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1. Large financial institutions own significant blame for our financial woes, and no one in them has ever been held accountable. These people employed sophisticated tools to peddle and spread around crap that they knew was bogus and that they knew would eventually blow up and take down a lot of bystanders - and they did it anyway and got royally rich off of it. And they have never been held accountable for it in the slightest.
2. Some degree of income inequality is perfectly normal and healthy in a capitalistic society, but too much imbalance produces real societal problems. The smartest and most motivated people will always find ways to rise to the top and be rich. But most of the rest of society, particularly the lower classes, rely heavily upon wealth to trickle down to them from the wealthy in the form of sustainable wage jobs (NOT handouts). Those jobs are increasingly sparse are large swaths of our economy go overseas, and what's left is supporting an increasingly inferior living standard. The gargantuan shift of wealth concentration to the top has been well documented from a number of angles. And ultimately, society will suffer in many ways from this - in terms of economic instability, crime, social unrest, etc. Note that I'm not advocating artificial tax transfers, which do nothing to fix the situation; I'm saying that we need to find some ways to get capitalism back into some sort of balance where all class levels are invested in the economy and reap some sustainable level of benefits from it.
A wise person recognizes these as valid problems even as they understand that many of the protesters employ foolish tactics and misdirect their anger. Those protesters may not be able to put their finger very eloquently on the source of their discontent, but there are some real macro-societal/economic reasons why this is happening now. You don't have to be an OWS supporter to see this.
I agree wholeheartedly. Just because some or many of the people involved in the protests are complete douchebags, doesn't change the fact there is serious economic disparity in this country, and our middle class is disappearing by the year.
That's just the thing... I'm so tired of the black and white thinking about this.
Many protesters rightly recognize the symptoms of real problems but then go way too far in their desire to dismantle capitalism, which is pretty misguided.
Many opponents (and posters on here) rightly recognize the undesirable extremism of the protesters but then go way too far to give the status quo a free pass, which is also pretty misguided.
I feel like the 99% actually represents the proportion of people who employ extremist thinking and completely talk past one another - and past the real problems and solutions. It's pretty frustrating and makes it hard to be optimistic about the future.
1. Large financial institutions own significant blame for our financial woes, and no one in them has ever been held accountable. These people employed sophisticated tools to peddle and spread around crap that they knew was bogus and that they knew would eventually blow up and take down a lot of bystanders - and they did it anyway and got royally rich off of it. And they have never been held accountable for it in the slightest.
While this maybe true you do realize that the bundling of these loans was in response to threats of legal action by our government if they did not make loans to low and moderate income individuals and minorities. i.e. individuals who had a snowflakes chance in hell of making their mortgage payments if any unforeseen financial problems occurred.
This whole mess started with the Community Reinvestment Act plain and simple. While the banks are certainly to blame for spreading the mess across the world those who pushed successfully to force banks to lend to individuals who were not capable of full filling their loan obligations are directly and solely responsible for starting the ball rolling.
I remember back when this whole thing started to unravel. There was a very well put together presentation on the roots of the CRA and how, over the years, it directly contributed to the collapse. I also remember that it had a tremendous amount of views for the very very short time before it was pulled. Now, do you think the originator of that clip pulled it after so many views? Why does nobody talk about CRA? Because both sides had their pea brains in on it.. It was a vehicle to entice the low income minorities to vote for their senators and representatives.
It all goes back to and starts with Washington as far as I am concerned.. Period, end of story.
While this maybe true you do realize that the bundling of these loans was in response to threats of legal action by our government if they did not make loans to low and moderate income individuals and minorities. i.e. individuals who had a snowflakes chance in hell of making their mortgage payments if any unforeseen financial problems occurred.
This whole mess started with the Community Reinvestment Act plain and simple. While the banks are certainly to blame for spreading the mess across the world those who pushed successfully to force banks to lend to individuals who were not capable of full filling their loan obligations are directly and solely responsible for starting the ball rolling.
I remember back when this whole thing started to unravel. There was a very well put together presentation on the roots of the CRA and how, over the years, it directly contributed to the collapse. I also remember that it had a tremendous amount of views for the very very short time before it was pulled. Now, do you think the originator of that clip pulled it after so many views? Why does nobody talk about CRA? Because both sides had their pea brains in on it.. It was a vehicle to entice the low income minorities to vote for their senators and representatives.
It all goes back to and starts with Washington as far as I am concerned.. Period, end of story.
You speak a lot of truth, and I agree that the government owns a huge heap of blame for this mess as well - and if the protesters were serious, they would probably be protesting in Washington, DC. instead of trying to "shut down capitalism".
I think so too but a couple more things to think about are how the rule of law doesn't apply to everyone equally, and how those closest to the production of money the 1%, benefit at the expense of those farthest from the production of money who get stuck with genocidal austerity measures to pay for the mistakes of those who control the production of our money. Any solutions needs to deal with these two issues and make both work for everyone equally.
Last edited by 73-79 ford fan; 11-05-2011 at 01:48 AM..
That's just the thing... I'm so tired of the black and white thinking about this.
Many protesters rightly recognize the symptoms of real problems but then go way too far in their desire to dismantle capitalism, which is pretty misguided...
I don't think this movement has anything to do with dismantling capitalism--it has to do with the abuses of a non-productive "industry" that has run wild and caused catastrophic losses for the working class, the national-level game playing that destroys the savings and investments of hundreds of millions of Americans who simply tried to put their work-earned wages in a safe place, and the diversion of wealth and earnings from productive activity to high-level scammers and world-class criminals (remember Madoff?).
Our corrupt finance industry has grown and largely replaced the productive engine of manufacturing, and our economy (and future) is a disaster as a result: "Even during the 'go-go years,' the bull market of the 1960s, finance and insurance together accounted for less than 4 percent of G.D.P....On the eve of the current crisis, finance and insurance accounted for 8 percent of G.D.P., more than twice their share in the 1960s." MinnPost - Krugman: The financial sector is simply too big - Political Economy by Steve Perry. By 2010, this statistic remained stable despite the financial catastrophe of the intervening years: "the statistics break out "finance and insurance" as a separate total. This category generated $2.169 trillion in gross output in 2008, which equals about 8 percent of the whole economy and 9 percent of the private economy." PolitiFact | On "Meet the Press", David Gregory says financial sector equals 25 percent of U.S. economy
A capitalist system needs to reward WORK, innovation, and investment of capital to succeed. Instead, our current system rewards speculative bubbles, huge volatility, and diversion of investment into systems that create no wealth, but rather consolidate it among a few non-productive people.
If we were to try and save America, we would need to fundamentally change the economy we have today, and go back to a manufacturing-based, productive economy that was fully insulated from the low wages and low regulatory costs of other nations. If we practiced the same protectionism that nations like China accord THEIR citizens, we wouldn't have given away our national wealth blindly on the altar of "globalization." It wasn't inevitable; but since it was such a raw deal for the American working class, they used that pathetic reasoning to get us to swallow our own destruction.
Nothing could be more apparent than the fact that Free Trade and Globalization failed utterly, and was by far the most catastrophic "experiment" made by a nation in modern times. And without the game-playing and speculative bubbles of our corrupt and greed Finance Sector, we would not have been lured into the trap that destroyed our economy, and our future.
And still, this corrupt group of world criminals has so much money and so much power that we cannot turn from the race to destruction. The OWS protestors are like annoying flies buzzing around a T-Rex. But at least they are better than letting the T-Rex rip through the prey species unannoyed.
While this maybe true you do realize that the bundling of these loans was in response to threats of legal action by our government if they did not make loans to low and moderate income individuals and minorities. i.e. individuals who had a snowflakes chance in hell of making their mortgage payments if any unforeseen financial problems occurred.
This whole mess started with the Community Reinvestment Act plain and simple. While the banks are certainly to blame for spreading the mess across the world those who pushed successfully to force banks to lend to individuals who were not capable of full filling their loan obligations are directly and solely responsible for starting the ball rolling.
And who was in the government pushing CRA along?
Who was in the government pushing to stop regulation of OTC Derivatives?
Wall Street Banksters!
Tell me why can't I find 13 Banksters in an uproar with the creation of CRA, like the uproar they created when Brooksley Born tried to regulate OTC Derivatives?
No, there were Wall Street Banksters with smug grins on their face the day CRA was signed in.
When Clinton added the minority clause, I'll bet the banksters said, "Nice Touch" as they greedily rubbed their hands and licked their chops.
Quote:
"I walk into Brooksley'***s office one day; blood has drained from her face," says Michael Greenberge***r, a former top official at CFTC who worked closely with Born. "She's hanging up the telephone; : 'That was Assistant Treasury Secretary] Summers. He says, "You're going to cause worst financial crisis since "... [He says he has] 13 bankers in his office who informed him of this. Stop, right away. No more.'"
So spare me the lie that the poor banksters were forced with a gun to go along with CRA. They own the government!
Look at Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, Ben Bernanke, all have ties, or were former Wall Street Execs.
It does not make any sense what is going on with those against OWS.
The "right" that is against Obama, should also be against his Wall Street Admin Team, and well as all the Banksters that have bought and paid for him and should be protesting on Wall Street against Obama's masters.
But, their willing to overlook that part because the hypocrites know that both sides serve the same masters.
Last edited by J746NEW; 11-05-2011 at 12:24 PM..
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