# \#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:** 116
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2301 "2011-12-12T02:03:16Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Shodan: > > My advice? DNFRTF. Dude is a pretty fucking creepy troll. He tries to make one or two serious posts as bait, and then turns it into a pissing contest. Shorthand for “RTFirefly made lots of good arguments, and I had nothing, so the only thing left was to call him a troll.” Funny how you seem to be the only one on this message board (excepting **Shodan** , who really doesn’t count) who thinks I’m a troll. If a poster with over 20,000 posts to his name was a troll, you’d think his trolling would have been more widely noticed. Well, OK, not _you_. Someone else might think that. Someone with a clue. 🙂 > [@](#): > > Shayna is much more pleasant and sane. Since I never claimed to be pleasant or sane, you were at least able to say _something_ true. But as soon as you feel you lack decent rebuttals to Shayna’s posts, your opinion of her will go downhill. As it does with everyone who is able to poke holes in your bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2302 "2011-12-12T02:20:44Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Not as big a piece of trolling as yours was. > > Regards, > Shodan Let’s see: I said I wasn’t going to debate Scylla anymore, but didn’t say anything about leaving the thread. A day or so later, I pointed out for the benefit of others continuing to go that route that Scylla had cited for support a source generally regarded as worthless and bogus. Didn’t debate anything he was saying, just took issue with the source. And in response to that, we get posts 1776, 1784, 1788, 1793 (where you jump in), and a whole bunch more. You guys, for reasons unclear to me (other than nothing better to throw at me, I must assume), made my questioning of Scylla’s cite into a Big Honkin’ Issue, and of course pretended that I’d said what I hadn’t - that I was outta here. Which of course was the only way your bullshit could pretend to make sense. But when Scylla said he was outta here - in those exact words - somehow his reneging on that promise is no big deal to you. Frankly, it’s no big deal to me. If he wants to be a DQ and leave in a minute and a huff, and turn around and come back practically before he’s gone, then who gives a flying fuck? Well, you. And Scylla. Selectively, of course. So which side of your ass you’re speaking out of, depends on who you’re speaking about. Thanks for clarifying. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2303 "2011-12-12T03:17:38Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Shodan: > > My advice? DNFRTF. Dude is a pretty fucking creepy troll. He tries to make one or two serious posts as bait, and then turns it into a pissing contest. > > Shayna is much more pleasant and sane. If you say so. It’s sort of a pity - he didn’t use to troll this hard. Oh well. I have enjoyed what you had to say, and your interactions with the non-trolls in the thread. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2304 "2011-12-12T16:26:47Z")
Yeah, I figured you didn’t have the guts to try to justify your rather blatant double standard. That’s OK, you’ve been a good little pawn for Scylla here. I’m sure he’ll give you a nice pat on the head on the way out, and some free stock picks if you’re unlucky. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2305 "2011-12-12T17:26:42Z")
The problem is not so much that you are a troll. It’s more than you are not very good at it. Now troll again, so you can get in the last word. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2306 "2011-12-12T17:53:33Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The problem is not so much that you are a troll. It’s more than you are not very good at it. > > Now troll again, so you can get in the last word. > > Regards, > Shodan Yeah, that’s what I thought: a slam without substance. But I’ve got one more challenge for you that you will undoubtedly fail: point to anything I’ve posted in this thread that, IYHO, constitutes trolling. I won’t even ask for a justification on your part, just a quote and a post number. I’m just looking forward to seeing what you come up with (assuming you have the fortitude to come up with anything), and am anticipating much amusement. I expect that ‘troll’ has just degenerated into another generic derogatory term, like ‘dipshit,’ for you dipshits. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2307 "2011-12-12T17:54:51Z")
My firm: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/4ZiBEV3UIrU/maxresdefault.jpg "Dave Chappelle - Wu Tang Financial Clan Ain't Nothin To Fuck With") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZiBEV3UIrU) ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2308 "2011-12-12T17:54:56Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Quoted for truth. I remember someone in one of the DFH journals I read pointing that out, but I hadn’t noticed it. But then I did, and it seemed that any time someone even mentioned an issue with the economy, the Bushiviks were all smiles. “Hey, the housing market is going great guns, everybody is making a ton of free money, you should cash out your equity and shop till you drop!” > > However, not everyone has the sophistication common to those of the trailer-trash ellite. So, on their behalf, would you fill in a bit on that “asset growth as economic growth”, and why that is so Ricky Retardo? Perhaps an economist can explain it better than me but the example that was given to me was that if you lived on an island with nothing but coconuts and bananas. If one day people started valuing bananas more, you still have the exact same amount of bananas and coconuts. In our case people also could also inctrease their borrowing capacity because of the asset growth but then you have temporary stimulative growth from people borrowing against the increased values in their homes but all that bhorrowing must be repaid at some time either by the borrower or by higher default rates for the lenders. There may be some acceleration of economic activity but it bears and interest rate and must be repaid at some time. > [@Shayna](#): > > More. I have to take issue with the bolded part of this quote. If there were folks using subprime mortgages to bid up the price of real estate, they were extraordinarily few and far between. The predominance of subprime mortgages were **hard-peddled** to people who the banks and mortgage lenders knew damn good and well were likely to default, but didn’t give a rat’s ass because they reaped a seven-fold commission for selling them. Those people were overwhelmingly minorities, especially those whose grasp of English wasn’t even close to good enough to understand complex contract negotiations, let alone who could afford to hire an attorney to represent them at closing. > > [Here’s an entire town](http://www.businessinsider.com/irvington-new-jersey-sub-prime-predatory-lending-foreclosure-2011-12) that was living in mostly paid-for homes they owned outright, that is now **blighted** because unscrupulous money-peddlers unrelentingly harassed homeowners to mortgage their homes unnecessarily. They were sold a bill of goods with lies and misrepresentations. They believed these wolves in sheep’s clothing because they’ve been taught to believe that bankers and brokers are educated and smarter than they are. They put their faith in a system that was designed to fail them and it did — spectacularly. I’m not disputing that there was abusive predatory lending going on across the country. I agree that banks and mortgage brokers were engaging in fraud, both on lenderas and borrowers. I was not impugning the moral character of someone who bought a home with a subprime mortgage but people seem to agree on a few things. The easy ability to do cash out refinancing allowed people to stay in homes they should have sold (even if they didn’t understand the mortgages) which would have increased the supply of homes available for sale which bids up the price of homes. The ability for unqualified buyers to buy homes beyond their means created more demand and increased the price of homes. I remember looking at homes alongside taxidrivers and school teachers. And there was rampant speculation being done through subprime mortgages. In 2007 in the areas with the most severe bubbles, a very high percentage of subprime mortgages never made their first payment. People were gambling using their credit report as collateral and walking away from the table when the bet turned sour. At the same time other s were stuck with a much higher real estate price point. > [@Shodan](#): > > So you don’t think minorities are capable of understanding mortgages? Maybe we should pass a law preventing them from taking out mortgages. > > For their own good, of course. > > Regards, > Shodan ROFLMAO. Yeah because that’s the ONLY way you can prevent abusive predatory lending practices. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2309 "2011-12-12T18:15:28Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > My firm: > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZiBEV3UIrU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZiBEV3UIrU) Well, I’m convinced. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2310 "2011-12-12T19:37:26Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Yes. If you would have read some of them more carefully you would see that i am not saying Freddie, Fannie, and Barney are responsible, but merely an element. I think the left wing view of absolving the government agencies of any wrongdoing is as stupid and partisan as the right wing view of blaming them for everything. I think the left wing is a LOT closer to the truth than the right wing. Like I said, its kind of like blaming the Ocean fora tsunami created by an earthquake. It sounded like you agreed with me that Fannie and Freddie were largely culpable of chasing market chare not because of their government subsidy but because of their exposure to market forces. I think the implicit guarantee to Fannie and Freddie might have made them aprticularly political animals but it was not their politic al behaviour that contributed to the collapse. Still, I am now convinced that our country would be better off without Fannie and Freddie as long as Ginnie is there to take up the slack. > [@](#): > > I think this article contains a fairly smart view: > > [2008 Great Recession Causes - The Real Cause of the Crash of 2008](http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/2008-recession-causes-060810) So you think that we shouldn’t blame wall street because of something an economist (who is famous for saying in 2005 that Wall Street is out of control) says? I don’t lay the same sort of moral blame on Wall Street that folks like Zeriel might but I think that the problem came from Wall Street and as you point out just below, the lack of oversight and regulation of wall street. > [@](#): > > The government itself, according to its report also places a similar share of the blame on Government regulatory agencies. > > [http://fcic-static.law.stanford.edu/cdn\_media/fcic-reports/fcic\_final\_report\_conclusions.pdf](http://fcic-static.law.stanford.edu/cdn_media/fcic-reports/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf) > > "The prime example is the Federal Reserve’s pivotal failure to … > "Policy makers and regulators could have stopped the runaway mortgage securitization train. They did not… Like I said lack of regulation. the type of regulation that Wall Street semms to be bucking at every turn. > [@](#): > > “…First, to pin this crisis on mortal flaws like greed and hubris would be simplistic. It was the failure to account for human weakness that is > relevant to this crisis” Once again we can’t eliminate the selfish isntinct in the sort of folks who would dedicate their lives to a life in finance but we should regulate tham and ignore their pleas when they claim that it is cramping their style. > [@](#): > > "Second, we examined the role of the GSEs, with Fannie Mae …had a > deeply flawed business model as publicly traded corporations with the implicit backing of and subsidies from the federal government and with a public mission. I agree, we should get ridf of them and let Ginnie mae step into their shoes. They have proven themselves to be much ebtter stewards of our treasure and better executors of the public mission they are supposed to serve. > [@](#): > > I completely absolves the CRA, but I don’t agree with that. I think that had something to do with it as well. So you only agree with the parts you agree with and disagree with the parts you disagree with and you think we should similarly agree and disagtree withy it the same way you do? > [@](#): > > Yes. The market grew and turned into a bubble, and it took that long. You write as if you think 25 years is too long. Why would that be? Because we have had real estate booms and busts since then. It takes a very strained view of the world to believe that this bubble was building for 25 years. > [@](#): > > If Tom Cruise steers a car straight at a target and accelerates for a couple of miles and then jumps off right before it crashes, I don’t think you can really say Tom Cruise didn’t have some responsibility in crashing the car. But noone steered the car straight towards a cliff and accelerated for miles 25 years ago. They merely turned on the ignition. We weren’t heading towards a cliff in 2001 or 1991, the bubble was not inevitable at any point before we started seeing private label mortgage securities. If congress had passed a law saying that mortgage securities could only be issued by Fannie Freddie and Ginnie, we wold never have had a bubble. I’m not advocating for that but I am saying that the precipitating factor was the development of the private label market. > [@](#): > > Yes, I see your point. You understand, I am not saying CRA is THE cause, but I think it’s a contributing factor. A drunk driver is responsible for his crash, but that doesn’t mean a car manufacturer is absolved from building a crashworthy car (to stretch your analagy.) The CRA is about as contributory to collapse as Pacioli is to the Enron accounting scandals. > [@](#): > > Shit. There was crazy stuff back in the early nineties when this thing got started. Tranching CMOs and using whatever PSA assumptions made the security work. Silly things like the VADIM tranches which didn’t work at all, and crazy insane Z tranches that might be 8% for 30 years, or might just all come due tomorrow. No. It was stupid long before 2004. > > It just wasn’t huge. Yeah sure, this sort of stuff had been going on since before that but it was always fringe activity. The size of the market matters. > [@](#): > > My view seems to be more mainstream and less idealistically founded than yours or anybody else, who , if I am reading correctly completely absolve Fannie and Freddie (though their corruption and extreme leverage pushed them into conservatorship,) and government and regulators. What ideological echo chamber do you think I am in? I have agreed that Fannie and Freddie probably should be dissolved because the combination of an implicit federal guarantee and private sector profitability goals and bonuses are a recipe for eventual disaster once they are faced with real market competition. I don’t think the mistake was in creating Fannie and Freddie. I think the mistake was in privatizing them. Once again, I point to Ginnie Mae and how they behaved during this episode and I would suggest that if Fannie and Freddie didn’t chase market share and let their market share wither like Ginnie did in the face of a robust private market for mortgages, they wouldn’t have the problems they have right now. > [@](#): > > My main and only difference really, with the governments’ report is that I think it was wrong to absolve the CRA though I think I understand why they did so. It had done a lot of good, for a very long time. Wtf? So there was enough political will to condemn Fannie and Freddie (who almost single handedly made 30 year mortgages possible and put literally millions of people into homes) but they couldn’t muster the political will to blame CRA because they thought it had done a lot of good? I think you are searching for blame where none iexists. > [@Scylla](#): > > But not people who bought houses or took out loans they could not pay for? Corporate leverage is bad and the fault of corporations, but leverage by private citizens is also the fault of corporations? The gatekeeper of consumer credit has ALWAYS been the lender not the borrower. This is a lesson I learned early on when Whimpy offered to gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. Banks are not in the business of lending money to everyone that fills out an application. It makes about as much sense to blame consumers generally for borrowing as it does to blame wall street generally for being greedy. You can only regulate it, you can’t get rid of it. > [@Shodan](#): > > We already have laws that require full disclosure of all the terms of a mortgage. According to you, this didn’t work because minorities are stupid. So passing more laws isn’t going to help. I agree and disagree. There was rampant fraud among mortgage brokers. They would present 1% reverse amortization mortgages as having a 1% rate during the teaser period when their mortgages were accreting at 6%/year. They would doctor loan documents so that the borrower would appear to have more resources and higher income than hey actually had so that they could get larger commission for getting someone who should have gotten a 5% interest rate to sign on to a 7% interest rate. Its not that these minorities were too stupid, its that they were lied to and they were told that they could afford larger mortgages than they actually could. These guys were a few steps below used car salesmen. But if the anti-fraud laws on the books doesn’t dissuade that sort of behaviour now, I’m not sure how even more severe penlaties would do so. A lot of these mortgage brokers are in jail. > [@Shayna](#): > > …This chart should serve as a reminder that the protesters aren’t interested in propping up one party in favor of the other. They’re interested in changing the priorities of our leaders—who, donkey or elephant, have favored business over people for far too long.[/indent] Yeah but in the end, a lot of them are going to vote for Obama and precious few of them are going to vote for the Republican candidate. > [@Scylla](#): > > Do you have a cite for this that shows the distribution between those three categories, or did you just make that up? It depends on what youa re including in your sample. There were definitely a large number of speculators who in cahoots with real estate agents and mortgage brokers submitted fraudulent loan applications to buy homes they intended to flip, like I said eaerlier, there was a massive percentage of subprime mortgages made in 2007 or 2008 that never made the first mortgage payment. There was massive fraud in the market but when it comes to actual primary residences, the incidence of this sort of activity was much much lower. Nobody WANTS to go through a foreclosure and eviction. With that said, a lot of people were buying more house than they had any reasonable right to expect they could afford. Like I said, I was attending open houses with folks that drove a taxi for a living. Not saying that there’s anything wrong with driving a taxi but you can’t reasonably expect to afford a 5 bedroom in a new development in McLean, I don’t care how much you really really want your kids to attend good schools. On the other hand my first mortgage broker tried to convince me that a 1% reverse amortization mortgage was actually a 1% mortgage during the initial period before the interest rate reset. He was looking at a 7% commission (over $50,000) if he could get me to sign onto that mortgage. It was fucking crazy. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2311 "2011-12-12T19:38:58Z")
**Scylla** , what you fail to understand, or more likely, refuse to understand, is that this is not really about you. I accept, in a general sort of way, your expertise. I don’t accept your absurd pretense that your expertise makes you the one-eyed man in a board of the blind, no, but generally speaking, sure, why not? Across the board, a whole culture of financial “experts” are singing very much the same song: gosh, we had no idea! None of us were involved in such bad doings, and we had not the slightest inkling that such bad doings were afoot. We know all about financial stuff, but none of us knew about this stuff. Which, even you would be forced to agree, is a very highly selective form of ignorance. Or amnesia. So, we are left with two possible explanations: either they knew, but kept quiet so as not to rock the boat, which makes them to some degree complicit. Or they honestly had not the slightest clue, which makes them more or less incompetent at the work they are so lavishly paid to perform. Either way, they are not to be trusted. (Anecdotal aside: Got a little old lady living down the way, works at Wal-Mart. Too old to work anywhere, by my estimation, being ninety-something. But half her pension money is gone. To somebody else’s pocket. Her pension fund was one of those rock-solids, the kind where the fiduciary was obliged to invest in nothing but triple-A rated securities. Triple A being “rock solid”. You can guess the rest. Now, the kind of investor who dabbles with his extra money is probably a fool, but who cares, really. Its still wrong, but not tragic. Her story is different.) Now, I am forming a suspicion, given my vast expertise and my membership in the trailer-trash elite. I suspect that the stock market and its attendant entities is too fast, too complex, and too chaotic for anyone, no matter how well educated and experienced, to really know. From the great tulip madness to the credit-swap madness, its not one damned thing after another, its the same damned thing over and over. Rather than “you” think “you guys”. And either you guys knew, or suspected, or had some inkling but quietly cashed your paychecks anyway, or you didn’t have the slightest clue, and your claims of competence are wildly exaggerated. Either way, you guys are not to be trusted. If you have a third alternative, you are welcome to provide it. Thus far, you seem interested only in protecting your, ah, dignity. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2312 "2011-12-12T23:15:37Z")
There is a temptation among people who make a good money pushing around paper to delude ourselves into thinking that at least part of the reason we earn so much money is because we understand things that that others are simply incapable of understanding. NONE of this stuff is rocket surgery. You might never be hired at Goldman Sachs but they have to be able to explain their products to some really wealthy but not necessarily brilliant people. If anyone makes it sound like this stuff is too complicated for you to understand they are trying to fool you. If it takes more than half an hour or so to give someone a 50,000 foot view of a product it is probably not a particularly viable (and certainly not wisespread) product. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2313 "2011-12-13T20:13:15Z")
Sort of aside: why is it that smart people are so easy to fool? Its because they are smart people. Years ago, there was a book by a sociology professor who studied con men and con jobs. You know, the “pigeon drop”, the “big store”, etc. He asked them who they looked for and they answered, well, doctors, lawyers, engineers. But, he protested, those are smart professional people, why would they fall for your scams? _Because_ they are smart,was the answer. A really dumb person learns not to have confidence in his own opinions, he is wary. A smart doctor, a smart engineer is used to thinking of himself as smart, he is confident in his own competence. Even better, is when the doctor/lawyer/whatever thinks he knows something you don’t know, that he is putting one over on you! Its a misnomer, they said, the the confidence man works by you trusting him, he works by getting you to believe that he trusts you. Now, I am not saying that this directly applies to the matter at hand. But it helps to explain why so many smart people get screwed. Nobody explains it fully because it is _presented_ as a complex matter, it is presented as something only a smart person would understand and appreciate. Here is a complicated investment, which you can appreciate, but the other guy won’t, you get an advantage. Because you are smart. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2314 "2011-12-13T20:42:55Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Here is a complicated investment, which you can appreciate, but the other guy won’t, you get an advantage. Because you are smart. I know more than one person who, having decided that working for a living is for chumps and investment income is where it’s at, have spent more than a decade looking for that complex investment that guaranteed a profit for minimal money down. They are, one and all, convinced they’re smart enough to get in on whatever it is that lets rich people become rich. Because it’s certainly not hard work, familial connections, or plain ol’ luck in combination with the former. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2315 "2011-12-13T22:16:03Z")
A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2316 "2011-12-14T13:07:14Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > I know more than one person who, having decided that working for a living is for chumps and investment income is where it’s at, have spent more than a decade looking for that complex investment that guaranteed a profit for minimal money down. > > They are, one and all, convinced they’re smart enough to get in on whatever it is that lets rich people become rich. Because it’s certainly not hard work, familial connections, or plain ol’ luck in combination with the former. I’m lucky that I find investing fundamentally uninteresting, because otherwise I would be one of those people you describe. I would get sucked into that quest _so_ easily. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2317 "2011-12-14T15:34:59Z")
These folks might as well try to earn their living at online poker. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2318 "2011-12-14T20:13:56Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > These folks might as well try to earn their living at online poker. It’s kind of sad. One of them is a crazy arch-neocon, and he is perpetually broke and living in his parent’s basement while hunting this mythical perfect investment. So he says to me, “I want to go to such and such anime convention, but I don’t have any money. I’m going to go sign up for welfare, why should all those lazy losers get all of it.” I says “Man, you haven’t worked in three years, and you have no kids. I predict you’re going to come back with $0 and a scowl.” He says “No way, you always hear about these asshole poor people (note: he’s not one of them, see, because he’s living with his double-Doctor parents) living high on the hog and it’s high time I got a piece of the action.” Three hours later, he returns, with a scowl. The only difference I perceive between his mindset (not his knowledge or training, his mindset) and that of a Maurice Greenberg or Jon Corzine is starting capital. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2319 "2011-12-14T21:51:48Z")
You’re not allowed to be a conservative and live with your parents. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/2320 "2011-12-15T15:16:15Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > You’re not allowed to be a conservative and live with your parents. Yeah, THAT’S not even close to true. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851.md?page=115) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851.md?page=117)