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That’s what’s great about standing for everything and nothing–it’s impossible to be inconsistent. You can always argue about what they “really” stand for.
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I love low lefties get mad at the banks for getting bailed out. Who was it that bailed out the banks? Why not get mad at that person and reduce its abilitý to do things that affect the economy?
because the bankers bought off the government and the regulators so they could risk the banks themselves in risky investments. They fought hard to get Glass/Steagall removed. They worked hard to get regulation out. they invented CDos and SWAPS. Face it, the anger is exactly where it should be. At the bankers who caused the crash in a great display of gambling and greed.
meanwhile the government regulators served the politicos’ (both D and R) short term vote buying concerns by following the policy of promoting stated income loans to people who are poor credit risks. Some of them not-so-smart improvident poor people and some of them the folks who always get hit hardest no matter what happens. Here is a whole article about that Government policies and the subprime mortgage crisis - Wikipedia
No they’re not.
This is flat out untrue. The Operation Wall Street protestors aren’t jealous, and they aren’t looking for anything they didn’t earn. What they are, is angry. And they have extremely good reason to be angry.
See, the Lloyd Blankfeins and Jamie Dimons of the world are successful businessmen in much the same way that Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds were successful baseball players. They cheated. They gamed the system. They spent years abusing every angle, every underhand advantage, and every drop of power and influence that they could muster to avoid the rigours of the Fabulous Free Market that they so love paying lip-service to.
What sort of advantages, you ask? Well, there are several. Not least among them, is free money. See, while you and I have to borrow money at the market rates, banks like Goldman Sachs are able to borrow it at 0% from the government. They then sell us mortgages at 4%, and credit cards at 20-25%. A monkey couldn’t fuck up that business plan. Where do the protestors go to sign up to all that free Government cash?
Bloomberg: Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion In Secret Fed Loans
Then, of course, there was the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program wherein the banks were allowed to borrow money against the Government’s credit rating. This is a bit like having a trust fund brat smash up 5 Porsche’s in a row, and then running to Daddy to guarantee a loan to buy a sixth. Note that this guarantee wasn’t open to every bank. Mature, responsible, regional banks who, say, didn’t jack up their debt to equity ratios to 35-1 in the run-up to the crisis, weren’t eligible. Because they weren’t “Too Big To Fail”. In essence, the worst banks, the ones who behaved the most irresponsibly prior to 2008 were given better credit for being less responsible. Go to www.freecreditreport.com and see how that works out for you.
Then, of course, there were the bailouts, which were basically tantamount to stupidity insurance. Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times, discussing the French Government’s bailout of the French Bank Dexia. Here’s the money quote:
Among Dexia’s biggest trading partners are several large United States institutions, including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. To limit damage from Dexia’s collapse, the bailout fashioned by the French and Belgian governments may make these banks and other creditors whole — that is, paid in full for potentially tens of billions of euros they are owed. This would enable Dexia’s creditors and trading partners to avoid losses they might otherwise suffer without the taxpayer rescue.
When was the last time the government stepped in to help you “avoid losses you might otherwise suffer”? Why is it that, when Johnny Homeowner bought himself a little too much house, betting that prices would continue to rise, and being foreclosed upon when they dropped, he was a moron who has only himself to blame for being put out on the street, but when the TBTF banks made essentially the same bet with AIG, making themselves massively vulnerable to a sudden drop in house prices, and lost, in exactly the same way, they were allowed to go cap in hand to the Fed for a fucking bailout?
But it doesn’t stop there. The banks were also able to take advantage of numerous tax loopholes to ensure that they were able to get away with paying desultory rates on their earnings. Like in 2008 when Goldman Sachs got away with $14 million dollars in taxes on $2.3 billion dollars pure profit, a rate of little over 1%. This, after paying $10.9 billion in employee compensation.
Bloomberg: Goldman Sach’s Tax rate drops to 1%, or $14 million.
And last, but by absolutely no means least, their perennial, guaranteed-in-perpetuity, Get Out Of Jail Free Card. See, when you miss a $10.00 payment on a store card, or, God forbid, a mortgage payment, you can forget about the big computer in the sky overlooking your mistake. In particular, if you miss a couple of mortgage payments you can expect a collision with a police officer and a couple of bailiffs in your very near future. However, if, like Goldman Sachs, you defraud a European bank out of a billion dollars, then you’ll never be arrested, never meet the police, and most certainly never see the inside of a prison cell.
This is because there are two parallel justice systems in America. One, which operates everywhere outside of lower Manhattan, locks people up with record breaking, factory level efficiency. The other, which only operates inside the rarefied jurisdiction of the New York financial district, is an incestuous clique of around 1000 SEC agents who really don’t want to fuck up their careers by putting any potential future employers in prison.
So that’s why, when Goldman Sachs colluded with a hedge-fund scumbag named John Paulson to defraud a pair of European banks out of a billion dollars by dressing up a colossal bundle of toxic poison mortgages as AAA investment gold, while placing massive bets against them, prison was never even seriously entertained as an option. Instead, there was a perfunctory hearing wherein the bank agreed to pay a mere $550 million in damages and escaped without even admitting to any wrongdoing. Say, when was the last time you heard about a common thief, a member of the 99%, being let off the hook in exchange for the return of half of his takings, and without so much as a temporary blemish on his record? Never? Well, that’s because different rules apply.
Just think of it, this was the financial equivalent of a used car salesman selling a family a dog turd on wheels, an absolute fucking lemon, all the while insisting that it was 100% roadworthy. Then, as if that weren’t enough, going out and taking out a life-insurance policy on the family, and then, when the car inevitably crashed and burned, killing all inside, collecting on the policy with a casual shrug of the shoulders and saying “Buyer beware”. Did they go to prison? Did they, bollocks!
This, and more, is why people are protesting in Zucotti park. They don’t want charity. In fact, they want the reverse. They want everyone, including the big banks, to pay for their mistakes, their lies, and their out-and-out fraud, and continue forward on a level playing field. And it’s horrifying that some people think this is too much to ask.
Also, incidentally, can anyone remember the last time code_grey posted a GD OP that wasn’t complete fucking horseshit?
'Cos I can’t.
This thread is in Great Debates. Maybe we’re being overly optimistic in keeping it here, but while it’s in this forum, you need to keep your responses GD-appropriate. Don’t do this again.
This is an article about occupy Detroit. it clearly states part of the mission is to provide relief for the homeless . It has been going on since day one.
So CODE GRAY is wrong to speak about the movement in that way.
George Kaplin–and those are all good reasons to increase government’s power and influence, right?
The way I see it, lets assume that everything bad said about the morality of the protestors are true. Let’s go even further and assume that the people protesting are all horrible people, who, when they’re not protesting, kick puppies and beat children, and God has created a new hell just for them because Satan said he’s “weirded out” by them.
What does that have to do with their argument or the rightness or wrongness of their cause? Even if they’re terrible people, they still could be right that the banking industry and the tax code should be reformed, there needs to be more government action to address things like unemployment and consumer/student loan debt, and so on.
Well, increase it in some areas, yes. I, for one, would welcome solid, serious regulation against TBTF entities. As far as I’m concerned, if this crisis has shown us anything at all, it’s shown us that a company that is too big to fail is too big to exist. And since we absolutely cannot rely on Wall Street to police itself in this regard, it’s incumbent on the government to introduce appropriate legislation to curb the scope, power, and influence of the big banks.
At the same time, it should be noted that such legislation would necessarily reduce government power in other areas. For example, such legislation would necessarily have to curtail the government’s power to intervene on behalf of irresponsible banks. See, I firmly believe that the TBTF banks acted in the way that they did because they knew that they were too big to fail. In other words, they factored the likelihood of tax-payer bailouts into their business plans. They need to be made aware that there will be no safety net next time, no matter how many people get hurt. The only way to ensure that such a safety net will never be extended again, is to curb the government’s power to provide one. I’m no lawyer, so I don’t know what such legislation would look like. However, it needn’t necessarily result in a net increase in government power.
Huh? You do know that Detroit is just one of many cities with this Occupied nonsense, right?
Why do the protestors have to adhere to traditional liberal discourse? Will they have their liberal cards revoked?
Hold it. Are they traditional liberals or commies and commie-enablers?
I think the mods are over-optimistic in keeping this one out of the Pit. I haven’t even started drinking yet, this evening, but most of the “arguments” so far in this thread look more like incoherent rants than debate.
(there are exceptions, of course, but not enough to constitute a “debate”)
No.
I have repeatedly taken “the other side” to task for this same fallacy, which I like to call the Monopoly Rules Fallacy.
When I was a kid, we lacked sophisticated entertainment like the Internet and “2 Girls 1 Cup,” so we played a lot of Monopoly. The host, the kid at whose house we’d play, would get to promulgate any house rules – typically, these would be some variant on what was done with the money collected by the bank for fines and Community Chest / Chance ‘pay the bank’ cards. The usual formula was that, contrary to the printed rules, the money was placed in the middle, and whoever landed on ‘Free Parking’ got the windfall.
I always argued against this, and when I was the host, we followed the rules of the game. But in others’ homes, I had to bow to the will of the host. From time to time, someone would chide me for taking the money during the ensuing game.
I would point out then, as I am pointing out now, there is a difference between having an opinion on a wise rule or social policy, and failing to take advantage of every rule when you’re playing. I thought the game was better, less inflationary, when played by the correct rules, but if the issue was decided against me I wouldn’t cripple myself by refusing the lottery wins available to everyone else.
I trust the parallel to the OWS folks is obvious.
I like this George Kaplin guy.
Of course banking regulation needs to change and there are improvements to be made in the economic system. What we have here, though, is confirmation of what’s been obvious all along–the people at Protestor Fantasy Camp are not interested in improving the lot of the poor, and they’re not angry at the banks for absorbing trillions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts. The type of people who think sacrificing comfort at a protest means eating their organic sheep cheese OUTDOORS are just more disaffected liberal arts college graduates who are angry that THEY missed the boat on a do-nothing $80K/year hedge fund job straight out of college. The fact that they can afford to go a month without working and that they appear to recoil at the presence of actual poor people continues to demonstrate what’s been demonstrated day in and day out about this fake-ass “redistribute wealth from the rich to the upper middle class” nonsense pseudo-protest.
As is the one the thread was started about. For once ,you may actually be getting an inkling of the point. Congratulations.
OK, now I’m totally in the bag. Still not seeing a debate, here.
Still belongs in the pit.