Occupy Wall Street

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by molson

What does that even mean? Who are we talking about? Why not judge people by their individual actions instead of simply how much money they make and how successful they are? That's 3rd world thinking - "that guy owns stuff - let's kill him!!!"

Of course no one really believes the "let's kill him" aside from hyperbolic statements. It's a complete strawman. However, it is easy to claim why don't we judge people by individual actions when the issue is how broken the society is and who it caters to. That allows you to avoid the tough questions.

What exactly do you mean by "fiddling around with money"? Do you mean committing crimes, or just earning money legitimately?

Do you think that preditory lending, cooking the books, and engaging in massively risky derivatives transactions (you know the actions that led to the mess we are currently in) is "earning money legitimately"?

If you have a problem with what's defined as crime your problem is with the government (just like the tea partiers).

You do realize they are in Washington as well, right? There is, to paraphrase Eisenhower, a government-industrial complex. When the government is run by money (as evidenced by Presidential races), you kind of have to look at the sources of money as well as the sources of policy. Or else you really aren't doing anything.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by molson

I think at some point, for the movement to be legitimate, you have to acknowledge the fact that in this country, it is possible to make a ton of money through genius and hard work. Yes, not everyone can be a genius. I don't know how we can get past that to the satisfaction of the OWS marchers, but it's reality.

Here is the problem - how did they get to the positions they are in? There are a lot of people who work hard and have great ideas, but it doesn't always work out. There are situations and oppertunities that some people just luck out into. A great book to read is Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" which goes into the factors that led some of our great success stories into the position they are (guess what, it is less about genius and hard work than you think).

The pernicious issue is this mentality that people get to where they are only by individual hard work and individual genius and that they didn't get held from no one, no where. It is like if we disacknowledge all the benefits these people have recieved from society we can banish those benefits (for a quick and dirty example, it's like Clarence Thomas, a clear beneficiary of Affirmative Action & without it he'd not be anywhere near the Supreme Court, speaking out against AA - like it didn't lead him to where he is). Things that the society has put in place, in terms of education, infrustructure, research, etc, etc has benefited those hard working geniuses more than people realize. When we get away from this hyperindividualized nonsense, maybe we can see the truth.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

It's not trillions.

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Welfare is not nearly as big as people think. Look up how much we spend on it a year. Pretty sure just the AIG bailout alone covered that.

Medicare and Social Security tend to go to the bottom end (less so on Social Security, although it makes an attempt). And over the same timeframe as the trillions in bailout, yes trillions.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Medicare and Social Security tend to go to the bottom end (less so on Social Security, although it makes an attempt). And over the same timeframe as the trillions in bailout, yes trillions.

Social Security pays out to everyone and the more you earned over your lifetime the higher your benefits. Medicare is also available to every citizen.

If you define welfare as anything anybody gets from the government I guess the whole budget is welfare.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Medicare and Social Security tend to go to the bottom end (less so on Social Security, although it makes an attempt). And over the same timeframe as the trillions in bailout, yes trillions.

Medicare and Social Security are taxes that everyone pays into for the duration of their life. It's not welfare or a handout. In fact, Social Security is only paid on around $110,000 of your income. That would exclude the wealthiest people from paying in large amounts.

[molson]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Here is the problem - how did they get to the positions they are in? There are a lot of people who work hard and have great ideas, but it doesn't always work out. There are situations and oppertunities that some people just luck out into. A great book to read is Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" which goes into the factors that led some of our great success stories into the position they are (guess what, it is less about genius and hard work than you think).

The pernicious issue is this mentality that people get to where they are only by individual hard work and individual genius and that they didn't get held from no one, no where. It is like if we disacknowledge all the benefits these people have recieved from society we can banish those benefits (for a quick and dirty example, it's like Clarence Thomas, a clear beneficiary of Affirmative Action & without it he'd not be anywhere near the Supreme Court, speaking out against AA - like it didn't lead him to where he is). Things that the society has put in place, in terms of education, infrustructure, research, etc, etc has benefited those hard working geniuses more than people realize. When we get away from this hyperindividualized nonsense, maybe we can see the truth.

Speaking of strawmen....

edit: or maybe that's my point. Some are more concerned with "mentality" then what anyone actually lacks. What if all successful people sign an acknowledgement that society played some part in their success? I admit society played a part in my top 40%ish success. some luck is involved too. But it also helped that i made a lot of good choices and worked hard. And many, though not all of the people better off than me are smarter, made better decisions, and worked harder. Why is that such an offensive thing to acknowledge?

I know plenty of people who did shit in high school, or shit in college. A lot of them did end up with decent jobs and houses anyway. But i do derserve whatever i can earn beyond what they did. And i do deserve less than those who were more talented, and worked harder. It's not a perfect sliding scale of course...but i do deserve more or less than others. And part of that is what i can give to my children (which everyone has the instinct to do, but then don't seem to like it when anyone else acts on that instinct.)

[ISiddiqui]

If people acknowledge that society played a part in their success, there would be, IMO, more of an acceptance for higher tax brackets and more programs (and money) for education and training. The dirty little secret is that while some can escape, the quality of the public school a person goes to have quite a strong impact on that person's prospects. The whole "I did it all myself" mentality leads to mindboggling stuff like only local property taxes pay for local public schools - as if the people in poor cities are condemned to horrible public schools forever simply because they were born in that area.

An acknowledgement of dependance on society would cause a lot of changes in the world views of Americans who, for the most part, tend to see everything in terms of hyperindividuality (and I mean that on social issues as well as fiscal, mind).

(There is also a social conservatism, somewhat, argument to be made for a society/community focus - ie, values matter because you aren't just an individual free spirit with no ties to anyone else, but a member of a community; therefore what you do matters to the rest of your group)

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by molson

I know plenty of people who did shit in high school, or shit in college. A lot of them did end up with decent jobs and houses anyway. But i do derserve whatever i can earn beyond what they did. And i do deserve less than those who were more talented, and worked harder. It's not a perfect sliding scale of course...but i do deserve more or less than others. And part of that is what i can give to my children (which everyone has the instinct to do, but then don't seem to like it when anyone else acts on that instinct.)

ahhhhh, but would you have the same opinion if despite your hard work, effort, good grades, smart decisions, and birth in life, that you still found yourself sucking hind tit? At some point it all seems like this..... I think that's the premise of the entire discussion.

[lungs]

If we ignore the hippies (old and new) that would be protesting during the best of economic times, I think a lot of the angst comes down to the my age group (late 20's, early 30's). It's been ingrained into our heads that if we go to school, get a job after school, buy a house, and put all of our extra money into the stock market, we'd be setup for a pretty damn good life. Today's reality is that we've gone to school but there are no jobs and a house isn't the surefire investment it used to be (oh, we've also been preached to that a house is an investment, not a place to live). Money leftover for the stock market? Yeah right, and that will just end up going down the tubes too.

It's harder for older and established people that have realized the "American Dream" to understand. I'm 29 years old and financially secure with a good future ahead of me. But why is that? Not because I worked hard, but because my dad and grandfather busted their asses to build up what I'm taking over. It'll take hard work to maintain what they've built up, no doubt. I don't necessarily think the problem with my generation is work ethic. It's more of opportunity and expectations. We've had this utopian road map planted in our heads of what it will take to have a successful life, and now that we are realizing that the map was a complete farce, we're a little pissed off.

It's even affected me to some degree. In 2007 we were putting the wheels in motion for me to completely buy out the farm from my dad. If it would've happened, it would've been a financial disaster from which I'd have to be bailed out or go bankrupt because of what happened in 2009 (record losses). No bank would bail me out with as little equity as I would have had, so it would either be dad stepping back in to bail me out (who would want that?) or bankruptcy. As it is, we used dad's good equity position to leverage enough from the banks to keep our head's above water. Of course that did eat into dad's equity too.

Now I'm not demanding the government do anything for me. I've scaled back my expectations. I'm building a little equity every year, but honestly we would've liked to have the transfer complete by now. My dad will have to have his neck on the line financially longer than he would like to. I won't be able to modernize as quickly as I would like, and that's fine. We're getting the feeling that 2012 is going to be another shitty year for the milk markets and we've taken positions that reflect that.

I could go on and on, but really I think this is all just a reaction to the unrealistic expectations my generation has been fed. My situation is volatile, but better than most. I can't imagine what it'd be like for bad situations. On the other hand, I think my generation needs to scale back our expectations a little bit. We aren't all going to get super rich. Maybe we're starting to realize that. But I think what most of the angst comes down to is that many don't even have the opportunity to fail anymore, much less succeed.

[PilotMan]

well said lungs. I have done some reading on the difference in the generations, and a lot of what you just said comes down to what defines Gen X these days. The Boomers have their place and have had unparalleled successes, and the Millennials aren't quite there yet. They are still being defined. Those experiences clearly are a big filter that we all look at our lives through.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

If people acknowledge that society played a part in their success, there would be, IMO, more of an acceptance for higher tax brackets and more programs (and money) for education and training.

Gonna disagree with your expectation there. While that isn't particularly noteworthy in & of itself, the reason I disagree seems to have a least a tiny bit of potential to be of some interest, if not to you then to someone in the thread somewhere.

The acknowledgment largely already exists, although not as explicitly as you're hoping for. It exists every time someone sends in their tax check.

The fundamental disagreement seems to be on how much of a role society plays ... which in turn plays into the demand that those checks get smaller. It also connects to the demand that those who cry the loudest & depend on society the most start to acknowledge their dependence upon the successful as well as the increasing demand that more people begin to make a more substantial contribution. You mention higher tax brackets, a lot of us know exactly where those should start, but I doubt you're going to like the answer.

Basically, the acknowledgments cut both ways, and those doing a lot of the crying have spent far too long coming up far too short on holding up their end of the deal. And the phony guilt trip screed just isn't working anymore

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

At an individual level that's what I'd encourage, but when you zoom out, not everyone can do that. We simply can't have a country of 300 million successful small business owners. The question for me is does the rest of society have a right to share in the prosperity? Not only do I think the answer is yes, but I think it will benefit the 1% over time.

A study recently came out that showed stronger growth rates for countries with greater income equality. If the 1% takes all the money there won't be any customers left.

Prosperity should be earned, not given. Just like a job. You aren't entitled to one. You need to earn one. A promotion and a raise is not given, it is earned.

Wall Street needs to be regulated (I am in favor for separating retail/commercial banking institutions from trading and investment banking) of course and we need to look at not just what how much of our tax money is being spending, but how can be best allocate our tax dollars without draining more debt.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Basically, the acknowledgments cut both ways, and those doing a lot of the crying have spent far too long coming up far too short on holding up their end of the deal. And the phony guilt trip screed just isn't working anymore

Latest CBS News/NY Times poll show that 47% of Americans agree with Occupy Wall Street movement. Same poll in February re: The Tea Party had only 25% (or so). So, basically, you are wrong on what may or may not be working with most Americans.

[NorvTurnerOverdrive]

a lot of the burden on the state came from de-industrialization. pensions and healthcare became social security and medicare.

all the 'conservative' work in removing trade barriers and regulation actually created a more socialist country.

[Rizon]

Occupy Oakland is now teaching its peeps how to make gas masks.

[lcjjdnh]

Many of you seem very focused on the idea that people that work hard should be rewarded. But this seems a perhaps necessary but not sufficient element we should want to structure our society's incentive system to favor. People don't begrudge the 1% because they're rich; they do so because in some cases, but not always, they acquire their wealth in part by pushing their externalities onto us and without performing socially beneficially activities.

Take bankers for instance. Most people at Wall Street banks work really hard. Many work harder than most of you. Yet all of you express outrage at the fact they were "bailed out" (even though these people just worked hard lobbying the government). But most people at these banks didn't do anything that made the bank fail. They just happen to get their paychecks from the same company. Rightly, though, I think we all agree that although these people "work hard" they do so by focusing on: 1.) socially wasteful activities; 2.) activities that are more profitable than they should be because they get to push the externality of failing onto the rest of us.

Likewise with CEOs. Again, I'm sure many work hard. But some have invested their hard work in building in organization capital that benefits their own standing in the firm without benefiting the rest of us through providing better or cheaper products, earning more profits for shareholders, etc.

On the other hand, teachers, police officers, public defenders, etc. work extremely hard in some cases. None of them will become millionaires, even though they likely produce more socially beneficial services. There are certainly reasons for this-and I'm sure most of them are willing to take the bargain-but the point is mostly to draw out that hard work=/=riches.

I take two things from this. First, that we should make sure that our incentive systems reward people that work not just hard, but in ways that produce benefits for society as a whole (this is not anti-markets: Steve Jobs creating the iPad certainly falls into this). Second, many of you need to disabuse yourself of the notion that people are less successful solely because they don't work hard (correlation does not equal causation).

[AENeuman]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

If people acknowledge that society played a part in their success, there would be, IMO, more of an acceptance for higher tax brackets and more programs (and money) for education and training. The dirty little secret is that while some can escape, the quality of the public school a person goes to have quite a strong impact on that person's prospects.

I think the "dirty little secret" is that we winners benefit too much from the "losers" to really want to change much. We need people to do bad jobs for low pay to make our world easier and more affordable. We also need large groups of "losers" to prevent increased competition in our schools and field of studies. Winners have also learned how exploit the losers in buying both their products and pipe dreams.

The problem now is the loser group is increasing so much that it is including people who never thought they would or deserved to be a loser. Most of the complaining for change is coming from the "new" losers who want back into the good club.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by lcjjdnh

On the other hand, teachers, police officers, public defenders, etc. work extremely hard in some cases. None of them will become millionaires, even though they likely produce more socially beneficial services. There are certainly reasons for this-and I'm sure most of them are willing to take the bargain-but the point is mostly to draw out that hard work=/=riches.

I take two things from this. First, that we should make sure that our incentive systems reward people that work not just hard, but in ways that produce benefits for society as a whole (this is not anti-markets: Steve Jobs creating the iPad certainly falls into this). Second, many of you need to disabuse yourself of the notion that people are less successful solely because they don't work hard (correlation does not equal causation).

Nope, that can't be true. I am rich because I work hard and all people who are rich work hard. If I am poor, it is because I don't work hard. All poor people are lazy and don't work hard.

SI

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

The problem now is the loser group is increasing so much that it is including people who never thought they would or deserved to be a loser. Most of the complaining for change is coming from the "new" losers who want back into the good club.

I think you are on to something there. If I can link back to lungs's post, those who worked hard, went to school and studied, now find themselves on the losers side when they did all the things they were supposed to in order to be on the winners side and they now realize, oh crap, this sucks.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Latest CBS News/NY Times poll

Read what you just wrote.

Understand how little credibility anything that follows has.

Still, regardless of whatever the number may be -- and I have no doubt that at least 1/3rd of the population is just as fucking worthless as the Flea Party -- all that matters is the direction things are moved. If only 20% is capable of shifting things in a more appropriate direction, I'm one happy S.O.B.

[ISiddiqui]

Hey, if you can't understand how statistical polling works, regardless of source, that's not my problem.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I think you are on to something there. If I can link back to lungs's post, those who worked hard, went to school and studied, now find themselves on the losers side when they did all the things they were supposed to in order to be on the winners side and they now realize, oh crap, this sucks.

Does it suck? You're damned right it does. I'm living that reality every fucking day, to an extent that I'm frankly not comfortable discussing in detail here (consider some of the shit I have no problem talking about here).

Damned if you've heard me whine how it's anybody else's fault. Some shit just is. Ultimately, if you make yourself valuable enough, those things don't happen. There's a difference between "doing what you were supposed to" and "doing enough to survive tougher circumstances". We fucked that up on several counts, but I've seen precious little to indicate that we're any different from the masses who've found themselves "switching sides".

As utterly fucking miserable as virtually every single moment of the last several years has been for me & my wife, nobody owes us a damned thing.

[larrymcg421]

But it's not about owing anyone anything. It's about what is best for this country. It is better for this country to help those who are struggling. It is better for this country to make education easier for everyone. That includes the 1%. I'm sure they want a more educated America. That doesn't mean people shouldn't have to work for it, but it also means we don't need to make it even harder.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

But it's not about owing anyone anything. It's about what is best for this country. It is better for this country to help those who are struggling. It is better for this country to make education easier for everyone. That includes the 1%. I'm sure they want a more educated America. That doesn't mean people shouldn't have to work for it, but it also means we don't need to make it even harder.

Amen!

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Matter of opinion. Rights are societally decided.

And let's be honest, the Great Recession ain't because the "99%" was the group that decided to play Russian Roulette with millions of dollars.

Yeah but a goodly percentage of the "99%" decided to play russian roulette with a quarter of a million dollars or so. How many people out there signed off on mortgages for outrageous dollar amounts that they couldn't afford? How many signed off on interest only mortgages, thinking they'd be "OKAY" once their property appreciated?

Yes it is egregious that the banks, "securities" managers, and others collectively mis managed this to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, only to get bailed out. The junk debt itself was somewhat jointly created by the unwashed masses.

[JPhillips]

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

But it's not about owing anyone anything. It's about what is best for this country. It is better for this country to help those who are struggling. It is better for this country to make education easier for everyone. That includes the 1%. I'm sure they want a more educated America. That doesn't mean people shouldn't have to work for it, but it also means we don't need to make it even harder.

There's a lot of that I disagree with. Key points would include:

-- a lot of those "struggling" are there of their own accord & additional expense is, ultimately, wasted on them.

-- I'd be forced to at least bandy semantics on "make education easier". Pretty reasonable argument to be made that what passes for "education" these days is often too "easy" already. As for access (which is what I believe you meant primarily), I've seen enough success stories from abysmal systems to believe that access isn't the primary problem. And that dollars per student is one of the worst metrics of all.

[mckerney]

[lcjjdnh]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

There's a lot of that I disagree with. Key points would include:

-- a lot of those "struggling" are there of their own accord & additional expense is, ultimately, wasted on them.

Obviously a tradeoff. To me, I'd rather risk Type I errors than Type II errors. That is, I'd rather make sure we include everyone that should be included (perhaps helping some people it'd be "wasted" on) than be underinclusive and punish deserving people because there are some bad actors.

-- I'd be forced to at least bandy semantics on "make education easier". Pretty reasonable argument to be made that what passes for "education" these days is often too "easy" already. As for access (which is what I believe you meant primarily), I've seen enough success stories from abysmal systems to believe that access isn't the primary problem. And that dollars per student is one of the worst metrics of all.

I actually agree with you that throwing money at the problem is not the solution to education. But that's because there are more systemic social issues-poverty, in particular-that contribute to problem that I am obviously much more willing to address than you are.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

But it's not about owing anyone anything. It's about what is best for this country. It is better for this country to help those who are struggling. It is better for this country to make education easier for everyone. That includes the 1%. I'm sure they want a more educated America. That doesn't mean people shouldn't have to work for it, but it also means we don't need to make it even harder.

Making what harder? Education? If so, they are barking up the wrong tree when college tuition has spiraled out of control. I think one needs to look at why major programs cost $40-60,000 per year in tuition. Was it the 1% that drove up tuition or something else?

[Buccaneer]

Someone yesterday asked me what makes being a Congressperson one of the most desirable jobs there (when every effort - illegal and legal - is made to get re-elected). I drew the parallel to the high-ranking CEOs and the two primary benefits of such: power and perks. A Congressperson doesn't pay much in salaries but such a person has more perks available to him/her than most CEOs (and where even CEOs are beholden to the power one can wield). Obviously a freshman Congressperson is not going wield as much power but power (and perks) increases every time one is re-elected and thus, their sole misison in life while enjoying the tremendous perks at taxpayer's expense. While I would do both, I prefer more Occupy Washington more than Occupy Wall Street.

[lcjjdnh]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Making what harder? Education? If so, they are barking up the wrong tree when college tuition has spiraled out of control. I think one needs to look at why major programs cost $40-60,000 per year in tuition. Was it the 1% that drove up tuition or something else?

I assume your point is to allude to student loans, which certainly are a big part of the problem. However, elites certainly didn't help by making education a signaling race for status*. Forget about $40k/year colleges--there are people that pay that much PER YEAR for high school (and even younger) educations.

* Unfortunately, the quality of education doesn't really matter-the name does. Someone at Mid-State A&M can work really hard, get great grades and still lose out for many jobs to the person with mediocre grades at some Ivy League school.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

But it's not about owing anyone anything. It's about what is best for this country. It is better for this country to help those who are struggling. It is better for this country to make education easier for everyone. That includes the 1%. I'm sure they want a more educated America. That doesn't mean people shouldn't have to work for it, but it also means we don't need to make it even harder.

One more comment. Doing "best for this country" has almost no meaning. Mankind, by nature, is extremely self-centered - always have been and always will be. If the advantages of self also benefits the whole, then that's the best we can expect looking throughout history of free people.

[Rizon]

The Occupy Picture Meme has the opportunity to be awesome.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by lcjjdnh

* Unfortunately, the quality of education doesn't really matter-the name does. Someone at Mid-State A&M can work really hard, get great grades and still lose out for many jobs to the person with mediocre grades at some Ivy League school.

That undersells the difficulty in getting A's at one place vs B's/C's at another.

[Rizon]

...

[lcjjdnh]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

That undersells the difficulty in getting A's at one place vs B's/C's at another.

You're assuming the grade distributions are equal across schools.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Making what harder? Education? If so, they are barking up the wrong tree when college tuition has spiraled out of control. I think one needs to look at why major programs cost $40-60,000 per year in tuition. Was it the 1% that drove up tuition or something else?

Funding for public education has not matched demand over the years. Thus students have had to foot the bill more and more for it.

Worth noting that the AIG bailout alone was 3 times that of the Department of Education's annual budget. You could give out over 10 times as many Pell Grants with the money that went into that bailout.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

You may (or may not) recall that I was highly critical of the bailout & argued against the very notion of "too big to fail", pretty plainly said "hoist them on their own petard".

Happily, my own Congressman was among those who voted No, so that one can't really be laid at my feet. YMMV.

I know that. Just think it's fair that if we criticize people for being on the dole, we should direct it at the largest welfare recepients. That would be the wealthiest Americans who have investments in or with major financial institutions.

[AENeuman]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I know that. Just think it's fair that if we criticize people for being on the dole, we should direct it at the largest welfare recipients. That would be the wealthiest Americans who have investments in or with major financial institutions.

I wish the Occupy people just said this over and over again to the cameras. On the other hand they may be, but the din of drum beating is drowning them out.

[SportsDino]

I think everyone should protest Wall Street, including most of the individuals that think they are a part of it. Volatile financial arrangements, many of which are clearly reckless if not outright criminal (cough Goldman Sachs), are a massive externality that is improperly modeled and results in disasters that can wipe out at higher magnitude the gains the wealthy elite gain from the strategy.

The problem with Wall Street lately is not that it is zero sum (although that is what everyone casts it as)... it is that it is negative sum. Burning billions to earn millions (ahem current Barclays vice president that acquired a few million bonus to sell billions of dollars in bank assets to his new employer before leaving his past failed bank... at pennies of course).

Such moves are not working harder or even smarter (unless you are the most stupid and cynical of fundamentalists)... it is basic corruption and easy enough to understand with agent theory 101.

It is like building a black hole into a vacuum cleaner. You get awesome suction so you clean that floor in a hurry and pocket more dollars in fewer minutes, yay capitalism. But you harnessed a fricking black hole, it sucks in mass, it grows, and the vacuum cleaner pulls all of New York City into a void. The worst fat cat right now doesn't care, because they think they will skip out on the plane to Aruba in time. They don't realize that the physics nerd they hired to crunch the numbers doesn't have a frickin clue about all the variables they never any dreamed of being interconnected in their instruments. The fat cat can't fly to Aruba, because the plane is being sucked into the black hole faster than it can fly because they hanged on for so many more pennies and their timing model was wrong and it was too late.

This is the situation right now. The institutions that think they are so clever are going to hit another point where the greed monster they have built is going to pull them in faster than they can escape, never mind the rest of us. They will be trapped in a world they don't want (all the money in the world and nothing of importance to buy with it) because they thought there was plenty to burn and they could outrun the flames.

And it is not for moral reasons that they are bad men, or socialism, or capitalism, it is mathematical forces inherint in the model they unleashed to create 'wealth' out of thin air. It is a leverage and inflation machine with a hidden link to gross productivity and demand they forgot and an interest rate (geometric growth) too high to sustain.

[miked]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

That undersells the difficulty in getting A's at one place vs B's/C's at another.

At Harvard, the curve is set to an A, trust me...

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by SportsDino

And it is not for moral reasons that they are bad men, or socialism, or capitalism, it is mathematical forces inherint in the model they unleashed to create 'wealth' out of thin air. It is a leverage and inflation machine with a hidden link to gross productivity and demand they forgot and an interest rate (geometric growth) too high to sustain.

I like the analogy of the black hole vacuum cleaner. I think the Wall Street fat cats hit that point in 2008 and we should have allowed financial mobility to suck them back to the bottom 50% as capitalism would have it (i.e. stupid AND/OR reckless behavior does not typically get to 1% status). Instead, we heard that we couldn't allow them to fail.

These were the 2 options presented. Give a boatload of money to Wall St...or let the world economy collapse & enjoy the new despotic society that will result. BULLSHIT. Now, thanks to our enabling government, they continue to go about their reckless behaviors & absurd business models/practices/executive compensations that they could not adequately fund in the first place.

I agree...all people should be outraged by what Wall St has been allowed to get away with (being mindful that Wall St is NOT encompassing of the 1%).

But while people are protesting...go protest in Washington, as they are the people that are supposed to be looking out for you, and the ultimate party that enables the bad behavior on Wall St.

This is why I am supportive of moving as much as feasible to the states' authority. Whats the saying? Absolute power, corrupts absolutely? Well, the closer you get to that end of the spectrum by concentrating authority & the resultant wealth from it...the closer you get to a runaway train that cannot be turned around. Maybe it already is too late.

[SportsDino]

I think less power should reside in any government hands, and that it should generally pushed out towards the states and cities where local sway should have more influence (although a lot of government interference should be stripped out in my opinion, from a liberal perspective not a neo-con...).

Protests need to happen both on Wall Street and Washington, both sides have a lot of change that needs to happen if we want the country to be prosperous.

The problem with Wall Street is outright fraud... crime is rampant and if they wanted to enforce it they could, it is not hard. If they think it is hard they could hire me, give me a couple days in a particular company's books and I would tell whether it was clean, commiting crime, or giving me obviously cooked books requiring a deeper inquiry. Most of these companies are so blatant that you can condemn them on the basis of publicly available information. At the very least you can short their stocks based on indirect analysis of their fundamentals (to a degree, unfortunately it is actually incredibly hard to figure out a net worth these days because of the many tools to hide data they have and the limited information out there, but when the numbers are in the billions plus range certain things just have to be true for the math to even be in range).

The problem is the entire group of agents think they have a pretty solid alliance going on and that they are above retaliation... and they don't realize the situation they are creating through that arrogance is generating unpredictability that will doom their own investments. If they are basing investments on the availability of leverage based off the populace, unfortunately if they miscalculate the default rate they can be left on the hook for billions if not trillions of imaginary debts that bounce back to their balance sheet. This is what happened in 2007... companies were wiped out not because they had bet on the American people having mortgages, but because they cynically overleveraged their bets in the hopes that they could time the collapse and pull out in time. Some did (JPM) most didn't, there were some that wanted to but they couldn't find buyers at the right time (too late, and this is before the public collapse, you have to move before the doom is obvious).

Unfortunately this negative sum game kills off even 'winners' in order to fund the remaining survivors. The next time it happens we might see another portion of the 1% sacrificed in order to keep the 0.1% afloat. If you need to burn a billion to make ten million eventually it will get to the point where the rich need to turn on their own.

Instead of waiting for nature to bring about the greediest beast I say we should regulate out the CRIMINAL behavior like a cancer, and we can still have winners and losers but we make the game at least zero sum, not burning piles of money to launder a single dollar for an executive agent. Hell I'd be happier if they stole the entire billion outright rather than destroy it to get a million, the games they play to avoid getting detected cause more damage than if the crime was blatantly obvious and the sheep just watched.

As for what the government should do in the economy, if anything, is do its best to create a positive sum game that existed for most of human history (even if it has often been very dirty and brutal). To promote productivity you need a productive class (thats the middle class, not the investor class which are capital not workers) and technology. You need decreasing resource costs or increased resource efficiencies. Fundamental growth always has and always will be driven by expansion of standard of living. China is an ugly example but it works, its recent growth is not from exports but from exploding domestic demand. The game is not zero sum, you can make a billion people richer and the wealthy richer at the same time, but to do so you need real economic growth, not dollars economic growth (inflation).

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by SportsDino

Fundamental growth always has and always will be driven by expansion of standard of living.

Precisely the reason I point to energy as the driver for the next 10-20 years.

You need energy to power more connected devices in your homes. You need it to increase data centers & capacity of facilities which support advanced services. You need it to power smart grid services that can make some incredible improvements in home automation & make it more accessible.

You need larger energy capacities in the grid itself to enable powering/charging of the next gen personal vehicles.

A massive amount of work needs to be done to enable these types of things (and many things we haven't believed practical yet). But it starts with seeing energy as something that needs to become cheaper as we increase the number of things we power in a given home. Sure, we continue to increase energy efficiency of our appliances/devices...but you can be as efficient as you want...you will not move quality of life forward without addressing the increase in energy needed to support it.

[ISiddiqui]

You know, the newly released critique of the global financial system by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace on the Global Economy (ie, an arm of the Catholic Church), based on Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 papal encyclical Caritas in Veritate, makes me wonder if we'll see the Holy Father hanging out with the protestors soon .

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

You know, the newly released critique of the global financial system by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace on the Global Economy (ie, an arm of the Catholic Church), based on Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 papal encyclical Caritas in Veritate, makes me wonder if we'll see the Holy Father hanging out with the protestors soon .

Boy, that has sure pissed off the conservative defenders of Catholicism.

[CU Tiger]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

One of the better LOL's I've seen here in a while.

+1

Originally Posted by JPhillips

At an individual level that's what I'd encourage, but when you zoom out, not everyone can do that. We simply can't have a country of 300 million successful small business owners. The question for me is does the rest of society have a right to share in the prosperity? Not only do I think the answer is yes, but I think it will benefit the 1% over time.

A study recently came out that showed stronger growth rates for countries with greater income equality. If the 1% takes all the money there won't be any customers left.

I agree we can't have 300million successful small business owners. We also do not have 300 million dedictaed enough to put forth the effort to be small business owners. There for they work for business owners (small or large). That does not make them less important, that does not make them less as a person, that does not invalidate their existence, it does aford them more free time and less dispoable income.

*shrug* seems like a fair trade to me.

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

"If these protestors would get off the fawking corner and go labor they may find themselves surpised by their prosperity."

Where exactly are you going to find these, how-do-you-say, "jobs"? That's kind of the whole point of the protest.

As someone smarter than me said:

The poorest of the poor get told to go work and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Forget the fact that there are no jobs.... if you just work hard you can work yourself out of your situation. Somehow.

Thats why I said "labor" not gain employment. If you do not have a current source of income, find a way to benefit someone and attempt to profit from it. heck knocking door to door asking to cut grass, pick up trash, etc. is better than protesting in a park....and I'd guarantee it pays better to boot. Why does someone else have to provide you a "job" find a way to make money...personally I have more respect for the sign holder on the exit ramp who says "give me money" than I do for the hippies in the park who say "you have too much money." At least one is attempting to labor for gain (if holding a piece of cardboard can be called labor)

I have a niece who is supposedly en route to NY to join the OWS crew....she graduated college with a 3.8 in Marine Biology from Coastal Carolina and drove to Orlando to apply at Sea World, she wasn't hired. Now she is "saddled with unreasonable debt" and has "no way to find a job" She literally told me to FVCK OFF when I asked her if she had applied at the local fast food joint that had a now hiring sign...I was dead serious. it is not a permannt solution but in the temporary until the right job opportunity comes up at last it woul produce SOME income...that line of thinking is lost by many I see.

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Welfare is not nearly as big as people think. Look up how much we spend on it a year. Pretty sure just the AIG bailout alone covered that.

That's relevant because we bail out AIG every year, right?
To be fair, I strongly opposed the bailouts and agree they should have been allowed to fall...but that was a bit of a incongruous argument.

[Daimyo]

For those who think natural forces and completely free markets can just create a happy equilibrium without government regulation you should really spend some time to read about externalities, moral hazard, and the agency problem.

I really worry about education in this country and can't imagine the current system is sustainable. Many, many of the 99%'ers write that they went $100k+ in debt to get a humanities degree from a mid-tier university... which is just crazy right now. Universities love those people because they subsidize the costs of other programs and research (what is the marginal cost to a university for matriculating an english major?) so they have no incentive to properly counsel those students even though they present themselves as providing counseling and guidance.

[CU Tiger]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

I really worry about education in this country and can't imagine the current system is sustainable. Many, many of the 99%'ers write that they went $100k+ in debt to get a humanities degree from a mid-tier university... which is just crazy right now. Universities love those people because they subsidize the costs of other programs and research (what is the marginal cost to a university for matriculating an english major?) so they have no incentive to properly counsel those students even though they present themselves as providing counseling and guidance.

But isn't that ultimately a poor personal choice? No one foced them to go to college, or go to that expensive of a college, or get that degree. They made a poor choice. Poor choices cost in spades whether it is financially, emotionally, or physically doing stupid things hurts.

One final point and then I am going to shut up.

I think a major issue is the national or even world wide association of stuff=success=happiness. Many try to justify their self worth by what they drive, what neighborhood they live in, what they wear, etc. Its the reason I loathe marketing as an industry. Don't tell me what I need or even want to buy, I will decide on my own what I need and which brand fits my needs the best.

But today far too many adults act like kids. Havign a pair of shoes to protect your feet is not enough, we need "Jordans"...having a computer isn't enough it needs a little piece of bitten fruit on the back. It makes me sick.

I was pretty public here with a major hange in my life and financial situation over the past 6 months. Despite the largest financial windfall I ever expect in my lifetime, in the past 6 months I have sold my hosue and moved into a smaller, cheaper home..because it is quieter. I have sold my "new" vehcile and regularly drive around in a 25+ year old truck that the bed is completely rusted through on. I spend nearly as much time out of the home as I did before...but I do what I want and enoy it. We have had a few friends actually express sympathy for our business "going down" and reassure us "times are tough all over"...We just smile and keep moving.

Its cliche or trite but money can not buy happiness (except in Nevada and only in 1 hour increments) more people need to accept that and then things will begin to improve in my opinion.