# \#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:** 92
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1821 "2011-11-07T19:40:45Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > If you click on the little arrow next to the “originally posted by RTFirefly” in his last post you will get the full and complete “big dramatic speech” that Shodan was referring to. > > RTFTroll simply edited it after the fact to leave all the “big dramatic” stuff out. I linked to that very post in my own, but I still don’t see where he claimed to be doing anything except ceasing to engage you — he certainly wasn’t claiming to _leave_ (and he even states that he wouldn’t take such a measure for other posters he doesn’t care for). He writes > [@](#): > > I’m done with debating you in this thread. Note the “you”; he goes on to ridicule you for a few lines, and finishes with > [@](#): > > So have fun with the others. I’m done with you. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1822 "2011-11-07T19:45:30Z")
That’s correct he only claimed to be finished debating me, but later reneged. He took issue with Shodan saying his exit was “big and dramatic,” and then edited his post to make it appear not so. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1823 "2011-11-07T19:49:04Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Which was? 🙂 > > ETA: No, really: if I’m the troll and you’re not, how come I’m the one with links and quotes, and you’re not? Dnfrtf. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1824 "2011-11-07T19:51:17Z")
Well, okay. I suppose it’s not a matter of great importance, but **Shodan** _did_ write that **RTFirefly** > [@Shodan](#): > > posted a big dramatic speech about how you were leaving which doesn’t seem to be accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1825 "2011-11-07T19:54:15Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > Well, okay. I suppose it’s not a matter of great importance, but **Shodan** _did_ write that **RTFirefly** > > which doesn’t seem to be accurate. Fair enough, I suppose. I kind of took it that he meant he was leaving me. No biggee. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1826 "2011-11-07T19:56:30Z")
With all this talk about leaving (wherever that came from), does anyone have Al Yankovic’s “[One More Minute](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWhpk-8QLFQ&ob=av3e)” going through their head? ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1827 "2011-11-07T21:14:02Z")
I’ve had it with you, **RTFirefly**! I’m leaving! And I’ll see you in court! ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1828 "2011-11-07T22:47:57Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Reminds me of the story (probably apocryphal) of Henry Ford II and UAW president Walter Reuther walking through a Ford factory. Ford gestures at all the robotic assembly machines and says to Reuther, “How are you going to get them to pay union dues, Walter?” With missing a beat, Reuther shoots back, “How are you going to get them to buy cars, Henry?” Apocryphal or not, it’s pretty neat. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1829 "2011-11-08T00:09:37Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > I’ve had it with you, **RTFirefly**! I’m leaving! And I’ll see you in court! Yeah, I know - linking to Weird Al was a bit much. But won’t you give me one more chance? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1830 "2011-11-08T04:45:35Z")
[http://jimhightower.com/node/7585](http://jimhightower.com/node/7585) here is Hightower explaining how B of A fucked up and how they want to use the taxpayers again to bail their sorry asses out. I just love bankers. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1831 "2011-11-08T13:42:43Z")
Back before the crisis Bac was around $50. Now it’s around $5. Ken Lewis, the CEO is gone. So is John Thain. Assuming bank transfer day works, you keep it in the news and finally you manage to kill BAC, what happens? It’s a big part of the economy, a huge US company which does business with companies all over the world. But let’s say you keep making a run on the bank, and you kill it. What happens to the 200,000 people or so that it employs? What happens to the US economy? The world? You Need to understand that if you are sitting on a branch, it is generally a bad idea to saw at the part between you and the tree. ---
**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 8, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1832 "2011-11-08T14:23:49Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > You Need to understand that if you are sitting on a branch, it is generally a bad idea to saw at the part between you and the tree. It is important for the tree to realize that its branches are filled with desperate people with saws. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1833 "2011-11-08T14:50:11Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > You Need to understand that if you are sitting on a branch, it is generally a bad idea to saw at the part between you and the tree. Oddly, this is EXACTLY how I would characterize the actions of the banks in this situation. “Hmm, the public is already angry at us and blames us, in aggregate, for the financial crisis that’s happening–so much so that legislation to curtail our activities is being passed, even in this climate! I know! Let’s charge more fees!” ---
**Author:** ![C3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/c3/32/3108_2.png) [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1834 "2011-11-08T14:53:47Z")
**Scylla** , are you a supporter of the free market or not? Should we choose a bank because we’d feel bad for the employees if they lost their jobs? Or should we choose a bank based on the product we receive from it? Nevermind that if you pull all of your money out of one bank and put it in another, that new bank is going to have increased demand and need to hire more people. I see an opportunity for the poor, dejected Bank of America employee. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1835 "2011-11-08T15:04:57Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Oddly, this is EXACTLY how I would characterize the actions of the banks in this situation. > > “Hmm, the public is already angry at us and blames us, in aggregate, for the financial crisis that’s happening–so much so that legislation to curtail our activities is being passed, even in this climate! I know! Let’s charge more fees!” 1. We were over this about 20 pages ago. The Durbin now means that it costs money for large banks to perform a service that used to be profitable for them. It only targets them. Smaller banks and credit unions are exempt, and can still perform the service profitably. This kind of setting up of a deliberate inequality by the gov, is rarely a good idea. I’m surprised you would expect a company to provide a service at a loss. Anyway, the point is moot. They are not charging that fee. Nobody is being charged that fee. It seems to me that the way social protest should work is that if a company like Bac is going to charge a fee, but you protest and they decide not to because your voice was heard, than going ahead and punishing the bank anyway is counterproductive. They listened, didn’t they? Why not reward them, or at least acknowledge a step in the right direction. Anyway I’m not really asking about that. I’m just pointing out that the consequences of a BAC failure at this time and place are potentially catastrophic to this country and the world in general. Like it or not, attacking Bac is sawing at the branch on which you sit. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1836 "2011-11-08T15:10:40Z")
Good news, everybody! Our beloved banks and financial investment firms are doing quite well, thank you very much. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wall-streets-resurgent-prosperity-frustrates-its-claims-and-obamas/2011/10/25/gIQAKPIosM\_story.html?hpid=z1](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wall-streets-resurgent-prosperity-frustrates-its-claims-and-obamas/2011/10/25/gIQAKPIosM_story.html?hpid=z1) Some of you may be famiiar with the book and movie, _Too Big to Fail_, by arch-Trotskyist Michael Lewis, one of the first in the new genre of money-porn. It outlines the desperate attempts to stave off disaster, catastrophe, and meltdown, in rapid succession. The punch line comes at the end, when, in a unique effort in capitalistic socialism, the Gov forces a buttload of money onto the major banks. “Here, here’s a metric buttload of money, take it, virtually free money, all we want you to do is lend it out. That’s it. We won’t interfere, pay your geniuses all you want, no problem, just do what you do: lend this money”. The principals of the story are relieved, disaster averted, civilization saved. And then the adorable little Mr. Bernanke asks the inconvenient question: they will, won’t they? They will lend the money out, if we just give it to them, they’ll do the right thing for the country, for the people? Well, no. > [@](#): > > … > > Behind this turnaround, in significant measure, are government policies that helped the financial sector avert collapse and then gave financial firms huge benefits on the path to recovery. For example, the federal government invested hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in banks — low-cost money that the firms used for high-yielding investments on which they made big profits. > > Stabilizing the financial system was considered necessary to prevent an even deeper economic recession. But some critics say the Bush administration, which first moved to bail out Wall Street, and the Obama administration, which ultimately stabilized it, took a far less aggressive approach to helping the American people. > > “There’s a very popular conception out there that the bailout was done with a tremendous amount of firepower and focus on saving the largest Wall Street institutions but with very little regard for Main Street,” said Neil Barofsky, the former federal watchdog for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, the $700 billion fund used to bail out banks. “That’s actually a very accurate description of what happened.” > > Neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration, for instance, compelled banks to increase lending to consumers, known as “prime borrowers.” Such a step might have spurred spending and growth, although generating demand for loans may have proved difficult in the downturn. > > A recent study by two professors at the University of Michigan found that banks did not significantly increase lending after being bailed out. Rather, they used taxpayer money, in part, to invest in risky securities that profited from short-term price movements. The study found that bailed-out banks increased their investment returns by nearly 10 percent as a result. > > “If the goal was to support lending, it would have been sensible to require a portion of the money to support credit origination,” said Ran Duchin, one of the finance professors who completed the study. “Lending to prime consumers was not the most profitable use of their capital.”… Their country called, and they answered! Of course, the answer was “Fuck you very much, suckers!” And these guys that are gone, **Scylla** , are they the bad actors? Bad apples? So, they are gone, all is well now? Did they face a stern talking to? I’m just guessing here, my prejudice is such I don’t even bother to look it up, I’m guessing they were the happy patriots who’s patriotism is reflected not in taking a bullet, but in taking a buttload. Ah, the golden parachute! One hungers to take them to ten thousand feet and shove them out the door with a genuiine golden parachute. To encourage the others, you understand… ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1837 "2011-11-08T15:19:51Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Assuming bank transfer day works, you keep it in the news and finally you manage to kill BAC, what happens? How do you kill BAC by having small-to-medium depositors move their accounts out of BAC? What would be the upper bound on any realistic percentage of such depositors moving their accounts? Is that the backbone of BAC’s business - what percentage of BAC deposits are held by such depositors, and what percentage of BAC’s revenues do they generate? In short, is there any substance behind the scare stuff about killing BAC by getting smallish account holders to move their money to credit unions, or is it just the usual armwaving? Yeah, I know, it’s RTF the troll, trolling some more by asking for substance. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1838 "2011-11-08T15:22:38Z")
I don’t take issue with anything in your quote. What do you think it means? Why didn’t the banks lend that cash to the consumer? Why didn’t the government make them do so? Should anybody have done anything different? What? You are writing as if that quote is an indictment of banks, and officers. What should they have done differently? Why do you think they didn’t? I think you need to answer these questions before you have a thesis. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1839 "2011-11-08T15:23:44Z")
Dnfrtf ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851/1840 "2011-11-08T15:34:54Z")
My suggestion (which hardly merits the high-falutin’ term “thesis”, haven’t had one of those in about forty years…) is that Mr Lewis \*et. al. \*are largely telling the truth. That, given the opportunity to do the right thing for their country and its people, they did the right thing for themselves. Do these guys still wear those American flag lapel pins to publicly display their, ah, patriotism? They remind me of Bob Dylan’s song, _Just Like Tom Thumb Blues_, about being a broke gringo in a Mexican border town: “And if you’re looking to get silly, you better go back to from where you came Because the cops don’t need you and man, they expect the same.” We hardly need a national anthem anymore. A single, melodious “Oink!” will suffice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851.md?page=91) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/occupywallstreet/596851.md?page=93)