I get it. I was also against TARP (Chrysler/GM bailouts as well). It's rewarding bad behavior, but if those big banks had gone under, the effects to our economy would have been devastating. Of that there is no question.

And that is exactly the problem. "Too big to [allow to] fail." It's the guy with the gun and the hostage staring down the cop and saying "If you shoot me, she dies too."

So how do we solve the problem? Let's turn this into an idea thread. Points to someone who can make a "shoot the hostage" argument.

AZhitman wrote:That somebody is called a lobbyist. And there's lots of them.

Biggest problem, and really the root of all political evil. You can buy politicians, including the POTUS.

Encryptshun wrote:So how do we solve the problem? Let's turn this into an idea thread. Points to someone who can make a "shoot the hostage" argument.

What problem are we going to try to propose ideas for?

Believe me, I am not being facetious ... the fact is that we all have to agree on the problem, its scope, etc.!

Else, the discussion degenerates into arguments about the "problem" (i.e., whether it is a problem) rather than the "ideas" to fix the problem.

So, what do you consider is the problem that we should tackle:

... The doldrum economy and lack of spending?
... Unemployment rates in the US?
... Looking after the poor who are starving?
... Changing the "wealth" distribution?
... The unethical Wall Street types?
... Something else?

Z

Good point, Z. Let's start with this one:

Right now, the fed is lending money to the banks at pretty much zero interest. The banks are taking that money and, instead of using it to loan to businesses, are using it to buy treasury bonds which they then, in turn, get MORE money from the Fed for in terms of interest (both on the cash they have sitting at the Fed and the yield on the treasuries).

How do we break the cycle?

Simple. We demand that people and corporations figure out a way to survive under the current regulations without government intervention on their behalf.

How can one entity have both regulatory / oversight AND protection / maintenance functions? It's counterintuitive.

I'm not a believer in the "too big to fail" propaganda. Perhaps an economic apocalypse IS needed. Much like in Mad Max, the strong / resourceful will survive, and then (and ONLY THEN) can mom & pop shops have a chance and revive things from the bottom up.

mattblancarte wrote:Biggest problem, and really the root of all political evil. You can buy politicians, including the POTUS.

While that makes you angry, this might make you terrified: You can buy judges in most states, too. - Frontline's 2008 follow-up to its 1999 documentary, "Justice For Sale."

Very nice link, and it does terrify me. I hadn't seen this FRONTLINE episode, but have been aware of the financial backing that goes into buying courtrooms.

The fact that we have a private prison industry in the US alongside corrupt courtrooms... *sigh*...

Add Bethel, AK to the movement. This one had me chuckling a little, too.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationn ... ebook.html

"Occupy the tundra!"

IBCoupe wrote:

mattblancarte wrote:Biggest problem, and really the root of all political evil. You can buy politicians, including the POTUS.

While that makes you angry, this might make you terrified: You can buy judges in most states, too. - Frontline's 2008 follow-up to its 1999 documentary, "Justice For Sale."

Closer to the topic of the thread however is, Frontline: The Warning, I urge everyone concerned about the finances of Wall Street (and the country) to watch it.

Nice link. I watched the whole thing, and it was quite interesting. I wasn't aware of how this whole scenario was predicted more than a decade ago...

I'll just leave this here:

IBCoupe wrote:We handed them a ton of cash without demanding reform in exchange, and even failed to prosecute people who were breaking the law. Poke fun at them as much as you want, but don't forget that there are legitimate grievances.

Having been in the corporate world when the dotcom bubble burst with Enron and now the Sub Prime Mortgage/Liquidity Crisis I can say we got the reform. We got SOX 404 and Dodd-Frank regulations every time someone else broke the law. Yet, we are the ones that have to comply with more and more regulations. We have external auditors to audit the auditors that make sure we comply with regulations. We have external auditors to audit our internal auditors. I really think the problem is the latter. That no one was prosecuted for their transgressions. SOX enables the officers of a company to be heavily fined and thrown in jail. Yet did the DOJ put anyone behind bars for AIG, Bear Stearns and the other companies that wrote off Billions in toxic assets and got us into this mess?

That coupled with the fact that the Government was all to quick to bail out these guys in order to ease any reaction on the stagnant economy, they created the mentality that these guys were too big to fail and would be bailed out regardless. If some of these companies were allowed to fail, it would probably have caused the markets to react in their proper function and keep these kind of activities from happening again and it is possible we would be in a better situation. Instead, we have people still cling to a perverted Keynesian model that we can borrower our way out of these troubles, never cut the size of our government’s spending and defer the debt payment to the next generation(s). I would wager to say that the Big Government Bubble just broke and we need to move on. Where are Hayek and von Mises when you need them?

Bud, I think that post was in agreement with the part of mine that you quoted.

As for Keynesian policies, you aptly describe what Keynesian policies say we do now and poorly describe what they say we do tomorrow.

It is an agreement.. just an expansion from my experiences.

What I was trying to draw out in my second part of the discussion was NOT necessarily how Keynesian Policies have failed us.. but how a perversion of Keynesian policies from the past 11 or so has really failed us. I think that the School would acknowledge that after the money was spent and the economy was in recovery, it would be paid back. Obviously, that is not the current mind set.

I don't know that the mindset isnt there. The Democratic party line is, "We need to get a handle on the deficit and debt by raising taxes and cutting spending, but we shouldn't do it right now."

One might suspect that when it comes time to actually do it that they won't, but that's not to say that the current position is off.

Shades of the Gestapo:

http://www.observer.com/2011/10/citiban ... ll-street/

But what was unknown to us and to a lot of people that day, including those in Times Square, was that there were undercover cops already there, paid to be disruptive and to be loud. One undercover cop present [at Citi] was louder than the entire group.

How did you know he was an undercover cop?

He arrested one of the protestors outside, and slammed her into the wall, and pushed her back into the bank. We all saw him at the precinct with us. He was laughing with the fellow white shirt cops, telling them about what we’d been saying, basically. It was a bit startling how inside their information was – how they were being paid to go to these protests and put us in situations where we’d be arrested and not be able to leave.

mattblancarte wrote:Shades of the Gestapo:

http://www.observer.com/2011/10/citiban ... ll-street/

But what was unknown to us and to a lot of people that day, including those in Times Square, was that there were undercover cops already there, paid to be disruptive and to be loud. One undercover cop present [at Citi] was louder than the entire group.

How did you know he was an undercover cop?

He arrested one of the protestors outside, and slammed her into the wall, and pushed her back into the bank. We all saw him at the precinct with us. He was laughing with the fellow white shirt cops, telling them about what we’d been saying, basically. It was a bit startling how inside their information was – how they were being paid to go to these protests and put us in situations where we’d be arrested and not be able to leave.

Reminds me of the Conservative blogger who went "undercover" with an anti-war protest (not officially "Occupy," but sharing attendees), and actually led a charge on the Air & Space museum. The only way we know all that is because he later bragged about it: http://www.wjla.com/articles/2011/10/co ... 67654.html

For shame America.

2 times Iraq tour

bigbadberry3 wrote:For shame America.

How's that shameful?

You can't protest unless you're doing it "for the cause"?

MURRIKA.

Pretty much, Greg. If your goal is to infiltrate the movement so that you might embarrass or discredit them, yeah, that's shameful. You disagree?

Wut?

He means the 2010 election, of course.

...sorry divebombs have been all i've had time for lately....will be back with diatribe soon ^.^

EDIT - and no thats not me

I don't really wander into the side of the forums, mostly because I'm of the old school logic that you should actually work for what you have and not expect the government or anyone else to just hand it to you and frankly my viewpoints and opinions on what needs to happen with this country and the people that live is more than a little inflammatory, but I digress. I'm with Greg on this whole occupy BS, I live in Philadelphia and they've been camped out in front of City hall for months now and have managed to get more than a few of there unorganized asses arrested. They have no real purpose of collective reasoning for being there, some are protesting the economy, others are protesting health care, and some others are protesting the war, hey that's cool, you won't change anything but you just keep thinking you are. My issue is that the majority of these a$$ are protesting just to protest, they are using this whole occupy bs to publicly voice their opinions on everything ranging from legalize pot to 9/11 was an inside job, and no lie I saw one of these occupy people with a huge banner protesting slavery... If you actually look at most of these fools they are your typical hippie with the long dreads and home made help clothes.

I know the job market right now is in the toilet, but if you really look it's more like their are tons of jobs that most people feel are beneath them. No there may not be any corporate VP positions open, but there are tons of mailroom, facilities, and filing clerk positions out there. The main problem is that the average American lives well outside of their financial cushion and they can't take a job that pays $10-13 an hour because they are struggling to live in the cushion that their old $20-40 an hour job afforded them. I get paid $15 an hour and while I live paycheck to paycheck it's not because I'm living outside of my financial cushion, it's because I made a bad choice when I was younger and now I have to pay for it.

I might be getting laid off end of the year b/c my company was recently acquired by Aramark and my current position is a redundancy, they have their own service and delivery people, so they don't really need me or most of the people that I work with. Am I happy about that, no not really, but will I adapt and overcome, absolutely. I'm going to take a couple weeks to relax and re prioritize and then I'm going to use my Unemployment to go to school and get my CDL. So this brings me back to my initial point, these Occupy people need to suck it up and deal, they need to accept that they have to get a job that pays less than what they are accustomed to and go back to work.

This was too funny:

nydailnews.com wrote:A comic book legend has something to say to the Occupy protesters: "Wake up, pond scum."
Frank Miller, the creator of the acclaimed "Sin City" and "Dark Knight Returns" graphic novels, has crafted a harsh diatribe aimed at the anti-Wall Street movement.
"'Occupy'" is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness," he recently wrote on his website. "These clowns can do nothing but harm America."
He dismisses the Occupy protests - which have spread worldwide since they began in September - as "garbage," and accuses those participating in the protests of being "spoiled brats who should stop getting in the way of working people and find jobs for themselves."
Miller urges the protesters to "go home to your parents, you losers. Go back to your mommas’ basements and play with your Lords Of Warcraft."
The writer, who directed 2010’s box office flop, "The Spirit," then suggested that the Occupy participants should instead join the military.
"Maybe our military could whip some of you into shape," he wrote. "They might not let you babies keep your iPhones, though. Try to soldier on. Schmucks."
Miller himself has never served in the armed forces.
The "300" writer unleashed his rage on Nov. 7, but no one appeared to notice the posting until this weekend. And many didn't take his comments too kindly.
"I used to be your biggest fan," wrote Daniel Calvisi in response to the blog post. "You're now dead to me."
"How dare Frank Miller tell the occupiers to join the military?" wrote another commenter, David Talley. "What branch did he serve in?"
Fellow comic book writers also spoke out over the weekend, and took offense to Miller's tone.
"What those on Occupy Wall Street want is simple -- for the rich to pay their fare share of taxes. Is that so wrong?" said "Savage Dragon" writer and co-founder of Image Comics, Erik Larsen, via Twitter.
Miller’s most recent graphic novel, “The Holy Terror,” was a response to 9/11 about a vigilante who battles Islamic extremists.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... e-1.977178

I'm a big Miller fan, and can understand and even empathize with his post 9/11 diatribe on NPR a few years ago (it was when 300 was in theatres). But my favourite quote of his was when he talked about trying to break into comics and his first meeting with Neal Adams...

Frank Miller wrote:The first thing Master Adams did was duck back and away, cocking his head as I opened my portfolio too quickly, almost clipping his nose. Then he looked at my precious samples of comic-book work, and, with a smile and a few well-chosen words, sent my soul screaming into hell.

I couldn’t draw, said he, his words as clipped as they were genial in tone. Where was the anatomy? What was this room? A tenement, you say? You call this a tenement? What tells me it’s a tenement? Where are the pipes on the walls? Where are the security bars on the windows? Why am I even looking at this?

Get lost. Go back to—where is it, Vermont? Go back to Vermont and pump gas. You’ll never make it in comics. You’re no damn good.

This and worse Neal Adams said to me, time and again, but I kept pestering him with new samples, ever hopeful.

But I learned, very quickly, never to feel sorry for myself.

That’s the thing about Neal Adams. If I showed a trace of self-pity, he’d dismiss it without a thought. His kind—and that includes Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, and my own father, God rest his soul, none of these men had a nanosecond’s patience with self-pity. May we learn from them. Self-pity is for losers.

Anyone wanting to get rid of their old Frank Miller comics let me know and I'll PM my address.

He seems unhinged.

I'm guessing this is where I should post this?

A little old, but here's a nice little "demand list" that I found.

http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed- ... s-demands/

Clearly, all of these (demands) are easily achievable and economically viable!








...












Lol just kidding, it looks like someone went full retard? (or hopefully was just trolling?)

(Yes, I know it's from a forum and was "user submitted and not an official statement"...and if this is a repost, go ahead and delete it or whatever...)