Next, you pulled up some stories from the 53% people. I’m glad you agree that there is some pretty hard ass shit there.
I think you miss the point, though. Those people don’t want help. They don’t want the government to take care of them. They are not whining. These occupiers bitch because they got what? A degree in art history, have a tough time finding a job, and don’t want to pay back the loan?
They don’t want to pay for their house?
They blame somebody else for what is largely their failure?
Everybody has bad luck. Most of us go through tough times. Some of us deal with it without blaming somebody else, camping out in a park, and smoking dope while running from their responsibilities.
Grrr. You miss my point again. I know that it is not true. I just pretend it is. I act like it is. I try to make myself believe it. I do this because I find it to be a personally useful viewpoint that prevents me from indulging in self pity or blame and keeps me focussed.
You being a Swede, probably require no such artifice. I’m half Irish, half polack and do.
Yes!
This is a really, really good example. I am glad you brought it up. No. I will not pay for your car, or pay your medical expenses, and, if possible I would sue for every last penny.
Where my philosophy serves me is before and after the accident. Lots of times people get involved in accidents that are not their fault… but are preventable.
My father taught me to drive and what he told me is that I should assume that everybody else on the road is either a maniac, in a drunken stupor, or psychotically hell bent on crashing into me, and, that it is my responsibility not to let it happen. To do this I need to develop a set of habits and situational awareness that at first seems pretty paranoid. For example, I always want to have at least two outs if somebody does something stupid and changes lanes into me or something. I keep distances that give me plenty of stopping power. I never indulge in road rage, and I always let those really annoying in when they come speeding up beside you and then cut in front when you are waiting to pass a truck. I am always scanning.
I am doing all this under the belief that all accidents are preventable and will be my fault if I waver in my care and vigilance. The end result is that I have never had an accident in 30 years of driving (knock on wood.)
Again, it’s not true, but acting like I can prevent all accidents sets me up to be prepared to prevent all I can.
Finally, if I do end up hurt in an accident, this attitude helps me self-rescue and rehabilitate and give myself every chance I can.
There’s a great book called “Deep Survival” which has studied many cases of survival situations, and, it turns out this sense of self-responsibility, the need to self-rescue is a pretty strong indicator for success.
Finally, I just think, for me, that it’s a really good way to try to live. YMMV
If I take a look at Obama (who I voted for BTW,) and think about his campaign, I recognize now that it seems to me his message was deliberately vague and undefined. He was for “Hope,” and “Change.” I guess this worked if you really didn’t like the previous guy and his policies. Than, anything different would be good, right?
Anyway, so after he gets elected what happens? Well, effectively he just continues the policies of the previous administration. He keeps fighting the wars. He keeps Gitmo open. He continues TARP and even keeps some of the same guys in charge of fixing the economy. He starts his own war (though not a land way,) for, I think, thinner reasons even then Bush did. Like Bush, he is for big government. He institutes a health care reform act, which, as far as I can tell really hasn’t changed anything or helped anybody, but, it did make my benefits go up and become more complex.
So, in the end, if I was looking for hope, or change, what I got instead was blame on the previous guy and more of the same.
Now, I think that’s kind of our own fault. You don’t vote for somebody and give them the Presidency based on the audacity of hope, especially not a first term senator without a real plan or specifics. At least, not if you are smart you don’t.
It’s kind of our own fault we are in this economic mess, not Clinton, or Bush, or Obama. Interest rates were low and we spent more than we could afford to, and because interest rates were so low, we did not pay attention to make sure we got value for what we purchased. Now, we have to live the mistakes we made, and we have to pay for them. It happened on the government level, corporate level, and the individual level. We are a debtor, consumer nation.
It’s our fault. There are specific villains, yes. But largely, let’s face it. It’s our fault as a people.
What this has to do with the occupiers is that I think it’s more of the same. It’s this undefined blame. This hiding from responsibilty, this kind of willful blindness that seems to have become very fahionable recently.
I saw that video, and everybody was asked to describe a word for why they were there (suspiciously nice production values, suspiciously hot chicks, btw,) I heard “freedom, anger, blame…” all kinds of shit.
I’m not sure who is driving these two movements- Occupy, MoveOn, Anonymous (it’s also Guy Fawkes day), but it is another thing that seems to be happening primarily because of the Occupy events.
Sorry you are unable to do your homework. The healthcare bill is a great start. Much of it has not taken effect and wont for a year or so, but the changes that have gone in are important and substantive, for instance
You can not be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions
Young adults can stay of their parents plan until 26
You can not be dropped because you got sick
No life time limit on care
Everybody is guaranteed emergency care
Small businesses get a tax cut to help out paying for Healthcare plans
Insurance companies have to spend 85 percent of revenue on health care
Increased funding for community health care centers
There is a lot more. The plans for more healthcare changes were derailed by the Repubs who plan on removing even these beginnings as soon as possible.
TARP was in effect . it was sold as the savior of the American economy. he could not kill it. It was voted in by congress and the senate.
The economic mess is a product of greed and money coming together to control the government. Even after the Repub disaster ,the powerful will not give up their gains even if the country is put at risk.
Are we at fault? Sure we allowed Bush to do some terrible things and were stupid enough to have faith in him and his policies. Americans believed him. He should have been thrown out on his ass.
Ok. Perhaps I am wrong and hings will be better later.
Yes, but you’ll remember that Bush involved him in the process and got his prepproval. Then he implemented QE2, all on is own nd has been arguing for a QE3
Well, he might, I sure as heck don’t. I’m wondering if there might not be a bit of coy artistry in that choice of the word “preapproval”? If he hadn’t of approved, it would not have gone forward? And if that isn’t the case, then it was really more like a briefing, wasn’t it? More like “For your information, here’s what we’re gonna do.” Your wording implies complicity, a notion the begs for substantiation.
Checking in on my theory that the main opposition to these protests is based primarily on either lying or just being blind, here’s a fun study in either cognitive dissonance, if we’re charitable, or bias and integrity, if we’re accurate. Here’s every single one-word response take from that video:
I don’t know
umm
Future
Greed
Interested
A job
Afraid
Freedom
Frustration
Revolution
Justice
Solution
Encourage
Solidarity
Tragedy
Disparity
Dissemination
Because
Journalism
Posterity
Truth
Humanity
Corruption
Frustration
Change
Passion, probably… anger
What Scylla (as a stand-in for every stodgy pooh-poohing head-in-the-sand, heel-dragging, willing to dissemble as much as possible to discredit the idea that something important is manifested in these protests stereotype-monger) heard:
Wait, nobody actually said shit? I don’t mean nobody said shit, I’m sure people said a lot of shit, I mean, nobody said the exact word “shit”? I would have said “shit”. Especially if I had spent the last thirty days sitting in a tent smoking dope. If they let me have more than one word, I might say “limp watches draped over stark tree limbs axolotyl sundae.”
But if its only going to be one word, yeah, “shit” would be it.
What would you recommend? I mean, for fuck’s sake, the media for all intents and purposes completely ignored the public occupation movement until it was about a month in. Instant media? I hate to break it to you, but a group of tweets, facebook status updates, and youtube clips is not going to change things in any meaningful way. They’re incredibly easy to overlook and ignore. 20,000 people squatting in Times Square? Not so much. No, I’m sorry, there still is no other effective, let alone better, way of making the government see than public protests, unless I’m missing something. There’s a big difference between watching a CNN report about a group on facebook with 200,000 likes that decries the actions of wall street and having to drive past a group of 20,000 protesters every day on your way to and from work.
They also generally aren’t paying attention. Look, when some people are making a fortune on what is essentially gambling with your money, and you’re living in squalor after working your ass off for years, then you’d have to be either completely brainwashed by the “Fuck the commies” routine of the 70s and 80s or just fucking stupid. The point isn’t that they are complaining. The point is that they should be, and the fact that they aren’t indicates that they are phenomenally stupid.
It’s not just guys in Art History. It’s also, you know, pretty much everyone else.
Again, first half of this vid most definitely related. The basic gist of it is that a lot of people bought into the “Go to college, get a somewhat sensible degree, and you’re bound to find a job somehow” story, which… suddenly collapsed around 2006. Now they’ve sunk years of their life and tens of thousands of dollars into a degree that may or may not help them even get off the ground. Hell, the guy speaking has a degree in biology and genetics, and he can’t find a job worth a damn. You gonna count Genetic Biology to the same category as Art History? Never mind that when he started his degree, it was the shit and basically guaranteed you a job in that field.
What with their underwater mortgages that obviously every idiot could’ve seen coming? Like, my dad’s house?
Uh… no. They never failed. They went to college. They more often than not chose a sensible degree. They worked hard and did what they could. But then the system turned around and kicked them out on their asses. When a man with a PhD can’t find a job, what exactly did he fail?
And some of you are morons who can’t see the overarching problem. Again, if you’re stuck in a shit situation and you aren’t angry and frustrated, you’re stupid. I personally have no right to complain–I live in Germany, and Germany is actually doing really, really well. But those guys who believed the story that their parents told them, who went to college, busted their asses, succeeded, and still got fucked by the system because the financial and political institutions are broken to hell and back? They have every right to be angry, and every right to demand change to that system. We are, after all, a fucking democracy.
And their demands aren’t even too extravagant–pull the ridiculous amount of corporate money out of politics, reinstate Glass-Steagal (the repealing thereof was pretty much responsible for most of the recent financial bullshit bubbles; this should be a no-brainer to everyone in politics), raise taxes to what they were under Reagan, close blatantly abused tax code loopholes… This shit is not unreasonable. It should be fucking obvious to the government. But no, they’re just commie fags bitching because they failed somehow, because every one of them majored in women’s studies or art history or homeopathy and fucked themselves. :rolleyes:
…
You’re a moron. Obama has been incredibly effective, while being dogged by needing 60% on every vote (yep, no blame on the idiots in the Republican party there) in his first two years. If he passes anything worthwhile or sensible before 2012, I’ll be fucking shocked–after all, to quote the leaders of the house, their goal is to make Obama a one-term president, not actually solve our problems.
That reminds me of a great sign I saw: “Those who say we have no goals is either lying or can’t read”.
Again, I don’t know how I can explain this to you: the system has failed. In the USA, Wall Street has fucked Main Street up the ass, and now these people, who have worked their asses off and, for some bizarre reason, still failed, are pissed.
Dammit dude, what you seem to be missing is that they’re not hiding from responsibility. Their situation just sucks. What responsibilities? The responsibility to pay off their debts? No shit–they can’t find a job. They’re not hiding, they’re not shirking, they simply cannot fulfill it because the systems in place to help them fulfill it got destroyed. Again, I fail to see how we’re living the American dream when educated, bright young people can work their asses off, get through college, and still can’t find a job. And then suddenly because you can, you didn’t get lucky, you just worked harder? That’s bullshit and you know it. There are other places where these problems don’t exist. Germany. Denmark. Sweden. There is no reason our income inequality should be on par with the third world rather than the old world. There is no reason that our financial sector should be able to jack up the price of oil by investing in it. There is no reason that we should have lower tax rates on the upper brackets than anywhere else in the world, and demand higher taxes on the 49% who barely earn enough to live. The system is flawed, fucked, and does not work, and if you succeeded, it’s because you got in before everything broke down, or you got very, very lucky.
Actually, “jobs” was in there. Do me a favor and actually watch it, you moron.
Real interest rates were lower during the 1970s. So your explanation is weak.
At least until, the lesser depression, when nominal rates crashed due to Fed easing and a liquidity trap which made looser policy ineffective.
Liar loans had nothing to do with cheap money.
Sorry, but the investment banks and mortgage providers are to blame, along with the regulators and commentators who enabled them. Oh yeah and the rating industry. A less proximate but highly relevant cause was a fundamental misunderstanding about the financial industry among the great and the good. Market fundamentalism and its milder incarnations had too strong a grip on our thought processes: we’re still trying to break free.
You place no blame on the people who actually took the loans out? It’s all the fault of the big bad banks, who put a gun to the heads of the borrowers?
How about all the other Dem groups, including ACORN, who sued banks, accusing them of redlining? Therefore resulting in more loans to people who had no business owning houses (because, after all, it’s the American dream.. what are you, racist?..)
Hell, your boy Obama was even involved in one of those suits in 1994, a class action against Citibank. Look up Docket / Court 94 C 4094 ( N.D. Ill. ) FH-IL-0011 sometime.
Sub-prime loans were the stuff of which the toxic derivatives were made, and it was not some idle whim or fancy of the bankers that led to the proliferation of sub-prime loans.
It was the pressure of the CRA that led to the invention of the concept of the “credit score” so as to diminish the discretion of lending institutions. Credit scores in turn became a driver of the expansion of credit to ever less creditworthy borrowers.
Yes, because the banks are in the position of allegedly being able to judge risk. Instead, they waived issues of risk and then built an investment numbers racket on top of it. Which then snowballed with all the participants deciding that if “everyone” is doing it, you can’t be held responsible. And then they doubled down by selling insurance on that “can’t fail” basis.
Not really. Low real interest do not mean that credit is easy. The real Interest rate wasn’t low because rates were low. It was low because inflation has high. If you have high interest rates and higher inflation rates than you can have negative real interest rates in an environment very unfriendly to borrowing.
I think it’s fair to place some blame on the lenders who took loans they couldn’t afford, but Scylla, I don’t think you place nearly enough blame on the Bankers. Remember, they’re the people whose job it is to avoid loans like this. -.-
Yes. I have plenty of blame. One of the biggest villains is Stan O’neill.
He should be put in prison. Here’s the thing though, largely the decisions were made at the executive level. Everybody in the entire industry has been vilified for their actions.
Really. So you place no blame at all on the people who took out loans that they knew (or should have known) that they couldn’t afford.
I know that lefties aren’t big on making people live with the consequences of their choices, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You’d fit right in with the spoiled-children at OWS; why should they have to pay back their student loans, right?