Are you sure? We could strengthen regulations, but I’m not sure we could write a law regarding “trashing the economy”. What are going to do-- prosecute bankers when GDP drops more than X%?
Go back to the top marginal tax rates of the 1950’s.
The lack of regulations is what caused the* trashing of the economy*.
Glass-Steagall would help. Limiting derivatives in some way would help. You can’t make trashing the economy illegal, but you can make the specific tools necessary to trash it unavailable.
Is that different from what I said?
More importantly, is that different than what Chronos said?
Yeah, it’s obviously not as simple as “Trashing of the economy is hereby declared a Class 1 Felony”. If it were, we’d have done it already.
And magellan, I’m aware that there are other possible fuels than petroleum products. Some of them are practical, some are not. Ethanol is one of the ones that’s not practical, at least with current technologies and crops suitable for temperate North America, since under those conditions, it requires more petroleum products than it replaces. You want to subsidize biodiesel, say, that’s a whole different story.
Then we’re on the same page. I was not defending ethanol subsidies. They’re an example of government at it’s worst. I was just asking Blalron how this benefitted “millionaires”, specifically. While I’m sure some who benefitted were wealthy, it’s the same as with all farm subsidies.
No, it’s a strawman.
Turn out for Obama? Not bloody likely. These are people complaining (more or less) about standard left-wing stuff, like “bankers/the 1%/the Illuminati/Jews/shape-shifting lizards are the root of all evil”. And they are complaining (more or less) that Obama hasn’t done anything about it. So either Obama does something about it, in which case the left-wingers will vote for him (and nobody else with any common sense), or he doesn’t, and the lefties don’t vote (weren’t some of them claiming this wasn’t a political movement?). I don’t see significantly higher turnout in either case, at least not overall.
The Tea Party is raising awareness of a specific set of issues - the deficit and government spending. I can see voter apathy when the deficit was as high as it was earlier, but not after it has been tripled or quadrupled.
Regards,
Shodan
I read it as passing laws making it illegal to trash the economy for personal game. I don’t think that can be done. If he meant the same thing I said, it wasn’t clear.
Personal gain.
Not likely, given that their main rallying point is a policy that would increase the debt. Though to be fair, they also get upset whenever anyone tries to lower their taxes, too.
I attended the Detroit occupation. It is not at all like rightys think. It has a cross section of people from different positions . there were Ron Paul followers who hate what the bankers got away with. there were even laRouche fans who are anti Obama but feel the country is being led astray by the rich and overly powerful. There were young people and old . There were conservatives and liberals. There were probably tea baggers too .
This movement has the characteristics have staying power. It also may be able to influence the government policies. Bankers whores like Cantor and Boehner won’t see it, but it may well be the times are a changing.
Yes, you already told us that on the first page of this thread.
I think a lot of people, including me, were happy to take the most comical, idiotic, and stereotypical people at Tea Party rallies and present them as representative of the Tea Party Movement.
I think many on the right are making the same mistake with the Occupy Movement.
I still don’t agree with the TP but I’ve been forced to have a grudging respect for how powerful they have become. I hope the Occupy movement will have equal ( OK, greater ) success
Well, whatever comes of this, I’m sure neither the Tea Party nor the OWSers are going to back any third-party candidate in 2012. It’s far too late for such a campaign to get started, anyway. So the relevant* question is, how will the OWSers affect the Dems’ and Pubs’ prospects at the polls?
*To this thread. The long-term prospects of whatever the OWSers are starting is another discussion, and a deeply important one, but, you know, too soon to tell. If it produces a movement with staying power, well, then, OWS seems to be transgenerational, but it has a youthful identity and power base; while the Tea Party’s is much older – and, I confidently predict, not ideologically-generationally self-replacing. So, in the long run . . .
It’s as least as accurate a depiction as
And OWS is raising awareness of a specific set of issues–economic injustice, a broken and corrupt financial system, and a government that won’t rein it in. Sure, everybody is there to push their pet issues, but there were plenty of signs at the TP rallies about gay marriage, abortion, birth certificates, and the like.
My opinion? Both parties are hoping the storm will blow over + it gets pretty miserable living outside in NY in another month or so + it’s hard to rebuild momentum once you lose it = We’re screwed.
The Repugs aren’t going to change course. (Much to the displeasure of us “RiNOs” that the party left behind in their last few hard lurches to the right.) They’re in too deep to disengage and save face, even if they wanted to.
The Dems have a credibility gap. They probably can’t get elected without big money, but the big money is coming from the very folks the OWS folks are mad at. They may attempt a song and dance version of populism, but the piper will still want payed. Gerrymandered districts will protect most of the House incumbents so they probably won’t bother to do much of anything different, unless the ‘winds of change’ reach hurricane force in the next year. I don’t hold out much hope of Populist challengers popping up and mounting a really viable campaign against ANYBODY who isn’t already considered vulnerable or for open seats.
I’m guessing both the House and Senate will end up with very, very small Dem majorities. But ‘machine’ Dems aren’t going to make re-instating Glass-Steagall any higher of a priority than they did in the 111th Congress without a LOT of outside pressure…
The President may have a rough time with these folks. He got elected because McCain was painted as Bush III, but then Obama turned out to be Bush-Lite… My best WAG (wild ass guess) is Obama may eventually decide to throw Geithner under the bus (not entirely a bad thing!) in an attempt to pander to them, but probably keep his ties with Immelt. In the meantime Obama will hold off doing ANYTHING, hoping that Romney will get the nomination and the Repugs will either split with a TP “3rd party candidate” - or they’ll decide Mittens isn’t worth showing up to vote for… Probably solid as a political strategy, but won’t fix a damned thing either.
A year is a long time, the weatherman’s forecast gets fuzzy beyond about 18 hours… MAYBE the movement will build, consolidate, and hone their message over the winter… Maybe the movement will be hi-jacked by the Dems and become so much ‘astroturf’ (like the early TP was by the Koch bunch)… Maybe a viable Populist 3rd party will pop fully grown out of nowhere complete with a new Teddy Roosevelt to lead the charge(OK, and maybe pigs will fly)…
In short, hope, but don’t bet the farm.
That’s the problem with OWS: the socialist/communist element seems to be increasingly taking over the protest. Which just makes the protest easier to ignore, because a park full of willingly-homeless protestors is not going to overthrow the capitalist system.
“The deficit is $1.6 trillion and unsustainable” is a specific issue. “Economic injustice” is not.
Regards,
Shodan
As opposed to whom?