What is Occupy Wallstreet?

[DeeBye]

Do you see any other way? Everyone cannot be equal! Even now, we outsource as many jobs as we can to countries where the minimum wage is less than a dollar an hour to save money! If suddenly there became a one-world government and perfect equality in minimum wage, do you have any clue how many business would either completely tank, or suddenly charge exorbitant rates on their products, products that would suddenly become only for the elite. This would cause another system of control and power no different that what we have now with the mega-rich still holding all the cards, but the majority still poor as hell, or poorer than they were before! I am in total disagreement on this. There HAS to be a lower-class for the world to move. It sucks, but it's true!

I would be very, very careful with this line of thinking.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

[Taem]

To fireicetalon

No thats not whay I meant. Guess I should have been more clear. I'm on my smart phone now so Ill try and make this brief. All I'm trying to say is that the States should have more power to make their own decisions and laws. I dont mind a federal mandate, on certain issues, such as slavery, but Ive never agreed with the feds unconstitutional illegilization of illicit drugs, or their current hands off stance on immigration or health care. I saw let the states decide.more on this later.

[Frag]

I look forward to your full thoughts Taem, and I'm wondering if you might be able to explain a potential process through which powers vested in the Federal government might be ceded back to the States. Having worked for the government, I can think of a few things I'd prefer handled at a local level, but I cannot for the life of me see a viable path to making that happen.

[Quark]

I gotta admit I find this thread funny. For the past month I've seen the same storyline (starting with "stupid hippies want freebies"), but it's already been much further progressed in both my other forum and the mainstream media itself.

Ashock took the original Fox News selling point and ran with it, congratulations! Even got to throw in some French Revolution imagery, even though Occupy is based on the same structure as the Arab protests. Too bad even Fox News has backed down from such an analysis.

'Occupy Wall Street' -- It's Not What They're for, But What They're Against

Critics of the growing Occupy Wall Street movement complain that the protesters don’t have a policy agenda and, therefore, don’t stand for anything. They're wrong. The key isn’t what protesters are for but rather what they’re against -- the gaping inequality that has poisoned our economy, our politics and our nation.

In America today, 400 people have more wealth than the bottom 150 million combined. That’s not because 150 million Americans are pathetically lazy or even unlucky. In fact, Americans have been working harder than ever -- productivity has risen in the last several decades. Big business profits and CEO bonuses have also gone up. Worker salaries, however, have declined.

Here's some snippets from the other forum, all from Viator unless otherwise stated. Added emphasis in a few spots:

Paul Krugman - Confronting the Malefactors

(This was posted by someone else, but Krugman generally piques my interest. The key:

A weary cynicism, a belief that justice will never get served, has taken over much of our political debate — and, yes, I myself have sometimes succumbed. In the process, it has been easy to forget just how outrageous the story of our economic woes really is. So, in case you’ve forgotten, it was a play in three acts.

In the first act, bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending. In the second act, the bubbles burst — but bankers were bailed out by taxpayers, with remarkably few strings attached, even as ordinary workers continued to suffer the consequences of the bankers’ sins. And, in the third act, bankers showed their gratitude by turning on the people who had saved them, throwing their support — and the wealth they still possessed thanks to the bailouts — behind politicians who promised to keep their taxes low and dismantle the mild regulations erected in the aftermath of the crisis.

Given this history, how can you not applaud the protesters for finally taking a stand?

------

The Belgravia Dispatch: Occupy Wall Street: An Early Assessment

(Link posted in an otherwise useless post countering another useless post)
------

I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of what's going on with the core groups, though, especially on the part of Democrats. At one of these assemblies, it's completely democratic. Everyone can speak, people can vote down (through hand motions, so as to not interrupt) a speech which meets disapproval and anyone can make a proposal to vote on. Their beliefs are remarkably clear once the GA adopts them. Where things fall down are goals.

And here's why that is: there's no hierarchy. And if there's no hierarchy, it's slow going getting some uniform list of goals out. This is incredibly confusing to the media. They don't get it. They look for a spokesperson or some way they can frame this as a movement to get Democrats to do what they want; I think that's what it's going to look like in a month, if it's still going. It doesn't mean that there aren't achievable goals here but right now everyone is asking questions of the GAs which are antithetical to their very nature.

Now, is this how I would do it, if I were High King Protester? No. I'd march people in suits with professionally made signs like it was Birmingham in the 50s, daring the media to portray us as hippies. I'd pull a funhouse mirror Tea Party and primary every motherfucker who refused to sign a pledge co-sponsoring a Constitutional amendment fixing Citizens United and campaign finance, generally.

But there aren't enough mes to do that. If, by some chance, there are then we can show up at Occupy Raleigh's General Assembly tomorrow night and we can do it my way... that's the beauty of it, even if it's weird. You can show up tomorrow, unbidden, and put forth a vote if you're sincere.

If I wait for my march, for my movement, I'm going to be waiting a really long time. There's this expectation that a bunch of 23 year old kids are going to spring forth in a country which hasn't had a mass protest movement in 40 years knowing the right way to do it, a nation of Fanonists just ready to go from zero to sixty at the drop of a hat. It doesn't exist. It won't exist.

So I'm not going to be a member of Occupy Armchair anymore. I'm not at the point in my life where I can camp out all night or get arrested. And that's okay. But I'm not waiting for perfection anymore, goddammit, and nobody's going to come provide it for me.

------

fe: This is also an extremely good analysis of the political angle going on here. If you extrapolate it out, it explains why the two parties and the media simply aren't getting part of this.

Occupy Wall Street's 'Political Disobedience' - NYTimes.com

------

Hit Occupy Raleigh today. It skewed surprisingly middle class and older than you might expect. The mic was pretty tough to hear from our spot on the periphery when people were speaking but a couple speakers were really good. The Ron Paul nuke the fed guy had the misfortune of not only being unintelligible but also speaking right as the march began.

We marched down Fayetteville Street from the Capitol and back. What was interesting, and if you don't pay attention to anything else I write pay attention to this part, was that the crowd grew as we went. Middle class bystanders who were just downtown for lunch or a walk got in line, marched and chanted.

One couple in particular stuck out for me. They looked to be in their 60s and were standing on the corner, watching everyone walk by (official count at the end was somewhere between 250-300 marching, many, many more back at the Capitol). Conservatively dressed, normal fucking people, as Harry Dean Stanton said in Repo Man. They were just watching, unmoved, until the chant turned into "How do you close the deficit? End the wars and tax the rich!"

At that point, they got in line right behind me and were chanting with gusto. I overheard the woman say to her husband, "End the wars and tax the rich... that's something I can get behind!" That's the kind of thing that should make career centrist politicians' blood run cold.

Messaging was remarkably focused. Overwhelmingly, the focus of the signs and conversations was money in government. Household debt was mentioned, sometimes loudly, but if there's one overriding message it's getting money out of politics. And, again, over half the people there were my age or older, middle class. Lots of kids, lots of families. This is not a hippy movement made up of unemployed 22 year olds or an army of failed English majors.

-------

Obama very quietly leaked yesterday that he's hitching his '12 wagon to this. I don't personally know that it's going to work as well as he thinks it will but that, again, is a shift. We went from "anything left of Obama the Centrist is public hippy bashing territory for the WH" to "Obama as quiet protest supporter and public populist". In a month. Even if it's insincere, that's a huge shift from where we were this past summer.

fe: Those movements look a lot more organized in retrospect than they were at the time, outside of Civil Rights, which seemed to coalesce around individuals. But that brings up another thing that's breaking the paradigm of older movements: there's no leader. It's diffuse. Dealing with strict dichotomies of left and right and hierarchical structures in our politics means that a movement ruled by 90% votes to get even minor things done can be hard to comprehend. If there's one thing that's tripping up the discussion, I think it's that. I have a hard time getting my head around it, myself, sometimes.

But maybe the mere fact that a collection of communists, libertarians and disaffected middle class mainstreamers voting with 90-10 majorities to march on Times Square is the most important thing going on. Think of that as a counter to Nurru's worry... that these people, ideologically diverse, are as close to 100% united as can be reasonably expected on the important matters animating them.

No, their explicit goals aren't clear. That's because they need a 90% approval to be considered. Worse, having goals with this group is dangerous. How often will people give a list of goals, they get one of those accomplished, and suddenly the gas pedal is let up and everything falls apart. The first step is to force the conversation - which they've clearly already done.

Everyone not in the top x% has been in a decline since the deregulation in the early 80's, and if you can't see how unbalanced things are now then you're quite frankly a lost cause. Citizens United itself is putting us back a few centuries.

I don't want handouts. I want the top to actually pay their share, and not be able to buy out politicians.

[eppie]

I'm not saying everything is rainbows and sunshine. Everyone has a right to express his opinions and the Occupiers are exercising that right. I just can't really get behind them if they don't have a "demand" for their "occupation".

Yeah, I think they should hire some spin-doctors, some specialized fund raisers and few people doing their pr.

---

It's a bunch of cretins who think that they are entitled to free *insert anything here*, without actually working for it or earning it.

They think that to get money or more money, they need to not work or to stop working, start protesting, and convince their friends to do the same, instead of working harder or redoubling their efforts to look for gainful enployement.

Coincidentally, that is also the difference between communists and capitalists.

BTW, I am 100% sure, that many of these people if given power, would kill countless others to enrish themselves.

After all, it's been done before.

You are living in a fairy tale world....probably together with kandrathe.

Just shout hard enough that everybody has the same chances in life and people will believe you.

[Taem]

No, their explicit goals aren't clear. [...] Worse, having goals with this group is dangerous. How often will people give a list of goals, they get one of those accomplished, and suddenly the gas pedal is let up and everything falls apart.

Your own quotes state there is no hierarchy, and they have no goals, only vices. Part of my point. This group is like an aimless angry mob. Without a clear cut leader or goals to uphold, it's purpose is ambiguous and, I hate to say it, easily corruptible (send in some cronies to a Gathering and implant idea "x" and get the entire mob to start chanting it).

Along those lines, just a worst case here: Jim Morrison was master at group/mass manipulation; he could even, and often did, send and entire audience of concert goers on a riot destroying the town they were playing in. This Occupy group seems like they might be prime targets of coercion with their ill-directed ire and aimless goals... Suddenly, this movement has meaning and focus, but is it what this party stood for all along, or is this somebody else's ideals? Nobody knows because its purpose is not outlined! Something like this only has to happen at one rally and suddenly, the entire movement is branded, which is why in it's current state, these Occupy demonstrations seem dangerous to me, just people, most whom aren't even sure what they are protesting, gathered to express their anger.

I see many problems with your quoted sources logic which I'll outline below:

In the first act, bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending.

Which normal citizens took advantage of buddy. Don't just blame the bankers. I personally know, and I bet almost everyone on these boards does also, at least three people who rode the wave trying to cash in on home prices and got burned. Whose choice was that? The bankers didn't force them to sign these balloon rates. I'd hope if they bought a house, people would understand what the hell they were doing. Unless your implying all Americans are too stupid to understand what they are doing from day to day, and the bankers are the ones who control the world? This is a load of hogwash.

In the second act, the bubbles burst — but bankers were bailed out by taxpayers, with remarkably few strings attached, even as ordinary workers continued to suffer the consequences of the bankers’ sins.

Who was really bailed out? If the big banks fell, well guess what, I'm 100% sure the entire economy would have tanked. There would not have been enough money for the US to pay the companies claiming bankruptcy and the US would have went down, which would have brought the world down. So again, who was really bailed out? And who really put us in the mess in the first place? I doubt it was the bankers buying up all the homes. I'm not saying they didn't ignore all the warning signs, but if your pointing fingers, might as well point at the people snatching up the homes first.

And, in the third act, bankers showed their gratitude by turning on the people who had saved them, throwing their support — and the wealth they still possessed thanks to the bailouts — behind politicians who promised to keep their taxes low and dismantle the mild regulations erected in the aftermath of the crisis.

Again, the interest rates are so low, banks can't make money. Blame the fed for dropping the rate so ridiculously low. Bernake should be shot. The big banks are greedy, sure, and are imposing redundant penalties on necessary banking practices (like using your ATM card, or looking at your statement, overdraft "protection", etc.), but that's all within their right, and the reason I bank at a Credit Union. Take your business away from the big banks and they will change their ways. Again, its UP TO YOU as an individual to make a difference, but blaming banks... makes no sense. Show they your unhappy by moving all your loans and whatnot to a Credit Union.

"How do you close the deficit? End the wars and tax the rich!"
"End the wars and tax the rich... that's something I can get behind!"

A new spin on, "Get government out of our politics!" Pick your slogan. Besides, I don't agree with ending the war. I think we should invest american bases in Iraq to be prepared for anything. You always hear in the news how we caught terrorist X here in the states, whereas in other countries with less security, subways are derailed and blown up in London or Ireland, car bombs set off in almost any major city, but not in America. I was shocked to hear about the FBI or CIA finding out about Iran sending an ambassador to hire Mexican drug cartel to do a hit on the Saudi Prince's ambassador. America is the real deal in law enforcement and while we may not be 100% safe, we are leaps and bounds safer than many other countries. Is it because of our distance from the Middle-East, or the way we do business in other countries? I'm kind of leaning towards the latter, meaning I feel these wars, or at least our occupancy of the Middle-East territory, is vital to our security and sovereignty. I'm sorry most people don't see it that way.

Everyone not in the top x% has been in a decline since the deregulation in the early 80's, and if you can't see how unbalanced things are now then you're quite frankly a lost cause.

This argument of yours is a total strawman, and a ruse. Of course any moron can see how unbalanced things are financially right now (which might explain why there are so many protesters without a clue as to what they are protesting) but this has nothing to do with what others in your quotes are suggesting this Occupy movement represents. Your quote is a, "if your not for us, your against us" mentality with the pro bono caveat of being generic enough to suggest that if you can see the economy is unbalanced, then you must understand what we're about, because people who don't see how unbalanced the economy is are the ones we're protesting against! Nice little attempt at manipulation. I saw right through it.

So lets sum this up: The Occupy movement represents an overall dissatisfaction in these areas;

1) Getting government out of big business (privatize as much as possible)
2) Taxing the rich by fixing tax loopholes for the wealthy
3) Ending the "wars" (I have no idea what that means)
4) Fixing the "corruption" of the privatized banking industry
5) Fixing the "corruption" of Wallstreet
6) Fixing congress (perhaps a 3rd party?)
7) Fixing tuition costs (by punishing privatized schools?)
8) Fixing health care costs (by punishing insurance companies?)
9) Getting people back to work (how exactly?)

Did I miss anything? I didn't read any calls for Social Security reform, but I'm sure that can be added in there. And exactly how does this group plan on approaching these goals? To what end? Just bitching about these issues does not solve anything. If this group had an agenda, an outline, a goal, a purpose.... then maybe I could back them because they have many valid points, but as of now, its just grandiose whining with no clear cut presentation on a way to fix the presented issues. This group needs a leader to write a letter to congress outlining their angst's, then perhaps something will get done and coalitions will form in unity against "x". Until then, I stand by my initial assessment that Occupy Whatever is nothing more than a potentially dangerous group of misguided, angry citizens. Having said all that, it could be something quite spectacular with the right influence and some direction. It's definitely turned a lot of heads.

---

I look forward to your full thoughts Taem, and I'm wondering if you might be able to explain a potential process through which powers vested in the Federal government might be ceded back to the States. Having worked for the government, I can think of a few things I'd prefer handled at a local level, but I cannot for the life of me see a viable path to making that happen.

I'm going to have to give this some serious thought without sounding too cartoonish. My ideas were pretty simple and straightforward, but not entirely thought out. I'm going to have to dwell on this one for a bit.

[Ashock]

You are living in a fairy tale world....probably together with kandrathe.

Just shout hard enough that everybody has the same chances in life and people will believe you.

LOL. Really, if I were you, I'd keep your naivete more of a secret. Don't worry though, it won't save you in the end. Millions already tried and failed. See, when you bury your head in the sand, only you can't see anything.

I shall now resume my long forgotten practice of ignoring you. I guess some ppl don't learn anything with age.

[eppie]

I understand being angry about specific policies and those who brought them about, but one of my "radical" friends who supports the "occupy" movement said, "Corporations are just the head of the snake." So, yup, I think it's time to gather the villagers and march on the castle. Dr. Frankenstein is up to his old tricks messing up the laws of the economy again.

The whole thing is that these banks don't play by the rules.
You alwasy say that people should take care of their own business and be smart and not greedy so they will not take out too high houseloans etc. etc.
However, if a person saves a lot of money and tries to invest this on the stock exchange. True it has risks but can we agree it is a good thing to do? (especially compared to spending it all on consumer goods).

However smart this person is he will never be able to 'win' from the big banks. Big banks always know earlier what is going to happen (and a private person with a job doesn't even have the time to be updated).
Big banks even manipulate share prices by having their computers buy and sell huge amounts of shares multiple times in seconds etc.
This is legal, but is it fair?
And if fair, is it still a system where a private person (smart) can really have a fair chance of responsibly trying to increase his wealth in order just to pay for his pension?

I can very well imagine people being pissed at the government and the banks. Why didn't they bail out private persons? Give them enough cash to pay off their mortgage so that they didn't have to sell their house.

I totally agree that you should act responsible and not start protesting after you lost your house because you go a much to high mortgage. But.....in many countries you don't have a chance of buying a house when you don't get a mortgage. And even if you took a not too big mortgage, if you loose your job because the economy is bad because other morons have loaned to much and can't pay, you are still in trouble.

[kandrathe]

Yeah, I think they should hire some spin-doctors, some specialized fund raisers and few people doing their pr.

They already risk being co-opted by issue groups interested in furthering campaign goals. Campaigns that frankly will probably result in more of the same. If they don't define what it is that takes them out into the streets, someone else will do it for them, and many are trying, including Obama. I think the worst case scenario would be a repeat of the 1999 WTO protests, which started out peacefully, and appealed to a broad group of liberal thinkers. In that case, a minority of anarchist trouble makers began what became a riot.

You are living in a fairy tale world....probably together with kandrathe.

Hey, there's not room in my fantasy world for another *guy*. Send in the ravishingly beautiful brunettes. Please!

The whole thing is that these banks don't play by the rules.

Well they do. To do otherwise would be illegal, and they'd be in trouble. So, what they do is actually play by the rules, and I think we can agree that the rules are not always fair. I actually don't think banks use their computers to buy and sell huge volumes of stocks in order to manipulate the market. Someone might do that, but I don't think it is the banks. What banks (and other unscrupulous companies) do to manipulate earnings is to drag their feet on paying what they owe, but ensure they get their money in advance if possible.

I think what people are feeling is a sense of injustice. Obama, and his predecessors all were convinced that in a down economy that stabilizing and favoring the employers will speed the recovery. I think they felt that if they could get the employers to be optimistic, then they'd return to employment as usual. This time it didn't work, and they even did more than that. They spent almost an additional trillion dollars on the everyday person too. The Obama tax cuts were secretly implemented, and have remained in place for three years.

I think college students are upset because their unemployment*(and underemployment) rate is more like 37%, and they face student loan hell once they graduate or drop out. Scholarships, and grants have not kept up with the inflation rate of tuition. They face an uncertain present, and future.

I think the elderly and the nearly elderly are upset, because Obamacare screwed them. Not in what it did, but in what it didn't do. During the Clinton years, they passed a bill that controlled the amount of money paid to physicians. Because of this, more and more physicians in expensive markets are refusing to take Medicare patients. For example, an office visit in Manhattan is about $110, while in outstate NY it is more like $40. Medicare will only pay up to $54. Seniors, and those about to become seniors are rightly worried about the sustainability and future of social security and Medicare. Yet, nothing happens to rework them. Issues like this are why I don't like federal "one size fits all" programs. What works in NYC may not work in Selma, Alabama and vice versa.

And, I think the biggest part of this is that in the US, we are drummed from birth with this idea that if you work hard you will succeed. I think most people, in the occupy wall street movement, and in the tea party movement believe that corporate failures should fail. However, since 2008, many people who worked hard saw their assets (retirement accounts and home) retrench to 50% of their value, while some corporations went hat in hand to the government for bailouts. Now, many of the corporations have recovered, many are profitable again, but they are still not investing their profits into job growing expansions. It's not that all these people want their handout too, but rather think that the last place the handouts should go should be into the hands of corporations and their record profits.

If you are semi-Keynesian, you would make the case that if all the money that was handed out by government went into consumer hands, the corporations would have recovered just from the economic activity. Giving it to corporations and banks risks exactly what we've seen, the hesitancy to invest or spend that money due to volatility in the world economy. I'm not a Keynesian, so I tend to think there is something more fundamentally wrong in how policy distorts markets.

* correction noted by Jester

[Jester]

I think college students are upset because their unemployment rate is more like 37%, and they face student loan hell once they graduate or drop out. Scholarships, and grants have not kept up with the inflation rate of tuition. They face an uncertain present, and future.

Source? My understanding is that college graduates' unemployment is more like 3.7% than 37%. (Well, 4.2%)

-Jester

[FireIceTalon]

I'm not saying everything is rainbows and sunshine. Everyone has a right to express his opinions and the Occupiers are exercising that right. I just can't really get behind them if they don't have a "demand" for their "occupation".

Yeah, I think they should hire some spin-doctors, some specialized fund raisers and few people doing their pr.

---

It's a bunch of cretins who think that they are entitled to free *insert anything here*, without actually working for it or earning it.

They think that to get money or more money, they need to not work or to stop working, start protesting, and convince their friends to do the same, instead of working harder or redoubling their efforts to look for gainful enployement.

Coincidentally, that is also the difference between communists and capitalists.

BTW, I am 100% sure, that many of these people if given power, would kill countless others to enrish themselves.

After all, it's been done before.

You are living in a fairy tale world....probably together with kandrathe.

Just shout hard enough that everybody has the same chances in life and people will believe you.

So funny that he didn't try to retort my post, lol. He knows very well I'd tear him apart. But the sad (and scary) thing is, a lot of mindless twits in our populace think like him.

[kandrathe]

In the first act, bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending.

Which normal citizens took advantage of buddy. Don't just blame the bankers. I personally know, and I bet almost everyone on these boards does also, at least three people who rode the wave trying to cash in on home prices and got burned. Whose choice was that? The bankers didn't force them to sign these balloon rates. I'd hope if they bought a house, people would understand what the hell they were doing. Unless your implying all Americans are too stupid to understand what they are doing from day to day, and the bankers are the ones who control the world? This is a load of hogwash.

Well, the deregulation we are talking about is presumably, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, from wikipedia,

On November 4, the final bill resolving the differences was passed by the Senate 90-8,[14] and by the House 362-57. The legislation was signed into law by President Clinton on November 12, 1999. Clinton's support of the repeal is revealed in the following statement by a Goldman Sachs partner Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary"

“The banking industry is fundamentally different from what it was two decades ago, let alone in 1933.” He said the industry has been transformed into a global business of facilitating capital formation through diverse new products, services and markets. “U.S. banks generally engage in a broader range of securities activities abroad than is permitted domestically,” said the Treasury secretary. “Even domestically, the separation of investment banking and commercial banking envisioned by Glass-Steagall has eroded significantly.”

And,

“Over the past seven years we have tried to modernize the economy. And today what we are doing is modernizing the financial services industry, tearing down those antiquated laws and granting banks significant new authority.”

In 2009, McCain and Cantwell proposed re-enacting the Glass-Steagall Act.

But, what we got instead is a watered down Dodd-Frank, which in my opinion, is little more than another costly expansion of government filled with thousands of unintended consequences, such as BOA raising its ATM fees since they are constrained in earning money in other areas by the bill.

---

So funny that he didn't try to retort my post, lol. He knows very well I'd tear him apart.

Presumably with your fiery and icy talons. I just decided to get some popcorn and enjoy the show... And... I'm still waiting...

---

I think college students are upset because their unemployment rate is more like 37%, and they face student loan hell once they graduate or drop out. Scholarships, and grants have not kept up with the inflation rate of tuition. They face an uncertain present, and future.

Source? My understanding is that college graduates' unemployment is more like 3.7% than 37%. (Well, 4.2%)

You look to the BLS, and I turn to the NYTimes. Odd times indeed. Next, I'll be quoting Krugman. I was counting unemployment and underemployment, which is probably the discrepancy (along with the usual BLS deceptions of U-3, U-6, U-235).

...might as well point at the people snatching up the homes first.

To be fair... Let's put the blame squarely on the deceptive nature of Mortgage Backed Securities. So then who to blame? 1) They were invented by Freddie Mac in the early 70's, and then Fannie Mae jumped onboard back in the early 80's, so we can blame these quasi-government agencies for coming up with the idea, 2) We can blame the ratings agencies (S&P, Moody, et.al.) that failed to adequately assess the risks involved in buying them, 3) we can squarely blame the loose mortgage lenders who specialized in originating mortgages, packaging them, and disposing of them quickly, and 4) we can blame the victims who were the banks and other investors who bought and held them due to their high rate of return. So, the rub, as Krugman puts it as the end of his article on TARP, is "What we want is a system in which banks own the downs as well as the ups." They get the bailouts for their mal-investments, but they also get the profits. The taxpayer gets stuck holding the bag filled with different colors of crap, in the downside risks of toxic assets, the costs of administration of government programs for them, and the higher fees the banks charge us for their disruptions in earnings.

I really can't blame the home purchasers who bought the products (even ARMS) since they had pretty good disclosure on what they were buying, and many people who I know who got burned by rising interest rates eventually either moved into a fixed rate mortgage or toughed it out until the interest rates tanked again. Most of the families I know who are suffering the risk of foreclosure are suffering from unemployment, or underemployment, rather than upside down mortgages (which really is where the customer walks away from their contractual obligation leaving the lender to foreclose on the "toxic asset").

[Taem]

I really can't blame the home purchasers who bought the products (even ARMS) since they had pretty good disclosure on what they were buying, and many people who I know who got burned by rising interest rates eventually either moved into a fixed rate mortgage or toughed it out until the interest rates tanked again. Most of the families I know who are suffering the risk of foreclosure are suffering from unemployment, or underemployment, rather than upside down mortgages (which really is where the customer walks away from their contractual obligation leaving the lender to foreclose on the "toxic asset").

Every single person, even high-school kids, knew the housing market boom was going to end any day and that prices would drop dramatically when it did. There wasn't a single person who wasn't aware of this. This was risky investment at it's finest, and those who choose to do it helped sink our ship. I'm not a banker, and I don't have much sympathy for the big banks, but even I can see where the blame should be distributed; 50/50. If you purchase knowingly risky good to try and sell them at a higher price with full knowledge that the prices are being artificially inflated and you could be stuck with the hot potato... what you turn around and blame the guy who handed you the hot potato, or you blame yourself for taking the potato in the first place?

[kandrathe]

Every single person, even high-school kids, knew the housing market boom was going to end any day and that prices would drop dramatically when it did. There wasn't a single person who wasn't aware of this. This was risky investment at it's finest, and those who choose to do it helped sink our ship. I'm not a banker, and I don't have much sympathy for the big banks, but even I can see where the blame should be distributed; 50/50. If you purchase knowingly risky good to try and sell them at a higher price with full knowledge that the prices are being artificially inflated and you could be stuck with the hot potato... what you turn around and blame the guy who handed you the hot potato, or you blame yourself for taking the potato in the first place?

Yes, but. In 2007, the potato wasn't considered hot by the purchaser. If you see your home as an asset, and you paid $300K for one that is valued at $150K today, you still have the same utility of using this asset as a place to live. And, maybe you feel burned by the idea that your payments are for a $300K house. But, when you bought it, you knew the payments would be at that rate, and you probably could afford the payments and unless you have since lost your job, you can still make the payments on the product you bought. People erroneously thought that home values would always go up, and they were burned by that expectation (one perpetuated by government policy). But, yes, anyone who believes that "it's too good to be true", would have foreseen that the dramatic increase in home valuations was fiction. The same thing was true during the .com bubble, the era of VC investors flinging money at every pipe dream had to end one day.

If we buy a new car, the value of the car drops rapidly during the first 6 months, and after a year it's probably lost half it's value. I don't feel burned by that purchase, because it is expected.

But, populist anger aside. I think some of the anti-establishment crowd cherry pick their statistics. Consider the argument for wage stagnation against this chart;


The chart from the BusinessInsider article (taken from the St. Louis Fed, who got it from the BEA )was not adjusted for inflation because these are commingled with international profits so whose inflation rate would you choose, and in raw terms, aggregate corporate profits will always be hitting new highs in a growing economy, even one that is sputtering along at 1-3% growth. A better comparison is the profit to GDP ratio. So, yes, more in the 8-9% range compared to national income. I see this as some good news that our economy may not actually crash into depression. I don't know how you'd forecast anything other than record profits, given the downward pressure on wages and commodity costs. But, I've already said that it would be nice if "the 99%" were able to experience more participation in the risks and the rewards.

For CEO pay comparisons, you cannot just take the highest paid CEO, and compare that to the lowest paid worker. Here are the government statistics on CEO compensation. Mean annual wage for CEO's = $173,350, while for all occupations (including management) = $44,410. So, not really 350X the average worker. More like, 3.9X, which seems a bit more reasonable. The 2006, the national average household income for those with only high school graduation attainment was $36,835.

When you look at wages as a portion of GDP, you also need to consider GDP per capita which is encapsulated within that graph. In that same 1972 to 2005 period, GDP per capita is 3x higher, meaning that each worker is producing far more than 3x, and more like 6x more than they did in 1972.

When I got to digging into this chart;

I notice that the (slight) lag as a percentage of income is in State and Local taxes (including sales tax). That, and the chart is a bit misleading in that they break down the top quintile into four groups which visually over represents them. If you just look at the salmon colors and the light gray, which represents the progressive federal income tax you see what you'd expect to see. The bottom 20% pay <4%, the top 20% pay > 20%. I'm sure certain wealthy people who exist mostly from investment income pay more like the capital gains tax rate, but taxing capital gains is an involved discussion, as is other rate equity ideas, like removing the yearly cap on SSI tax.

[Taem]

In the first act, bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending.

Which normal citizens took advantage of buddy. Don't just blame the bankers. I personally know, and I bet almost everyone on these boards does also, at least three people who rode the wave trying to cash in on home prices and got burned. Whose choice was that? The bankers didn't force them to sign these balloon rates. I'd hope if they bought a house, people would understand what the hell they were doing. Unless your implying all Americans are too stupid to understand what they are doing from day to day, and the bankers are the ones who control the world? This is a load of hogwash.

Well, the deregulation we are talking about is presumably, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, from wikipedia,

Admittedly, I didn't know much about that until I read about it just now, but regardless, my response was directed solely toward the "lending" bit of that passage. Even if the bankers went hog wild, they had help turning the system on it's head; they couldn't have done it all on their own. That was my point. Do they need more oversight? Obviously, but we can't put all the blame on them either.

[FireIceTalon]

That income tax chart shows perfectly how unfair our tax system is for the middle class. Someone in the middle class, id assume somewhere in the 4th 20%, pays almost the same percentage of their income as someone in the top 1%. Disgusting. And people wonder why there are protests....that chart is telling.

Speaking of GDP, I was reading an article some time ago that made a co-relation between high GDP and high rates of poverty (% of people living below the poverty line), I will have to try and find it.

[Taem]

That income tax chart shows perfectly how unfair our tax system is for the middle class. Someone in the middle class, id assume somewhere in the 4th 20%, pays almost the same percentage of their income as someone in the top 1%. Disgusting. And people wonder why there are protests....that chart is telling.

Speaking of GDP, I was reading an article some time ago that made a co-relation between high GDP and high rates of poverty (% of people living below the poverty line), I will have to try and find it.

We need a tax code overhaul. Who's on board for that?

It's ironic that I read an interesting article about just this subject a few minutes ago in my local paper: LINK

October’s Occupy Wall Street protests have metastasized and threaten to evolve from localized, inchoate demonstrations into a national political movement similar to the Tea Party phenomenon.

The protesters refer to themselves as the 99%, as distinguished from the 1% of the population that owns over a third of the nation’s wealth. The protesters’ fundamental complaint is that the nation’s pronounced wealth imbalance is the result of condoned corruption. They contend that the 1% has bought the nation’s policy makers, and that the influence of the wealthy over government has not only resulted in laws and policies that favor the established elite but has also allowed them to pillage the country with impunity.

The chronic Great Recession with its high unemployment and dwindling opportunities has aggravated national economic angst especially among those most adversely affected by the prolonged downturn. Most of the protestors are young, college educated, and under or unemployed. Their expensive college degrees have got them big debt but no jobs. Like their counterparts among the Arab spring movements, they see little opportunity to improve their conditions under the existing, established power structure.

Of course, the ideological idiots who have dumbed down all debate on any issue in this country to snarling sarcasms between liberal and conservative doctrines have consulted their handbooks and determined the proper position to take on the protesters and the economic issues that have provoked their protests.

The liberal ideologues want to impose greater taxes on the top 1% and continue deficit spending to fund massive welfare programs. But, there is no 1% solution. “Tax the rich feed the poor, till there are no rich no more,” then what—tax to death the top 5%, 10%, 20%? And, or incur more debt, and from whom? Who will create wealth only to have it confiscated?

While 1% of the population holds 35% of the nation’s wealth, the next 19% has 50%.
So, 20% of the nation’s households hold 85% of the nation’s wealth. The protesters call themselves the 99%, but it is presumptuous to include and expect the support of the top 19% of the economic food chain comprised mostly of professionals and small business owners who are unlikely to accept more taxes or approve of more national debt.

Attempts to redistribute wealth by government mandate or to finance welfare with debt have proven to be disastrous failures. The Soviet Union is the classic example of the former while Greece is a current example of the latter.

The conservative ideologues, meanwhile, believe that unfettered capitalism has curative powers to fix whatever ails America. But, that cure may be worse than the disease. Unrestrained self-interest is not necessarily benign, and pure capitalism has not proven to perform in the field as flawlessly as predicted in the lab. It allows greed to become virulent. Monopolies choke out competition, labor is reduced to near slavery, and the ecosystem is despoiled.

Big business has more allegiance to profit than to any nation. So while America provides the world’s most favorable conditions for free enterprise and for entrepreneurial inventions and ideas, the production and work for those inventions and ideas may well be done overseas—doing little to provide employment for Americans. Yet, American taxpayers fund subsidies to big business.

Uncontrolled human greed creates an economic jungle within which no one is safe from cannibalism. It is not like there is a fraternity of rich folks who will not prey on each other. There is no honor among thieves or economic cannibals. Bernie Madoff’s victims were among the top of the economic food chain, as were many of the investors and clients of Lehman Brothers and the other recklessly avaricious banks that wrecked the economy.

Rich, poor, or middle class, anyone who advocates unregulated free markets has to be prepared to be speared and roasted in a pot. Being in the top 20% or even the top 1% is no guarantee of security from economic cannibalism. There has to be sensible constraints on capitalism.

If the American autumn protestors ever formulate specific demands to address their complaints, I hope they eschew the usual bi-polar ideological nonsense and focus on reason. There are no easy answers for a quick recovery from the nation’s economic problems, but there are objective solutions found somewhere outside of ideological purity. We will never find those solutions by electing ideologues to policy making positions at any level of government. These people will not think outside of their doctrines.

Left, right, liberal, conservative, what matters is what works, not what you call it.
It is time for people of reason to step up and run for office, and for people of reason to vote for them. We have let the boneheads at the far ends of the political spectrum run amok long enough.

Whats essentially being said here is if we follow the mindset of the Occupy movement, we all suffer in the long-run as the taxes would eventually trickle down to everyone to balance things out as our appetites grow. What is REALLY needed is not to tax the super rich huge rates, but a complete tax overhaul to make things fair and balanced for everyone, one that closes as many loopholes it can in the process. The Occupy movement has good basic idea, but it's muddled with anger at the rich and in it's current form would never work. But this [tax movement] is only one faucet of the cadre of ideas swelling from the Occupy movement. They really need more direction.

[kandrathe]

That income tax chart shows perfectly how unfair our tax system is for the middle class. Someone in the middle class, id assume somewhere in the 4th 20%, pays almost the same percentage of their income as someone in the top 1%. Disgusting. And people wonder why there are protests....that chart is telling.

The 4th quintile are those between $59,486 to $103,465. Yes, yes. Tax justice for the upper middle class! Huh?


In 2011, 46.4 percent of tax filers will have no federal income tax liability.

24,000 of the top 1% (1.9%) of income earners had zero tax liability (by using legal means, such as tax free federal or municipal bonds, or offsetting prior years losses). It's not socialist to expect them to pay their fair share, but it's also kind of a red herring. Other than a sense of justice served, I'm not sure what it gets for us. Do we not allow people to actually benefit from tax free bonds? Do we not allow people to offset gains with prior years losses? There are consequences for these types of policy changes too.

[Concillian]

For CEO pay comparisons, you cannot just take the highest paid CEO, and compare that to the lowest paid worker. Here are the government statistics on CEO compensation. Mean annual wage for CEO's = $173,350, while for all occupations (including management) = $44,410. So, not really 350X the average worker. More like, 3.9X, which seems a bit more reasonable. The 2006, the national average household income for those with only high school graduation attainment was $36,835.

On one hand, you point out a comparison that's irrelevant, then on the other you make a comparison that's irrelevant.

So what percentage of a CEO's total compensation is "annual wage"?
and
What percentage of the average employee's total compensation is "annual wage"?

I don't know the answer to those qeustions, but I suspect it's a single digit percentage for the CEO and somewhere on the order of 50% of the average employees.

This conveniently plays right into your other point, which I completely agree with... that everyone needs to be suspect about any and all data presented. How it's presented, who's presenting it, what is the exact wording used, and how are they trying use all of these hard facts to deceive you.

[kandrathe]

Whats essentially being said here is if we follow the mindset of the Occupy movement, we all suffer in the long-run as the taxes would eventually trickle down to everyone to balance things out as our appetites grow. What is REALLY needed is not to tax the super rich huge rates, but a complete tax overhaul to make things fair and balanced for everyone, one that closes as many loopholes it can in the process. The Occupy movement has good basic idea, but it's muddled with anger at the rich and in it's current form would never work. But this [tax movement] is only one faucet of the cadre of ideas swelling from the Occupy movement. They really need more direction.

I agree with the article writer, but I don't think they suggest any one solution other than that ideological boneheads should not be welcome in either political office or voting booth. "...what matters is what works, not what you call it."

But, for example, social mobility... Currently, it is both the educational goals, and the cost to attain it that are out of whack. We don't need $100,000 debt ridden college educated office assistants, or bank tellers. Its nice to have, but it's not a requirement. The reason it's sometimes now requirement is that businesses have not found that high schools have properly prepared people to fill what should be an entry level, low skill job. So, bank tellers tend to be struggling business or accounting majors, and general office workers are English, history, and social science majors. We need high school graduates who can read, write, and do math. If they can't they need to fail high school.

I think another area where we fail is in how we determine what is an US company. There should be a clear benefit for being one (import/exicese duty, tax rate, what have you...). A US company should have it's headquarters in the US, pay US taxes, and employ most of its labor from the US. Then, and only then would they get the benefits of being considered a US company. And, there should be a different tax rate for US companies that do not depend on the government for hand outs. 10% for those that go it alone, and keep it at 35% for those that feed at the public trough (even a little).

It takes *real* leadership to implement fundamental changes to the society.