# \#OccupyWallStreet **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 19, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851 "2011-09-19T18:27:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 108
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2141 "2011-11-26T01:50:48Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > From your cite: Yeah, you can say that, but at the same time this whole “we refuse to actually be pinned down to the point where we actually say anything.” attitude is a bunch of bullshit. That’s the most official thing I can find from them. They have a manifesto, a bank account, and a webpage newspaper. Fuck that. That’s as official as it gets. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2142 "2011-11-26T01:52:34Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Fuck that. That’s as official as it gets. Because there is no official. So even if you declare it so, it does not represent the movement. Liar. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2143 "2011-11-26T02:04:42Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Because there is no official. So even if you declare it so, it does not represent the movement. Liar. Close enough unless you lick my balls. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2144 "2011-11-26T02:05:00Z")
The really stupid thing about this is that he’s been like this all thread. And yet, even in the next door thread on the 1%, he’s being his usual self. I think this thread must have killed his dog, and we just never knew. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2145 "2011-11-26T02:08:10Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Close enough unless you lick my balls. I didn’t bring my microscope. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2146 "2011-11-26T02:17:35Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I didn’t bring my microscope. How do you use that with your tongue? ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2147 "2011-11-26T02:40:22Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > The really stupid thing about this is that he’s been like this all thread. And yet, even in the next door thread on the 1%, he’s being his usual self. > > I think this thread must have killed his dog, and we just never knew. Nonsense. Here the debate seems to be centered firmly around an area in which I posess singular expertise., Elsewhere I’m just another asshole with an opinion. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2148 "2011-11-26T03:27:28Z")
What an odd description. Not the asshole part, which is true enough if modest, like saying World War II was loud. The singular expertise part. You have clearly stated herein that you knew nothing whatever about the causes of the recent debacle, didn’t hear word one about it. What foxes, what henhouse? There were chickens? Really? And they are all gone? Youi know fuck all about the OWS movement. I’ve been there or at least the local version thereof. Many of these people are my friends of long standing. And their children. And mine. And saints preserve us all, grandkids. I have some smattering of knowledge about these people. You only know what you saw on TV. Once again, to steal from the Master, its not your ignorance that is frightening, its what you know for sure and for certain that just ain’t so. And as to your expertise: what is it, perzackly? It may be intense expertise, but it must be very narrow. As mentioned above, you were pitching hay in a burning barn and somehow, never noticed. So, what is it that you know so much about that you haven’t enough room to know much of anythng else? ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2149 "2011-11-26T03:42:38Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Nonsense. Here the debate seems to be centered firmly around an area in which I posess singular expertise. Unfortunately, you haven’t provided much proof of that other than assertion. Especially, to riff on what '\*\*luci \*\*said, some of what you’ve asserted is that no one had enough expertise to predict the goings-on. ---
**Author:** ![MemoryLeak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6f9a4e/32.png) [@MemoryLeak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MemoryLeak)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2150 "2011-11-26T07:45:53Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > When were you in business school? > > Remember, I went through business school at the peak of the tech bubble, and I was dealing with venture cap at the peak of the real estate bubble. > > I should say, I’m going to make a small mea cupla here–I’m confusing my terms (relatively badly, actually), and it’s not “20% expected growth”, it’s “20% expected ROE” which is expected to drive high growth rates. > > Note: I still think a 20% annual expected ROE (especially in a context of a 9% CAGR of the S&P 500, and similar ones for any other stock index) is ridiculous and wrong-headed, just not as much so as expecting a 20% annual growth rate. > > In my own experience, it’s very few companies that can sustain a 20% annual ROE for any length of time. Perhaps a 20% average annual ROE can be sustained during the growth phase in a good market, but I had an early employer destroyed out from under me (I resigned two weeks before 70% of the company was laid off) by a venture capital guy who invested $5mil (small company, natch) and expected to (and did!) pull out $1mil in cash every year. Yeah, that failed spectacularly in Year Three. > > Total aside: that guy was every awful stereotype of the 1%. Insisted on every week being crunch time, promised we’d all eventually see stock options (which didn’t even happen, so I don’t even have any pretty wallpaper out of the debacle), would interrupt me working at 8:30PM to show off how you could see his 15,000-sq-ft mansion in Potomac County on Google Maps. > > – > > And I know \*\*magellan \*\*isn’t a cite, except for the fact he’s in here getting your back (ineptly, as usual) while making pretty ridiculous statements elsewhere. So you were in business school at the peak of the tech bubble. Wow! A 20 year old! Once again, bullshit. Although I guess you’re just going to say you were double majoring in business, or you were invited to audit courses at Sloan in between mentoring the post-grad engineering students, or Drucker identified your business acumen while you were still in grade school and granted you special dispensation to make pronouncements based on your personal feelings and outrage. Or you’ll just say you were talking about the “other” tech bubble. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2151 "2011-11-26T12:47:54Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Unfortunately, you haven’t provided much proof of that other than assertion. > > Especially, to riff on what '\*\*luci \*\*said, some of what you’ve asserted is that no one had enough expertise to predict the goings-on. Luce plays games with words, not facts. Do you really want to get on the “Scylla was in the securities industry therefore he Should have predicted 2008” bandwagon? Frankly, I think that’s stupid Even for a guy smoking weed all day in a run down trailer in Texas ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2152 "2011-11-26T15:30:22Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Do you really want to get on the “Scylla was in the securities industry therefore he Should have predicted 2008” bandwagon? There is plenty of room to say “if you couldn’t predict a major event with wide-reaching implications in your own field, maybe you don’t have the expertise you think you do.” Maybe no one does, for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2153 "2011-11-26T15:57:03Z")
No, its not about “you should have known”. Its about your statement that you had no idea, no clue, not your area of expertise, which area remains rather ill-defined. We know that is massive, and focused like a laser, with the resources of your vast intellect. It seems you know, and knew, everything else, but not this. The question isn’t whether or not you predicted, but whether you were even aware. You claim total innocence, which is, of course, total ignorance. That’s the part I find hard to square with your claims of vast expertise. I figure if you are going to beat me about the head and shoulders with your copious expanses of knowledge, you ought to at least be willing to offer some substantiation. Thus far, all such questions are met with contemptuous evasion. You seem to be under the impression that our respect for your brilliance is well-nigh universal, such that you are in a position to brush aside any such questions. Given that for ten years now, you have been spectacularly wrong on just about every major issue, I find that dubious. Did anyone have a clue? Well, perhaps, according to this: (Aside: this is how you “cite”. You offer the location and significance, so that your reader can verfiy your claims. And offer excerpts so that specific claims can be substantiated. What you don’t do is say “Its in there, somewhere. Google it, and good luck!”. That is, to use the technical term, “bullshit”…) > **[RODA4D | Eksplorasi Top 1 Rahasia Login Bermain Di Tempat Nyaman Aman](https://www.lajk-restaurant-dubrovnik.com/)** > > RODA4D merupakan sebuah platform digital yang menghadirkan pengalaman bermain yang nyaman dan aman untuk penggunanya. > [@](#): > > …There are also at least three documented cases of experts who foresaw the financial crisis and warned about its impact on the economy. To others, they seemed lucky, but the evidence suggests that these professionals knew something that others didn’t and they believed in it to the point of risking their reputation and careers… > [@](#): > > …Our initial research identified three credible early warnings and we suspect that we will find more by the time we complete our research project. The most well documented predictions come from three experts. They are, in order of prediction date; Dean Baker, Med Jones and Peter Schiff… Be warned: the cite has a modestly complimentary reference to your own Betty Noyer, Paul Krugman, the Chipmonk from Mensa. And the somewhat amusing factoid that George Soros totally stepped on his dick this time. But you never heard any of this? Not a clue, not a hint, nada damn thing. OK, then, thats possible. But if that is true, then your claims of an expertise so vast and all encompassing that you can use it as your personal trump card are open to question. Questions that you evade with obnoxious contempt, as if honest debate were beneath your dignity. You really should stick to domestic comedy, it is your strongest suit. Further, it offers a glimpse of your humanity, allowing us to imagine that you are not, in fact, an ego-obsessed constipated robot who cares more about winning an argument than discovering the truth. By the bye, you probably want to walk back that shit about the OWS being Marxists. That is a perfect diamond, ignorance and bias in its crystalline form. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2154 "2011-11-26T16:38:33Z")
'Luce: What exactly is our thesis here? I have claimed that I didn’t know the world was going to come to an end in 2008. I have also claimed to know a fair amount about finance and securities. I share these characteristics with Warren Buffet, Bernanke, Greenspan, Barney Frank, and pretty much the rest of the investment community with a few notable exceptions. You brought this up like twenty pages ago, so it must be important to you. What exactly is your theis based on this? ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2155 "2011-11-26T16:43:07Z")
'Luce: Oh, and since you finally remembered how to cite, why don’t you dig one up on how the demand for loans increased in '08 and '09.? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2156 "2011-11-26T16:58:18Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > How much money do you think it takes to own stock, Shayna? > > According to this cite about half the households in America own stock: > > [What percentage of Americans own stock? - Answers](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percentage_of_Americans_own_stock) Lordy, not _that_ tired chestnut? Y’know, I didn’t have a counterargument to that when someone pulled it on me ca. 1996, before there was an Internet as we know it. Now we all know that, sure, maybe half of Americans have a bit of mutual fund in a 401(k), but most Americans who own stock _own very little stock_, and most companies are owned or controlled by the rich. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2157 "2011-11-26T18:30:03Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > I share these characteristics with Warren Buffet, Bernanke, Greenspan, Barney Frank, and pretty much the rest of the investment community with a few notable exceptions. > > … What exactly is your theis based on this? I can’t speak for **'luci** but I have some strong opinions here myself. Ultimately it boils down to this: Given that it’s been proven, by the events of 2008, that the smartest players in the financial industry can’t predict, mitigate, or avoid disaster as a group, why is it that the industry keeps doing risky things with gigantic piles of money? And why do we, as a nation, keep allowing them to do so? IMNSHO, it’s immoral and frankly stupid to play with unsecured financial instruments, yet the financial industry as a whole keeps doing it. Which is also ultimately the big difference, in my mind, between the subprime crash and the CDS crash–home mortgages are inherently secured instruments, with the value of the house itself functioning as a hedge. Meanwhile, default swaps (especially naked swaps) were generally unsecured by anything other than a network of interlocking other swaps–it literally couldn’t be otherwise, the value of the CDS market was significantly higher than the value of the bonds being gambled on by that market. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2158 "2011-11-26T18:58:36Z")
Hey its alternate **Scylla**! Glad you showed up, the guy who uses your name has been behaving like a total dickosaurus. Take him in hand, won’t you? So to speak. > [@](#): > > …I have also claimed to know a fair amount about finance and securities… But that’s not what you’re claiming. You are claiming _definitive_ expertise, to the effect that you can sneer at disagreements with lofty contempt. The original question, lost in your barrage of smoke and mirrors, had less to do with you and more to do with the industry at large. To witless: if nobody knew anything about this shit, thats one thing, that does not necessarily imply complicity or corruption. But if they didn’t, and you didn’t, then why should your opinion be taken to have value? Even if we could trust the good intentions of the finance industry, we couldn’t reasonably trust their competence. That was the issue. You want to make it about you? Silly question, of course you do. Well, the same questions apply. You didn’t know, OK, a lot of people missed the sound of the train whistle as they picniced on the tracks. Humans being what they are, some of them did know but cashed their checks anyway. You wield your expertise like a +10 Battle Axe of the Goddamn Golgotha, used to dice rocks and dragons. You’re not claiming that you know “a fair amount”, you are claming definitive expertise, so we should shut the fuck up, sit and your feet and take notes. If you were determined to make an argument, you would probably do pretty well. You are determined to win it, and it fucks you all up. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2159 "2011-11-26T20:01:58Z")
'Luce I’m reading your shit, and I literally find you too fucking obtuse and full of shit to muster a response. Don’t trust me. Don’t trust the investment industry. Nobody wants you too. Nobody cares. If you wish to insist that demand for loans was up in 2008-2009 than you need to provide a fucking cite that shows that, especially when I say it wasn’t, and I say that I work in the industry and when I provide a fucking cite to the Fed’s own survey supporting what I say. This bullshit didn’t play 15 pages ago, and it doesn’t play now. If you dispute my facts get better facts. otherwise take your bullshit innuendo and stick it up your ass, m’kay? ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2160 "2011-11-26T20:09:40Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Ultimately it boils down to this: Given that it’s been proven, by the events of 2008, that the smartest players in the financial industry can’t predict, mitigate, or avoid disaster as a group, why is it that the industry keeps doing risky things with gigantic piles of money? And why do we, as a nation, keep allowing them to do so? I don’t know. I don’t think we should. Like I said on about page 4 or so of this thread, I think “too big to fail” is a bad thing. I have no problem with financial institutions taking big risk and committing financial suicide if they are dumb enough to do so. I simply have a problem with them being so big they bring the economy down with them. > [@](#): > > IMNSHO, it’s immoral and frankly stupid to play with unsecured financial instruments, yet the financial industry as a whole keeps doing it. It’s too big a net and a blanket your throwing there. > [@](#): > > Which is also ultimately the big difference, in my mind, between the subprime crash and the CDS crash–home mortgages are inherently secured instruments, with the value of the house itself functioning as a hedge. Meanwhile, default swaps (especially naked swaps) were generally unsecured by anything other than a network of interlocking other swaps–it literally couldn’t be otherwise, the value of the CDS market was significantly higher than the value of the bonds being gambled on by that market. Even an unsecured CDS has the full faith and credit of the issuer supporting it. A CDS simply means you have a third party covering a bet. That CDS is as good or as bad as the credit of that third party. I really have no problem with these, either. Anyway, I’m going to call bullshit on your last sentence. “the value of the CDS market was significantly higher than the value of the bonds being gambled on by that market” Cite please. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851.md?page=107) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851.md?page=109)