted and rejected.
George Lakoff at http://tinyurl.com/3nho7w5 talks about that in terms of moral focus but, however it is conceptualized, if the right-wing authoritarian worldview and the language it deploys continues to dominate then the system it fostered and protected will not change; in a very real sense it cannot.
October 20th, 2011 at 1:08 pm
It would be incredible for this movement (OWS) to make very public citizens arrests of those guilty of crimes against the American people. I’m sure they have lawyers that could prepare valid complaints against those responsible for the fraud etc.
It should not be limited to the banksters and must include those currently in government (those that colluded with the banksters) as well as those previously involved in criminal acts of fraud.
October 20th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
I would greatly like ows to succeed, in something – almost anything. The main problem is that very few people still believe that actual change is possible. Exhibit A: the Tea Party. Exhibit A++: Obama.
I am pessimistic. Millions marched to stop the Iraq war (worldwide), very few were able to stop their countries from entering the conflict, although most succeeded at voting their governments out shortly thereafter and some even managed to get out of the war after that. But not in the UK or the US. From this I venture to guess that a couple tens of thousand protesters won’t affect anything in those countries.
As to why the anglo-american political systems are so impervious to protest movements, I imagine you can see it two ways. Either most people believe the voting system works, so protests are both pointless and ineffective, or most people just don’t mind following wherever the leadership points, so protests are confusing and mildly threatening. If pressed, I think the UK suffers from the former more, and the US from the latter.
October 20th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
By all means the OWS movement should avoid a policy agenda. I would love to watch the movement continue to grow while politicians and the 1% start asking more and more stridently, “What do you people WANT?” And the only real answer is larger crowds. And then it dawns on enough of these people that if a lot these protesters had jobs, they wouldn’t be occupying all over the country. Phone calls are made, deals are struck and we get a package of tax increases on the top 5% and significant infrastructure spending. Big enough to cause businesses to scream for new employees and clear out the parks. I don’t think we’ll get that any time soon, though.
My problem with Wall Street: the banks created this mess, we reached a crisis point and the government, on our behalf, stepped in and backed the banks to the hilt. Bailouts, no interest loans, capital injections, government guarantees, etc to save the system. But in addition to saving the system, we also kept the same institutions and individuals responsible when we didn’t have to. So banking was backed to the hilt and they got their “V” recovery. And now these assholes are walking around acting like their wealth is the result of their brains and hard work and everyone else is jealous of their success. It’s not jealousy – it’s outrage.
There was a saying about GW Bush: the guy was born on third base and grew up thinking he hit a triple. Well, right now we’ve got bankers who set fire to the baseball stadium and as punishment got a raise while everyone else took a pay cut, and now every time they come up to bat, the umpire stops the game and escorts them to third base. When fans and other players grumble, they’re accused of being jealous of the players’ success. If the people who play by the rules are punished while those few who almost destroy the game are rewarded with special rules that guarantee their success, it won’t be long before everyone else refuses to play unless the rules are changed.
October 20th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
@bishophicks
How ’bout: the bankers hit a bloop single, then the Left fielder threw the ball to the Right fielder who held on to the ball for them while they headed home – but they think they hit a grand slam.
October 20th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
“Your [my] comment is awaiting moderation.” ;)
October 20th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Amusing quote because it appeals to our nature of ignoring the everyday occurrence of people throwing stones at castle walls until they fade into nothingness and shifts our focus to the exceedingly rare occurrence of the stone thrower actually being noticed. The rare occurrences are highlighted because the outsized impact they have when they do occur burns them in our memories. It is monkey brain bias in action. The statement is amusing, but patently false.
October 20th, 2011 at 2:31 pm
@Bill in SF – I had same reaction.
So I closed my credit card account and only use debit card with Credit Union.
If my hair stylest had some similar absurd rule “if you are 5 min late for appointment – we double the fee” I wouldn’t go back. Why use a cc service with absurd rules/fees?
Vote with your feet dude.
October 20th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
I made the following sign to counter picket OWS
RECIPE FOR A DEPRESSION
1. Close the banks
2. Tax the rich
3. $900 in wastefull government spending
Kinda like Mark says at 11:23 first the mob wins, then the mob really gets F(&*%^ed when the depression comes
October 20th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
My Second counter protest sign for OWS
I AM THE 1%
I paid $140,000 in Income Tax, Social Security, Medicare
47% of Americans paid no Federal Income Tax.
HOW CAN ZERO FEDERAL INCOME TAX BE YOUR FAIR SHARE?
If you cannot get a job, Why are 38 Million hard working immigrants flourishing in the United States?
October 20th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Cynic_FA Says:
October 20th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
If you cannot get a job, Why are 38 Million hard working immigrants flourishing in the United States?
reply:
————–
I disagree. You can only pick so many tomatoes. Eventually, they all get picked. Please define flourishing.
Re your 1%, you sound possessive, as if making the life of others better will take something away from you. Why do so many idiots like you forget that the concept of diminishing returns states that too much greed will detract from the whole, causing people such as you to fight among the other 1% for what you think is rightfully yours, while the entire pie gets smaller and smaller. You’re a fucking idiot. You’re fighting over table scraps rather than trying to raise the water level so all boats float higher. Including you.
October 20th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
Cynic_FA Says:
“If you cannot get a job, Why are 38 Million hard working immigrants flourishing in the United States?”
Because businesses are violating US wage and labor laws by hiring them, so that they can enrich themselves at the cost of respectable wages for their countrymen/fellow citizens.
I don’t give a shit how much tax you pay. Tell me what you do for a living, and I’ll tell you how everybody else subsidizes it.
As for mobs and winners and losers, nobody in the mob loses as badly as those in the ivory towers.
October 20th, 2011 at 3:21 pm
@budhak0n ,
“They aren’t going to issue refunds. So what’s the point?”
What do you do if someone doesn’t pay you what they owe you?
Sometimes you give up. Other times you take it from them.
October 20th, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Cynic_FA Says:
October 20th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
I AM THE 1%
I paid $140,000 in Income Tax, Social Security, Medicare
reply:
———-
You’re still a fucking idiot. While a tax of $140,000 is impressive … unless it’s on an income of $1,000,000 plus that does not include IRAs and 401k accounts, then you’re the next minnow to be eaten by the thieves you seem to be defending. You’re either a fraudster who is making the pitch that supports the status quo, or the next level of fresh meat.
October 20th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
LOL hobo. Your love for global capital ownership is amazing. Lets destroy the all the worlds countries and allow capital owners to run/own everything. Considering the amount of capital they got, I suspect they have alot of free time on their hands. Maybe you could get a nice duplex with a pool. Being a shrill should get you at least that lol.
October 20th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Cynic FA, I too am in the 1%… and pay more in taxes than you. However I completely support OWS.
There is absolutely no way that you can deny (or justify) the exponential increase in socioeconomic inequality, as well as the absolute corruption of our political system.
As Thomas Jefferson said: “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them.”
and (if it comes to that end)
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure”
October 20th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
i think most of us miss the point – civilization the way we’re doing it is killing us. It’s just a matter of time before we run out of resources and the whole system including electricity and all its benefits just stop.
There are way too many people on the planet and far too few resources left. We forgot about being human in order to have a bunch of stuff. We don’t cooperate (or should i phrase it we only cooperate to the extent to which we get more than we put in) because we DESIRE more and more and more – so that we’re never satisfied just living and being.
If we were all in it together because our very survival demands it of us MAYBE we’d do it (i’m in the “humanity is far too stupid to survive” camp), at least for a while, until we could figure out a way to beat the system and get more for our tribe, our selves, our, my, me. That’s where we’re headed as a planet – and soon (less than 10 yrs). Think we’ll “come together, right now, over me” (me being the world)? Or will we resort to the same unenlightened, idiotic, self-defeating, ignorant of consequences, make matters far worse way we always do it – with armies and bombs and guns?
The only way it works (and many many billions are STILL going to die in the process) is if we organize for a different way STARTING NOW – we’re fast running out of time – so i hope that this global occupy movement develops or evolves into this new way rather quickly.
Like yeast in a Petri dish, we only get one shot at using the resources of a finite planet, either to sustain ourselves for as long as we can, like nature – so that the waste we throw off is the compost for the next phase, or like the yeast (and with about as much thought) – we overshoot the capacity by consumption and all die out.
Nature doesn’t give a shit what we think – we’re supposed to be here to learn and act in the correct (sustaining) way. If we don’t, we die.
October 20th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
NPR ran an interview the other day with a farmer who offered temporary jobs for $10.25 an hour, and he could not understand why he couldn’t get Americans to stay on the job – maybe the reason no American wanted the job is because it is temporary manual labor job that only pays $10.25 an hour…
And then the “let them eat cake” crowd shouted down the greedy bastards for not being willing to work. I guess Amercian exceptionalism does not extend to the production worker.
October 20th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
“…Nature doesn’t give a shit what we think – we’re supposed to be here to learn and act in the correct (sustaining) way. If we don’t, we die…”
above, is something that, far, too Few pay, any, heed to..
We should realize (you know, “For a Change”..) that our, current, Economy is “Predicated upon Waste”..
October 20th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
38 million immigrants is the Wikipedia estimate of LEGAL immigrants. It does not count the 8-10 million illegals doing the manual labor referred to as picking tomatoes. Here are some of the flourishing legal immigrants in my neighborhood. Of course we have the Indian doctor and Indian engineer. My Romanian maid worked so her husband could buy a landscaping business. The Polish maid had a husband who bought an 18 wheeler. The Chinese family has the best restaurant and has 200 or more for Dim Sum on weekends (mostly real Asians). The Romanian nanny went to school at night to be a medical technician and married a Romanian who imports automotive parts. The dry cleaner lady from Azerbajan is studying accounting. The Israeli is a manufacturing design consultant while his daughter is fulfilling her Israeli army commitment before college. I meet new immigrants every week, but, I don’t meet a lot who want to grow up to pick tomatoes.
These immigrants provide the new energy for America. The poor in America turn down $10,25/hour jobs because they are too hard or lack dignity. The poor in America have learned that they don’t need to work to eat, the government will give them food and housing and free cable. We have 9% unemployment because 3 million people would rather cash a government check instead of getting a job which might be too hard, lack dignity, or pay only $10.25 and hour.
October 20th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
Event_horizon Says: I completely support OWS.
I started out planning to support OWS and march around in my best gray pin-strip suit.
I think someone at OWS should have a sign of Cramer’s wall of shame. How can so many people get paid tens of millions to destroy there companies and the economy. Why aren’t any of the big shooter’s from Merrill Lynch, Countrywide, AIG, Lehman in jail. They gave Madoff 150 years, but, he is really a little guy compared to Dick Fuld or Stan O’Neal.
Barry has a list of those who contributed the most to the crisis, how many ar ein jail or barred for life from the industry. They threw the book at Ivan Boesky and Michael Milliken; why are the 2008 crooks too big to jail?