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clevohardcore
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Quote: Originally posted by Colin  | | Quote: Originally posted by Jason the Magnificent | To elaborate on that point...the whole bank thing just further displays the disgusting sense of entitlement Americans have about everything.
We want our cake and we want to eat it to. It's walking into a McDonalds screaming about how meat is murder then stepping up to the counter with
cameras in tow (so you can post it to your social media site so everyone know's you did it) and demanding a Big Mac.
If you're at "war" with corporate America and the 1% then BE at war. Go into the bank and by any means necessary, get your money. I don't want to hear
how "I should'nt have to lie" to get my money out...you know who thinks like that? People who think everything in life belongs to them and they
deserve things because they're entitled. You know what difference they make in the end. None. They post their blogs and facebook rants about the evil
empire and that's it.
If "everyone" went into the bank as polite customers, withdrew their funds and left, the banks wouldn't be able to turn people away. Is there a law
about protestors not being customers...probably not...but a bank is a business and businesses have a right to refuse service under any muddy
circumstances they can come up with...so go ahead and give them a reason to push you out of the door and a loophole to keep your money.
So please America, lets all keep waving signs and pretending like we're offended by WHAT WE LET corporate America do to us while they fed us Snickers
and Wonder Years then drive in our fucking SUV's with our 10 babies after the protest to Target. |
well put
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Each aspect of the soul has it's own part to play, but the ideal is harmonious agreement with reason and control.
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DaveMoral
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I think the McDonald's analogy falls apart when you consider the very different qualities of the businesses here. A McDonald's provides a service that
is a very different kind of service to that of a bank. And there's a distinct hypocrisy in someone doing a meat is murder thing and then asking for a
Big Mac to eat. On the other hand, banks actively seek out your patronage and effectively become your employees when you hire them to hold your money
for you and pay them for other means of utilizing your money, like debit cards, online bill pay etc. A bank is a great deal more personal than
McDonald's. The Big Mac in your analogy is not your property, and the ridiculousness of asking for one after just condemning the service is obvious.
On the other hand, you have patrons of the bank in question walking in demanding their property(their hard-earned cash) back from the company they
have employed to hold it and keep it safe for them. Even if they are indignant and down right rude, the bank absolutely needs to cancel their services
and render their property back into the care of their former patrons. And police interfering with people getting their own property back is simply
madness.
Of course bank customers are entitled in this situation, and it's not an unfair or undue expectation of entitlement I might add. It's their property
that they are demanding back from the people they had initially employed to hold it for them.
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Jason the Magnificent
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Fair enough. Ignore the McDonalds analogy (which you spent way to much time debunking, I was clearly coming out of left field on that one and was a
minor point in the argument to begin with)... the rest still stands. The person going in guerrilla and getting their shit gets their shit. The person
going in looking for attention didn't. That's not fair, that's life. Life's not fair.
The point is what kind of dumb dumb thinks that going into a bank with a camera and signs is a way to accomplish what you want? Those people that work
there are not the 1%, they're some poor schmuck who happens to be using that to feed their family instead of Kmart or McDondalds (sorry) and are just
trying to keep their job. I'm sure the last thing they want to do when they go into work is be yelled at by people probably making more money then
them when they're probably worried sick whats coming next for themselves as well.
Yes that's someones money in their bank and yes they deserve the right to get it back...but the bank can't be having a bunch of retards running loose
in there either.
People are hurting and shits fucked up. You're either tying to get attention or you're trying to get your money. One makes a dent (however minor) one
makes a dull clank and goes away. Either be about the action or be about the words and self glorification.
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Jason the Magnificent
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...and I'd also like to see actual information other than hearsay on people getting their heads cracked over trying to get their money out.
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BDx13
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Why You Shouldn't Compare Occupy Wall Street to the Tea Party
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/10/18/why-you-shouldnt...
With the Occupy Wall Street protests gaining steam in the U.S., it seems obvious to link it with the other grassroots movement that recently shook up
American politics — the Tea Party. My colleagues' pieces number among a flurry of others pondering the parallel. Michael Scherer recast Occupy Wall
Street as the Tea Party of the American left. Roya Wolverson suggested how the two movements, coming from diametrically-opposed sides of the political
spectrum, could find common ground (and perhaps actual policy influence) in their mutual distaste for a Washington dominated by the vested interests
of corporations. But while the similarities are noteworthy, they obscure more relevant truths about Occupy Wall Street, the supposedly inchoate
movement that has transfixed the American media in recent weeks. I enumerate these truths after the jump.
1. Occupy Wall Street is an expression of a global phenomenon. A cursory glimpse at newspapers over the weekend would have shown
scenes of mass protest across European capitals and cities elsewhere in the world, all in solidarity with the anti-greed protesters in New York. The
Tea Party, for all its early brio, commands no such solidarity, nor does it care for it. It's a hyper-nationalist movement in the U.S., lofting the
totems of the Constitution and the flag. Few viable political factions across the Atlantic advocate the Tea Party's anti-big government, libertarian
agenda (though the xenophobic, culturally-conservative wing of the Tea Party would perhaps see eye to eye with Europe's Islamophobic far-right).
Many of the Occupy Wall Street's participants, on the other hand, consciously see themselves as part of a worldwide uprising, a flame first kindled by
the Arab Spring and borne across the Mediterranean by anti-austerity protesters in Europe. In all three settings, social media has played a vital role
in mobilizing and organizing the disaffected and the disenfranchised. In all three settings, activists and protesters have drawn to varying degrees
from a toolbox of leftist, anarchist protest tactics and made do with minimal institutional support or funds. And in all three settings, the
protesters have pulled together sympathizers from across myriad political camps within their countries and somehow made a virtue out of their
movement's lack of central leadership. The U.S. economy may not be facing the same existential pressures as those of Greece or Spain, nor are American
protesters facing the sort of desperate brutality meted out on brave dissidents in Tunisia, Egypt, or Syria. But the call for social justice echoes
the same across continents.
2. Occupy Wall Street is fueled by youth. Reporters covering the ongoing occupation of Zuccotti Park have encountered and profiled a
host of characters from all walks and stages of life. One of my favorite interviews so far has been Marsha Spencer, a 56-year-old grandmother who can
be found on weekends at the Park's western edge, knitting gloves and scarves for fellow protesters. She makes no bones about what's driving Occupy
Wall Street — young people: college students saddled with years of debt, 20-somethings struggling to land a job, and an entire generation banging its
head on what seems to be the ever-lowering ceiling of their possibilities. "It's all about them," Spencer told me on a rainy morning last week in
Zuccotti Park.
Not true for the Tea Party, whose typical supporter is older, wealthier, and whiter than the American demographic average. It is a movement, by and
large, of the haves — not the have nots. "It's essentially reactionary," says David Graeber, a professor of anthropology at Goldsmiths College,
University of London, who helped set up Occupy Wall Street's much-heralded General Assembly and is one of the first people to push the movement's now
ubiquitous slogan 'We are the 99%'. "The Tea Party core group is white middle-class Republicans who are angry that they seem to be losing their
position of preeminence in society." The ranks of Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, are most heavily populated by young people, who, says
Graeber, "are supposed to be the ones at the forefront, re-imagining their society." Their protest fits into a long continuum of student and youth
rebellions, most recently seen in the Mediterranean rim countries mentioned above.
3. Occupy Wall Street may prove much harder to co-opt into the political mainstream. Many have speculated what direction Occupy Wall
Street will turn as it picks up momentum and encroaches on the U.S. 2012 Presidential campaign. Will the protest get co-opted by the country's big
unions? Will D.C.-based advocacy groups like MoveOn.org try to exploit for its own ends the success of motley, diverse bands of protesters occupying
dozens of downtowns across the U.S.? And, most importantly, will Occupy Wall Street radicalize the Democratic base the way the Tea Party energized the
far-right of the Republicans?
At present, it's hard to see how Occupy Wall Street can generate the left-wing, Democratic versions of Rand Paul or Michele Bachmann. Few of the
protesters one speaks to have any tolerance for either political party, which they say are both equally enmeshed in a political system entirely
beholden to vested corporate interests. The Tea Party, boosted by financial titans and one of the U.S.'s most influential cable news network, was able
to make the leap from grassroots anger to effective Beltway politicking. Occupy Wall Street has no such benefactors nor mouthpiece, and will have to
undergo a massive — and potentially divisive — transformation should it become the sort of tempered, streamlined (what many would deem 'compromised')
political player that can actually throw its weight behind the Obama Administration. For the time being, it remains a social movement far more
interested in the sort of "direct democracy" practiced during occupations than that which gets negotiated in the corridors of power in D.C. The
sentiments below may have been expressed by an exasperated Greek blogger in June, but they reverberate around Zuccotti Park today:
We will not suffer any more so that we can make the rich, even richer. We do not authorise any of the politicians, who failed so spectacularly, to
borrow any more money in our name. We do not trust you or the people that are lending it. We want a completely new set of accountable people at the
helm, untainted by the fiascos of the past. You have run out of ideas.
4. Occupy Wall Street still believes in politics and government. And this is where another important line has to be drawn. Whereas
much of the Tea Party's programmatic ire seems directed at the very idea of government — and trumpets instead the virtue of self-reliance and the
inexorable righteousness of the free market — Occupy Wall Street more sharply decries the collusion of corporate and political elites in Washington.
The answer, for many of the protesters I've spoken with, is never the wholesale dismantling or whittling away of the capabilities of political
institutions (except, perhaps, the Fed), but a subtler disentangling of Wall Street from Washington. Government writ large is not the problem, just
the current sort of government.
Because, at the end of the day, Occupy Wall Street, like most idealistic social movements, wants real political solutions. Excited activists in
Zuccotti Park spoke to me about the advent of "participatory budgeting" in a number of City Council districts in New York — an egalitarian system,
first brought about in leftist-run cities in Latin America, that allows communities to dole out funds in their neighborhoods through deliberation and
consensus-building. It's the same process that gets played out every day by the activist general assemblies held in Zuccotti Park and other occupation
sites around the U.S. To the outside observer, that may seem foolishly utopian — and impracticable on a larger scale — but it's a sign of the deep
political commitments of many of the motley protesters gathering under Occupy Wall Street's banner. They want to fix government, not escape from it.
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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Discipline
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Here's one thing I've never understood. Why should the 1% have to pay more in taxes than everybody else? If everybody were to pay the same
percentage of their income in taxes, then the rich would still be paying more than everybody else. I understand that there are a ridiculous number of
tax breaks that rich folks can take advantage of and I'm against that. On the other hand, I don't understand the thinking that they should owe more
simply because they are successful. People making huge money are already in a higher tax bracket than us regular types, why should they pay more on
top of that?
‘Do you know what a love letter is? It’s a bullet from a fucking gun. Straight through your heart.’
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Jason the Magnificent
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| Quote: Originally posted by Discipline | | Here's one thing I've never understood. Why should the 1% have to pay more in taxes than everybody else? If everybody were to pay the same
percentage of their income in taxes, then the rich would still be paying more than everybody else. I understand that there are a ridiculous number of
tax breaks that rich folks can take advantage of and I'm against that. On the other hand, I don't understand the thinking that they should owe more
simply because they are successful. People making huge money are already in a higher tax bracket than us regular types, why should they pay more on
top of that? |
Because other people want their money. If the poorest person on earth suddenly became the richest...9 times out of 10 he'd take the same tax breaks
w/o question. It's just human nature. On occasion you'd have some Bill gates humanitarian type...but realistically everyone else is going to take the
money and run.
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DaveMoral
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The rich currently pay a much lower percentage than everyone else. As Warren Buffet mentioned, he payed 15% while he secretary paid something on the
order if 35%. The national average on the middle class is 40%in of their annual income is paid in taxes while the top earners average 17%. Some
corporions have managed to pay zero income tax. Meanwhile there are forces that would give them more tax breaks while cutting services to the poor.
And a flat tax wohld inevitably burden those on the lowest income scale to the breaking point.
Jason, I jumped to conclusions on the police cracking heads thing. Given the track record thus far, I'd say it was a safe enough assumption. One thing
I know gor certain is that there were people arrested in that mass arrest that were not part of the protesters but were accused of being so and hauled
in.
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Johnny_Whistle
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And let's not forget, a large percentage of the wealth owned comes not from all these people pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps and
overcoming the odds. A sizable percentage of them were, as Molly Ivins once said, "born on third base and thought they'd hit a triple." A large
chunk also made their fortunes through hedge funds (which work best when stock prices drop, meaning lots of other people get screwed), and from
selling securities they knew to be sandcastles, while taking out insurance policies against them. They knowingly took advantage of people who didn't
know any better and believed the loan officers when they said they could finally own their own home and they mortgage would be easy peasy to pay off.
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DaveMoral
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Indeed. A lot of these asshats and the corps they work for are highwaymen and con artists.
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BDx13
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as fanboy, it hurts to count apple among the fiscally creative...
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/18/tim-cook-not-religious-a...
Tim Cook "Not Religious" About Holding Cash; 66% of Apple's $81B in Cash is Held Overseas
It's a frequent parlor game amongst Apple analysts and watchers to guess and suggest and hypothesize what Apple should do with its huge and growing
cash reserves. As of September 24, 2011, Apple is sitting on $81.57 billion in cash. Apple added $5.4 billion to its cash reserves in the last 3
months, and that would have been significantly higher if, as Horace Dediu points out, not for the more than 6,000 Nortel patents Apple purchased the
rights to.
To be more precise, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer oversees $9.815 billion in cash and cash equivalents, $16.137 billion in short-term marketable
securities, and $55.618 billion in long-term marketable securities. In the earnings call with analysts this afternoon, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the
cash wasn't "burning a hole in our pocket" and that the company invested very conservatively and didn't want to do "silly things" with the money.
Cook noted that in recent months Apple had acquired several companies, acquired intellectual property, invested in the supply chain, and invested in
new stores. In his first comments as CEO about the cash pile Cook said he wasn't "religious about holding or not holding cash," but Apple would
continually ask ourselves what is in Apple's best interest and act accordingly.
"It's a topic for the board on an ongoing basis and we will continue to discuss it," Cook said in response to an analyst question. Apple CFO Peter
Oppenheimer jumped in after Cook was finished answering the question, to point out that more than two-thirds of Apple's $81 billion cash pile was
sitting offshore.
The question of offshore cash is an important one, as explained by Reuters:
The U.S. government taxes U.S. businesses on income earned worldwide, but allows them to defer taxes on the money until it is brought back to the
United States. As a result, American corporations like to keep the money abroad, particularly as they increase investment overseas.
A number of companies, led by Apple, Google and Cisco have been pushing for a tax holiday on overseas cash holdings to allow the companies to
repatriate the money to the
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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Six66Mike
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| Quote: Originally posted by Discipline | | Here's one thing I've never understood. Why should the 1% have to pay more in taxes than everybody else? If everybody were to pay the same
percentage of their income in taxes, then the rich would still be paying more than everybody else. I understand that there are a ridiculous number of
tax breaks that rich folks can take advantage of and I'm against that. On the other hand, I don't understand the thinking that they should owe more
simply because they are successful. People making huge money are already in a higher tax bracket than us regular types, why should they pay more on
top of that? |
What Dave already said, they have lower tax rates and the corporate tax rates are non-existant. GE actually got a tax refund with all their offshore
& tax manipulations. Every sign I've seen in the protests have said flat tax for all, not tax the rich, the people are aware of the scale and
inequality.
So for people on 40k a year to have the same tax percentage as people on 1bn a year. And for corporations to pay the same taxes as SME's instead of
hiding behind offshore scams even though HQ and 90-100% workforce is in the US.
A lot of people ask me what kind of music I like. I love "soul music". My "soul music" isn’t a style, genre or niche. It’s music that is genuine. It’s
a painful lyric, a dirty bassline, it’s a harrowing vocal, it’s feedback, it’s an anthem, it’s a love song, it’s anarchy. I’ve got my personal
favourites but in the end it doesn’t matter who or where it comes from... so long as it’s good and it's real.
- Paul Morris, music director at 97.7 HTZ-FM
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Jason the Magnificent
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So the next question. I only follow this stuff loosely (because I really don't believe this country can be fixed no matter efforts people put in as
long as our government is bought and paid for)...but people are seriously suggesting student loan debts be forgiven as one of the "demands"?
Isn't that a bail out?
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BKT
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| Quote: Originally posted by Jason the Magnificent | So the next question. I only follow this stuff loosely (because I really don't believe this country can be fixed no matter efforts people put in as
long as our government is bought and paid for)...but people are seriously suggesting student loan debts be forgiven as one of the "demands"?
Isn't that a bail out? |
That demand is a load of fucking shit and it pisses me off to no end. There is a reason a loan is called a loan and not a "give", because you have to
pay it back fuck face.
I have started businesses in the past and when I did I made a business plan and I either went to the bank and got a loan or went out and found
investors. In all instances I paid the money back, I did not go out and piss and moan like a bitch and try to get out of my responsibility.
When I went to University I got a job and hustled like a mother fucker to pay my way. My parents even offered to pay for my schooling, they had saved
up money over the years, but I figured they had done more then enough and I was a capable person who could work.
Forgive student loans? I have never heard anything so absurd in my life. That is not the way the world works. You take out a loan to go to school,
your taking a chance. You take out a loan to start a business your taking a chance. You take money from investors your taking a chance. You took the
chance deal with the fucking consequences like a man.
End of rant.
I love you all.
BKT.
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Johnny_Whistle
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That's kind of the point. All the Wall Street banks got huge amounts of taxpayer-funded bailouts, and then just went back to being the scumbags they
are (giving themselves huge bonuses, etc.). Meanwhile, the folks who tried to do the right thing by getting an education (remeber the whole argument
that the better the school you go to, the better chance you haver of landing a job? Well they fell for it, and took on huge amounts of debt in the
process). A lot of this money was supposed to go towards helping ease the debt burden that their customers had, but in fact none of it did. And no
one's held them accountable for that.
My favorite part about this whole thing is the forensic gymnastics the right is doing right now, going from "Where are all the jobs, Obama?!?" to "Why
don't all these dirty hippies get jobs?!?" And now there's a movement within the tea parties to get employers to go "on strike" by not hiring more
employees, for no other reason than to make Obama look bad. I'm not saying I'm happy with the job he's done thus far, but man, that's some
weapons-grade derpitude right there.
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Jason the Magnificent
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| Quote: Originally posted by Johnny_Whistle |
That's kind of the point. All the Wall Street banks got huge amounts of taxpayer-funded bailouts, and then just went back to being the scumbags they
are (giving themselves huge bonuses, etc.). Meanwhile, the folks who tried to do the right thing by getting an education (remeber the whole argument
that the better the school you go to, the better chance you haver of landing a job? Well they fell for it, and took on huge amounts of debt in the
process). A lot of this money was supposed to go towards helping ease the debt burden that their customers had, but in fact none of it did. And no
one's held them accountable for that. |
hmmm...so furthering the hypocrisy is the point. gotcha.
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DaveMoral
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Forgiveness of student loans makes perfect sense when consider that the very people they owe money to are the guys that ran the economy into the
ground, rendering the education pointless and these now graduates are saddled with unmanageable debt and no jobs because of the greed on Wall Street.
Meanwhile, the banks were bailed out and they've been paying out multimillion dollar bonuses to the dopes at the top that ran them into failure crises
in the first place AND they did it with taxpayer money.
Bailouts aren't the issue. After all, no one is complaining about the stimulus checks that went to the American people... except that they didn't
stimulate shit. It's who got the bailouts and who was saddled with the burden of paying them out. And those very people paying the banks so they
wouldn't fail are still saddled with the debts owed to the banks that destroyed the economy and the job market.
How is student loan forgiveness an unreasonable idea being bandied about? I wouldn't call it a demand either, as no one has worked out a list of
demands, at this point. They are kicking around ideas and seeing what sticks with the whole group in the General Assemblies. The main thrust of what
they are trying to do, say and call for is becoming clearer and clearer and student loan forgiveness is not, to my knowledge, at all part of that.
It's an idea that some folks have certainly proposed as part of a solution though. And I don't think it's wholly unreasonable considering.
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Jason the Magnificent
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Anyone I work with who has college age kids has kids studying art management or majoring in concert percussion...so before we make some blanket
statement about the big bad wolf blowing all the jobs down I'd like to see actual numbers showing what percentage of these people have actual
marketable jobs in the first place.
I know there's people with practical degrees and experience out of work...but far fetched broad brush straw grasping demands/suggestions like this are
the reason this is all going to go away in six months.
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Discipline
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Forgiving student debt is unfair to all of those who've paid their loans off like real people do. Also, it can't be a blanket idea. Not every bank
received bailouts, so do only people with loans connected to banks that received money get their debt forgiven? How is that fair to everybody else
who work their asses off?
Call me biased, but I'm betting a lot of the people who support getting the loans tossed out are left-wing liberal arts students.
‘Do you know what a love letter is? It’s a bullet from a fucking gun. Straight through your heart.’
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clevohardcore
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| Quote: Originally posted by Jason the Magnificent | | Quote: Originally posted by Johnny_Whistle |
That's kind of the point. All the Wall Street banks got huge amounts of taxpayer-funded bailouts, and then just went back to being the scumbags they
are (giving themselves huge bonuses, etc.). Meanwhile, the folks who tried to do the right thing by getting an education (remeber the whole argument
that the better the school you go to, the better chance you haver of landing a job? Well they fell for it, and took on huge amounts of debt in the
process). A lot of this money was supposed to go towards helping ease the debt burden that their customers had, but in fact none of it did. And no
one's held them accountable for that. |
hmmm...so furthering the hypocrisy is the point. gotcha. |
^^^^^^^^^^ No, but the reason we are in this fucking mess is the banks knew all along that so many people would take advatage of student loans becasue
we are taught that getting an education is the only way to achieve success. They profit huge. We suffer with rediculous student loans that we can't
get out of and they won't negotiate or restructure our loans the way the government did the banks.
Look we call all take the side of the righteous and claim if you climbed this hill so you get down on your own type bullshit. Fact is the banks and
governemnt have many people and facts to plan before they do things. They knew this would happen eventually and they also knew that they would be
bailed out. We got fucked. Too many people with degrees that don't work and too many people with too many loans that they can't get rid of. We got
fucked and the powers that be got rich. We all fell for it hook, line and sinker.
So ya, we should get bailed out. We should have been bailed out in the beginning of this mess. Straightening out the peoples debt would then
straighten there debt and in turn straighten the countries debt. Then the banks could go back to the original way of lending money. You can't get it
unless you have colaterral. Everyone is in the black and happy. Not to mention we all would have learned a very important lesson.
Each aspect of the soul has it's own part to play, but the ideal is harmonious agreement with reason and control.
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clevohardcore
* Kick\'n ass on the wild side *
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| Quote: Originally posted by Discipline | Forgiving student debt is unfair to all of those who've paid their loans off like real people do. Also, it can't be a blanket idea. Not every bank
received bailouts, so do only people with loans connected to banks that received money get their debt forgiven? How is that fair to everybody else
who work their asses off?
Call me biased, but I'm betting a lot of the people who support getting the loans tossed out are left-wing liberal arts students.
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^^^^^^^^ Look it aint just about student loans. It's also about terribel mortgage loans and credit cards. They went crazy extending credit to
everyone. Home prices inflated dramatically and everyone lived off credit. Forgiving thsoe who fell victim to this madness is only fair. I am not
saying everything should be forgiven. Just select issues.
Each aspect of the soul has it's own part to play, but the ideal is harmonious agreement with reason and control.
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Jason the Magnificent
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I guess I just don't believe that EVERYONE is a victim of that. Sure some people were just too stupid to know any better...no doubt. But people
generally know what they can afford and what they can't. I don't see anyone out their picketing in rags because they had to use credit cards to eat.
All these people closing bank accounts? People living hand to mouth don't have active bank accounts...I've been there. See if Chase gave a shit if I
withdrew my $46 from checking. I'm not going to go much further on that before I start sounding like a Fox news pundit and calling people hippies and
trust fund babies.
People took the bait and now want to be bailed out of their responsibilities and stupid decisions. People love to live above their means and have
their 2.5 kids and nice clothes and nice cars then the bill collector comes and it's "the man" trying to keep them down, when it really was just them
trying to buy some American dream they didn't have the cash for.
You want to be out there protesting the government and the banks fine. Lack of jobs because of the economy...100%...more power to you. But the minute
you ask for ANY kind of personal bailout you lose any kind of credibility. It's just hypocrisy.
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DaveMoral
Posting Freak
Posts: 4334
Registered: 1-24-2006
Location: Ardmore PA
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That's bullshit Jason. Pure and simple.
The banks, finance capital, all of them sold the people a false bill of goods. The main gripe isn't that people took a legitimate chance with all the
facts available to them. Not by any means. They were sold a line of horse shit, didn't have the means and resources to know any better and were out
right defrauded by lenders. Pure and simple. Whether it's student loans, or "fixed interest" mortgage payments or whatever else. People have been lied
to, manipulated, and in essence stolen from.
You've been edging towards Fox News territory enough in the last few posts you've made that I've begun to wonder where you're even getting your
information from. I have yet to find serious, in depth, coverage of OWS and the related gatherings that addresses student loan forgiveness as any kind
of serious talking point of the people out on the street. It sounds like something a handful of people out there have probably said and mainstream
media misrepresents as being a central focus for OWS.
Goddamn, the whole point of them not having yet come up with a single declaration of their demands is that the grievances are so many and from so many
differing points of view that they cannot be whittled down into a convenient sound bite. They may never have such a declaration. This whole sink or
swim attitude you're putting out there is characteristic of lasse faire capitalism which is demonstrable unstable and ultimately destructive.
Nevermind that the entire premise of "sink or swim" just tosses folks out into the drink without knowing how to swim in the first place.
Frankly, I fail to see, and this is because you have failed to lay it out in any kind of coherent way, why people asking the government or
corporations and the super rich to bail them out of the crisis that the government, corporations and super rich got them into in the first place is
hypocrisy. The banks drive their business into the ground and they get bailed out and rewards the incompetent execs with millions of taxpayer dollars
in bonuses, but the very tax payers get a piddly "stimulus" check in the mail and unemployment benefits reduced, they gradually get their benefits
whittled away by their employers and ultimately end up laid off and they say "we need some help, here's what you could do to make our lives a little
easier in these trying times that you created" is hypocrisy. I don't see it, frankly. The issue isn't bailouts. It's who was bailed out and why and
what they used it for. Bailed out banks didn't get the economy back on it's feet, and yet that was the case they made to the President and to Congress
for why they should have been bailed out. They destroyed the housing market, which destroyed the construction business and all associated trades and
professions. As a wallpaper hanger my business has been devastated, and I've dealt with the consequences of the burst housing bubble on both sides of
this country. I see the wide range of effects that alone has had on this economy. Most of those hurt in the process are small businesses and
independent contractors.
I struggle to live within my means and don't use credit cards. But I've seen the advantage those companies take of people in enticing them with
credit, particularly with kids fresh out of high school walking around on college campuses. They are ill equipped to deal with that responsibility and
are rarely well informed as to the far reaching effect defaulting can have, and the credit card companies like it that way. They are pulling cons on
people who don't know the full rule set of the game.
To be blunt, you've been misrepresenting Occupy Wall Street for the last few posts and I think you need to do a bit more research.
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Six66Mike
Posting Freak
Posts: 3090
Registered: 11-20-2003
Location: Queensland Australia
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Mood: Dead Hearts
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Occupy Melbourne & Sydney were shutdown by a show of police force over the weekend.
More fuel to the fire - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-18/bofa-said-to-split-... and http://dailybail.com/home/holy-bailout-federal-reserve-now-b...
The big banks in the US own something like $600 TRILLION in derivitates (http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27106), global GDP is only 10% of that. Now these are in FDIC insured accounts? There's no
wonder people are outraged at the financial system that this type of private debt can be moved into publically insured accounts... on top of the
bailouts already handed out.
Bill Maher shed some light on it, again dispelling rumours these protestors are all students that have nothing better to do. Watch this if you're
mislead into believing these are just spoilt rich kids - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmusrhoEPyU
Also check out the Tom Morello videos too, political science graduate from Harvard who worked in politics for a time, not just some righteous guitar
player from Rage Against the Machine.
A lot of people ask me what kind of music I like. I love "soul music". My "soul music" isn’t a style, genre or niche. It’s music that is genuine. It’s
a painful lyric, a dirty bassline, it’s a harrowing vocal, it’s feedback, it’s an anthem, it’s a love song, it’s anarchy. I’ve got my personal
favourites but in the end it doesn’t matter who or where it comes from... so long as it’s good and it's real.
- Paul Morris, music director at 97.7 HTZ-FM
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Colin
Posting Freak
Posts: 1128
Registered: 7-8-2010
Location: Austin, TX
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while I agree with the protesters on most issues, I gotta say a lot of left-leaning people in my age group & younger I've met have this whole idea
that everything should be handed to them & that any time they don't get their way they are being oppressed & all this bullshit. There's been a small
occupy protest in my town at a park, which has a curfew of 11PM, & a few people got arrested for trying to camp & wanna make it into some "fuck the
fascist police" type of argument. These types need to grow the fuck up. I find it pretty disrespectful to actual victims of police brutality or
oppression when someone cries wolf for deliberately breaking a law. There's definitely a few anarchist-types I know who pull this shit, & quite
frankly I think a billyclub over the head would serve them well.
Anyway....I had to vent, because I think people like this give the movement a bad name. It's nice to see these pictures of WW2 vets at the protests
to show that it's not just a bunch of whiny rich kids
record collectors are pretentious assholes
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