New ATS Survey: Occupy Wall Street

reply to post by stake


If these protests start gaining traction -- there will of course be looting and violence.

Because whether the people get violent or steal TV sets from stores -- SOMEONE will be hired to make sure it happens. That's why Chase was "donating" a bunch of money to the police.


The protestors are pretty heroic for what they are doing -- and I wish I could drop my struggle to earn income and join them.

I figure that MOST understand now, that this is going to get ugly -- it's happened throughout history, and of course, there are still fools that think that "millions of people" want to protest in the streets, risk their jobs and criminal prosecution, get their heads busted in, all so that they can throw rocks at cars.

There are people blogging on this website who don't listen. There are people who've hung out the bosses water cooler and believe ALL the fault is on the "useless eaters" -- they also don't listen. The REASON there are riots every now and then, is because it's a lot cheaper to higher shills on TV to tell people who have been ripped off that they are fools than it is to actually enforce justice in the system.

reply to post by VitriolAndAngst


Your "lesson" on banks and mortgages was mere preaching to the choir. I "get it" how it works, I just don't get why I should care about that. I don't have a mortgage, and am not going to have one. The percentages in it go entirely the wrong way.

You can fill all the sandbags you want -- but it would be great if the "get off my lawn types" out there, who still blame POOR PEOPLE for getting ripped off, had a solution.

I reckon you haven't read many of my posts. I HAVE a solution - don't borrow money you can't pay back. It's worked for me so far. Bankers are con men, and like all good scams, they took advantage of the mark's own greed in the sub-prime mortgage mess. Personally, I took it a step further - not only do I NOT bum money from banks, whether I can pay it back or not, I don't KEEP my money in a bank, either. I don't deal with them at all.

Problem solved.

Seriously, who here is using their head for a hat rack? The banks were NOT injured by the mortgages

Of course they weren't. They made out like bandits because they are, well, BANDITS! I've not said any different anywhere, contrary to your suggestion that I somehow have.

Let me repeat exactly what I said, so that you don't have to go look it up:

Use your head for something besides a place to lay your hat. NO ONE, minority or not, should buy more house than they can afford. Derivatives and bank malfeasance are an entirely separate issue, not concantenated as you are implying. If you buy more than you can pay for, expect it to get taken away.

People give up all their money and then some, more than they have to begin with, then bitch and whine because someone else has it? Here's an idea: DON'T GIVE IT TO THEM TO BEGIN WITH! I know, it's a novel approach, but it has worked for me.

>> Of course, we HAVE a solution -- and that is, get the money out of politics, re-instate Glass/Stegal act, get better oversight on Wall Street and don't allow any financial transactions that require a PhD.

Sounds good to me, although I would also make trading in "futures" and derivatives and the like hanging offenses. Those practices are like dealing in crack, except they hurt more people. What I have to wonder is what exactly makes you think that protesting at Wall Street is going to suddenly make them straighten themselves out, get a conscience, and clean up their own house?

I'll say it again: wrong target.

The people confused about the OWS movement, have been eating the corporate PR for some time. You idea that people "enjoy the fruits of corporations" so they cannot criticize corruption can only be non-hypocrites if they are Luddites is truly, epic.

I'm not as "confused" about OWS as a lot of you would like me to be. As far as protesting corporations on products made by corporations goes, I don't go out and take out loans, then bitch and whine about people loaning stuff to me. Pretty simple, really. Live what you preach - it's gives the impression that you really mean what you say.

Calling for justice is apparently Communism. Calling for a rollback in tax giveaways is Socialism. If you read the Declaration of Independence -- without the title, you'd probably think that was a Marxist manifesto as well.

That's quite a stretched out straw man you have there. WHERE did I say ANY of that? I don't even mean in just this thread - I mean in ANY of my 6,500 or so ATS posts. You've set up a straw man here, then set it on fire to see if I'd hug it to smother the flames. Good try, but no cigar.

I could spend a lot of time debunking the oft repeated "Neocon Meme" about the nonsense that banks were forced to give loans to minorities who couldn't pay them back

I don't do "memes", but you are right on at least two counts here: Neocons are idiots, and no one had to "force" bankers to rip people off. All that directive did was give them a green light to engage in robbery, and they knew it right from the start. I wonder of the were grinning large when they were hollering "OW! OW! OW! Stop twisting my arm!"

I don't bother mentioning that using war for our economy, is about a lacking in morals as one can get -- but that's explaining rainbows to dogs.

Is there a compelling reason I should care about your version of "morality"?

WOOF!

It's really great to see the OWS movement taking off -- because it doesn't matter that this country is CHOCK FULL of Fox News viewers who won't "get it" until Global Warming brings the tide up to their ankles, or they get thrown out on the street because it's THEIR TURN.

I get so tired of being accused of being a Fox News viewer that I might just actually tune into it one day to see what I've been missing. Must be something important, or people wouldn't be carrying on so about it. I've had cable nearly a week now, and I'm sure I'll eventually get around to finding out what channel it's on. I actually got it in the first place because of allegations like this, but just haven't had the time to play with it much yet.

"Global Warming" doesn't bother me in the least. Not even a tiny bit. A lot of hype not borne out by science or geological history.

Can you tell me some reason I'd be "thrown out in the street"?

Don't worry -- when we fix things, we'll even look out for the people who were wrong about everything.

If you're referring to me, please don't "look out for" me. I'll look out for myself, thanks, and your type of "help" either kills or subjugates, and I'll stand still for neither.

reply to post by nenothtu


Oh, OK -- I though you were going with the NeoCon meme - - but no, you seem to be a Libertarian. Ayn Rand perhaps, or just a backwoods survivalist?

I should have known by the "Spartaaaaaaa!" image and the scent of Deer Musk and sweat you spray on your emails that you are a take no prisoners manly man, who bootstrapped himself from the womb.

Despite this CONCEPT that we can all let other folks get ripped off for being chumps and it won't harm us -- well, While the banks were ripping off immigrants and minorities -- they CHUMPED us if you hadn't noticed -- but of course you have YOU and I get to pay for it whether we wanted to or not. My mortgage is paid off as well -- as I've never wanted debts or to buy things I can't afford. That plan went out the window when my wife got Cancer, coupled with kids and a layoff.

No, I reassert that you "don't get it" and you just have the OTHER form of ignorance -- that ANY human can possibly be secure without some system in place to prevent corruption. The Market will NOT solve this problem -- this problem was the REMOVAL of regulations.

Glass/Stegal was good regulation that limited bank speculation while Oxley/Sarbanes is a make-work jobs project pushed by large corporations to create barriers for smaller businesses. The crooks win, when we talk about all regulation and all business as equivalent. Fair rules have to be enforced -- RULES are what create the environment for business. For instance; the FBI spends a lot of time catching kids who download MP3s and tricking homeless losers into calling al Qaeda. Also, they are supposed to be stopping counterfeiters and white collar criminals. The courts allow patent trolls to sue infringers... you know, the stuff of business.

I can test my water for lead, I can make sure I don't put money in a bank (go Credit Union), and I could do a dozen other things -- but I cannot do it all. At the end of the day, we depend on SOMEONE ELSE to check our food, to make sure our cars don't blow up, and to see that the Fed doesn't write blank checks to their member banks (which of course they do).

Shoe-horning the concept of "The Public Welfare" into this "meme" of Nanny-state is disingenuous. It's not much of a conversation to constantly defend a comic book concept of Progressive ideals. Can we at least say that "corrupt business and corrupt government" is bad? Our Government is Socialist for the wealthy and free market for the poor.

I had this conversation with a "True Manly Libertarian." He had his own business and health insurance and bought his own sports car. Screw the losers! Last year he got stomach cancer. This year, even with his insurance, it was much cheaper to fly to Columbia and get surgeries on his hernias and have a month of recovery at a nice resort -- a mutual Latina friend helped set things up.

I have to be careful not to mention this point when we have these "free market producing the best of all possible worlds" and "every man for himself" sort of discussions that I try my best to avoid.

>> It's the arguments of people like him and yourself that convince me that this country needs to become a Democratic Socialism because it's like having oily rags or fundamentalist religions -- they always catch fire if you ignore them eventually. Just because Capitalism has been "good for you" doesn't mean that it won't eventually devour most of us when we aren't looking. We had 40 GOOD economic years after FDR -- and that was MAINLY because of high taxes on the wealthy and Socialist economic policies -- and LAWS against complex financial instruments. I look at the history of "free markets" and you more often have Haiti and Mexico than the USA between 1940 to 1980 -- after that, and the Laffer Curve supply-side economics got the hindmost.

At least we can agree; Banks are Crooks. I call them "Banksters."

I'm a white, upper middle class, three job working, High IQ, 6 years of college dude -- and I eventually got burnt out from the rat race.

Originally posted by VitriolAndAngst
reply to post by nenothtu

 

Oh, OK -- I though you were going with the NeoCon meme - - but no, you seem to be a Libertarian. Ayn Rand perhaps, or just a backwoods survivalist?

"Backwoods survivalist" I suppose.

I should have known by the "Spartaaaaaaa!" image and the scent of Deer Musk and sweat you spray on your emails that you are a take no prisoners manly man, who bootstrapped himself from the womb.

Uh huh. Us "backwoods survivalist" types can never tell when your just a-funnin' us or trying to insult us, so I reckon that ought to be let to slide.

Despite this CONCEPT that we can all let other folks get ripped off for being chumps and it won't harm us -- well, While the banks were ripping off immigrants and minorities -- they CHUMPED us if you hadn't noticed -- but of course you have YOU and I get to pay for it whether we wanted to or not.

I thought I'd made clear my opinion on banks. I don't get to decide if other folks want to be chumped by them or not - I only control my own dealing with them.

My mortgage is paid off as well -- as I've never wanted debts or to buy things I can't afford. That plan went out the window when my wife got Cancer, coupled with kids and a layoff.

You must have misunderstood me - my mortgage isn't "paid off", I never had one to begin with. Paid cash for the place. I never had "that plan" for debt. Never wanted any at all in the first place. I hope your wife is doing well now, and I mean that. Cancer is a terror - it took my wife in June of 2006.

No, I reassert that you "don't get it" and you just have the OTHER form of ignorance -- that ANY human can possibly be secure without some system in place to prevent corruption. The Market will NOT solve this problem -- this problem was the REMOVAL of regulations.

We must be defining "secure" differently. Corruption is annoying, but if your security depends upon it's absence, you've done something wrong. That seems to me to be a bit too much reliance on a broken system. Still, you've got a point about this sort of "market" we have not regulating itself, which is why it's all the more perplexing why the OWS crowd is aimed at Wall Street, rather than at DC where the regulations are made. Are they thinking they can shame Wall Street into policing itself? I don't think that's going to work - those folks in those towers seem not to be over burdened with any shame to be worked on.

Fair rules have to be enforced -- RULES are what create the environment for business.

True enough, and one of those rules ought by rights to allow the FAILURE of any business where the people running it are running it into the ground. No such thing as "too big to fail", in either government or business.

I can test my water for lead, I can make sure I don't put money in a bank (go Credit Union), and I could do a dozen other things -- but I cannot do it all. At the end of the day, we depend on SOMEONE ELSE to check our food, to make sure our cars don't blow up, and to see that the Fed doesn't write blank checks to their member banks (which of course they do).

You know, if there were no Fed, it would be terribly difficult for them to write those blank checks. I was taught that handling money was what the Treasury was for.

Shoe-horning the concept of "The Public Welfare" into this "meme" of Nanny-state is disingenuous. It's not much of a conversation to constantly defend a comic book concept of Progressive ideals. Can we at least say that "corrupt business and corrupt government" is bad? Our Government is Socialist for the wealthy and free market for the poor.

Expecting the state to take care of every little thing is a bit expansive on the notion of "the public welfare". They ought to be governing, not buying votes with handouts. Corruption is corruption - it's bad wherever you find it. What we've got right now appears Socialist period, rich or poor. They just haven't taken that final step of forcing the handouts on every one, but they're slowly tightening that noose. So far, they've not given me a damn thing, they've just taken... and taken...

I had this conversation with a "True Manly Libertarian." He had his own business and health insurance and bought his own sports car. Screw the losers! Last year he got stomach cancer. This year, even with his insurance, it was much cheaper to fly to Columbia and get surgeries on his hernias and have a month of recovery at a nice resort -- a mutual Latina friend helped set things up.

I've got NO health insurance, nor do I want any. Likewise, I've got NO car, nor do I want one. If that makes me a "loser", that's fine with me. I'm happy with what I've got. When the time comes that I get sick enough to die, I'll die. Case closed. Who wants to live forever anyhow? Near as I can figure out, nobody's going to get out of this life alive, no matter what they do, and no matter what they've got.

>> It's the arguments of people like him and yourself that convince me that this country needs to become a Democratic Socialism because it's like having oily rags or fundamentalist religions -- they always catch fire if you ignore them eventually.

Worked out great for Russia, eh? Go for it. It can't be much worse than what we've got currently. I don't have to participate either way.

Just because Capitalism has been "good for you" doesn't mean that it won't eventually devour most of us when we aren't looking. We had 40 GOOD economic years after FDR -- and that was MAINLY because of high taxes on the wealthy and Socialist economic policies -- and LAWS against complex financial instruments. I look at the history of "free markets" and you more often have Haiti and Mexico than the USA between 1940 to 1980 -- after that, and the Laffer Curve supply-side economics got the hindmost.

I wouldn't know about Capitalism being "good for me". I've never lived in a Capitalist country. I'm in the US, and as you pointed out it's been Socialist since FDR.

At least we can agree; Banks are Crooks. I call them "Banksters."

Oh yeah, they're crooks alright. Different methods of leg breaking, but crooks all the same. Best not to deal with them at all.

I'm a white, upper middle class, three job working, High IQ, 6 years of college dude -- and I eventually got burnt out from the rat race.

I'm lower class. Started out with nothing, and still have most of it. You've probably got a higher IQ - mine runs at 140. I've got 8 years of college in the aggregate, 3 different institutions of higher learning, mostly in physics. 2 years at a community college in electronics engineering and law enforcement, 6 at University for the rest. I never got burned out in the rat race since I never had enough ambition to jump on that particular hamster wheel. Never saw any advantage in it.