Occupy Wall Street protest

[BluegrassCat]

This is an excerpt from the article:

Many companies are reporting thatbusiness (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44006656/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/t/why-companies-arent-hiring-more-workers/#) is improving, but that’s not necessarily translating into new jobs. A survey of chief executives, released in June by the trade group Business Roundtable, found that 87 percent expect sales to increase in the coming six months. But just around half said they expected to add jobs during that period.

So based on this survey last June (which admittedly is just one survey), CEO's see sales IMPROVING (which directly contradicts your assertion that poor sales is why companies are not hiring).

They go on to state (as one of the reasons):

When asked why they aren’t hiring, you’ll often hear the word “uncertainties.” Those range from not knowing whether taxes (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44006656/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/t/why-companies-arent-hiring-more-workers/#) might increase at some point to worries about how health care reform could add to employee costs in the future.


Nothing here "directly contradicts" what I've said, rather it supports it quite clearly. CEO's see sales improving and thus are looking to hire more and spend more, exactly what I've been saying would happen. & Btw the more recent survey has expected improving sales at 65% and expected hiring at 35% showing a pretty clear and significant relationship between the two (As expected demand drops so does anticipated hiring). There's been no new regulations or taxes since then to otherwise explain this drop which directly contradicts what you've said. Again you cite the 1 out of 7 reasons which is an unsourced anecdote with no evidence to back it up. If there was truly a LOT of evidence you wouldn't be hanging your hat on this fairly flimsy piece.

[hard4janira]

Nothing here "directly contradicts" what I've said, rather it supports it quite clearly. CEO's see sales improving and thus are looking to hire more and spend more, exactly what I've been saying would happen. & Btw the more recent survey has expected improving sales at 65% and expected hiring at 35% showing a pretty clear and significant relationship between the two (As expected demand drops so does anticipated hiring). There's been no new regulations or taxes since then to otherwise explain this drop which directly contradicts what you've said. Again you cite the 1 out of 7 reasons which is an unsourced anecdote with no evidence to back it up. If there was truly a LOT of evidence you wouldn't be hanging your hat on this fairly flimsy piece.

I suppose you can refute the survey if you wish as 'anecdotal'. I'll take it at face value and assume that the CEO's interviewed were telling the truth and that the survey is an accurate reflection of their strategies (I can't say that the CEO's interviewed represent a good sample because I don't know what industries they cross referenced etc..).

But based on that: If 87% see improving sales but only 35% plan on hiring, then there must be a reason why there isn't MORE hiring given the improving outlook. The article highlights those reasons and supports my argument that one of the reasons that companies are not hiring is because of uncertainty about the regulatory climate, taxes, and costs assoicated with health care. You said that you couldn't find ANY evidence that this was true, I am saying that this article indicates otherwisse. Again, you can dismiss the survey as anecdotal if you like (on what grounds you would do this I am not sure).

But think about if even for a minute: If the survey is a good sample and we could extrapolate that 80+% of CEO's see improving sales in the future - then why is unemployment still over 9%? I agree with your basic premise that an improved outlook is one reason why companies grow and hire, but it is NOT the only reason. Therefore, you can't simply say that poor sales is the ONLY reason why companies aren't hiring and unemployment remains above 9%.

There are a great many other factors as well (uncertainty is just one of them). I think another factor is simply that large companies are growing but they are growing overseas. This creates demand for jobs, unfortunately they are non-domestic jobs. This is different from 'off-shoring' jobs. For example, if Coors brewing company wants to increase distribution in Asia it will have to build warehouses and employee people abroad to store and transport the product etc... These jobs necessarily cannot be created in the United States. That is just one example of what I am talking about. Of course, this doesn't necessarity apply to small or medium business that doesn't have an international market.

[hard4janira]

Steve Wynn Goes On Epic Anti-Obama Rant On Company Conference Call - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjEcWnPQOFM)


Steve Wynn, a Democrat, explains clearly on a corporate conference call EXACTLY why he's sitting on his capital. It is a fear of Obama, the regulatory environment, and escallating healt care costs. This guy talks to other CEO's and he isn't the ony one who feels this way.

Somebody should explain to me why Steve Wynn would say these things if they weren't true or he didn't believe them.

[BluegrassCat]

I suppose you can refute the survey if you wish as 'anecdotal'. I'll take it at face value and assume that the CEO's interviewed were telling the truth and that the survey is an accurate reflection of their strategies (I can't say that the CEO's interviewed represent a good sample because I don't know what industries they cross referenced etc..).

But based on that: If 87% see improving sales but only 35% plan on hiring, then there must be a reason why there isn't MORE hiring given the improving outlook. The article highlights those reasons and supports my argument that one of the reasons that companies are not hiring is because of uncertainty about the regulatory climate, taxes, and costs assoicated with health care. You said that you couldn't find ANY evidence that this was true, I am saying that this article indicates otherwisse. Again, you can dismiss the survey as anecdotal if you like (on what grounds you would do this I am not sure).

But think about if even for a minute: If the survey is a good sample and we could extrapolate that 80+% of CEO's see improving sales in the future - then why is unemployment still over 9%? I agree with your basic premise that an improved outlook is one reason why companies grow and hire, but it is NOT the only reason. Therefore, you can't simply say that poor sales is the ONLY reason why companies aren't hiring and unemployment remains above 9%.

There are a great many other factors as well (uncertainty is just one of them). I think another factor is simply that large companies are growing but they are growing overseas. This creates demand for jobs, unfortunately they are non-domestic jobs. This is different from 'off-shoring' jobs. For example, if Coors brewing company wants to increase distribution in Asia it will have to build warehouses and employee people abroad to store and transport the product etc... These jobs necessarily cannot be created in the United States. That is just one example of what I am talking about. Of course, this doesn't necessarity apply to small or medium business that doesn't have an international market.


First of all, the comparison was 87% expected growth in sales and 51% expected to increase employment in June and more recently the comparison is 65% expected sales growth and 35% expect job growth so the relationship between expected demand and expected hiring is quite strong. These numbers are from the business roundtable survey.
This quote:
When asked why they aren’t hiring, you’ll often hear the word “uncertainties.” Those range from not knowing whether taxes (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44006656/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/t/why-companies-arent-hiring-more-workers/#) might increase at some point to worries about how health care reform could add to employee costs in the future.
is not sourced to anyone, it's not clear whether it's from the survey or just the author's assertion. That's why it's not evidence.

And I'm looking at this from the point of view of diagnosing the biggest problems with the economy in order to fix them. So demand is clearly the biggest problem and requires the focus of legislators and the Fed. Conversely, regulatory uncertainty may play some role, we can't ever rule it out completely, but the case is so weak that focusing on it rather than demand amounts to little more than a distraction from the real issue. Now if there's some evidence that regulatory/tax uncertainty is as important, point me to it but I have seen no evidence that it is nearly as important.

[hard4janira]

Here's a good video to watch.

Occupy Wall Street TRUTH! (message to young protestors) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwBUt9cGM4s)


I like that video.

[hard4janira]

First of all, the comparison was 87% expected growth in sales and 51% expected to increase employment in June and more recently the comparison is 65% expected sales growth and 35% expect job growth so the relationship between expected demand and expected hiring is quite strong. These numbers are from the business roundtable survey.

Where do you get the second set of numbers (65 / 35)? I didn't see that - is that from another source?


is not sourced to anyone, it's not clear whether it's from the survey or just the author's assertion. That's why it's not evidence.

You're nit-picking a bit here. I think its rather obvious that the author is citing examples given by the CEO's as 'uncertanties' if you read it closely.


And I'm looking at this from the point of view of diagnosing the biggest problems with the economy in order to fix them. So demand is clearly the biggest problem and requires the focus of legislators and the Fed. Conversely, regulatory uncertainty may play some role, we can't ever rule it out completely, but the case is so weak that focusing on it rather than demand amounts to little more than a distraction from the real issue. Now if there's some evidence that regulatory/tax uncertainty is as important, point me to it but I have seen no evidence that it is nearly as important.

Why is weakened demand bad? If the economy was overheating because of too much credit (and subsequent consumer debt) then it doesn't make sense to try and artificially stimulate demand. This will only lead to consumers taking on more debt that they cannot afford. The recession is telling us that the consumers are DONE, they are finished. It's time for private debt to go down in this country and for savings to go up. The response to a lack of demand has been necessary and it has been deflation. Demand will only go up when consumers have renewed faith. That means less debt, a stable housing market (which still needs to find the bottom) and a sense of financial/job security. The idea that the Federal reserve or the Goverment can force demand by pumping trillions into the market is absurd. Nobody wants it. Banks are sitting on gobs of cash but they aren't lending. America is over-leveraged and borrowed-out. And what good did the first round of 'stimulus' do? A trillion dollars for what? Where are the jobs? And what good has the Fed done with QE1 and QE2? They are causing inflation in food and energy prices and hurting the very people who would benefit from deflation - the lower and middle class (if they had jobs). Now people are stuck without jobs and rising food prices. Nice work Bernanke.

(I snatched this off Ritholtz blog)

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/meat.jpg

[Stavros]

I think it is weird for Steve Wynn to argue that nothing will change until 'weird' Barack Obama goes and takes his 'uncertainties' with him, that capitalists will just sit on their capital and not spend. He seems to think that the President controls everything, when Obama has had problems with Congress, which is where the real meat is put in the sandwich of American law and policy. The point Obama makes about redistribution is a populist one that taps into the issue of the day -why people who work for $30,000 a year don't get a bonus when people who work for $30m a year do. Populism doesn't always make good policy, but it sounds good. Uncertainty is the mantra of the age, Obama didn't create it, he inherited it, and if he and his advisers dont really know whats going to happen in the next five years, nobody does -we get the usual bullshit from the Coalition govt in the UK about growth being 'on track' that the cuts which are sacking thousands of public servants are 'painful but necessary' and so on.

The fundamental premise, that jobs being done in central and local govt can be provided by the private sector and thus relieve tax payers of a bloated wage bill, is false: a) the jobs either don't exist in the private sector; or b) the ones that do are not moving, not enough businesses are hiring people to reduce unemployment and raise tax revenues. I dont see how President Obama can be held responsible for all of that any more than we can blame Cameron, Clegg and Osborne who are making a dog's mess out of the scraps left behind by Blair and Brown.

And what, anyway, is the alternative? We are in the sailor's equivalent of the doldrums, and until the winds pick up, we are stranded in the middle of the ocean.

[BluegrassCat]

Where do you get the second set of numbers (65 / 35)? I didn't see that - is that from another source?



You're nit-picking a bit here. I think its rather obvious that the author is citing examples given by the CEO's as 'uncertanties' if you read it closely.



Why is weakened demand bad? If the economy was overheating because of too much credit (and subsequent consumer debt) then it doesn't make sense to try and artificially stimulate demand. This will only lead to consumers taking on more debt that they cannot afford. The recession is telling us that the consumers are DONE, they are finished. It's time for private debt to go down in this country and for savings to go up. The response to a lack of demand has been necessary and it has been deflation. Demand will only go up when consumers have renewed faith. That means less debt, a stable housing market (which still needs to find the bottom) and a sense of financial/job security. The idea that the Federal reserve or the Goverment can force demand by pumping trillions into the market is absurd. Nobody wants it. Banks are sitting on gobs of cash but they aren't lending. America is over-leveraged and borrowed-out. And what good did the first round of 'stimulus' do? A trillion dollars for what? Where are the jobs? And what good has the Fed done with QE1 and QE2? They are causing inflation in food and energy prices and hurting the very people who would benefit from deflation - the lower and middle class (if they had jobs). Now people are stuck without jobs and rising food prices. Nice work Bernanke.

(I snatched this off Ritholtz blog)

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/meat.jpg

The other numbers are from the business roundtable website
http://businessroundtable.org/news-center/business-roundtable-releases-third-quarter-2011-ceo-economic-outlook/

I don't think it's nitpicking at all, when the author is quoting people she indicates it by using quotations or by attribution (said Maryland). Even if it's from the survey we have no idea how many people said this or how important they thought it was. So it's mostly a useless quote.

Weakened demand is bad because high unemployment is bad. If we disagree on high unemployment being bad, there's no point in discussing it further, we have irreconcilable views. Since the crash debt has decreased and savings have increased but still the economy is stalled. Inflation is what we need because that would diminish the remaining debt, helping the poor middle class the most and spurring our trade competitiveness while conversely deflation punishes the poor/middle class the most. The problem is we don't have any inflation. The too small stimulus was hugely successful in staving off disaster but more was needed. QE tripled the money base and still no inflation. A Keynesian model predicts this, while an Austrian doesn't.

Low demand is the biggest problem and the answer to getting the economy back on track is clearly fiscal stimulus coupled with more a active role by the Fed.

[hard4janira]

I think it is weird for Steve Wynn to argue that nothing will change until 'weird' Barack Obama goes and takes his 'uncertainties' with him, that capitalists will just sit on their capital and not spend. He seems to think that the President controls everything, when Obama has had problems with Congress, which is where the real meat is put in the sandwich of American law and policy.

True, congress is very responsible for the current political and economic climate as well. Obamacare was as much a liberal congress as it was Obama. Obama does have the ability to circumvent congress with executive orders through agencies such as the FDA and the EPA, and he's using them. I think the rhetoric from Obama doesn't help much either (i.e. corporations are bad, corporations that go offshore should be punished, corporations don't pay their fair share, corporations should get sued if they are discriminating against unemployed people). It creates a very negative business climate.


The point Obama makes about redistribution is a populist one that taps into the issue of the day -why people who work for $30,000 a year don't get a bonus when people who work for $30m a year do. Populism doesn't always make good policy, but it sounds good.

The problem with Obama is that he campaigns as a populist but he tries to govern as a progressive. That angers people and it is largely why the tea-party movement came to be, IMO. I'm tired of the class warfare in this country. It is perpetuated by the left who pander to the have-not's. The problem with the liberals is that they are not satisfied with equal opportunity. Equal opportunity is never enough; what they want is equl outcomes, and re-distribution of wealth is the only way to accomplish this because many people do not have the intelligence or means or wherewithall to acheive great things on thier own. Not everybody can or will sit at the head of the table, that's just the way it goes. Funny thing though, at least capitalism affords a free society the BEST opportunity to acheive wealth. Do these people honestly think that they would be better off financially if we were socialist or communist (or other)? Seriously, there are far fewer seats at the head of those tables.....


Uncertainty is the mantra of the age, Obama didn't create it, he inherited it, and if he and his advisers dont really know whats going to happen in the next five years, nobody does -we get the usual bullshit from the Coalition govt in the UK about growth being 'on track' that the cuts which are sacking thousands of public servants are 'painful but necessary' and so on.

He inherited it but he needs to step up and own it now, just as he said he would. Obama said that he would turn things around in 3 years and he was dead wrong. Now he has nothing but excuses and the line 'I'm better than the alternative'. Governments in the Western world need to shrink. They have been on an unsustainable path of growth and debt. Goverments are necessarily becoming smaller because they have to cut the massive debts that they have accumulated. Cutting government jobs IS painfull but it is also necessary. As I have said in the past, I believe that government should be limited to a % of GDP via a constitutional amendment.




The fundamental premise, that jobs being done in central and local govt can be provided by the private sector and thus relieve tax payers of a bloated wage bill, is false: a) the jobs either don't exist in the private sector; or b) the ones that do are not moving, not enough businesses are hiring people to reduce unemployment and raise tax revenues. I dont see how President Obama can be held responsible for all of that any more than we can blame Cameron, Clegg and Osborne who are making a dog's mess out of the scraps left behind by Blair and Brown.

It sounds cruel but necessity is the mother of all invention. This country has demand for jobs it just can't match skillsets to the needs. People need retraining to some extent and we need to better educate our workforce (it's very, very bad here in the U.S.) On the other hand, there are also jobs available here that poeple are too 'proud' to work (farm work/labor). Tighter immigration laws are opening a lot of these up (esp. in the South). I say if you are an unemployed worker with a limited skill set then you need to get your ass out in the field. At some point, unemployment benefits must run out and people must be forced to work. Permanent unemployment benefits creates a welfare class dependent on handouts who wont fill jobs that they think are beneath them.

[Brandi Boots]

the "movement" dosent even know what the movement is about....until 8 out of 10 people at the rallies can agree on why they are there, this is just a clusterfuk.

[BellaBellucci]

the "movement" dosent even know what the movement is about....until 8 out of 10 people at the rallies can agree on why they are there, this is just a clusterfuk.

I actually think that's a good thing. The parties against whom all of these people are protesting have a pretty good idea what they want. Giving them specific demands gives them an out from a situation that adversely affects them financially but that doesn't really affect them politically. I say OWS should keep shooting at the feet of the banks and watching them dance. Debit card fees were just the beginning.

I mean, who cares about bad press if you're already on the politically losing side? You still have righteousness and not having leadership means not having any real consequences (i.e. blame). I think it's genius.

http://thenakedhero.com/wp-content/uploads/House-genius.jpg

~BB~

[Silcc69]

i actually think that's a good thing. The parties against whom all of these people are protesting have a pretty good idea what they want. Giving them specific demands gives them an out from a situation that adversely affects them financially but that doesn't really affect them politically. I say they should keep shooting at the feet of the banks and watching them dance. Debit card fees were just the beginning.

I mean, who cares about bad press if you're already on the politically losing side? You still have righteousness and not having leadership means not having any real consequences (i.e. Blame). I think it's genius.

http://thenakedhero.com/wp-content/uploads/house-genius.jpg

~bb~

+111111111

[hard4janira]

Weakened demand is bad because high unemployment is bad. If we disagree on high unemployment being bad, there's no point in discussing it further, we have irreconcilable views. Since the crash debt has decreased and savings have increased but still the economy is stalled. Inflation is what we need because that would diminish the remaining debt, helping the poor middle class the most and spurring our trade competitiveness while conversely deflation punishes the poor/middle class the most. The problem is we don't have any inflation. The too small stimulus was hugely successful in staving off disaster but more was needed. QE tripled the money base and still no inflation. A Keynesian model predicts this, while an Austrian doesn't.

Private debt hasn't decreased significantly enough and the housing market still hasn't found a bottom. Consumer debt is back on the rise again - it is now at the pre-recession level of 2006. And we disagree about inflation - so we will have to leave it at that. We do have inflation - it may not be chronic (yet) and it may not offset the deflation in asset prices, but it is present and it will be going up, I can promise you that. But is it good? Does it really help the poor and middle class the most? What about those living on fixed-incomes and/or savings like the elderly? It doesn't help them. Savers are punished when the government allows inflation to rise - I guess that's just another example of the goverment stepping in and picking the winners and losers. Savers be damned, go pound sand.

[hippifried]

Here's a good video to watch.

Occupy Wall Street TRUTH! (message to young protestors) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwBUt9cGM4s)
As entertainment I guess. That dude doesn't know what he's talking about. Just another "Ron Pauline". He's parroting slogans & memes all over the place, with lot's of dramatic pauses & exagerated vocal inflections, but what did he say? He doesn't know who Keynes was or what Keynesian economics is all about, but he keeps dropping the name as if Johnnie lives across the hall. "We'll get back to talking about the banks in a minute." Oh really? So a minute runs into 20, & still nothing but some BS straight out of the John Birch literature left over from the '50s. This clown never put together a complete & coherent thought until right at the end, where he told people looking for work that they should volunteer to work for free. Yeah, that's gonna happen.

[beandip]

When Gabby Giffords is almost blown away at a supermarket and nothing is done about gun control

Don't fret, Obama and Holder are on the beat, selling guns to Messican drug dealers.

Google "Fast and Furious"

[Stavros]

hard4janira

If you drill down into specific areas, I agree with you that a problem the US faces -which we also have in the UK- is the depletion of a cohort of experienced engineers, as a generation of students who can't do maths or sciences opt for the Law or the unfairly named 'soft subjects' -unfair because we do need media studies graduates in an information age, and there should be nothing soft about the study of history or literature. In the short-to-medium term our engineers will either be German or more likely from India; but this whole issue of what skill-set the workforce has, not just for today but for the next 50 years does need to be addressed, but I think if you really believe that blue collar or even white collar workers are going to replace illegal immigrants in Alabama picking cotton or peanuts, that I think is a stretch...unless the pay and conditions are good.

Similarly, I think when you advocate a purge of waste and inefficiency, and there is too much of it I agree, be it in private industry or central and local government, your policy becomes political suicide, particularly when the short term impact is high unemployment. We lost 25% of our manufacturing base in the UK under Thatcher -you could argue that if much of it was deadwood anyway it deserved to fail -but the point is we never got that 25% back, by the time that the 'markets corrected themselves' men over the age of 50 faced a bleak future; its not impossible to re-train at that age, but finding a job when you are 55 or 60 is not easy. When the unemployed vote, they vote to end their pain, and if the man in a suit comes along with snake oil, guaranteed to soothe it, that's where the vote goes.

Obama's strength is that he is a patient negotiator, someone who believes in compromise and is always trying to find a way to reach agreement on what he believes are just causes. The rhetoric isnt so important, Reagan often made flamboyant speeches which bore little relation to policy, but it was what people wanted to hear. I can't decide if Obama's weaknesses are personal -in plain language that he is a poor leader and cannot motivate others- or the consequence of listening to advisers who don't agree among themselves - this seems to have led to a paralysis on issues like Guantanamo, Pakistan and Afghanistan, while his support for Israel is becoming irresponsible when you consider what it is that Netanyahu is doing and set that in the context of the Arab Spring.

But when you look at the GOP alternatives lining up, then the sweat really starts to creep up and down the spine....hard times indeed!

[hard4janira]

but I think if you really believe that blue collar or even white collar workers are going to replace illegal immigrants in Alabama picking cotton or peanuts, that I think is a stretch...unless the pay and conditions are good.

Here is what I think would/will happen: Fewer illegal immigrants means more demand for domestic workers. Less 'supply' of these workers will increase the amount that they will have to be paid to work in the field. That will lead to higher prices at the grocery.... but at least the law is being enforced. If you take a blue collar worker who is on unemployment and take away his unemployement benefits, after a while, they will end up in the field if that is all that there is left. You have to have the courage to take away the welfare though (if indeed there are jobs that need to be filled). Hell, its not just farm labor but janitorial services for the hospitatility industry, kitchens, poulty plants... the list goes on and on of jobs filled by illegals that would become available.



Similarly, I think when you advocate a purge of waste and inefficiency, and there is too much of it I agree, be it in private industry or central and local government, your policy becomes political suicide, particularly when the short term impact is high unemployment. We lost 25% of our manufacturing base in the UK under Thatcher -you could argue that if much of it was deadwood anyway it deserved to fail -but the point is we never got that 25% back, by the time that the 'markets corrected themselves' men over the age of 50 faced a bleak future; its not impossible to re-train at that age, but finding a job when you are 55 or 60 is not easy. When the unemployed vote, they vote to end their pain, and if the man in a suit comes along with snake oil, guaranteed to soothe it, that's where the vote goes.

No disagreement from me here. One thing to consider though, is that things get bad enough - you have to take your medicine no matter what. Greece is a perfect example. If they want to stay in the EU and get bailed out they have to accept sever austerity measures. However, if they default they are fucked for good. For the politicians in Greece it is suicide either way. Default is the worst option, but it is the one Greek voters would likely choose if given the opportunity. California is like a mini-Greece. The Governer (a tried and true liberal) just announced severe cuts to state worker pension plans. Good luck with that. The people of California are a lost cause. Conservatives have been saying that deep cuts in government spending have been necessary for years but they would never listen. It seems they only pay attention when they hear it from their own kind..


Obama's strength is that he is a patient negotiator, someone who believes in compromise and is always trying to find a way to reach agreement on what he believes are just causes.

Say wha...? Are we talking about the same Obama? He doesn't believe in negotiaing or compromising at all. Did you follow how Obamacare was crafted and pushed down the throats of Americans who wanted nothing to do with it? He backtracked on just about every campaign promise he made. No more deals behind closed doors.... full transparency.... every bill would be published online for Americans to review before it was voted on... full CSPAN coverage of the debates on the house and senate floor...


All a bunch of hot-air and bollocks. All broken promises. All lies.


Obamacare was the seediest, filthiest, back-room, bribe infested piece of legislation that has passed in my lifetime.



I can't decide if Obama's weaknesses are personal -in plain language that he is a poor leader and cannot motivate others- or the consequence of listening to advisers who don't agree among themselves - this seems to have led to a paralysis on issues like Guantanamo, Pakistan and Afghanistan, while his support for Israel is becoming irresponsible when you consider what it is that Netanyahu is doing and set that in the context of the Arab Spring.

I think Obama has two faults: One is that he is a weak leader. (see the book Confidence Men by Suskind). Second is that he is to rigid idealogically. He is a progressive and he won't move to the middle on many issues that could help him politically.


But when you look at the GOP alternatives lining up, then the sweat really starts to creep up and down the spine....hard times indeed!

Can't disagree here, lol.

[trish]

Don't fret, Obama and Holder are on the beat, selling guns to Messican drug dealers.

Google "Fast and Furious"Just continuing the Bush policy who got the idea from Reagan's Guns for Drugs Contra Scandal.

[onmyknees]

Just continuing the Bush policy who got the idea from Reagan's Guns for Drugs Contra Scandal.

Nice Try Trish....keep reaching. If the goal of Iran Contra was in part to secure the release of American Hostages held by Hezbollah , where all other efforts failed, please explain to us the goal of Holder's Justice Department selling untraceable, unmonitored automatic weapons to Mexican Drug Cartels just miles from US cities on the border? So far Holder's genius has resulted in 200 citizens Mexicans dead, and 2 US border Patrol Agents and a flood of automatic weapons still unaccounted for.

If you have new evidence that Regan who did support the Contra's, knew about the arms for hostages angle, well Trish has her a scoop. The fact is there is no such evidence. If you're looking to draw similarities, here's one I'd like to see....14 administration officials indicted. Can we be so lucky again?

[trish]

Of course it was a nice try and successful too. The policy in fact IS a continuation of the Bush policy and the Iran Contra fiasco was illegal. Moreover, even though I was about six years old when he was president, I can at least I can spell Reagan. What a loser.

[onmyknees]

Right away with the name calling? Typical.

How the fuck is it a continuation..? Because you say so? If it is a continuation...are you conceding the illegality? You make no sense. And as is always the case, you don't answer the question....What is the purpose of the Mexican gun sales? Maybe you can shed some light on that smart ass. Spend more time fact checking yourself, and less time spell checking me.
I've seen your pics...no way you were 6 years old . Fuck you kidding?
...looks like we're going to have to see your birth certificate too !

[trish]

The Justice Department was selling guns to Mexico under the Bush administration with the hope of tracing their movement within the country. The policy continues under Obama. Is it illegal? I don't know. Iran-Contra, a complex gun-drug swap between Nicaraguan-Contras and Iran to circumvent an embargo was illegal.

And yes, you did spell Reagan incorrectly.


If it is a continuation...are you conceding the illegality?How are the two related. You make no sense.

[Bobby Domino]

Simply stated....


431414

[Stavros]

Say wha...? Are we talking about the same Obama? He doesn't believe in negotiaing or compromising at all. Did you follow how Obamacare was crafted and pushed down the throats of Americans who wanted nothing to do with it? He backtracked on just about every campaign promise he made. No more deals behind closed doors.... full transparency.... every bill would be published online for Americans to review before it was voted on... full CSPAN coverage of the debates on the house and senate floor...

All a bunch of hot-air and bollocks. All broken promises. All lies.

Obamacare was the seediest, filthiest, back-room, bribe infested piece of legislation that has passed in my lifetime.

I think Obama has two faults: One is that he is a weak leader. (see the book Confidence Men by Suskind). Second is that he is to rigid idealogically. He is a progressive and he won't move to the middle on many issues that could help him politically.


But Obama did compromise with the House just over last July and August over the debt; he has compromised his own target to close Guantanamo for whatever reason the lawyers and the military have given him; what you call 'backtracking' is the reality that hits every President when they enter office and discover the promise they made on X or Y cannot be fulfilled in the way they want, if at all. Its the reason why he was destined to disappoint a lot of his supporters.

I also recall Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice and John Bolton being famous for being incapable of seeing the world through anything but a monocle -so being ideological and rigid seems standard in the White House, if it is true.

I think Obama has faced more hostility from inside the beltway than any other President in living memory, and it started from day one. George Bush was ridiculed for his bizarre parapraxes, for appearing to be nice but dim, and a lot of the personal stuff was unworthy, to me it was his misguided policies that undermined his reputation. Obama is not a figure of ridicule -but to my ears from far away there is a touch of hate about some of the rubbish thrown at him which would have been unthinkable even with Clinton, who was the target of his opponents and who gave them what they wanted with his exposed affair. It obscures the difficulty of being a President, which is why I can't decide if he isn't up to the job, or is being let down by people on the inside, as well as the Washington system -it will make interesting reading when the 'candid' memoirs come out, or the obligatory Bob Woodward version....

[hard4janira]

But Obama did compromise with the House just over last July and August over the debt;

Did he? I heard that Obama and Boehner had a deal. They had reached an agreement and Obama welched on his part of the deal. Obama threw in more taxes in the 11th hour and Boehner had to walk away. I question whether or not Obama was every really serious about the deal in the first place or was it always the strategy to do what he did....


he has compromised his own target to close Guantanamo for whatever reason the lawyers and the military have given him; what you call 'backtracking' is the reality that hits every President when they enter office and discover the promise they made on X or Y cannot be fulfilled in the way they want, if at all. Its the reason why he was destined to disappoint a lot of his supporters.

Probably some truth to this. However I find it ironic that a President who campaigned so vigorously against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and who repeatedly held up the mantle of the 'rule of law' would be so eager to start dropping bombs on Libya without getting congressional approval.


I also recall Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice and John Bolton being famous for being incapable of seeing the world through anything but a monocle -so being ideological and rigid seems standard in the White House, if it is true.

Well Bush did try to privatize social security but the other Republican members of congress bailed on him. He gave up on that and gave us Medicare part B instead. A bloated, 300 billion dollar social welfare prescription drug mess that simply adds to the public debt. Christ, we could have elected John Kerry for that kind of nonsense.

[Dino Velvet]

Not sure what these characters are after anymore. Every day it's getting to be "Must See TV" for all the unintentional comedy. If I ever run out of weed I'm going down to LA City Hall and grab a piece of pussy on the way out. Fight The Power! I heard Hezbollah is setting up a snazzy Job Fair. Their retirement program is somewhat mysterious and macabre though.

[hard4janira]

I heard Hezbollah is setting up a snazzy Job Fair. Their retirement program is somewhat mysterious and macabre though.

I think it's called '40 virgins'.

[Dino Velvet]

I think it's called '40 virgins'.

Go across the street where Al-Qaeda offers 72. Don't shortchange yourself in life or death.

[Silcc69]

I think it's called '40 virgins'.

I thought it was 70?

[Dino Velvet]

I thought it was 70?

Hezbollah notorious lowballers. They live near the Israelis.

[Stavros]

What do the female suicide bombers get when they get to Paradise -72 cocks? Its a nonsense, I don't know why people keep repeating this stuff -the Houri of the Qu'ran are not specifically either male or female, they are not reserved for martyrs, and if they are companions, it is to reinforce the idea that there is a heaven, and in it the pious Muslim will find an ideal state in which he or she will have perfect love, and perfect everything else -probably not far short of what many people's idea of paradise would be, although I guess that is another thread...

[robertlouis]

I think it's called '40 virgins'.

Those economic cutbacks are everywhere, even in the afterlife, it seems.

72 down to 40 - that's really tough. The other rumour is that they aren't all young either. Most of them are pious Irish spinsters in their mid-70s...

[muh_muh]

one point most people forget is that 72 virgins doesnt specify which gender they are

[BigDF]

What do the female suicide bombers get when they get to Paradise -72 cocks? Its a nonsense, I don't know why people keep repeating this stuff -the Houri of the Qu'ran are not specifically either male or female, they are not reserved for martyrs, and if they are companions, it is to reinforce the idea that there is a heaven, and in it the pious Muslim will find an ideal state in which he or she will have perfect love, and perfect everything else -probably not far short of what many people's idea of paradise would be, although I guess that is another thread...I'm kind of wondering about their concept of hell, myself.:geek:

[russtafa]

I'm kind of wondering about their concept of hell, myself.:geek:women without those silly veils. guys that wash and and don't smell of kebab,bombs that don't detonate :whistle:

[Ben]

GLENN GREENWALD- With Liberty and Justice for Some -Pt 11 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIUfYhpq-mY&feature=channel_video_title)

[Ben]

A police raid suffused with symbolism (http://www.salon.com/2011/11/15/a_police_raid_suffused_with_symbolism/singleton)

By Glenn Greenwald (http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/)

http://media.salon.com/2011/11/zucc-460x307.jpg An Occupy Wall Street protestor draws contact from a police officer near Zuccotti Park after being ordered to leave the longtime encampment in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011 (Credit: AP/John Minchillo)


Following similar raids in St. Louis and Oakland, hordes of NYPD officers this morning forcibly cleared Zuccotti Park in Manhattan of all protesters; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg took “credit” for this decision. That led to this description of today’s events from an Occupy Wall Street media spokesman, as reported by (https://twitter.com/#%21/elliottjustin/status/136411284223700992) Salon‘s Justin Elliott (https://twitter.com/#%21/elliottjustin/status/136411381485404160):
A military style raid on peaceful protesters camped out in the shadow of Wall Street, ordered by a cold ruthless billionaire who bought his way into the mayor’s office.
If you think about it, that short sentence is a perfect description of both the essence of America’s political culture and the fuel that gave rise to the #OWS movement in the first place.
Jesse LaGreca, who justifiably received substantial attention as an insightful and articulate spokesperson for OWS’s grievances, here condemns (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/14/1036291/-I-DEMAND-better-Kabuki-in-this-1-party-bankster-owned-Oligarchy?via=siderec) what he describes as the “1-party bankster owned oligarchy” (for more on what he means, see here (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/business/14schumer.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1229277790-p/fVSNv1QZceKg9eHbLMpA)). Meanwhile, here’s a photo (http://twitpic.com/7dzs9d) of the police earlier this week clearing out Occupy Chapel Hill in North Carolina; the Baghdad-like scene is but a small taste of how para-militarized (http://www.salon.com/2008/08/30/police_raids/singleton/) America’s domestic police forces (http://www.salon.com/2008/09/01/protests_3/singleton/) have become and what we’re likely to see much more of if (more accurately: when) protests, disruptions and other forms of unrest continue to emerge in the face of a disappearing middle class and exploding inequality:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m917vU2Y-Nc/TsJekp7idDI/AAAAAAAAAWU/pZ0nUnWRlLA/s400/nc.png (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m917vU2Y-Nc/TsJekp7idDI/AAAAAAAAAWU/pZ0nUnWRlLA/s1600/nc.png)

UPDATE: A New York state judge this morning temporarily enjoined (http://www.dnainfo.com/20111115/downtown/judge-orders-city-allow-occupy-wall-street-back-into-zuccotti-park) the city from keeping the protesters out of Zuccotti Park, but Mayor Bloomberg is simply ignoring the Order (http://nlgnyc.org/2011/11/15/press_rel_libert/) and deliberately breaking the law by refusing to allow them back in. Put another way, Bloomberg this morning has broken more laws than the hundreds of protesters who were arrested. But as we know, the law doesn't apply to the Michael Bloombergs of the nation; the law, instead, has simply been exploited into a weapon used by the politically and financially powerful to prevent challenges to their standing.
Could #OWS have scripted a more apt antagonist than this living, breathing personification of oligarchy: a Wall Street billionaire who so brazenly purchased his political office, engineered the overturning (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/council-to-debate-term-limits-change/?ref=termlimitspoliticaloffice) of a term-limits referendum and then spent more than $100 million of his personal fortune to stay in power (http://gothamist.com/2009/11/28/bloomberg_spent_102_million_on_camp.php), and now resides well above the law?

UPDATE II: To justify his raid, Mayor Bloomberg said (http://www.dnainfo.com/20111115/downtown/judge-orders-city-allow-occupy-wall-street-back-into-zuccotti-park): ”We must never be afraid to insist on compliance with our laws.” Leaving aside the fact that torturers, illegal eavesdroppers, wagers of aggressive war, Wall Streets defrauders, and mortgage thieves are some of his best friends who thrive and profit rather than sit in a jail cell, this is the same Mayor Bloomberg who, now beyond all dispute, is knowingly and deliberately breaking the law (https://twitter.com/#%21/elliottjustin/status/136465618957373440) by violating (http://twitpic.com/7eigt1) a Court Order of which he is well aware (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/11/15/368664/breaking-bloomberg-served-with-temporary-restraining-order-requiring-reopening-of-zuccotti-park-to-protesters-at-750am/). He’d be arrested for that if he weren’t a billionaire Mayor (and indeed, having seen that bevvy of political and financial elites break the law in the most egregious ways with total impunity over the last decade, why would Bloomberg be afraid of simply ignoring the law?). Today really is the most vivid expression seen in quite some time of the two-tiered justice system I wrote my new book to highlight; the real criminals are not only shielded from the law’s mandates, but affirmatively use it as an instrument to entrench themselves in power and protect their ill-gotten gains.

[fred41]

A police raid suffused with symbolism (http://www.salon.com/2011/11/15/a_police_raid_suffused_with_symbolism/singleton)

By Glenn Greenwald (http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/)

http://media.salon.com/2011/11/zucc-460x307.jpg An Occupy Wall Street protestor draws contact from a police officer near Zuccotti Park after being ordered to leave the longtime encampment in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011 (Credit: AP/John Minchillo)


Following similar raids in St. Louis and Oakland, hordes of NYPD officers this morning forcibly cleared Zuccotti Park in Manhattan of all protesters; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg took “credit” for this decision. That led to this description of today’s events from an Occupy Wall Street media spokesman, as reported by (https://twitter.com/#%21/elliottjustin/status/136411284223700992) Salon‘s Justin Elliott (https://twitter.com/#%21/elliottjustin/status/136411381485404160):
A military style raid on peaceful protesters camped out in the shadow of Wall Street, ordered by a cold ruthless billionaire who bought his way into the mayor’s office.
If you think about it, that short sentence is a perfect description of both the essence of America’s political culture and the fuel that gave rise to the #OWS movement in the first place.
Jesse LaGreca, who justifiably received substantial attention as an insightful and articulate spokesperson for OWS’s grievances, here condemns (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/14/1036291/-I-DEMAND-better-Kabuki-in-this-1-party-bankster-owned-Oligarchy?via=siderec) what he describes as the “1-party bankster owned oligarchy” (for more on what he means, see here (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/business/14schumer.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1229277790-p/fVSNv1QZceKg9eHbLMpA)). Meanwhile, here’s a photo (http://twitpic.com/7dzs9d) of the police earlier this week clearing out Occupy Chapel Hill in North Carolina; the Baghdad-like scene is but a small taste of how para-militarized (http://www.salon.com/2008/08/30/police_raids/singleton/) America’s domestic police forces (http://www.salon.com/2008/09/01/protests_3/singleton/) have become and what we’re likely to see much more of if (more accurately: when) protests, disruptions and other forms of unrest continue to emerge in the face of a disappearing middle class and exploding inequality:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m917vU2Y-Nc/TsJekp7idDI/AAAAAAAAAWU/pZ0nUnWRlLA/s400/nc.png (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m917vU2Y-Nc/TsJekp7idDI/AAAAAAAAAWU/pZ0nUnWRlLA/s1600/nc.png)

UPDATE: A New York state judge this morning temporarily enjoined (http://www.dnainfo.com/20111115/downtown/judge-orders-city-allow-occupy-wall-street-back-into-zuccotti-park) the city from keeping the protesters out of Zuccotti Park, but Mayor Bloomberg is simply ignoring the Order (http://nlgnyc.org/2011/11/15/press_rel_libert/) and deliberately breaking the law by refusing to allow them back in. Put another way, Bloomberg this morning has broken more laws than the hundreds of protesters who were arrested. But as we know, the law doesn't apply to the Michael Bloombergs of the nation; the law, instead, has simply been exploited into a weapon used by the politically and financially powerful to prevent challenges to their standing.
Could #OWS have scripted a more apt antagonist than this living, breathing personification of oligarchy: a Wall Street billionaire who so brazenly purchased his political office, engineered the overturning (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/council-to-debate-term-limits-change/?ref=termlimitspoliticaloffice) of a term-limits referendum and then spent more than $100 million of his personal fortune to stay in power (http://gothamist.com/2009/11/28/bloomberg_spent_102_million_on_camp.php), and now resides well above the law?

UPDATE II: To justify his raid, Mayor Bloomberg said (http://www.dnainfo.com/20111115/downtown/judge-orders-city-allow-occupy-wall-street-back-into-zuccotti-park): ”We must never be afraid to insist on compliance with our laws.” Leaving aside the fact that torturers, illegal eavesdroppers, wagers of aggressive war, Wall Streets defrauders, and mortgage thieves are some of his best friends who thrive and profit rather than sit in a jail cell, this is the same Mayor Bloomberg who, now beyond all dispute, is knowingly and deliberately breaking the law (https://twitter.com/#%21/elliottjustin/status/136465618957373440) by violating (http://twitpic.com/7eigt1) a Court Order of which he is well aware (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/11/15/368664/breaking-bloomberg-served-with-temporary-restraining-order-requiring-reopening-of-zuccotti-park-to-protesters-at-750am/). He’d be arrested for that if he weren’t a billionaire Mayor (and indeed, having seen that bevvy of political and financial elites break the law in the most egregious ways with total impunity over the last decade, why would Bloomberg be afraid of simply ignoring the law?). Today really is the most vivid expression seen in quite some time of the two-tiered justice system I wrote my new book to highlight; the real criminals are not only shielded from the law’s mandates, but affirmatively use it as an instrument to entrench themselves in power and protect their ill-gotten gains.

..or you can just call it: finally clearing out the dirty garbage that everyone in N.Y.is getting sick of....it's not a protest, it's a goddamn squatters tent city.

Oh and BTW....court order overturned: http://veracitystew.com/2011/11/15/ows-judge-overturns-earlier-order-protesters-banned-from-park-video/

[Faldur]

You know the whole things is actually genius. How else could we lock up all the useless degenerates and keep them in one place, voluntary even.. I say let em all gather back together, and hey we'll put this nice fence around you so no one disturbs you. Better than Guantonmio.

[onmyknees]

Perhaps there is one single redeeming thing about all the Occupy protests and I may have found it, but even she dare not venture into the tent city.




Best Ever - OccupyTease - Occupy Wallstreet Strip Tease 11-14-11 page 4 NY Post 11/15/11 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSRMA_GK8eE&feature=player_embedded)#!

[Ben]

Will Occupy Wall Street Affect 2012 Election? Glenn Greenwald Interview - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do-ygvLPOqY)

[hard4janira]

Interesting info-graphic:

http://www.accelerated-degree.com/faceoff-occupy-wall-street-vs-tea-party-movement-infographic/

[hard4janira]

By the way, while I think MOST 'occupiers' are dunces or misguided college students looking to vent thier angst, I DO think that there are some who really get it. This woman is one, and I support ALL 'occupiers' who are protesting for the same reasons as she is (I want to marry this woman!)

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/politics/it%27s%20wrong%20to%20create.jpg

[trish]

An excellent sign. I agree. I also think most of the occupy protesters agree with it too. Moreover, not only do I think it's wrong to create those loans just in order to sabotage them for the easy gains, but there should be government regulations against the practice and other similar schemes.

[hard4janira]

An excellent sign. I agree. I also think most of the occupy protesters agree with it too. Moreover, not only do I think it's wrong to create those loans just in order to sabotage them for the easy gains, but there should be government regulations against the practice and other similar schemes.


Lol, you are hopless case Trish....

The Federal government DIRECTLY ENCOURAGED those loans and lending schemes through institutions such as the Federal Reserve, FHA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and HUD as well as initiatives such as the Community Reinvestment Act which penalized lending institutions for not lending to sub-prime borrowers.

[trish]

Of course, they didn't need encouragement, they just needed someone to look the other way. In fact, without any regulations whatsoever, they could just steal your money outright, they wouldn't need any convoluted schemes. Glass-Steagall was repealed under Clinton a democratic president but with the encouragement of the GOP. With continued deregulation the offenses got more serious. You think you'd be safe without any banking regulations??

[BluegrassCat]

By the way, while I think MOST 'occupiers' are dunces or misguided college students looking to vent thier angst, I DO think that there are some who really get it. This woman is one, and I support ALL 'occupiers' who are protesting for the same reasons as she is (I want to marry this woman!)

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/politics/it%27s%20wrong%20to%20create.jpg

She was fired from her job for this photo.

http://gawker.com/5854118/how-occupy-wall-street-cost-me-my-job

[CORVETTEDUDE]

Belongs in the Political Forum...

[Silcc69]

She was fired from her job for this photo.

http://gawker.com/5854118/how-occupy-wall-street-cost-me-my-job

I didnt read it but where sdoes she work at?

[Stavros]

It doesn't take long to read Silcc -she used to work for The Takeaway

I thought all of this could be fodder for an interesting segment on The Takeaway (http://www.thetakeaway.org/)—a morning news program co-produced by WNYC Radio and Public Radio International—for which I had been working as a freelance web producer roughly 20 hours per week for the past seven months. I pitched the idea to producers on the show, in an e-mail.

Why do cute girls go for guys who can't be bothered to shave? So much for the freedom of the press!

[hard4janira]

Well I for one am glad that the Federal government has learned its lesson during this whole housing bubble thing about the irresponsibility of lowering lending standards.....

Oh wait.... just fucking wait..... Are you fucking kidding me? You have to be fucking kidding me?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/congress-eyes-help-for-big-first-time-homeowners-2011-11-17?siteid=rss&rss=1

[Jonny29]

Well I for one am glad that the Federal government has learned its lesson during this whole housing bubble thing about the irresponsibility of lowering lending standards.....

Oh wait.... just fucking wait..... Are you fucking kidding me? You have to be fucking kidding me?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/congress-eyes-help-for-big-first-time-homeowners-2011-11-17?siteid=rss&rss=1
Yes, a little more than a year ago my friend was in the process of getting a FHA loan and he was telling me that he could buy a house for 3.5% down. I told him his information had to be wrong, that it must be obsolete. I was the one who was wrong. He got the loan- $285,000. for 3.5% down. By the way his net worth is $5,000. So A 2% decrease in his home he will have a negative net worth. I wonder how much homes in Denver increased / decreased by last year.

[Ben]

The GOP embraces OWS? (http://www.salon.com/2011/11/16/the_gop_embraces_ows/singleton)

Coburn decries "welfare for the well-off" and Limbaugh rails against the 1 percent

By David Sirota (http://www.salon.com/writer/david_sirota/)

http://media.salon.com/2009/10/rush_limbaugh-e1321472373648.jpg Rush Limbaugh

As I noted on Tuesday (http://www.salon.com/2011/11/15/the_gops_victim_blaming_strategy/singleton/), most of the leadership of the Republican Party has openly aligned itself with the rich and powerful in America via a campaign to demonize the victims of the ongoing recession. In this, they differ from the Democratic leadership primarily in how they frame populist arguments. Whereas Democratic politicians tend to pair the blustery rhetoric of underdog populism with stealth support for corporatist policies, the GOP redefines the very lexicon of populism, presenting the corporate elite as the oppressed underdog, thereby portraying corporatism as a populist crusade unto itself.
That said, two top Republicans made stunning moves this week to appropriate a part of the Democratic formula. Importantly, the moves came at a time where we’re seeing particularly heated spasms of Occupy Wall Street protests and subsequent backlash. That timing shows that at least some in the GOP correctly appreciate the transpartisan appeal of the Occupy movement and the underdog populism it truly embodies.
The first bit of news came from ultra-conservative Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who not only used his special power as senior Republican on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to issue a report condemning millionaire tax breaks, but also couched the report in the kind of no-holds-barred rhetoric that defines the Occupy protests. As the Hill newspaper (http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/193365-coburn-targets-billions-in-tax-breaks-reaped-by-millionaires) reported (emphasis mine):
The report found millionaires enjoy about $30 billion worth of “tax giveaways” and federal grants every year — almost twice NASA’s budget, the report notes.
“From tax write-offs for gambling losses, vacation homes and luxury yachts to subsidies for their ranches and estates, the government is subsidizing the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Multimillionaires are even receiving government checks for not working,” Coburn said in a statement Monday…
“This welfare for the well-off — costing billions of dollars a year — is being paid for with the taxes of the less fortunate, many who are working two jobs just to make ends meet, and IOUs to be paid off by future generations. We should never demonize those who are successful. Nor should we pamper them with unnecessary welfare to create an appearance everyone is benefiting from federal programs,” Coburn said.
This was followed up by none other than Rush Limbaugh, who, in the midst of an otherwise absurd and hyper-partisan screed about the Clinton family, stumbled into a spot-on analysis of the divide between the 99 percent and the 1 percent and the larger unfairness of the bipartisan power structure in modern American life. Discussing the recent announcement that Chelsea Clinton — who has no journalistic experience whatsoever — will now be a top correspondent for NBC News, Limbaugh echoed some of the points made (far more cogently) by my Salon colleague Glenn Greenwald (http://www.salon.com/2011/11/14/americas_meritocratic_watchdog_news_media/singleton/). He said (http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/11/15/is_chelsea_clinton_in_the_1_or_the_99) (emphasis mine):
All of a sudden she’s at the top of the media. She’s at the top of the ladder. She’s paid no dues. Not born on third base. Born at home plate after the home run. She has not worked anywhere in journalism. She’s never had a job.
Now, that gets to the other point of this. Let’s go down to Occupy Wall Street or wherever else that there’s an Occupy, or go wherever there is a collection of liberals. What are they mad about? They’re mad about the 1 percent, and what are they mad about about the 1 percent? The 1 percent’s got it all. The 1 percent has everything and they’re not sharing it with anybody, and they didn’t work for it. There aren’t any jobs for anybody else because the 1 percent are making sure they’ve got all the jobs and they’ve got all the money.
So here we come with Mr. Democrat Party, the highest ranking, biggest star, most respected member of the Democrat Party, and with pure nepotism and nothing else his daughter, who is unqualified for this job, gets pushed ahead of everybody that works at NBC and gets this job. This is the quintessential thing the 99 percent are fed up with, that they don’t have a chance, that the game’s rules are rigged, that everything’s stacked against them…
And with apparently just a phone call, all Bill Clinton had to do, pick up the phone and call Steve Capus at NBC or Jeff Immelt or whoever, we don’t know, and say, “Hey, I have this person interested in working for you.” “Who, Mr. President?” “Well, you may have heard, name’s Chelsea.” “Oh, say no more.” Because NBC doesn’t want to consider the alternative of saying “no.”
So here you have a very prominent member of the 1 percent who flaunts that membership of the 1 percent greasing the skids for a child who’s unqualified and inexperienced. What does that say to all these people with all of these thousands of dollars in student loans, desperately trying, they think, to get jobs to pay off their student loans? They think the game is stacked against them. They think that the rules are rigged, that people like them are shut out, don’t have a chance.
In considering these two stories, it’s important to remember that Coburn and Limbaugh represent different parts of the political right. The former, while extremely conservative, is a far more principled ideologue than the latter, who is wholly driven by Republican partisanship, ideology be damned. That is to say, Coburn has been known to occasionally form left-right alliances on issues with progressives and challenge his own party when he believes it is veering from his principles — while Limbaugh seems happy to defend the Republican Party almost irrespective of what that party is actually doing.
But their positions in two separate camps of the GOP coalition only underscore why these developments are significant.
With Coburn, there seems to be the very real possibility that at least some principled conservatives are looking for common ground with the Occupy sentiment to the point that those conservatives may be willing to go to war with the factions of the Republican Party who are most committed to defending the super-rich (as evidence, the Hill notes that this could become a big “clash between Coburn and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform”). Sure, the Oklahoma senator will still probably end up more on the side of the 1 percent than the 99 percent when the final debt deal is negotiated and passed, but his initiative this week is a major acknowledgement of the changing politics of economic inequality.
Limbaugh likewise validates the real agency of the Occupy movement. Indeed, when the most unscrupulous, principle-free opportunists in the GOP are suddenly airing Occupy-themed grievances about huge student debt, “the game’s rules (being) rigged” and the establishment’s open disregard for meritocracy, it proves that even a few hardcore Republican partisans see the shifting tectonics in American politics, and are therefore trying to both get ahead of the earthquake and get themselves to safer political terrain.
To be sure, of the two, it’s much harder to take Limbaugh seriously, if only because he has a much longer record of making purposely outlandish (and offensive) statements. Additionally, his diatribe on Tuesday was weakened by the obvious fact that it was motivated by a severe case of Clinton Derangement Syndrome (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/clinton-derangement-syndrome/) (thus, all the unsubstantiated speculation about supposed phone calls and conversations between the former president and NBC executives).
That said, setting Limbaugh’s personal motivation aside (which, I’ll admit, is hard to do, considering how much I and many progressives dislike his politics), the parts of his statement about privilege and nepotism are perhaps the most momentous of all.
The sad truth is, you almost never hear a Republican Party leader — or even a Democratic Party leader — whispering such things, much less bellowing about them on the largest talk radio show in America. In fact, that’s one of the big reasons why the Occupy movement arose in the first place — to force those very taboo issues to the forefront in a culture that has refused to even discuss them.
So when that discussion actually starts happening — and on the biggest conservative radio show in the nation — it is definitive proof that while the GOP will probably oppose the Occupy movement’s ultimate demands, and while most Republican political leaders will continue a more brazen campaign to discredit that movement, the protesters are now winning their battle to change the terms of America’s political discourse for the long haul.

[PSL4u]

We live in a DEMOCRACY.....people are free to do as they please with no regulation....thats why we call it the land of the free. These protesters are ridiculous and I hope the cops beat them all down. Do they not realize the places they are protesting are full of the 99% who are just trying to make a living? The 1% they are protesting about are just sitting back and laughing at how foolish they look.

I dont agree with some things people have done at high levels in our financial system, but they did not break the law. Sure you could questions ethics, but when it comes to money....it never sleeps.

The real problem in America is well its not full of Americans anymore.

[Ben]

We live in a DEMOCRACY.....people are free to do as they please with no regulation....thats why we call it the land of the free. These protesters are ridiculous and I hope the cops beat them all down. Do they not realize the places they are protesting are full of the 99% who are just trying to make a living? The 1% they are protesting about are just sitting back and laughing at how foolish they look.

I dont agree with some things people have done at high levels in our financial system, but they did not break the law. Sure you could questions ethics, but when it comes to money....it never sleeps.

The real problem in America is well its not full of Americans anymore.

We, actually, don't live in a meaningful democracy. A meaningful democracy means equal power.
I can assure you that Exxon has more power than you and I. And has far more influence over our government than you and I.
We're not on an even playing field with the likes of Exxon. Everyone knows that the most powerful institutions in our society control our government. That's been understood since the dawn of America. And John Jay, the first chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, said: The people that own the country ought to govern it.
So, authentic and meaningful democracy simply doesn't exist.
BUT WE DO LIVE IN A FREE COUNTRY, A VERY FREE COUNTRY. Actually, unusually free. Up in Canada and over in Britain the state says what's truth. And if you deviate from that truth, well, you could be prosecuted.

[jerseyboy72]

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqDtf1aw818

[russtafa]

Is this shit still going on?

[irvin66]

Revolution brother!:soapbox

[russtafa]

Revolution brother!:soapboxYep exactly

[Ben]

Is this shit still going on?

This is the CHANGE that Obama was talking about. But he didn't mean it. He is deep in the pockets of Wall Street. Actually, specifically: Goldman/Government Sachs. A corrupt, fraudulent (and what was a zombie bank) and monstrous institution.
People are simply starting again what Obama started: Change.
Americans, and whether you agree or disagree with the protests, well, Americans have a first amendment right to exercise freedom of speech and to assemble and the right to petition the government for legitimate grievances. And, well, with grievances, um, where should we start -- ha ha ha! I mean, we Americans live in a very free country. Much freer than Canada, Britain, China! -- ha ha! Anyway, I'm all for freedom -- and, too, democracy.
And the way democracy works is pretty straightforward: PUBLIC POLICY MUST REFLECT PUBLIC OPINION. The government is waaay to the right of the majority of Americans. And this is a sharp attack on democracy.
But, well, is it fair for the many to control the few? Probably not. And is it fair for the FEW to control the many? Absolutely not.
SO, WHAT'S THE SOLUTION? Any ideas? Well, protesting -- ha ha ha ha! :) :) :)

[lisaparadise]

Is this shit still going on?yep what a bunch of retards,i think its a good demacratic move if they shoot them all so the unemployment numbers look alittle better lol.even better ship them all to africa and see how the other half lives.fuckin idiots.

[BellaBellucci]

yep what a bunch of retards,i think its a good demacratic move if they shoot them all so the unemployment numbers look alittle better lol.even better ship them all to africa and see how the other half lives.fuckin idiots.

Is that really your argument? 'The U.S. is still richer than Africa?' Interesting standard. :lol:

~BB~

[onmyknees]

Of course, they didn't need encouragement, they just needed someone to look the other way. In fact, without any regulations whatsoever, they could just steal your money outright, they wouldn't need any convoluted schemes. Glass-Steagall was repealed under Clinton a democratic president but with the encouragement of the GOP. With continued deregulation the offenses got more serious. You think you'd be safe without any banking regulations??


Helpless case indeed....


One from me, then it's over to the political boards...






The Real Culprits In This Meltdown (http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=306370789279709) By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Obama in a statement yesterday blamed the shocking new round of subprime-related bankruptcies on the free-market system, and specifically the "trickle-down" economics of the Bush administration, which he tried to gig opponent John McCain for wanting to extend.
But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions.
Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.
The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory."
Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the '90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck.
And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi-governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the real estate market in America.
As soon as Clinton crony Franklin Delano Raines took the helm in 1999 at Fannie Mae, for example, he used it as his personal piggy bank, looting it for a total of almost $100 million in compensation by the time he left in early 2005 under an ethical cloud.
Other Clinton cronies, including Janet Reno aide Jamie Gorelick, padded their pockets to the tune of another $75 million.
Raines was accused of overstating earnings and shifting losses so he and other senior executives could earn big bonuses.
In the end, Fannie had to pay a record $400 million civil fine for SEC and other violations, while also agreeing as part of a settlement to make changes in its accounting procedures and ways of managing risk.
But it was too little, too late. Raines had reportedly steered Fannie Mae business to subprime giant Countrywide Financial, which was saved from bankruptcy by Bank of America.
At the same time, the Clinton administration was pushing Fannie and her brother Freddie Mac to buy more mortgages from low-income households.
The Clinton-era corruption, combined with unprecedented catering to affordable-housing lobbyists, resulted in today's nationalization of both Fannie and Freddie, a move that is expected to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.
And the worst is far from over. By the time it is, we'll all be paying for Clinton's social experiment, one that Obama hopes to trump with a whole new round of meddling in the housing and jobs markets. In fact, the social experiment Obama has planned could dwarf both the Great Society and New Deal in size and scope.
There's a political root cause to this mess that we ignore at our peril. If we blame the wrong culprits, we'll learn the wrong lessons. And taxpayers will be on the hook for even larger bailouts down the road.
But the government-can-do-no-wrong crowd just doesn't get it. They won't acknowledge the law of unintended consequences from well-meaning, if misguided, acts.
Obama and Democrats on the Hill think even more regulation and more interference in the market will solve the problem their policies helped cause. For now, unarmed by the historic record, conventional wisdom is buying into their blame-business-first rhetoric and bigger-government solutions.
While government arguably has a role in helping low-income folks buy a home, Clinton went overboard by strong-arming lenders with tougher and tougher regulations, which only led to lenders taking on hundreds of billions in subprime bilge.
Market failure? Hardly. Once again, this crisis has government's fingerprints all over it.

[trish]

Helpless case. Apparently the better argument is the bigger argument. Okay then: The Bush Housing and Banking Collapse has Greed, Tax Cuts, Deregulation and Two off-the-book Wars written all over it.

[Stavros]

On the one hand both the Tea Party clusters and the OWS people are all alienated from the top tiers of finance and government, critical of central government policy either because it does too much, or too little; yet the Tea Party has powerful backers whose interests are actually top end finance; they are not capitalists interested in the little guy, and small to medium enterprises. Tea Party clusters are oriented to electoral politics; OWS as I see it, is a ragged bunch with no coherent alternative programme, it is primarily the ventilation of rage and frustration, which in the current situation is not suprising, but it can also alienate the general public who don't like seeing public spaces become alternative, if temporary housing estates.

But with more than 1 million people under the age of 25 unemployed in the UK, a figure that is worse in Spain and will get worse in Greece, we are facing a world in which young people will not be in work for most of their 20s. Or, it could just be that they are sitting at home waiting for a job, when they should be taking off on an experimental journey to see what's out there -but it doesn't suit everyone, even if there are times when taking risks pays dividends. And it doesn't rely on machine politicians to open the opportunity. With so much energy, it is a pity the younger people in the OWS whichever country it is in, don't use it for something more creative. And its not like the people being shouted at care one way or the other.

[BluegrassCat]

Helpless case indeed....


One from me, then it's over to the political boards...



I'm embarrassed for you that you thought that screed was evidence of anything except how flimsy and twisted your history of the crisis is. So the repeal of Glass-Steagall is somehow more and stricter regulations? Dear god, that's fucking stupid.

Helpless case is putting it mildly.

[BluegrassCat]

Clearly an appropriate response to violating the sacrosanct CITY ORDINANCE. :roll:



Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM)

[fred41]

Clearly an appropriate response to violating the sacrosanct CITY ORDINANCE. :roll:



Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM)


...must've accidentally fallen out of the "Occupy UC Davis" thread...lol

[hard4janira]

It's a wonderful response and a terrific lesson in civics for those students. Rarely are students afforded the opportunity to get a hands-on, real-life lab assignment such as this. Pepper spray not only clears the nasal passage, it also gives the student some quality down-time where he can contemplate on the events at hand and possibly consider alternate strategies for future engagements. It would behoove all of us not to underestimate just how rewarding and enriching these educational opportunities are for our precious youth.

[hard4janira]

yet the Tea Party has powerful backers whose interests are actually top end finance; they are not capitalists interested in the little guy, and small to medium enterprises.

I don't agree with this statement. I am a conservative and I STRONGLY identify with the Tea Party movement, yet I am very aware of how large corporations and lobbyists influence the system at the expense of the little guy and small business. Many Republicans are pro-business. I'm not pro-busienss, I'm pro-markets. That is a big difference. I believe that the market should be picking winners and losers, not government. What we have is a government that has allowed select businesses (and unions) to influence the system to the point where the odds are stacked in thier favor at the expense of small and medium business. It's a corrupt system through and through. Government policies actually favor the few and reward them when they fail by using taxpayer dollars to bail them out or subsidzie them. It's government that encourages all of this behavior though, if they just allowed the markets to operate freely then capitalism would punish the losers are reward the winners, and we wouldn't have any of this bailout baloney.



OWS as I see it, is a ragged bunch with no coherent alternative programme, it is primarily the ventilation of rage and frustration, which in the current situation is not suprising, but it can also alienate the general public who don't like seeing public spaces become alternative, if temporary housing estates.

I agree. I think OWS is a rag-tag bunch: Some are protesting capitalism, some are protesting nebulous things like 'corporate greed', some are protesting the 1%, some are just happy to be protesting anything, and some (a very small % I think) actually have thier finger on pulse of what happenned in 2008 and why, and I agree with them.

[EyeCumInPiece]

Im starting to become dissillusioned with the movement. Been down there a good amount of times to support and it has dramatically changed. The last couple days before Zucotti was shut down were bad, lots of fighting, junkies, and freeloaders. Its a shame because the real activists have a heart of gold, and are there for all the right reasons, but are being overshadowed by bad people. On Thursday it became pretty much an anti-cop rally, and i left early and dont plan on returning anytime soon. I know some of the stuff we've seen online with the police has been shocking, but based on my own personal account (have been there to support OWS over 2 dozen days/nights), the police have been professional and its been large groups of young punk kids and squatters who are instigating confrontation with them.

[CORVETTEDUDE]

A movement without clear direction, A) Doesn't get very far, B) doesn't last very long, C) Does nothing but piss off the people they are trying to impress and, D) Their message (whatever it was intended to be) becomes lost.
A mob is just that, a mob.

[jerseyboy72]

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Muz1OcEzJOs

[onmyknees]

Helpless case. Apparently the better argument is the bigger argument. Okay then: The Bush Housing and Banking Collapse has Greed, Tax Cuts, Deregulation and Two off-the-book Wars written all over it.









Really now Trish? Do Tell. You are so pathetically and woefully wrong it's painful. Your Bush derrangement syndrome has taken an otherwise open mind and closed it. I'm friends with former Congressman Chris Shays. He routinely sparred with the majority Democrats for years about the stability and the social engineering of Fannie and Freddie. Google it. Get educated, but in the meantime put down the NY Times and watch this.


Timeline shows Bush, McCain warning Dems of financial and housing crisis; meltdown - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM)

Barney Frank Caught Lying About Fannie Mae - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UZ9l_AxKjA&feature=related)

[Ben]

Im starting to become dissillusioned with the movement. Been down there a good amount of times to support and it has dramatically changed. The last couple days before Zucotti was shut down were bad, lots of fighting, junkies, and freeloaders. Its a shame because the real activists have a heart of gold, and are there for all the right reasons, but are being overshadowed by bad people. On Thursday it became pretty much an anti-cop rally, and i left early and dont plan on returning anytime soon. I know some of the stuff we've seen online with the police has been shocking, but based on my own personal account (have been there to support OWS over 2 dozen days/nights), the police have been professional and its been large groups of young punk kids and squatters who are instigating confrontation with them.

If there are so-called junkies, well, we as a society should help them. I think the problem with our culture is that we simply abandon people. We simply don't care. Ya know, part of the problem is: the visible loss of care.
People are moral agents. We expect people to act morally. And most people, if they aren't psychopathic, are deeply moral and decent. It's the culture that drives out our humanity, as it were. (And, too, our culture is all about serving our own interests and who cares about anyone else. And that goes against the core nature of being a human being: empathy for other human beings. Now, you can't humanize people. Because people are human. But you can certainly dehumanize people. Think: Germans in Nazi Germany.
The nature of being a human being allows for all sorts of behaviors. Anyone of us, under the right circumstances, can either be an absolute saint or a gas chamber attendant.
Institutions by their very design -- whether government or corporations -- are monstrous. (They are monstrous precisely because they're rationally designed. And constructed, as it were, to not care about right and wrong. That's the institutional system of both government and corporations. It's not the people. But the institution.
A corporation isn't a moral agent. Nor is a government institution. That's the problem in our society. Because these amoral -- again, not caring about right and wrong -- institutions have ultimate power in our society.) But people, deep down, are good, decent and moral. It's the culture that DRIVES that decency out of us!
Again, in our narcissistic culture it's important to drive that out of people's heads. The act of care and concern for others.

[hippifried]

A movement without clear direction, A) Doesn't get very far, B) doesn't last very long, C) Does nothing but piss off the people they are trying to impress and, D) Their message (whatever it was intended to be) becomes lost.
A mob is just that, a mob.
If the direction, message or intent were clear, it wouldn't be a movement. If it was trying to impress anyone, or cared who got pissed off, it wouldn't be a movement. The US hasn't seen a real movement in 40 years. Contrary to popular meme & myth, the "Tea Party" (®?) was never a movement. It's an organization, directly affiliated with a political party, with media backing, put together top down, with specific strategy, tactics, & agenda. A movement, by its very nature, is disorganized. It's a bottom up groundswell. No leaders. No spokesmen. No specific philosophy.

Messy as it is, this current movement has a common denominator running through all the protests across the country & around the world. It's clear if you ignore the petty bullshit & lies.
2 parts:
Anger. Welcome to the real rage against the machine. What really has people pissed is the (reak or perceived) total lack of accountability for the obvious fraud that crashed the economy. The capital markets are right back where they were before the crash, have been for the last 2 years, & nothing's being produced except more junk paper. The same assholes are pushing out the same shit. Hedge bets are still controlling the flow of capital. WTF?!! I'm pissed. Aren't you?

Fear: Folks don't want to lose their representative democracy. It's hard to articulate because the revisionists, pundits, & other assorted assholes have distorted the language to the point where people are afraid to use the proper descriptives. I'm not. This movement is anti-fascist. Now don't anybody start yammering about nazis & ovens because that's not fascism. Simple version, fascism is corporate control of government. This movement isn't about "socialism" or any crackpot Marx shit. Left to their own devices, corporations will always try to swallow up the competition & gain monopoly status. That's why we have regulations & anti-trust legislation. Monopolies are anathema to a free market. Want to see free enterprize disappear? Just allow private monopolies. Fascismis just one step ahead of feudalism.

It's not a mob either. The only ones acting like a mob are the powers that be with these unnecessary police riots. The lame excuses for sending in the troopers would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.

[Ben]

Occupy - What The 99% Want! - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpHlClduD8Y&feature=player_embedded)

[Ben]

W?SB! - David Suzuki Interviewed at Occupy Montreal - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUTDxUicSmo&feature=related)

[dreamon]

Im starting to become dissillusioned with the movement. Been down there a good amount of times to support and it has dramatically changed. The last couple days before Zucotti was shut down were bad, lots of fighting, junkies, and freeloaders. Its a shame because the real activists have a heart of gold, and are there for all the right reasons, but are being overshadowed by bad people. On Thursday it became pretty much an anti-cop rally, and i left early and dont plan on returning anytime soon. I know some of the stuff we've seen online with the police has been shocking, but based on my own personal account (have been there to support OWS over 2 dozen days/nights), the police have been professional and its been large groups of young punk kids and squatters who are instigating confrontation with them.

Occupy Wall Street complaining about freeloaders... the ultimate irony.

[Ben]

[QUOTE=russtafa;1050290]Yep exactly


Simon Johnson - on Starting a Revolution - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRXYHVftNUQ&feature=channel_video_title)

The Quiet Coup by Simon Johnson:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/7364/?single_page=true

[Ben]

Simon Johnson - on Starting a Revolution - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRXYHVftNUQ&feature=channel_video_title)

The Quiet Coup by Simon Johnson:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/7364/?single_page=true

Quoting briefly from Simon Johnson's article about how the finance sector controls our government. (Forget all the nonsensical niceties about government of, by and for the people.) Simon Johnson worked at the I.M.F. So he has an insider's take on the world banking system -- :)
And it's well understood that the institutions who control money (and what is money after all but a simple accounting entry and a computer keystroke; but it's necessary, vital and people certainly need it) are going to control the society. I mean, everyone grasps that uncontroversial notion. So, the private banking sector will control the society, the government and the people. And the overall "bullshit culture" will defend those specific short-term interests.

Here's Simon Johnson and I quote:
"Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large."

[Ben]

Anti-Capitalist? Too Simple. Occupy Can Be the Catalyst for a Radical Rethink


Capitalism has many guises. Pigeonholing protesters will only allow those who are against reform to avoid the issue

by Ha-Joon Chang (http://www.commondreams.org/author/ha-joon-chang)

The Occupy London movement is marking its first month this week. It is routinely described as anti-capitalist, but this label is highly misleading. As I found out when I gave a lecture at its Tent City University last weekend, many of its participants are not against capitalism. They just want it better regulated so that it benefits the greatest possible majority.
But even accepting that the label accurately describes some participants in the movement, what does being anti-capitalist actually mean?
Many Americans, for example, consider countries like France and Sweden to be socialist or anti-capitalist – yet, were their 19th-century ancestors able to time-travel to today, they would almost certainly have called today's US socialist. They would have been shocked to find that their beloved country had decided to punish industry and enterprise with a progressive income tax. To their horror, they would also see that children had been deprived of the freedom to work and adults "the liberty of working as long as [they] wished", as the US supreme court put it in 1905 when ruling unconstitutional a New York state act limiting the working hours of bakers to 10 hours a day. What is capitalist, and thus anti-capitalist, it seems, depends on who you are.
Many institutions that most of us regard as the foundation stones of capitalism were not introduced until the mid-19th century, because they had been seen as undermining capitalism. Adam Smith opposed limited liability companies and Herbert Spencer objected to the central bank, both on the grounds that these institutions dulled market incentives by putting upper limits to investment risk. The same argument was made against the bankruptcy law.
Since the mid-19th century, many measures that were widely regarded as anti-capitalist when first introduced – such as the progressive income tax, the welfare state, child labor regulation and the eight-hour day – have become integral parts of capitalism today.
Capitalism has also evolved in very different ways across countries. They may all be capitalist in that they are predominantly run on the basis of private property and profit motives, but beyond that they are organized very differently.
In Japan interlocking share ownership among friendly enterprises, which once accounted for over 50% of all listed shares and still accounts for around 30%, makes hostile takeover very difficult. This has enabled Japanese companies to invest with a much longer time horizon than their British or American counterparts.
Japanese companies provide lifetime employment for their core workers (accounting for about a third of the workforce), thereby creating strong worker loyalty. They also give the workers a relatively large say in the management of the production process, thus tapping their creative powers. There are heavy regulations in the agricultural and retail sectors against large firms, which complement the weak welfare state by preserving small shops and farms.
German capitalism is as different from the American or British version as Japanese capitalism, but in other ways. Like Japan, Germany gives a relatively big input to workers in the running of a company, but in a collectivist way through the co-determination system, in which worker representation on the supervisory board allows them to have a say in key corporate matters (such as plant closure and takeovers), rather than giving a greater stake in the company to workers as individuals, as in the Japanese system.
Thus, while Japanese companies are protected from hostile takeovers by friendly companies (through interlocking shareholding), German companies are protected by their workers (through co-determination).
Even supposedly similar varieties of capitalism, for example Swedish and German, have important differences. German workers are represented through the co-determination system and through industry-level trade unions, while Swedish workers are represented by a centralized trade union (the Swedish Trade Union Confederation), which engages in centralized wage bargaining with the centralized employers' association (the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise).
Unlike in Germany, where concentrated corporate ownership has been deliberately destroyed, Sweden has arguably the most concentrated corporate ownership in the world. One family – the Wallenbergs – possesses controlling stakes (usually defined as over 20% of voting shares) in most of the key companies in the Swedish economy, including ABB, Ericsson, Electrolux, Saab, SEB and SKF. Some estimate that the Wallenberg companies produce a third of Swedish national output. Despite this, Sweden has built one of the most egalitarian societies in the world because of its large, and largely effective, welfare state.
And then there are hybrids that defy definition: China, with its large socialist legacy, is an obvious case, but Singapore is another, even more interesting, example. Singapore is usually touted as the model student of free-market capitalism, given its free-trade policy and welcoming attitude towards multinational companies. Yet in other ways it is a very socialist country. All land is owned by the government, 85% of housing is supplied by the government-owned housing corporation, and a staggering 22% of national output is produced by state-owned enterprises. (The international average is around 10%.) Would you say that Singapore is capitalist or socialist?
When it is so diverse, criticizing capitalism is not very meaningful. What you have to change to improve the Swedish or the Japanese capitalist systems is very different from what you should do for the British one.
In Britain, as already physically identified by the Occupy movement, it is clear the key reforms should be made in the City of London. The fact that the Occupy movement does not have an agreed list of reforms should not be used as an excuse not to engage with it. I'm told there is an economics committee working on it and, more importantly, there are already many financial reform proposals floating around, often supported by very "establishment" figures like Adair Turner, the Financial Services Authority chairman, George Soros, the Open Society Foundations chairman, and Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's executive director for financial stability.
By labeling the Occupy movement "anti-capitalist", those who do not want reforms have been able to avoid the real debate. This has to stop. It is time we use the Occupy movement as the catalyst for a serious debate on alternative institutional arrangements that will make British (or for that matter, any other) capitalism better for the majority of people.
http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imagecache/author_photo/hajoon.jpg (http://www.commondreams.org/author/ha-joon-chang)
Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at the University of Cambridge in London. He is the author of the forthcoming book, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608191664?tag=commondreams-20/ref=nosim) (Allen Lane).

[Silcc69]

If there are so-called junkies, well, we as a society should help them. I think the problem with our culture is that we simply abandon people. We simply don't care. Ya know, part of the problem is: the visible loss of care.
People are moral agents. We expect people to act morally. And most people, if they aren't psychopathic, are deeply moral and decent. It's the culture that drives out our humanity, as it were. (And, too, our culture is all about serving our own interests and who cares about anyone else. And that goes against the core nature of being a human being: empathy for other human beings. Now, you can't humanize people. Because people are human. But you can certainly dehumanize people. Think: Germans in Nazi Germany.
The nature of being a human being allows for all sorts of behaviors. Anyone of us, under the right circumstances, can either be an absolute saint or a gas chamber attendant.
Institutions by their very design -- whether government or corporations -- are monstrous. (They are monstrous precisely because they're rationally designed. And constructed, as it were, to not care about right and wrong. That's the institutional system of both government and corporations. It's not the people. But the institution.
A corporation isn't a moral agent. Nor is a government institution. That's the problem in our society. Because these amoral -- again, not caring about right and wrong -- institutions have ultimate power in our society.) But people, deep down, are good, decent and moral. It's the culture that DRIVES that decency out of us!
Again, in our narcissistic culture it's important to drive that out of people's heads. The act of care and concern for others.


srsly Ben
http://www.jgaver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Bootstraps.jpg

[Stavros]

I don't agree with this statement. I am a conservative and I STRONGLY identify with the Tea Party movement, yet I am very aware of how large corporations and lobbyists influence the system at the expense of the little guy and small business. Many Republicans are pro-business. I'm not pro-busienss, I'm pro-markets. That is a big difference. I believe that the market should be picking winners and losers, not government. What we have is a government that has allowed select businesses (and unions) to influence the system to the point where the odds are stacked in thier favor at the expense of small and medium business. It's a corrupt system through and through. Government policies actually favor the few and reward them when they fail by using taxpayer dollars to bail them out or subsidzie them. It's government that encourages all of this behavior though, if they just allowed the markets to operate freely then capitalism would punish the losers are reward the winners, and we wouldn't have any of this bailout baloney.


The problem you have is that the Tea Party clusters are borderline conservatives at best, but for the most part libertarians whose biblical texts are the worthless drivel of Ayn Rand or the utopian nonsense of Robert Nozick; yet much of the finance which has propelled TP representatives into office has come from the very same corporate finance they -and you- claim to be opposed to. Some time ago Board Member Prospero provided a link to the analysis of the Koch Brothers financial engagement with the TP (linked below) -simultaneously big business rooting for minimal government -I dont see any passion for markets there, but I do see a desire to clear the field for business to do what it wants free of government interference -which is how we got into this mess in the first place. You get to the point where either you want a free market in the literal sense, or you want some regulation, in which case you are not a libertarian but an old fashioned conservative used to the private dining clubs of New York, DC and Philadelphia, or the chili bean jamborees of Texas -the same people who believe in corporate America because it pays their wages.

Conservatives are divided, as divided as the left has always been, because they can't really face the reality that their policies no more guarantee jobs than liberal capitalism; and jobs is what all of the protests in the USA, the UK, Spain and Greece are all about. The Congressional system is dependent on the capitalism that showers money from Washington DC to districts and states to purchase goods and services that also employ people, and not just in the defence industry. If the TP and people obsessed with de-regulation have their way, how many more hundreds of thousands of public servants become unemployed -and how can you be 'pro-market' when the consequence is a collapse of demand from people who can't afford to shop for anything more expensive than bread and cheese?

The salvation of mankind in markets?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

[russtafa]

srsly Ben
http://www.jgaver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Bootstraps.jpg
China solved the problem of junkies many years ago

[russtafa]

srsly Ben
http://www.jgaver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Bootstraps.jpg
China solved the problem of junkies many years ago:Bowdown:

[Ben]

srsly Ben

What about people who are addicted to tobacco???????
Drug addiction is a serious health issue. And should be treated as such.
I mean, if someone -- like an Amy Winehouse -- is determined to destroy themselves, well, I'm not sure what to do. But: at that point it becomes a serious physical and mental health issue.
Again, some people have a predisposition to alcohol. Does society simply abandon them? Should we incarcerate people who take drugs? And what is a drug after? I mean, more people die from junk food addiction (and it is an addiction) than illicit drugs. What should we do with people addicted to junk food? Plus, well, some people speculate that PORN is an addiction. Is TV an addiction? Well, we know caffeine is a drug and addictive and harmful. Should we, say, incarcerate people who sip coffee -- ha ha!
The point is: it's a serious health issue and should be treated as such. Human behavior is incredibly complex. I think it's simply lacking humaneness, morality and decency to abandon people.
And:
Glenn Greenwald talks about what we should do. Legalize it. Control it. Get rid of the violence. And the petty criminality.

Glenn Greenwald on Drug Decriminalization in Portugal - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjuvXdqKM0M)

CATO Portugal Report 04/03/09 [1/6] - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL67notVmAQ)

[onmyknees]

The problem you have is that the Tea Party clusters are borderline conservatives at best, but for the most part libertarians whose biblical texts are the worthless drivel of Ayn Rand or the utopian nonsense of Robert Nozick; yet much of the finance which has propelled TP representatives into office has come from the very same corporate finance they -and you- claim to be opposed to. Some time ago Board Member Prospero provided a link to the analysis of the Koch Brothers financial engagement with the TP (linked below) -simultaneously big business rooting for minimal government -I dont see any passion for markets there, but I do see a desire to clear the field for business to do what it wants free of government interference -which is how we got into this mess in the first place. You get to the point where either you want a free market in the literal sense, or you want some regulation, in which case you are not a libertarian but an old fashioned conservative used to the private dining clubs of New York, DC and Philadelphia, or the chili bean jamborees of Texas -the same people who believe in corporate America because it pays their wages.

Conservatives are divided, as divided as the left has always been, because they can't really face the reality that their policies no more guarantee jobs than liberal capitalism; and jobs is what all of the protests in the USA, the UK, Spain and Greece are all about. The Congressional system is dependent on the capitalism that showers money from Washington DC to districts and states to purchase goods and services that also employ people, and not just in the defence industry. If the TP and people obsessed with de-regulation have their way, how many more hundreds of thousands of public servants become unemployed -and how can you be 'pro-market' when the consequence is a collapse of demand from people who can't afford to shop for anything more expensive than bread and cheese?

The salvation of mankind in markets?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer



Conservatives are divided, as divided as the left has always been, because they can't really face the reality that their policies no more guarantee jobs than liberal capitalism; and jobs is what all of the protests in the USA, the UK, Spain and Greece are all about. The Congressional system is dependent on the capitalism that showers money from Washington DC to districts and states to purchase goods and services that also employ people, and not just in the defence industry. If the TP and people obsessed with de-regulation have their way, how many more hundreds of thousands of public servants become unemployed -and how can you be 'pro-market' when the consequence is a collapse of demand from people who can't afford to shop for anything more expensive than bread and cheese?





Dude...
if that's your interpretation of conservatism, you're ill informed, with all due respect. You're premise is completely faulty. Conservatives may be divided by some who are more libertarian than others on social issues, but there's little disagreement on fiscal policy. You come at this disadvantaged if you think conservatives are trying to guarantee anyone a job, or even trying by any means other than pro growth, free market capitalism. You want a guaranteed job from cradle to grave? Punch your ticket to Shanghai and toil in a Nike factory for 3 bucks a day for the next 50 years. Free Market Capitalism is still the best way to raise the most people from one economic class to the other. That's a historic, undeniable fact. It never promised 100% employment or perfection. William F. Buckley loved to say "Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich."

A conservative is someone who cares more about his own profit than yours; if you mean someone who cares more about providing for his family than providing for yours; if you mean someone who trusts that he is a better caretaker of his own interests and desires than a bureaucrat he’s never met, often in a city he’s never been to: then we are all capitalists. Because, by that standard, conservative capitalism isn't some far-off theory about the allocation of capital; it is a commonsense description of what motivates pretty much all human beings everywhere. And it’s also why the problem with capitalism is capitalists. Some people will always abuse the system and take things too far. Some will do it out of the hubris of intellect. Some will do it out of the venality and greed, but the answer is not to put more control in the hands of politicians and the greedy, ill equipped government bureaucrats. Look where government meddling got us in the Fannie/Freddie debacle. The battle between liberals and conservatives is not about imposing limits on free markets and capitalism, that's a given...it's about how much, and by whom.

[Stavros]

I am not ill-informed at all; the confusion lies in your description of conservatism, and although there are differences in what that term means in the UK from what it means in the USA, both have an attachment to the state that doesn't figure so much in your definition; and in both cases the actual practice of conservatives in power does not radically change the nature of the state.

In the UK conservatism has supported the Monarchy precisely on the basis that to conserve it is to conserve a fundamental structure of authority that has enabled this country to avoid civil war, and which also structures the distribution of wealth and power in the shape of a pyramid. Yes, the compromise with capitalism in 1688 enabled the emerging middle classes to command more of the economy than they did before while diminishing (over time) the powers of the Monarch to interfere in political decision-making, but then the same middle classes that overthrew the monarchy in 1640 realised it was also in their interest to compromise. 'One nation Tories' do believe that they should 'look after' the poor and not be completely selfish economically, this was what divided them from the so-called Thatcherites, and yet in spite of Thatcher, the State and the bureaucracy did not shrink dramatically under her leadership -but the real economy, the one where people make things and feel proud to see the ships sail away from the Tyne, the cars roll of the production line in the West Midlands and the coal shipped out of Wales and Yorkshire- that crucial sector of the economy for the working class was trashed, while the 'Big Bang' and de-regulation in the City boosted what is still but not affectionately known as 'financial services'.

English Conservatives are still divided between the One Nation Tory whose patrician and patronising view of the poor is linked to the Church of England and, critically, Christian guilt; and the free-market fanatics who as you suggest, care only for their own comforts and have replaced the Church of England with an astonishing faith in markets in spite of all the evidence that shows a 'free market' is an ideal not a reality, be it in the USA or the UK.

But capitalism is not just about bonds, futures and gilts, it is about the tangible assets that people make or grow that are brought to market. So on one level I agree with you, and think your American conservative politicians should be honest on the stump and tell the voters: We are capitalists, we make money, not jobs -and then presumably when a candidate comes up with a plan to 'grow the economy and provide jobs' you can shriek with laughter at this RINO and plan your next skiing holiday in Japan while a few million more Americans join the queue for the food the 'free market' has priced out of their pocket.

Ultimately, because capitalism has no nationality, conservative and libertarian policies, propelled by fanatics in government, become anti-American because in the 21st century, capitalism is more ruthlessly global than it ever was before, and to just 'let it rip' means, in effect, ripping up your precious stars and bars, and replacing it with a large dollar sign; or a question mark. I wonder, for how many Americans, will the next Thanksgiving dinner be their last? At least in the UK we have another month to go before Christmas.

[hard4janira]

... yet much of the finance which has propelled TP representatives into office has come from the very same corporate finance they -and you- claim to be opposed to.

We may not be talking about the same thing here. I've never brought up campaign financing at all, and I don't know the campaign finance details of the representatives that were elected into office claiming to represent the Tea Party. Do you or are you just assuming? In fact, I'd wager that most corporate money DIDN'T go to tea party canddiates, because the Corporations and the Unions already have thier lackies in office (from both parties) - the Tea Party represents the anti-RINO movement and corporate America doesn't know what they are going to get from them. But even then, I'm not opposed to any corporation, organization, or individual giving whatever they want to finance anybodies campagn. I am against so-called campaign finance reform.



... Some time ago Board Member Prospero provided a link to the analysis of the Koch Brothers financial engagement with the TP (linked below) -simultaneously big business rooting for minimal government -I dont see any passion for markets there, but I do see a desire to clear the field for business to do what it wants free of government interference -which is how we got into this mess in the first place.

If you believe that regualations (think beyond wall street) have made if impossible for American corporations to compete globally (and I do), then you don't have a problem with idea of clearing away the beaurocratic red tape around a government regulation - If government keeps making it harder and harder for companties to compete (Obamacare) then they have every right lobby for and root for minimal government and I am right there with them.

And I say again: the way to show you have a 'passion' for the market is to let the market work. Don't bailout companies that should go bankrupt. Don't create institutions that implicitly guarantee 75% of all the mortgages in the country. It seems really simple to me, this concept of creative destruction that no politician has the balls to let unfold.


You get to the point where either you want a free market in the literal sense, or you want some regulation, in which case you are not a libertarian but an old fashioned conservative used to the private dining clubs of New York, DC and Philadelphia, or the chili bean jamborees of Texas -the same people who believe in corporate America because it pays their wages.

I don't even know what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that my only two options are free markets with zero regulation or I'm totally bought by corporate America?


Conservatives are divided, as divided as the left has always been, because they can't really face the reality that their policies no more guarantee jobs than liberal capitalism; and jobs is what all of the protests in the USA, the UK, Spain and Greece are all about. The Congressional system is dependent on the capitalism that showers money from Washington DC to districts and states to purchase goods and services that also employ people, and not just in the defence industry. If the TP and people obsessed with de-regulation have their way, how many more hundreds of thousands of public servants become unemployed -and how can you be 'pro-market' when the consequence is a collapse of demand from people who can't afford to shop for anything more expensive than bread and cheese?


Only politicians 'guarnatee' jobs. We will have to disagree on the value of a large vs. a small government. I believe earnestly that government spending should be capped at 15% of GDP - we have seen the damage caused by government that cannot control spending. I think having a large public sector work force is bad becuase they don't produce anything. Something has to be produced first in the private sector and then taxed so that there is money to pay the public sector workers. We should remove the chains that burded private sector jobs (such as an oppressive tax code) and let the private sector grow (which it will - I have no doubt) and let the public sector shrink.

[hard4janira]

Occupy - What The 99% Want! - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpHlClduD8Y&feature=player_embedded)


This is just utter bollocks. I reject everything in that video outright.

[fred41]

This is just utter bollocks. I reject everything in that video outright.

It sounds like this video was narrated by Jesus...:)

[Ben]

This isn't shocking. Or disturbing. Or in any way resembling the actions of a police state.
He - is - simply - spraying - because - of - fleas -- :)

Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM&feature=share).

[Dino Velvet]

This isn't shocking. Or disturbing. Or in any way resembling the actions of a police state.
He - is - simply - spraying - because - of - fleas -- :)

Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM&feature=share).

If the fleas have been chomping on those protestors they're plenty medicated enough and the tear gas might have only minimal effect.

[Ben]

This is just utter bollocks. I reject everything in that video outright.

I empathize with people. If you don't, well, that's your choice. It's your choice not to care about other people.
I mean, American culture and society teaches us to care only about ourselves. Ya know, no one else matters. It's called: the spirit of the ages. Gain wealth, forgetting all but self. (And, too, we Americans are taught from childhood not to believe in a gift economy. Ya know, public health care is sinister. I mean, why should I care if the old woman down the street has health care or enough to eat. And we've been taught this since childhood, through school, through TV, and through graduate school.
Again, why should I care about anyone else? I should simply engross myself in the principle of greed. Ya know, no one else matters.
When we swat a mosquito, well, that's a value judgment. Now because of global climate change we've decided that future generations have no value.
Anyway, that's fine. I mean, again, it's your choice whether or not you care about anyone else.
But as Adam Smith pointed out, the so-called Father of Capitalism, the fundamental core of being a human being is sympathy for other people.

[Ben]

Too Much Violence and Pepper Spray at the OWS Protests: The Videos and Pictures:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/11/too-much-violence-and-pepper-spray-at-the-ows-protests/248761/

[russtafa]

If the fleas have been chomping on those protestors they're plenty medicated enough and the tear gas might have only minimal effect.it might kill the fleas all that gas lol

[russtafa]

This isn't shocking. Or disturbing. Or in any way resembling the actions of a police state.
He - is - simply - spraying - because - of - fleas -- :)

Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM&feature=share).that looks like a top job:dancing:

[Dino Velvet]

it might kill the fleas all that gas lol

Hopefully both parasites are put down.

[Ben]

Daniel Ellsberg Joins Occupy Cal Movement - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2fl4n84M48)

UC-Berkeley's "Occupy Cal" Encampment - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy2-30By9mE)

Hold on! Occupy Detroit? What do they have to complain about. I mean, Detroit is booming. Much like Cleveland. And Camden, New Jersey. I mean, Camden is a great place. As the pics below illustrate.

Occupy Detroit - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVNMPmRC4IY)

[russtafa]

gee what shit holes

[hard4janira]

I empathize with people. If you don't, well, that's your choice. It's your choice not to care about other people.

Utter and complete bullshit. I care about poeple plenty. I've donated over 2,000 dollars in 2011 alone to tsunami relief in Japan and tornado destruction in Alabama. If the federal government let me keep more of my money I'd be able to donate more to causes that I think are worthy. Instead, I have to worry about a corrupt and immoral federal government (who is not held accountable whatsoever for the ENORMOUS debt that they have amassed BUYING VOTES). The federal government does nothing but promote class warfare and attempt to make villians out of the hard workers and producers in this country. I'm not even in the 1% and I can see this. I am in the 99%, just like the rest of you losers, but it is clear to me just how much the federal government despises me and everything that I stand for and am trying to achieve for myself and my family.

Health care is not a right. You do not have a right to a job or a roof over your head. These arent rights. Your rights are inalienable and they have been enumerated for you in the Constitution. Everything else is bullshit. How the government possible make the claim that you have a right to health care when they have to find a way to pay for it? So what happens when the government goes bankrupt like Greece? We're already 15 trillion in debt, what happens when Uncle Sams credit goes bust and the health care and social security checks stop rolling in? Doen't do much good to insist that it was a right when if they can't affort to pay for it.

It's an absurdity to think that we've abandoned poeple in this country. We tried to reform welfare in the 90's but I have wonder what good that did. The food stamp program has gone from a 10 billion dollar program to an 80 billion dollar program in under a decade. This is government simply re-distributing wealth, this has nothing to do with 'hungry' poeple. The poor in America are OBESE, not starving. The poor in America have air-conditiniong and cable TV. The poor in America have government sponsered programs that give them access to the internet and cell phones. Everywhere I look I see free libraries and transit systems that people can take advantage of educate themselves.

The government is going into debt because of Social Security and Medicare, programs designed specifically for the middle class and the elderly. How can anybody say that America has neglected the poor when 2/3 of our debt are social programs? What a complete absurdity. The fact is the people in the country are WEAK mentally. We have created and fostered a hand-out, welfare culture and now we are suffering the consequences. We have generations of people who expect things to be given to them and are encouraged to be angry and spiteful if they don't get them.

I honestly hope that the US goes bankrupt one day and is forced to live within its means. I would NEVER vote to raise the debt ceiing if I were a member of congress. What a bunch of evil liars and theives these politicans are, buying votes with borrowed and stolen money. Time is coming! Time is coming when you will pay dearly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Stavros]

We may not be talking about the same thing here. I've never brought up campaign financing at all, and I don't know the campaign finance details of the representatives that were elected into office claiming to represent the Tea Party. Do you or are you just assuming? In fact, I'd wager that most corporate money DIDN'T go to tea party canddiates, because the Corporations and the Unions already have thier lackies in office (from both parties) - the Tea Party represents the anti-RINO movement and corporate America doesn't know what they are going to get from them. But even then, I'm not opposed to any corporation, organization, or individual giving whatever they want to finance anybodies campagn. I am against so-called campaign finance reform.

If you believe that regualations (think beyond wall street) have made if impossible for American corporations to compete globally (and I do), then you don't have a problem with idea of clearing away the beaurocratic red tape around a government regulation - If government keeps making it harder and harder for companties to compete (Obamacare) then they have every right lobby for and root for minimal government and I am right there with them.

And I say again: the way to show you have a 'passion' for the market is to let the market work. Don't bailout companies that should go bankrupt. Don't create institutions that implicitly guarantee 75% of all the mortgages in the country. It seems really simple to me, this concept of creative destruction that no politician has the balls to let unfold.

I don't even know what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that my only two options are free markets with zero regulation or I'm totally bought by corporate America?

Only politicians 'guarnatee' jobs. We will have to disagree on the value of a large vs. a small government. I believe earnestly that government spending should be capped at 15% of GDP - we have seen the damage caused by government that cannot control spending. I think having a large public sector work force is bad becuase they don't produce anything. Something has to be produced first in the private sector and then taxed so that there is money to pay the public sector workers. We should remove the chains that burded private sector jobs (such as an oppressive tax code) and let the private sector grow (which it will - I have no doubt) and let the public sector shrink.

1) Americans for Prosperity is funded by the Koch brothers -Peggy Venable who organized a TP 'Summit' in Austin called Texas Defending the American Dream explained that the role of Americans for Prosperity was to help “educate” Tea Party activists on policy details, and to give them “next-step training” after their rallies, so that their political energy could be channelled “more effectively.” And she noted that Americans for Prosperity had provided Tea Party activists with lists of elected officials to target. She said of the Kochs, “They’re certainly our people. David’s the chairman of our board. I’ve certainly met with them, and I’m very appreciative of what they do.”

Same article (the one I referred you to) quotes Axelrod -David Axelrod, Obama’s senior adviser, said, “What they don’t say is that, in part, this is a grassroots citizens’ movement brought to you by a bunch of oil billionaires.”

2) I would not be surprised if the volume of regulation in some industries has grown beyond its usefulness and has become inefficient, and detrimental to small businesses -the point is that regulation is a necessity, so its about getting it right, not getting it trashed. The either/or mentality that you get from people like Perry obscures the way in which regulatory agencies work -there are reasons why the Federal government imposes standards on businesses, I don't think you disagree with the idea companies large and small should not be allowed to whatever they want, so its about the finesse with which regulatory agencies operate.

3) Markets -there is an argument for not bailing out a business if it is so badly managed it goes bust; I can see the point of that -but you know as well as I that on both sides of the Atlantic over decades Conservatives have protected failure and thus defied the market. As we have discussed before, this is because there are times when business failure condemns thousands people to unemployment in one day. Political suicide.
But what I was also trying to argue is that if an industry goes overseas and communities suffer, their lack of purchasing power deflates their local market, maybe not other markets where people in work continue to purchase -capitalism is an integrated system, but is it not ironic that it was Marx who described this commodification of everything, pointing out that everything in a capitalist society can be bought and sold-? Hayek was addicted to the idea of markets and private property as the repository of freedom itself, but made no attempt to understand the moral economy that existed before money, his only moral value is selfishness, not even politicians on the right, Pinochet excepted, can stomach that.
The problem with markets in capitalism is that they are both a cause and a solution to problems, which is why saying that the market is the solution is only half the argument.

3) Jobs -I was taking onmyknees to task for his criitique of my critique of his defence of capitalism red in tooth and claw -the Federal government, and state governments are major employers in the USA, and there does seem to be an excess of it, but that's how your Congress works, dishing out the prizes everytime a bill is passed.
70% or thereabouts of the economies of Wales and Northern Ireland are based on central and local government contracts and subsidies, directly or indirectly; without them those places would have next to nothing, and probably 70% unemployment.
We have got ourselves into a situation where population increases and industrial decline have produced a huge bulge of people with no hope of getting a 'proper job', industries have responded to market pressure by dissolving or relocating to Asia. Keynes offered solutions to a slump in the business cycle, it was not an alternative economic policy, but that is what we have. Politicians do create jobs, and probably too many; but where else are jobs going to come from? Heavy industry has gone; light industry creates a few hundred jobs; video games, supermarkets and restaurants collectively employ a few thousand -even commercial farms can round up thousands of acres of corn with two guys and a machine; no more Days of Heaven.

Which is why Tea Party enthusiasts, RINO's or whatever you call them are deluded fools -the capitalist system in the USA continues to charge forward, but it no longer needs the tired, the poor and the hungry -they are what is left rotting on the street when the bus leaves town. There will be a recovery in the USA and the UK, but the volume of jobs will never return to what it was in the 1950s, it's as brutal as that. And nobody ever said capitalism was fair, but its the only game in town.

[hard4janira]

1) Americans for Prosperity is funded by the Koch brothers -Peggy Venable who organized a TP 'Summit' in Austin called Texas Defending the American Dream explained that the role of Americans for Prosperity was to help “educate” Tea Party activists on policy details, and to give them “next-step training” after their rallies, so that their political energy could be channelled “more effectively.” And she noted that Americans for Prosperity had provided Tea Party activists with lists of elected officials to target. She said of the Kochs, “They’re certainly our people. David’s the chairman of our board. I’ve certainly met with them, and I’m very appreciative of what they do.”

Same article (the one I referred you to) quotes Axelrod -David Axelrod, Obama’s senior adviser, said, “What they don’t say is that, in part, this is a grassroots citizens’ movement brought to you by a bunch of oil billionaires.”


So what? Are you suggesting that the 1% shouldn't participate in a democracy? If I had Koch like money I can assure you that I would be doing the same thing - supporting organizations and movements that reflect my personal political philosophy. Are you trying to imply that the Tea Party isn't a grass roots movement because the Koch brothers have funded a particular tea party organization? There are LOTS of tea party organizations out there - most of which have never received a dime from the Koch brothers (I know because I belong to one). Furthermore, Americans for Prosperity hasn't been annointed as the difinitive voice of the Tea Party movement. In fact, I think that Freedomworks is an even more influential voice within the movement, and they get a lot grass-roots money.

Besides, do you honestly think that there isn't big money behind the OWS movement? http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/10/george-soros-connection-to-occupy-wall.html

I'd wager that there is as much 1% money going to that movement as there is the Tea Party movement.



I would not be surprised if the volume of regulation in some industries has grown beyond its usefulness and has become inefficient, and detrimental to small businesses -the point is that regulation is a necessity, so its about getting it right, not getting it trashed. The either/or mentality that you get from people like Perry obscures the way in which regulatory agencies work -there are reasons why the Federal government imposes standards on businesses, I don't think you disagree with the idea companies large and small should not be allowed to whatever they want, so its about the finesse with which regulatory agencies operate.

Of course that is reasonable. HOWEVER, I think that what many of us want in large part is for the Federal Government to get out of initiatives that they are not constitutionally authorized to be in. This means abolishing many departments at the Federal level (such as the department of education) and privatizing social security, and elminating medicare and medicaid as Federal programs. It doesn't mean that regulations for education goes away or we stop treating the sick or the indigent. It simply means that the repsonsiblity is shifted to the States (where it is supposed to be). Let each State determine what its own needs are for education and medical care and tax accordingly. This way, I don't have to worry about my tax dollars going to States like California who a) can't pass a budget and b) amass huge amounts of debt because they cannot control spending.

[hard4janira]

Which is why Tea Party enthusiasts, RINO's or whatever you call them are deluded fools -the capitalist system in the USA continues to charge forward, but it no longer needs the tired, the poor and the hungry -they are what is left rotting on the street when the bus leaves town. There will be a recovery in the USA and the UK, but the volume of jobs will never return to what it was in the 1950s, it's as brutal as that. And nobody ever said capitalism was fair, but its the only game in town.




RINO stands for 'Republican in name only'. They are the career politicians (Republicans) who talk a big game but fail to live up to true conservative values when the rubber meets the road. It is the RINO's that the Tea Party has targeted and gone after (moreso than the Democrats which are mostly lost-causes anyways). In 2010, a lot of Republicans lost primaries to Tea Party candidates because they were not conservative enough (and by that I mean they are big-government / big-spenders). The Tea Party movement has really shook up the Republican Party more than anything else, moving the party back to the right and away from the RINO clowns that have been making all of these shady back-room deals with Democrats and running up our debt to unsustainable levels.

[BluegrassCat]

I honestly hope that the US goes bankrupt one day and is forced to live within its means. I would NEVER vote to raise the debt ceiing if I were a member of congress. What a bunch of evil liars and theives these politicans are, buying votes with borrowed and stolen money. Time is coming! Time is coming when you will pay dearly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And this is why we will never agree. I just don't want to see the U.S. fail. I reject that premise that U.S. should fail to pay its bills and forfeit on its promises, watch its military falter and the majority of citizenry slide into poverty. I want to see the U.S. overcome its difficulties, get out of the recession, train a new generation of workers and grow the economy, not shrivel up and die. I will never get on board for rooting against my own country.

[Stavros]

hard4janira

The point is that the extremists who think they are shaking up 'the system' have been bought by it, co-opted, and are being quietly subverted -revolution in America? Left or right, its not going to happen. OWS and the Tea Party are not strong enough to make real change happen; but who knows what will happen in the next 12 months -and Harold Wison said a week is a long time in politics...

[canuseeme]

The government is going into debt because of Social Security and Medicare, programs designed specifically for the middle class and the elderly. How can anybody say that America has neglected the poor when 2/3 of our debt are social programs? What a complete absurdity. The fact is the people in the country are WEAK mentally. We have created and fostered a hand-out, welfare culture and now we are suffering the consequences. We have generations of people who expect things to be given to them and are encouraged to be angry and spiteful if they don't get them.


if you would have just placed medicare in this post you would be correct but since you included SS you lose credibility and sound like a fox news blowhard, 3 trillion of the current debt is from over collected SS payments since the early 1980s that are initragov loans, these intragov loans are bonds that cannot be sold on the open market and are basically worth nothing

[canuseeme]

look at that tea party go just like any other new corrupted politician


15 Tea Party Caucus freshmen rake in $3.5 million in first 9 months in Washington

On her website, Rep. Diane Black asks constituents to join advisory panels in her Tennessee district. "I believe the best ideas to solve our nation's problems will come from people like you," Black writes, "not Washington bureaucrats and special interest groups."

Black is one of the new Republicans who rode a wave of anti-Washington sentiment into town in 2011, a self-identified member of the tea party wing that has been cast as a new kind of conservative-- fiery, unwilling to compromise and determined to downsize the government. But while many say Black and her companions have created a split in the Republican Party, it is not visible among the companies and interest groups that are donating to members of Congress.

A joint analysis by iWatch News and the Center for Responsive Politics has found that the 15 freshmen members of the Tea Party Caucus have embraced many of the same special interests that have supported Republicans for years. The fifteen combined have received over $3,450,000 during the first three quarters of this year from almost 700 different PACs.

It's an impressive haul for a group of newly elected House members. But it shouldn't be surprising that these fresh faces found new friends in Washington.

"Business as usual," says Mary Boyle of good-government group Common Cause. "The lobbyists and other traditional Washington powers know that the newbies will learn fast that they need them, and their rolodexes."

It may well be, but some of the freshmen appear to have their eyes wide open.


Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., has received more than $252,000 from PACs, accounting for about two-thirds of the money he has raised this year. His chief of staff, Fred Piccolo, was unapologetic for the donations the congressman has received. "One person's 'special interest' is another person's 'personal interest,'" he said.

Among the biggest PAC donors to the tea party freshmen are familiar Washington faces, including Honeywell International, which led the way both in number of donations and overall money given. The top five corporate PACs that donated to these freshmen:

- Honeywell International, a Fortune 100 company best known for its defense manufacturing, made 52 donations worth at least $105,000
- The American Bankers Association, one of the major trade associations for the financial sector, made 31 donations worth at least $53,000
- Lockheed Martin, one of the biggest defense contractors in the country, with 30 donations for at least $28,000
- Koch Industries, the company run by conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, made 29 donations worth at least $38,000
- The National Association of Realtors, a major trade group for real estate agents, with 29 donations worth $34,000

The fifteen members also took a significant amount of money from ideological groups, including at least $100,000 from the PAC of Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, at least $55,000 from the Boehner-affiliated Freedom Project, and at least $42,000 from the Republican Majority Committee PAC. Groups in this category were critical to the financial success of many of these candidates in 2010. Since their victories, however, these members are finding financial support for their campaigns from a much wider selection of interests in Washington.

Black, one of the richest members of Congress, seems to have quickly learned her way around town. She leads the way as the most successful fundraiser in the bunch, having raised at least $418,000 from PACs alone through the first three quarters.

Overall, this group of freshmen representatives has become just as reliant on PAC money as their counterparts who have been in the House longer. The median Tea Party Caucus freshman brought in roughly 44 percent of their money from PACs, 43 percent from large individual donors, and 4 percent from small donors who gave less than $200 each. Comparatively, the median House Republican got 46 percent from PACs, 45 percent from large individuals and 4 percent from small individual donors.

One freshman caucus member who stands out among his peers is Rep. Allen West, who represents Florida's 22nd district. Early on in the 2010 election West became a phenomenon, one who was able to raise massive amounts from small contributions around the country as if he were a national figure. And the influx of contributions has not slowed. While he has raised at least $210,000 from PACs through the first nine months of this year, the percentage of money he has received in from individual donations of $200 or less has actually increased since his election, something rarely seen among politicians.

The Bankers Association is another notable, given the full throated support of the financial system raised by some members of the Tea Party Caucus. Freshman Joe Walsh recently screamed at a constituent who asked about big banks' role in the financial collapse, "Don't blame the banks ... that*****es me off." In fact, over 17 percent of the money brought in by the Tea Party Caucus freshmen came from the financial institution, according to CRP numbers.

Ross, the Florida congressman, was somewhat surprised by how much fundraising a freshman member has to do, Chief of Staff Piccolo said. "It has definitely been more than anticipated, but in the end, many of these folks represent organizations with tens of thousands of employees and a direct impact on the district.... [Ross'] willingness to stand against feeding at the DC spending trough have endeared him to some and angered others."

"For every 'special interest' that writes a check, there are an equal number that would write one to an opponent."

"Newcomers quickly realize that if they want to stay in Congress, they must immediately begin raising lots of money" says Common Cause's Boyle. "So they go to the people and interests who are more than happy to give it - those who want something from Congress."

"Sadly, it's what you have to do to survive in this system, and that's why it must be changed, so that lawmakers don't take office owing favors to their biggest campaign donors. "

The Tea Party Caucus is an official house caucus founded by Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., in 2010. Although many conservative Republicans have been identified as being tea party supporters, there are only 60 official members of the caucus. When asked if there was a freshman representative to the caucus, spokeswoman Becky Rogness said that the only official is Rep. Bachmann. And because the caucus is an official government entity, "it is not involved in political campaigning or fundraising."

In response to questions for this article, Honeywell spokesman Rob Ferris said "Honeywell's Political Action Committee supports those who support the policies that are most important to our company and are in the best interest of growing the American economy and creating American jobs." He declined to answer follow up questions, as did Lockheed spokesman Jeff Adams after stating that "Lockheed Martin supports a wide range of political leaders based on their level of interest and commitment in national security, homeland security, and other issues of importance to the corporation including education and technology."

Sara Wiskerchen, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Realtors, said that "NAR is the most bipartisan PAC in the country" and bases it's giving on candidates with "have strong records of support for homeownership and private property rights." When asked if members of the Tea Party Caucus were more sympathetic to the concerns of the NAR, Wiskerchen said "No, support for homeownership issues we consider important varies across all political parties and depends strongly on the issue."

Request for comments were not returned from the American Bankers Association or Koch Industries. All 15 of the freshmen mentioned were contacted. Anyone not quoted here did not respond to a request for comment.

Aaron Mehta is a staff writer with the Center for Public Integrity. Bob Biersack is a senior fellow at the Center for Responsive Politics.

See original source for breakdowns of how much each received.

[Faldur]

The point is that the extremists who think they are shaking up 'the system' have been bought by it, co-opted, and are being quietly subverted -revolution in America? Left or right, its not going to happen. [/I]

Couldn't disagree more, since the 2010 elections the Tea Party has been responsible for $1.2 trillion in budget cuts, about to take place in a forced cut. The Presidential primary is focused as much on the Tea Party vote as it is the country club republicans, maybe even more so.

After 2012 Tea Party membership in congress will grow, they are effectively forcing change in the "business as usual" in Washington. I don't ever see a group of .0001% such as the OWS ever even getting a representative elected.

[hard4janira]

And this is why we will never agree. I just don't want to see the U.S. fail. I reject that premise that U.S. should fail to pay its bills and forfeit on its promises, watch its military falter and the majority of citizenry slide into poverty. I want to see the U.S. overcome its difficulties, get out of the recession, train a new generation of workers and grow the economy, not shrivel up and die. I will never get on board for rooting against my own country.


You CANT reject the premise that the US defaults on its bills because IT CAN. The alternative to default is much worse and will do more damage to American citizens. Do you support a balanced budged amendement? If you say no to that and you continue to allow Congress to rape our country and our future then I don't think you can honestly say that you give a shit about what happens to America.

[hard4janira]

look at that tea party go just like any other new corrupted politician

Yeah that doesn't surprise me. Washington corrupts just about everybody who ends up there (which is why I'm astonished that the OWS crowd puts so much faith in government to make things 'fair'). Still, the goals of the tea party are very sound indeed and as long as there is an energized electorate they will continue to re-cycle the politicians.

[BluegrassCat]

You CANT reject the premise that the US defaults on its bills because IT CAN. The alternative to default is much worse and will do more damage to American citizens. Do you support a balanced budged amendement? If you say no to that and you continue to allow Congress to rape our country and our future then I don't think you can honestly say that you give a shit about what happens to America.

Try reading before responding. I said I reject that the U.S. SHOULD default. The alternative to default, i.e. paying our bills, is worse? That's a ridiculous position. I oppose a balanced budget amendment because I'm not a child with no grasp of how the world works. Rooting for default and the end of America is quite a good example of the opposite of patriotism. No wonder we disagree, we have opposite goals. You're proposing policies to bring on an American default while I propose policies to avoid it.

[hard4janira]

if you would have just placed medicare in this post you would be correct but since you included SS you lose credibility and sound like a fox news blowhard, 3 trillion of the current debt is from over collected SS payments since the early 1980s that are initragov loans, these intragov loans are bonds that cannot be sold on the open market and are basically worth nothing

I should have worded it better. 2/3 of our annual spending are for programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The other 1/3 is defense and the remaining % is nominal.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html

Most of this spending is deficit spending (revenues accounting for probably less than 1/4 of spending). My main point is that most of the debt that we are accumulating is beause of SOCIAL PROGRAMS for the middle-lower class. So how can people make the claim that the 99% has been forgotten about or left behind? You can walk into any hospital emergency room in the country and get treated for a cold without showing as much as insurance or even proof of citizenship. It's maddening to me how people can JUSTIFY the claim that people are being left behind.


Yes, I am aware that SS is a trust fund, but one that has been pilfered by Congress because they have borrowed against it. I wonder when they plan on paying it back?

[hard4janira]

Try reading before responding. I said I reject that the U.S. SHOULD default. The alternative to default, i.e. paying our bills, is worse? That's a ridiculous position. I oppose a balanced budget amendment because I'm not a child with no grasp of how the world works. Rooting for default and the end of America is quite a good example of the opposite of patriotism. No wonder we disagree, we have opposite goals. You're proposing policies to bring on an American default while I propose policies to avoid it.

Bwaaaahahahahaha!!! Paying our bills is not an alternative and you know it. You live on fantasy island if you think that you can tax the 1% to make up for the revenue shortfalls our government has created with thier social engineering programs. Say hello to Tattoo for me if you see him!

The alternative to default is inflating the debt away. The last thing weak minded Americans will EVER do is come to the realization that the bills must be paid. We will go to war with China before that ever happens. For one, Americans won't even elect politicians with the balls to PASS a budget much less balance one. America is choc-full of deluded, stupid people who would rather find a scape-goat for all of the problems that the politicans THEY HAVE ELECTED have created for them.

And I don't think you do know how the world works. How did this country ever manage to make it two hundred years without a fiat currency? What is this crazy world where the money supply is steady and prices fall over time? What a nutty concept that is... How did people ever live!!?? The horrror! I guess the world YOU live in is one where politicians and bankers can print all the money they want to and buy votes with it. That's all we have now. A commodity-less currency enables governments to run amock and that is exactly what is happening now. Not passing a balanced budget amendment is an excuse for left-wingers who cannot accept (or blatantly refuse to accept) the realitiy of what it means for a government to live within its means. You are so wedded to your social programs that NO amount of public debt matters to you. The only thing that matters is bribing voters and buying votes of the so-called 'underpriveledged', even if it means you have to bankrupt the country to do so.

[BluegrassCat]

Bwaaaahahahahaha!!! Paying our bills is not an alternative and you know it. You live on fantasy island if you think that you can tax the 1% to make up for the revenue shortfalls our government has created with thier social engineering programs. Say hello to Tattoo for me if you see him!

The alternative to default is inflating the debt away. The last thing weak minded Americans will EVER do is come to the realization that the bills must be paid. We will go to war with China before that ever happens. For one, Americans won't even elect politicians with the balls to PASS a budget much less balance one. America is choc-full of deluded, stupid people who would rather find a scape-goat for all of the problems that the politicans THEY HAVE ELECTED have created for them.

And I don't think you do know how the world works. How did this country ever manage to make it two hundred years without a fiat currency? What is this crazy world where the money supply is steady and prices fall over time? What a nutty concept that is... How did people ever live!!?? The horrror! I guess the world YOU live in is one where politicians and bankers can print all the money they want to and buy votes with it. That's all we have now. A commodity-less currency enables governments to run amock and that is exactly what is happening now. Not passing a balanced budget amendment is an excuse for left-wingers who cannot accept (or blatantly refuse to accept) the realitiy of what it means for a government to live within its means. You are so wedded to your social programs that NO amount of public debt matters to you. The only thing that matters is bribing voters and buying votes of the so-called 'underpriveledged', even if it means you have to bankrupt the country to do so.

200 years without a fiat currency? When do you think this country was founded? LOL. You have a poor grasp of history and economics. You're stuck in an ideological bubble where facts can't penetrate. BBA is an absurd idea that caters to emotion, not good policy. In a recession, it's appropriate to carry a deficit and when you're out you take steps to reduce it. But again you're advocating for the default of the U.S. so you support a policy aimed at getting us there. And btw inflation is too low at the moment, we do need more of it to help pay down our debts. But you don't want the debts paid, you want to see the U.S. go belly up. I don't.

And you can project all you want onto me. The fact remains that I want to avoid bankrupting the country and you explicitly wish for it.

[hard4janira]

200 years without a fiat currency? When do you think this country was founded? LOL. You have a poor grasp of history and economics.

I was roughly estimating from 1770 to 1970, and I would be 'roughly' correct, although we've had brief interludes of a fiat currency...

http://www.kwaves.com/fiat.htm

Don't be so petty, I have an excellent grasp of history and economics.


You're stuck in an ideological bubble where facts can't penetrate. BBA is an absurd idea that caters to emotion, not good policy. In a recession, it's appropriate to carry a deficit and when you're out you take steps to reduce it.

I would argue that you live in an ideological bubble. You won't accept the fact that QE1 and QE2 were failures as was the Presidents stimulus package. Unemployment hasn't budged noticeably and GDP is crawling along at a pathetic pace - nowhere near what it needs to be in order to offset the public debt that we've created. Moreover, many economists are predicting another recession starting Q1 of 2012.

If these programs had worked why are we seeing the OWS movement growing larger and larger? You would argue that (like Krugman) that we haven't done enough, we need to do more, we need more stimulus, more debt...more more more. And the fatal flaw with your theory is that in good times, government DOESN'T take steps to reduce the deficit. Where was goverment reducing the debt from 1988-2000? Nowhere to be seen. Government still ran up massive debts during the good times and the bad (we did have a couple of years of a balanced budget but we never reduced the overall debt). What evidence do you have that government will reduce the debt during 'good times'. When are these 'good times' coming? Are they right around the corner? Maybe we'll start seeing these 'good times' when interest rates actually start going up to something above ZERO for the first time in 10 fucking years.... or not.... maybe we have just set ourselves up for years and years of 'hard times' followed by mountains of debt.


But again you're advocating for the default of the U.S. so you support a policy aimed at getting us there. And btw inflation is too low at the moment, we do need more of it to help pay down our debts. But you don't want the debts paid, you want to see the U.S. go belly up. I don't.

If default comes then this country will have DESERVED it. To say otherwise is selfish and shows a weak grasp of reality. And not raising the debt limit isn't a policy towards default. It's a policy towards a sustainable fiscal policy. It means large, immediate cuts in every aspect of federal government. But you can't handle those truths, moreover you do not WANT to handle them. You are prefectly content spening 4 times more annually than you take in in taxes and pretending that the day of reckoning will never come.

I DO advocate paying our bills (and by that I mean money that we have borrowed / treasuries that we have sold). I do not advocate increasing the public debt on expensive and wasteful social programs - those aren't 'bills' that need to be paid.

And when you say 'inflation is too low' you mean 'prices are too low'. There is a lot of inflation out there, we just haven't seen it in prices yet because the money isn't circulating. Every time the Fed buys bonds they are inflating, period. And what of people on fixed income? You don't seem to care about inflating away their savings. You do realize that the policies you advocate punish people who try be responsible and save for the future don't you? You do realize that your policies force people into the game because it's the only way that they can beat inflation - only to watch their 401k's and pension funds get wiped out by asset bubbles created by the Federal Reserve. Man, with guys like you 'tinkering' with the money supply to lessen the pain of your cruel debt burdens, who needs enemies?

[BluegrassCat]

I would argue that you live in an ideological bubble. You won't accept the fact that QE1 and QE2 were failures as was the Presidents stimulus package. Unemployment hasn't budged noticeably and GDP is crawling along at a pathetic pace - nowhere near what it needs to be in order to offset the public debt that we've created. Moreover, many economists are predicting another recession starting Q1 of 2012.

Failures by what metric? By the metric of preventing another great depression the stimulus was a success and yes it was too small. We had enough to avert disaster but not enough to get us out of the recession.
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i269/Megworen/holtz_eakin2.png

And where is this inflation that QE should have caused? You say it's just hiding. Great, maybe we have full employment and a roaring economy. It's all here, just hiding. :roll:



And the fatal flaw with your theory is that in good times, government DOESN'T take steps to reduce the deficit. Where was goverment reducing the debt from 1988-2000? Nowhere to be seen. Government still ran up massive debts during the good times and the bad (we did have a couple of years of a balanced budget but we never reduced the overall debt). What evidence do you have that government will reduce the debt during 'good times'.

First of all, you're conflating a flaw of policy with a flaw of politics. The policy will work, but you worry our political system won't be able to deliver it. Yea, how about 1992-2000 when we saw the deficit shrink and didn't even need to raise the debt limit the last few years? I don't know how else you think the debt gets paid down except by first diminishing the deficit which is exactly what happened. There are your "good times." But then as you said politics happened and Bush stole the WH. He acted irresponsibly, exploding the deficit with his tax cuts and wars. Had Gore not been denied, the economy still would have tanked but the deficit would have not erupted as it did.




If default comes then this country will have DESERVED it. To say otherwise is selfish and shows a weak grasp of reality. And not raising the debt limit isn't a policy towards default. It's a policy towards a sustainable fiscal policy. It means large, immediate cuts in every aspect of federal government. But you can't handle those truths, moreover you do not WANT to handle them. You are prefectly content spening 4 times more annually than you take in in taxes and pretending that the day of reckoning will never come.

To say that our country deserves to collapse reveals the emotional basis to your argument. Economics is not a morality play. Life isn't fair. You don't get rewarded with a good economy for self-flagellation and austerity, it only weakens you further. If you want to grow your economy but private business won't do it, then grow via the government. It worked spectacularly for America under FDR. This is not about your personal hangups, it's about what the data say and the data say the stimulus worked and we need more of it.




You do realize that the policies you advocate punish people who try be responsible and save for the future don't you?

I'm advocating for the inflation we had in the 1990's, remember how much everyone suffered then? You're the one wishing for default, advocating cruelty on a massive scale, so what do you care what happens to them?

[Ben]

This isn't shocking. Or disturbing. Or in any way resembling the actions of a police state.
He - is - simply - spraying - because - of - fleas -- :)

Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM&feature=share).

The Pepper Police -- :)

[needsum]

And this is why this whole OWS is a bad idea from the get-go: NOTHING EVER CHANGES until we change ourselves first.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-16-2011/occupy-wall-street-divided

[hard4janira]

Failures by what metric? By the metric of preventing another great depression the stimulus was a success and yes it was too small. We had enough to avert disaster but not enough to get us out of the recession.

How do you know what would've happenned without QE1 and QE2? How do you know we averted a great depression? I don't think a shorter, sharper depression where assets get re-priced based on market value and incompetently run companies go out of busiensss is worse than the alternative - years and years of high unemployment, poor GDP growth, zombie banks bailed out at taxpayer expense, and keeping toxic assets on the books without re-pricing them or letting the markets find a true bottom so that they can recover. Thanks for nothing. So yes, the response of the Federal reserve and the Federal goverment has set the stage for a far larger looming disaster. It *is* a failure. But you are the one who seems to beleive that doing 'something, anything' is better than doing nothing. Not me. And just because you 'do something' doesn't mean you haven't caused collateral damage in the process.

Furthermore, I could post article after article from hundreds of ecomosits and business leaders who would argue that the stimulus did not succeed. I'm not even going to bother to try since you seem overly obsesed with ONE info-graphic that you've posted numerous times as difinitive proof that the stimulus was a run-away freight train of success. In fact it was so successful that we've come up with a trillian dollar sequal, perhaps just to catch those who fell through the cracks the first time around. I suggest you listen to the economists that Tom Keene talks to on a daily basis. You will be exposed to a broader range of economic opinions regarding what is going on. At least I can acknowledge the various approaches - you have a ONE TRACK KEYNESIAN-KRUGMAN MIND, and any economist who disagrees with you you dismiss as a quack.


And where is this inflation that QE should have caused? You say it's just hiding. Great, maybe we have full employment and a roaring economy. It's all here, just hiding. :roll:

Yes exactly. It's hiding in the banks that we've recapitalized, but aren't lending.The effects of inflation have been moderate to this point (but they exist nonetheless). As soon as the economy starts doing what you and Ben Bernanke want it to do - more private lending (even when there is no real demand for it) fueled at the expense of over-leveraged, cash strapped borrowers, then we'll start to see inflation manifesting itself in prices. For the cherry on top, you and Ben bury Americans once and for all as you raise interest rates on them in an attempt to contain inflation.


First of all, you're conflating a flaw of policy with a flaw of politics. The policy will work, but you worry our political system won't be able to deliver it.

We may be talking in circles here, but you can have a recession without having high unemployment so just because you are in a recession doesn't necessarily mean that the federal government needs to run around paving roads. So no, I don't even agree with your 'policy' on the surface. If consumers stop spending (and start saving) and this causes the economy to contract, why does the government need to step and force spending? I don't think that they do. You would argue that deflation is the worst possible thing that can ever happen - but we need deflation so that assets that were so over-blown can properly value themselves. Everyting the government is doing to prevent this from happening is violating the market trying to correct itself, the ramifications of which are going to manifest themselves in other ways down the road.


Yea, how about 1992-2000 when we saw the deficit shrink and didn't even need to raise the debt limit the last few years? I don't know how else you think the debt gets paid down except by first diminishing the deficit which is exactly what happened. There are your "good times." But then as you said politics happened and Bush stole the WH. He acted irresponsibly, exploding the deficit with his tax cuts and wars. Had Gore not been denied, the economy still would have tanked but the deficit would have not erupted as it did.

I admit the deficit shrunk for a few years in the 90's. (That was back when Congress actually passed a budget - the current crop of blow-hards is going on what - 900+ days now without a budget?). Still, they didn't address the debt so history tells me that even in the BEST of times, the most that I can hope for not making the debt any worse than it already is. That is not acceptable. And you don't know what would've happened had Gore won the election (he lost by the way, they recounted in Florida and he lost). I'd guess that 911 would still have happenned, and Gore would have gone to war in the middle east just like 'W' did.



To say that our country deserves to collapse reveals the emotional basis to your argument. Economics is not a morality play. Life isn't fair. You don't get rewarded with a good economy for self-flagellation and austerity, it only weakens you further. If you want to grow your economy but private business won't do it, then grow via the government. It worked spectacularly for America under FDR. This is not about your personal hangups, it's about what the data say and the data say the stimulus worked and we need more of it.

You are wrong, but you will never believe anyting other than your 'New Deal', Keynesian stimulus rubbish. Japan is suffering the consequences of those policies now and we are well on our way. Your policies and tactics are what's cruel. Your inability to see that removing the shackles that you place on the private sector is what grows the private sector, not by printing or borrowing money to put into the private sector at taxpayers expense. That's just so stupid on the very face of it it doesn't even pass the smell test. You couldn't even quantify (if you had to) how much debt it would take to grow the GDP by a certian %. You just look at eachother and shrug and say 'well the only way out is to spend trillions and trillons'. Since you know that that is never going to happen, you can sit back and say 'see I told you, the reason none of this crap worked is beause you didn't spend enough'. Save your breath. We didn't get a new deal from FDR, we got a raw deal. At least his OWN SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY was wise enough to recognize that the stimulus efforst under FDR failed (and he noted as much in his diary).



I'm advocating for the inflation we had in the 1990's, remember how much everyone suffered then? You're the one wishing for default, advocating cruelty on a massive scale, so what do you care what happens to them?

If you are advocating inflation then you are deciding that debtors are winners and savers are losers. It's immoral and wrong for you or government to decide that IMO. It's the federal goverment that is cruel by accumulating all of this debt. Not I. And yes, I would love to see your policies fail. The aftermath of your policies will be brutal, but only then will the American people see how they have been mislead by thier government.

[onmyknees]

Failures by what metric? By the metric of preventing another great depression the stimulus was a success and yes it was too small. We had enough to avert disaster but not enough to get us out of the recession.
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i269/Megworen/holtz_eakin2.png

And where is this inflation that QE should have caused? You say it's just hiding. Great, maybe we have full employment and a roaring economy. It's all here, just hiding. :roll:



First of all, you're conflating a flaw of policy with a flaw of politics. The policy will work, but you worry our political system won't be able to deliver it. Yea, how about 1992-2000 when we saw the deficit shrink and didn't even need to raise the debt limit the last few years? I don't know how else you think the debt gets paid down except by first diminishing the deficit which is exactly what happened. There are your "good times." But then as you said politics happened and Bush stole the WH. He acted irresponsibly, exploding the deficit with his tax cuts and wars. Had Gore not been denied, the economy still would have tanked but the deficit would have not erupted as it did.




To say that our country deserves to collapse reveals the emotional basis to your argument. Economics is not a morality play. Life isn't fair. You don't get rewarded with a good economy for self-flagellation and austerity, it only weakens you further. If you want to grow your economy but private business won't do it, then grow via the government. It worked spectacularly for America under FDR. This is not about your personal hangups, it's about what the data say and the data say the stimulus worked and we need more of it.




I'm advocating for the inflation we had in the 1990's, remember how much everyone suffered then? You're the one wishing for default, advocating cruelty on a massive scale, so what do you care what happens to them?


There he goes with the graphs again....LMAO...I posted a transcript where Doug Elmendorf ( CBO) admitted in a Congressional Hearing that there was no known accounting methods to say with any certainty that this much deficit spending "saved or created" jobs, and for any length of time, but why let the director of the CBO under oath influence your ideology ? What BGC has to explain in light of these facts, and the administration's own assurances that unemployment would level below 8% if we spent this money, is exactly where all these jobs are. Two Thirds of the 800 billion went tax breaks, entitlements, and unemployment insurance....an arguably noble goal, but certainly didn't create any jobs. That left about 275 billion for "loans, grants, and contracts". Out of that, billions went to green energy boondoggles, There were not sufficient reporting mechanisms despite what Crazy Joe Biden and the White House web site like to tell us. Strip out another couple billion for Senator Coburn's list of 300 wasteful follies, ( Including Solyndra and Gun Running) combined with Obama's admission " shovel ready really wasn't shovel ready" , and you begin to see how much of this money was flushed down the sewer, yet guys like Blue Grass Cat, and his butt buddy Paul Krugman stick to their foolishness. Do the math dude....tell me how many jobs were created, then divide that into 275 billion, and you'll see what each job cost the taxpayer. But in the end....you believe what you wanna believe. You're soon to be a very lonely guy !!! lol

[BluegrassCat]

You are wrong, but you will never believe anyting other than your 'New Deal', Keynesian stimulus rubbish. Japan is suffering the consequences of those policies now and we are well on our way. Your policies and tactics are what's cruel. Your inability to see that removing the shackles that you place on the private sector is what grows the private sector, not by printing or borrowing money to put into the private sector at taxpayers expense. That's just so stupid on the very face of it it doesn't even pass the smell test. You couldn't even quantify (if you had to) how much debt it would take to grow the GDP by a certian %. You just look at eachother and shrug and say 'well the only way out is to spend trillions and trillons'. Since you know that that is never going to happen, you can sit back and say 'see I told you, the reason none of this crap worked is beause you didn't spend enough'. Save your breath. We didn't get a new deal from FDR, we got a raw deal. At least his OWN SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY was wise enough to recognize that the stimulus efforst under FDR failed (and he noted as much in his diary).



You've slipped into Orwellian hyperbole at this point. When you advocate grinding poverty, record unemployment and an end to government services and yet you complain about cruelty...it's become laughable.

You want to know the multiplier effect? It was about x2 for the stimulus. Pretty clear evidence for more of it until the economy is out of the ditch.

Right FDR failed. The Great Depression completely wracked the 1940's and 1950's. It was a period of low growth, right? Oh wait it was unprecedented growth for the middle class thanks to large scale fiscal stimulus.

Check your facts. The evidence showed that Gore clearly won. He won the election and the SCOTUS gave it to Bush.

You're trapped in an Ayn Rand bizarro world where contractionary policies are expansionary, pain is good and growth is immoral. A world that won't admit facts or data. You don't like my chart? Point out what's wrong with it, until then I'll keep rubbing your nose in the data. You rely on emotion not facts to back up your assertions. So find my post where I call an economist a quack, oh wait you can't. You keep going on about free markets, well newsflash they don't exist. We (thankfully) have government interference in the market and always will. You assert, without evidence, that allowing the worst case scenario to occur would have been preferable. You accuse me of making assertions that can't be completely proven (nothing can be) and then proceed to make the same assertions for your point of view. That's why we have the CBO to actually give us some evidence so we're not just pursuing ideological goals. I have no ideological attachment to Keynes but I endorse it because the balance of evidence does too. You have an emotional view about morality you want to play out that takes little account of data.

Again, you admit to rooting for the U.S. to fail, and you advocate policies to get your outcome. I want low unemployment and a strong middle class with plenty of class mobility so I advocate policies to get my preferred outcome.

[Ben]

And this is what peeves off some of the protesters:

Legalized Corruption of Government Exposed by Abramoff - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe1d32I_wUY)

[fred41]

Check your facts. The evidence showed that Gore clearly won. He won the election and the SCOTUS gave it to Bush.


The facts don't show that at all...

[hard4janira]

You've slipped into Orwellian hyperbole at this point. When you advocate grinding poverty, record unemployment and an end to government services and yet you complain about cruelty...it's become laughable.

Ahem... from one hyperbolist to another, I don't advocate grinding poverty (whatever that means) or record unemploymet. I do advocate scaling back on government services so that expenditures fall in line with revenues. Novel concept huh?

As for your 'grinding poverty', I would ask you one simple question: Just how obese do you think our poor should be? But when you say 'poor', what you really mean a class of citizens whose votes you have purchased with borrowed money. The people who fall into your categorization can change at any time as you conveniently alter your definition of what it means to be poor, adding more people with the stroke of a pen as you decide that incomes of 'X' dollars or below is now considered the new 'poor'. Armed with this new definition you can start your media assault against anybody who disagrees with you about how unfair America is and how the 'poor' are getting left behind.

Whats ironic is that what passes for 'poor' in America is a high standard of living in 85% of the rest of the world. Americas poor people have roofs over their heads, food, access to hospitals, access to education, air-conditioning, subsidized electricity, subsized internet, subsidized cell phone plans... the list goes on and on. Yet you STILL have left-wing nut jobs who would insist that we aren't doing enough to help the indigent - NOT BECAUSE IT'S TRUE, BUT BECAUSE PANDERING TO A CLASS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE TRAINED VOTE FOR HANDOUTS KEEPS THEM IN POWER. Its' the reason why none of these social programs are ever rendered useless because they have served their purpose. They never fulfulll their purpose - they are merely tools put in place by politicians to keep power for themselves.


You want to know the multiplier effect? It was about x2 for the stimulus. Pretty clear evidence for more of it until the economy is out of the ditch.

x2...... compelling.....


Right FDR failed. The Great Depression completely wracked the 1940's and 1950's. It was a period of low growth, right? Oh wait it was unprecedented growth for the middle class thanks to large scale fiscal stimulus.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx

Let me try this one more time. NOT-EVERYBODY-THINKS-LIKE-YOU-DO-AND-BLINDLY-ASSUMES-THAT-MASSIVE-GOVERNMENT-INTERVENTION-SOLVES-ALL-OF-THE-WORLDS-PROBLEMS-IN-FACT-SOME-ECONOMISTS-THINK-OTHERWISE


You don't like my chart? Point out what's wrong with it, until then I'll keep rubbing your nose in the data. You rely on emotion not facts to back up your assertions.

onmyknees responded to your silly chart and gave you facts backed up by the CBO. Are those emotions?


You assert, without evidence, that allowing the worst case scenario to occur would have been preferable.

You can't call it a worse case scenario if you don't know what the outcome would have been, and you dont.


You accuse me of making assertions that can't be completely proven (nothing can be) and then proceed to make the same assertions for your point of view.

You're the one who says the stimulus succeeded ummm..... x2.....


I have no ideological attachment to Keynes but I endorse it because the balance of evidence does too. You have an emotional view about morality you want to play out that takes little account of data.

Ok. Except Japan in the 90's. That's evidence that it failed but let's ignore it.

[BluegrassCat]

As for your 'grinding poverty', I would ask you one simple question: Just how obese do you think our poor should be? But when you say 'poor', what you really mean a class of citizens whose votes you have purchased with borrowed money. The people who fall into your categorization can change at any time as you conveniently alter your definition of what it means to be poor, adding more people with the stroke of a pen as you decide that incomes of 'X' dollars or below is now considered the new 'poor'. Armed with this new definition you can start your media assault against anybody who disagrees with you about how unfair America is and how the 'poor' are getting left behind. Whats ironic is that what passes for 'poor' in America is a high standard of living in 85% of the rest of the world


I don't know much about how they define the poverty line but I'm pretty sure they don't change it every year. It's based generally on what it takes someone to afford food and housing and I think most people know it to be a conservative underestimate of what poverty is. Unfortunately the poor don't vote at high numbers or we would see some real progressive change. And what you call "buying votes" is actually just voting for material self-interest. It's a shame more people don't do it. We'd never see a Republican president again. And I'm glad that the poor in our country are better off than in other countries and I'd like to keep it that way. I'd also like to get as many of the poor out of poverty as possible.



x2...... compelling.....


Finally some agreement.



http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx



I'm glad you decided to provide some evidence for a change. It looks like they find some real effects there. Let's see if you can understand this: THIS DOES NOT AT ALL UNDERMINE FISCAL STIMULUS OR KEYNESIAN POLICIES GENERALLY. IT MAKES THE CASE FOR ANTI-TRUST LAWS AND SUGGESTS THAT THE FISCAL STIMULUS WAS EVEN MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN WE KNEW THANKS TO THIS UNMEASURED COUNTER-WEIGHT ON GROWTH.



onmyknees responded to your silly chart and gave you facts backed up by the CBO. Are those emotions?


Seriously? Bwahahahaha! It wasn't just emotion it was total dishonest bunk! You're smarter than that. Go back and read his "facts" and read my response. So to sum up, your response is no, you can't find anything wrong with the graph. And for good reason,because it's what the data say.




You can't call it a worse case scenario if you don't know what the outcome would have been, and you dont.


Right no one knows for sure but we can make estimates based on the best available evidence. You already acknowledged that the recession would have been sharper and worse had the bailout and stimulus not occurred. And the evidence says that your proposed course of action would have been catastrophic.

And that's where we part ways. You advocate intentionally inflicting catastrophic harm on our economy and I advocate a strategy that the data suggest will help the economy recover.

[hard4janira]

I don't know much about how they define the poverty line but I'm pretty sure they don't change it every year. It's based generally on what it takes someone to afford food and housing and I think most people know it to be a conservative underestimate of what poverty is. Unfortunately the poor don't vote at high numbers or we would see some real progressive change.

I'm sure they have to adjust it all the time due to inflation. And do you honestly believe that poverty isn't politicized? Here is a web site from your progressive friends that instruct teachers how to ignore the federal standard and use other measures to calculate an 'adjusted' federal estimate...

http://www.tolerance.org/activity/calculating-poverty-line

Isn't it funny how the federal government uses food and energy prices to determine the poverty level but eliminate them when determining the CPI so they can lie about how much inflation they create?


And what you call "buying votes" is actually just voting for material self-interest. It's a shame more people don't do it.

Wow. THIS coming out of your mouth. People doing things for material self-interest. That is what capitalism is all about you clown. Isn't that how corporations work - the same corporations you demonize and insist that the federal goverment regualte into oblivion? But hey, I get it - you are a 'progressive'. The interests of the poor and disenfranchised are all that matter. Hey, I've got an idea, let's put together a political machine that panders to the 'disenfranchised' so that we can obtain power and keep it. Let's never actually help those that we brainswash, let's instead keep them poor and hungry so we can retain power and carry out our socialist agenda.


We'd never see a Republican president again.

I'm with you. It's time for some Libertarian Presidents to restore sanity to Washington.


And I'm glad that the poor in our country are better off than in other countries and I'd like to keep it that way. I'd also like to get as many of the poor out of poverty as possible.

Well history shows that your policies have been a miserable failure. We've accumulated 15 trillion in debt, over 2/3rds of which is for social programs for the middle class and the poor. What has that given us? By your OWN admission, the gap between the rich and the poor keeps getting bigger and bigger. I'd say your programs have been a complete and utter failure. What good has Social Security been? What good has an 80 billion dollar food stamp program been? What good is Medicare and Medicaid? None of these albatrosses have managed to 'close the gap' between the rich and the poor so they must be failures right? Time to start looking for other solutions rather than borroiwing and spending and placing the tax burdon on a very small minority.


I'm glad you decided to provide some evidence for a change. It looks like they find some real effects there. Let's see if you can understand this: THIS DOES NOT AT ALL UNDERMINE FISCAL STIMULUS OR KEYNESIAN POLICIES GENERALLY. IT MAKES THE CASE FOR ANTI-TRUST LAWS AND SUGGESTS THAT THE FISCAL STIMULUS WAS EVEN MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN WE KNEW THANKS TO THIS UNMEASURED COUNTER-WEIGHT ON GROWTH.

Nothing in that article at all suggest that the fiscal stimulus by FDR was in any way successful



FDR was America's greatest president based on good intentions -- and most disastrous based on facts. In 1932, when elected, he inherited over 11 million unemployed. And after eight years of "audacious economic experiments," there were still over 11 million unemployed. Only after 11 million were inducted into the military for WWII did the Great Depression end. Facts are stubborn things.


FDR's Treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, told his fellow Democrats, "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong ... somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises ... I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!"
This on Keynesian experiments in Japan:

http://www.progress.org/2009/keynes.htm



Seriously? Bwahahahaha! It wasn't just emotion it was total dishonest bunk! You're smarter than that. Go back and read his "facts" and read my response. So to sum up, your response is no, you can't find anything wrong with the graph. And for good reason,because it's what the data say.

I don't see where you responded to him at all but I will look....


You already acknowledged that the recession would have been sharper and worse had the bailout and stimulus not occurred. And the evidence says that your proposed course of action would have been catastrophic.

No I didn't say that. I said that a shorter, sharper depression may be more favorable than a long, protracted era of slow growth and multiple recessions.


And that's where we part ways. You advocate intentionally inflicting catastrophic harm on our economy and I advocate a strategy that the data suggest will help the economy recover.

But the data does not suggest that your stragety will help recovery. You've deluded yourself into thinking that it must be so. Unemployement remains above 9 percent DESPITE two rounds of quantitative easing and an 840 billion dollar stimulus program. That is a FAILURE, by any reasonable measure. And the growth in GDP is literally a snails pace, and the stage is set for another recession in Q1 of 2012 (a lot of disagreement on this however). Plus, housing prices are STILL going down, 3 YEARS after the bubble burst. You seem adamant that all of this intervening has somehow averted catastrophe, but you can't even begin to quantify what the catastrophe would have been, so instead you pretend that any measure of improvment is somehow related to the quantitave easing and stimulus while simultaneously igonoring the collateral damage creating by doing so.

[Silcc69]

The facts don't show that at all...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000

He won the popular vote not the electoral vote. But why on earth do people say every vote counts when in this case it clearly didn't matter.

[BluegrassCat]

I'm sure they have to adjust it all the time due to inflation. And do you honestly believe that poverty isn't politicized? Here is a web site from your progressive friends that instruct teachers how to ignore the federal standard and use other measures to calculate an 'adjusted' federal estimate...



No obviously it's adjusted for inflation. It would have no meaning if it wasn't. I meant that the formula remains the same year after year, whereas you made it sound like they came up new formulas to suit political needs which is clearly not the case. I think the formula sounds perfectly reasonable and is still a conservative underestimate of true poverty, much like the unemployment rate is an underestimate of true unemployment.



Wow. THIS coming out of your mouth. People doing things for material self-interest. That is what capitalism is all about you clown. Isn't that how corporations work - the same corporations you demonize and insist that the federal goverment regualte into oblivion? But hey, I get it - you are a 'progressive'. The interests of the poor and disenfranchised are all that matter. Hey, I've got an idea, let's put together a political machine that panders to the 'disenfranchised' so that we can obtain power and keep it. Let's never actually help those that we brainswash, let's instead keep them poor and hungry so we can retain power and carry out our socialist agenda.


You didn't make any points here, just ranting and insults.





Well history shows that your policies have been a miserable failure. We've accumulated 15 trillion in debt, over 2/3rds of which is for social programs for the middle class and the poor. What has that given us? By your OWN admission, the gap between the rich and the poor keeps getting bigger and bigger. I'd say your programs have been a complete and utter failure. What good has Social Security been? What good has an 80 billion dollar food stamp program been? What good is Medicare and Medicaid? None of these albatrosses have managed to 'close the gap' between the rich and the poor so they must be failures right? Time to start looking for other solutions rather than borroiwing and spending and placing the tax burdon on a very small minority.

It seems like you gave up debating and are now repeating talking points. This doesn't even pass the smell test for intellectual honesty. Yes inequality has risen (remember OWS?) but social security, medicare, food stamps, unemployment benefits etc have been arresting the process not accelerating it. This is just basic stuff. But I'm glad that you finally acknowledge the gross levels inequality has reached in this country and the destabilizing effects this has for democracy.




Nothing in that article at all suggest that the fiscal stimulus by FDR was in any way successful


What do you think WWII was if not a giant government fiscal program.


This on Keynesian experiments in Japan[/URL]

This is from the same author you cited who puts the Japanese mistake not in fiscal stimulus but in a tax hike, which Keynes would oppose while still in a recession.

[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/world/asia/30japan.html (http://www.progress.org/2009/keynes.htm)




No I didn't say that. I said that a shorter, sharper depression may be more favorable than a long, protracted era of slow growth and multiple recessions. But the data does not suggest that your stragety will help recovery. You've deluded yourself into thinking that it must be so. Unemployement remains above 9 percent DESPITE two rounds of quantitative easing and an 840 billion dollar stimulus program. That is a FAILURE, by any reasonable measure. And the growth in GDP is literally a snails pace, and the stage is set for another recession in Q1 of 2012 (a lot of disagreement on this however). Plus, housing prices are STILL going down, 3 YEARS after the bubble burst. You seem adamant that all of this intervening has somehow averted catastrophe, but you can't even begin to quantify what the catastrophe would have been, so instead you pretend that any measure of improvment is somehow related to the quantitave easing and stimulus while simultaneously igonoring the collateral damage creating by doing so.


Right everyone agrees the recession would have been worse but you claim without evidence it would have been shorter.

Ah, but the data DO show that. I know it irks you because you're relying on emotions not evidence but the stimulus averted disaster, saved 2 million jobs, provided a x2 multiplier back to GDP for what we spent and we desperately need more of it as most economists agree. The continued recession is exactly what we should expect when we don't provide a big enough stimulus. And your response is because we can't know for sure it will work, we should do what we do know won't work, namely cutting back and deepening the recession. Again this comes down to different goals, you want to bankrupt the country and I don't. From that point of view you are pursuing the "right" policies to achieve your goal. I just find them repugnant and irresponsible.

[hard4janira]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000

He won the popular vote not the electoral vote. But why on earth do people say every vote counts when in this case it clearly didn't matter.

Because winning the popular vote doesn't get you the Presidency, winning the electoral vote does. But everybody knows this going into it to begin with, right? At least I thought so...

It should come as no surpise to Al Gore that he was not elected President despite having won the popular vote. I would be very, very dubious about his Ivy League degree had he though otherwise....

Besides, Albert Gore (our treasured Nobel laureate) isn't alone. Andrew Jackson won the popular vote but lost the election in 1824 and there may be others. Dem's da' breaks when you know the rules. I'm just astonished at how many dummies don't know the rules... Well, actually I'm not. Probably over 50% of Americans can't name the Vice President or the Speaker of the House.... And that's why our country sucks now.

[Silcc69]

Because winning the popular vote doesn't get you the Presidency, winning the electoral vote does. But everybody knows this going into it to begin with, right? At least I thought so...

It should come as no surpise to Al Gore that he was not elected President despite having won the popular vote. I would be very, very dubious about his Ivy League degree had he though otherwise....

Besides, Albert Gore (our treasured Nobel laureate) isn't alone. Andrew Jackson won the popular vote but lost the election in 1824 and there may be others. Dem's da' breaks when you know the rules. I'm just astonished at how many dummies don't know the rules... Well, actually I'm not. Probably over 50% of Americans can't name the Vice President or the Speaker of the House.... And that's why our country sucks now.

No they don't but why bother voting if the popular vote isn't going to win. The Electoral College isn't even under any obligation to go with the popular vote in the first place. SO when people say every vote counts that isn't always true.

[BluegrassCat]

No they don't but why bother voting if the popular vote isn't going to win. The Electoral College isn't even under any obligation to go with the popular vote in the first place. SO when people say every vote counts that isn't always true.

Votes certainly aren't equal in weight. As a voter in NY my vote counts much less than someone in a battleground state like Ohio. The marginal impact of a New Yorker's vote is quite low in comparison. Not only are votes unequal, but some residents are more represented than others. If NY has like 20 million people and Montana has only 1 million but each state gets 2 Senators, the citizens of Montana are much MORE represented in Congress than New Yorkers are. The Grand Bargain is a bitch if you're from a populous state.

Oh and btw Gore won Florida.

[Silcc69]

Votes certainly aren't equal in weight. As a voter in NY my vote counts much less than someone in a battleground state like Ohio. The marginal impact of a New Yorker's vote is quite low in comparison. Not only are votes unequal, but some residents are more represented than others. If NY has like 20 million people and Montana has only 1 million but each state gets 2 Senators, the citizens of Montana are much MORE represented in Congress than New Yorkers are. The Grand Bargain is a bitch if you're from a populous state.

Oh and btw Gore won Florida.

Jeb Bush fixed that small issue. :)

[Stavros]

I think most historians agree that FDR's New Deal was crucial to saving the USA at its most economically challenged moment, but that real, incremental economic growth did not return to the country until the 1940s when its industrial capacity grew to meet the needs of the Second World War -total war has a way of using all the people it can get -men go to war, women go to work -but like Keynes's temporary solution to the slump, it can only be temporary -famously, in the 1950s, the men came home from the war and the women went home from work. There is also the theory that FDR 'allowed' the Japanese to attack the USA precisely to engineer the war that would rescue the American economy, but that is another thread. And these days, wars seem to cost more than they are worth.

On the other hand, I believe this mystical faith in markets will not deliver jobs in the way its disciples claim -what is it that America is going to make that cannot be made in China at such uncompetitive rates? I am confident that some growth will return, but I think it will be disappointing, that is the nature of the structural shift that is taking place. What will be interesting is to see the impact of the decline of economic growth in China over the next ten years, this could benefit the US economy, but again, I just don't see high volume jobs returning in the near future, and that is the reality to which people must adjust. It means, incidentally, if you are a college graduate in your 20s, you should be looking for work in Asia or Latin America.

Correct me if I am wrong, Bush was awarded the Presidency by the Electoral College, it was 'just' confirmed by the Supreme Court; and your Electoral College is part of the democratic process that performs its duties every four years....?

[BluegrassCat]

I think most historians agree that FDR's New Deal was crucial to saving the USA at its most economically challenged moment, but that real, incremental economic growth did not return to the country until the 1940s when its industrial capacity grew to meet the needs of the Second World War -total war has a way of using all the people it can get -men go to war, women go to work -but like Keynes's temporary solution to the slump, it can only be temporary -famously, in the 1950s, the men came home from the war and the women went home from work. There is also the theory that FDR 'allowed' the Japanese to attack the USA precisely to engineer the war that would rescue the American economy, but that is another thread. And these days, wars seem to cost more than they are worth.

On the other hand, I believe this mystical faith in markets will not deliver jobs in the way its disciples claim -what is it that America is going to make that cannot be made in China at such uncompetitive rates? I am confident that some growth will return, but I think it will be disappointing, that is the nature of the structural shift that is taking place. What will be interesting is to see the impact of the decline of economic growth in China over the next ten years, this could benefit the US economy, but again, I just don't see high volume jobs returning in the near future, and that is the reality to which people must adjust. It means, incidentally, if you are a college graduate in your 20s, you should be looking for work in Asia or Latin America.

Correct me if I am wrong, Bush was awarded the Presidency by the Electoral College, it was 'just' confirmed by the Supreme Court; and your Electoral College is part of the democratic process that performs its duties every four years....?

Right, the Supreme Court ordered them to halt the count in Florida where it was, with Bush in the lead, effectively handing him the presidency. Had they counted all the ballots Gore would have been president.

[hard4janira]

I think the formula sounds perfectly reasonable and is still a conservative underestimate of true poverty, much like the unemployment rate is an underestimate of true unemployment.

We can agree that the government lies about true unemployment (just like they lie about inflation). We will probably never agree on what 'true poverty' is however. I feel that my goal as a citizen and a human being is over if my fellow man has clothes, shelter, and food to eat. I am responsible for nothing else unless I choose to be through charitable donations (which I personally would do). I believe that anything else, including things such as medical care, should be charitable and out of the realm of government involvement. I do not feel responsible for paying for somebodies education, internet, entertainment, transportation, etc... You see, not having things should be incentive for working hard and achieving them. The welfare culture that we've created has instead created a society content on living off of hand outs without seeking any kind of self-improvement.


You didn't make any points here, just ranting and insults.

No, I made a very important point. My point was that ALL PEOPLE vote (and do things in general) for thier own self-interests. It's basic human nature and the premise on which the entire foundation of capitalism is founded. I'm glad you recognize and acknowledge this. If the indigent vote in thier self interest then why wouldn't every other human being in any other capacity or social status do the exact same thing? Why wouldn't a company make decisions that exclusively benefit the company and its shareholders? Nothing wrong with this line of thinking at all my friend. That's reality. That is how the world works.


It seems like you gave up debating and are now repeating talking points. This doesn't even pass the smell test for intellectual honesty. Yes inequality has risen (remember OWS?) but social security, medicare, food stamps, unemployment benefits etc have been arresting the process not accelerating it.

Arresting the process? I doubt you could find evidence to support that claim. Let me help you....x2. 'These programs have arrested the acceleration of debt inequality by x2', therefore they are a roaring success!'. No, I'm just being sarcastic now. I think you fail to realize that America has the best, fattest, most cared for poor, lower middle, and middle class in all the world. It's just that that isn't good enough for you. You won't happy until........ well, actually, I don't know WHAT would ever make you happy. Maybe it is zero rich people, zero poor people, and 100 percent middle class people. What would make you happy? Give me something in quantitative terms that you could be happy with. Hell, the progressives can't even come up with a fair number to tax the rich. Every time they are asked the question they balk and walk the other way. The only answer they ever have is 'more'.


This is just basic stuff. But I'm glad that you finally acknowledge the gross levels inequality has reached in this country and the destabilizing effects this has for democracy.

I don't acknowledge any 'gross levels' of inequality, although I do think that some people have done things that should put them in jail (both in the corporate world and the federal government). I also think that people who think like you encourage 'destabalizing' effects by promoting class warfare. Your kind will never be satisfied with equal opportunity, only equal outcomes - and the only way to get that is to take it by force using government.


This is from the same author you cited who puts the Japanese mistake not in fiscal stimulus but in a tax hike, which Keynes would oppose while still in a recession.

Isnt' that exactly what the progressives and the OWS crowd is clamoring for right now? Tax hikes on the evil 1%! The rich aren't paying thier fair share! Lets' get them!


Right everyone agrees the recession would have been worse but you claim without evidence it would have been shorter.

Not only do I think it would have been shorter but I think that it wouldn't have had any of the collateral damage that you are creating. S. Korea had a recession in the late 90's that was very brief and had a remarkable recovery. Austrians point to the fact that it was because the government remained hands-off more or less. I have to invetigate this more for details but I recall having read this. In the meanwhile you can chew on this:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/10/news/economy/keynes_economics_europe.fortune/index.htm



Ah, but the data DO show that. I know it irks you because you're relying on emotions not evidence but the stimulus averted disaster, saved 2 million jobs, provided a x2 multiplier back to GDP for what we spent and we desperately need more of it as most economists agree.

You just make up bollocks don't you? 'Averted disaster', saved 2 million jobs.....the nutty 'x2' multiplier.........lol.


Again this comes down to different goals, you want to bankrupt the country and I don't.

Ummm.... how can I be the one who wants to bankrupt the country when YOU'RE the one who wants to spend all of the borrowed money? I don't want to bankrupt the country! I don't want to spend the money! YOU are the one who wants to bankrupt the country because you won't stop spending money even though you have NOTHING in the way of a plan that cuts spending and pays down the debt. YOU are the one that wants bankruptcy, I just want to watch you do it so I can laugh at you and all the misery and despair you cause in the process. Oh and make no mistake - you will win. Your policies will become reality becaue I think you will be able to subvert most Americans into thinking that they should never accept cuts in social programs even though you will never find a way to pay for them. Americans are stupid and most of them will vote for your hand-out packages and loot and riot in the street as you stoke the flames of discord and class warfare. Fuck it. I've got an AR-15 and lots of ammo. Let's GIT-R-DONE!

[hard4janira]

Votes certainly aren't equal in weight. As a voter in NY my vote counts much less than someone in a battleground state like Ohio. The marginal impact of a New Yorker's vote is quite low in comparison. Not only are votes unequal, but some residents are more represented than others. If NY has like 20 million people and Montana has only 1 million but each state gets 2 Senators, the citizens of Montana are much MORE represented in Congress than New Yorkers are. The Grand Bargain is a bitch if you're from a populous state.

Oh and btw Gore won Florida.

But what about all of the seats in the House that NY gets because of the population? Montana doesn't get that many seats. You're argument is absurd. Plus, you make the assumption that 2 Sentators from Montana would vote differently than 2 senators from New York. They may in 2012, but this is simply coincidence. What about the 2 senators from Hawaii? They would balance out the 2 from Montana easily. The Senate was never intended to represent population distributions - the house is. Your argument fails here on the facts as does the rest of your blather.

[hard4janira]

Had they counted all the ballots Gore would have been president.

This is just a blatant lie. Bush won the recount in Florida and actually picked up more votes on the recount (which was thrown out anyway)

The results of the study showed that had the limited county by county recounts requested by the Gore team been completed, Bush would still have been the winner of the election. However, the study also showed that the result of a statewide recount of all disputed ballots could have been different. The study was unable to review the ballots in Broward and Volusia that were counted as legal votes during the manual recounts thus analysis included those figures that were obtained using very loose standards in its calculations. Since these recounts resulted in a sizable net gain for Gore (665 net Gore votes) they have no bearing on the assessment that Bush would likely have won the recounts requested by Gore and ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. They do however play a major role in the assessment that Gore could have won a recount of the entire state if overvotes were taken into account. Without these votes Gore would have lost a recount of the entire state even with all overvotes added in. Unless 495 or more of those votes were actual votes then Gore still would lose. Note these figures also do not take into account a dispute over 500 asbentee ballots that Bush requested to be added to the certified totals. If found to be legal votes that would put Gore totally out of reach regardless of any manual recount standard.The results of the study showed that had the limited county by county recounts requested by the Gore team been completed, Bush would still have been the winner of the election. However, the study also showed that the result of a statewide recount of all disputed ballots could have been different. The study was unable to review the ballots in Broward and Volusia that were counted as legal votes during the manual recounts thus analysis included those figures that were obtained using very loose standards in its calculations. Since these recounts resulted in a sizable net gain for Gore (665 net Gore votes) they have no bearing on the assessment that Bush would likely have won the recounts requested by Gore and ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. They do however play a major role in the assessment that Gore could have won a recount of the entire state if overvotes were taken into account. Without these votes Gore would have lost a recount of the entire state even with all overvotes added in. Unless 495 or more of those votes were actual votes then Gore still would lose. Note these figures also do not take into account a dispute over 500 asbentee ballots that Bush requested to be added to the certified totals. If found to be legal votes that would put Gore totally out of reach regardless of any manual recount standard.

Al Gore was a LOSER by any standard you want to come up with, but it tickles me pink that some people are still bitter about it 10 years after the fact! Hey, I'm not a big fan of 'dubbya', but I'm sure as hell glad that Al Gore lost so he could spend the next decade lying to world about global warming.

[Silcc69]

This is just a blatant lie. Bush won the recount in Florida and actually picked up more votes on the recount (which was thrown out anyway)

The results of the study showed that had the limited county by county recounts requested by the Gore team been completed, Bush would still have been the winner of the election. However, the study also showed that the result of a statewide recount of all disputed ballots could have been different. The study was unable to review the ballots in Broward and Volusia that were counted as legal votes during the manual recounts thus analysis included those figures that were obtained using very loose standards in its calculations. Since these recounts resulted in a sizable net gain for Gore (665 net Gore votes) they have no bearing on the assessment that Bush would likely have won the recounts requested by Gore and ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. They do however play a major role in the assessment that Gore could have won a recount of the entire state if overvotes were taken into account. Without these votes Gore would have lost a recount of the entire state even with all overvotes added in. Unless 495 or more of those votes were actual votes then Gore still would lose. Note these figures also do not take into account a dispute over 500 asbentee ballots that Bush requested to be added to the certified totals. If found to be legal votes that would put Gore totally out of reach regardless of any manual recount standard.The results of the study showed that had the limited county by county recounts requested by the Gore team been completed, Bush would still have been the winner of the election. However, the study also showed that the result of a statewide recount of all disputed ballots could have been different. The study was unable to review the ballots in Broward and Volusia that were counted as legal votes during the manual recounts thus analysis included those figures that were obtained using very loose standards in its calculations. Since these recounts resulted in a sizable net gain for Gore (665 net Gore votes) they have no bearing on the assessment that Bush would likely have won the recounts requested by Gore and ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. They do however play a major role in the assessment that Gore could have won a recount of the entire state if overvotes were taken into account. Without these votes Gore would have lost a recount of the entire state even with all overvotes added in. Unless 495 or more of those votes were actual votes then Gore still would lose. Note these figures also do not take into account a dispute over 500 asbentee ballots that Bush requested to be added to the certified totals. If found to be legal votes that would put Gore totally out of reach regardless of any manual recount standard.

Al Gore was a LOSER by any standard you want to come up with, but it tickles me pink that some people are still bitter about it 10 years after the fact! Hey, I'm not a big fan of 'dubbya', but I'm sure as hell glad that Al Gore lost so he could spend the next decade lying to world about global warming.

Yes having Dubya lie about WMD was a helluva lot better.

[BluegrassCat]

But what about all of the seats in the House that NY gets because of the population? Montana doesn't get that many seats. You're argument is absurd. Plus, you make the assumption that 2 Sentators from Montana would vote differently than 2 senators from New York. They may in 2012, but this is simply coincidence. What about the 2 senators from Hawaii? They would balance out the 2 from Montana easily. The Senate was never intended to represent population distributions - the house is. Your argument fails here on the facts as does the rest of your blather.

I'm concerned about your lack of civics knowledge. You're getting less sensible and more antagonistic the more you post. It's sad you don't understand this but let me try to help you. See, there are 50 states and each state gets 2 senators for a total of 100 Senators. Still with me? Now each senator has the ability to hold up business indefinitely in the Senate if he or she were to decide to do so. Remember Jim Bunning a few years back? Now each state has 2 of these powerful people who can stop business in one of the two houses of Congress. Even if every Representative from a particular state would act together they would never approach this amount of negative power. This is why people in less populous states are MORE represented. This is introductory political science. Try not being an ideologue for a second and start worrying about reality.

[BluegrassCat]

This is just a blatant lie. Bush won the recount in Florida and actually picked up more votes on the recount (which was thrown out anyway)

The results of the study showed that had the limited county by county recounts requested by the Gore team been completed, Bush would still have been the winner of the election. However, the study also showed that the result of a statewide recount of all disputed ballots could have been different. The study was unable to review the ballots in Broward and Volusia that were counted as legal votes during the manual recounts thus analysis included those figures that were obtained using very loose standards in its calculations. Since these recounts resulted in a sizable net gain for Gore (665 net Gore votes) they have no bearing on the assessment that Bush would likely have won the recounts requested by Gore and ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. They do however play a major role in the assessment that Gore could have won a recount of the entire state if overvotes were taken into account. Without these votes Gore would have lost a recount of the entire state even with all overvotes added in. Unless 495 or more of those votes were actual votes then Gore still would lose. Note these figures also do not take into account a dispute over 500 asbentee ballots that Bush requested to be added to the certified totals. If found to be legal votes that would put Gore totally out of reach regardless of any manual recount standard.The results of the study showed that had the limited county by county recounts requested by the Gore team been completed, Bush would still have been the winner of the election. However, the study also showed that the result of a statewide recount of all disputed ballots could have been different. The study was unable to review the ballots in Broward and Volusia that were counted as legal votes during the manual recounts thus analysis included those figures that were obtained using very loose standards in its calculations. Since these recounts resulted in a sizable net gain for Gore (665 net Gore votes) they have no bearing on the assessment that Bush would likely have won the recounts requested by Gore and ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. They do however play a major role in the assessment that Gore could have won a recount of the entire state if overvotes were taken into account. Without these votes Gore would have lost a recount of the entire state even with all overvotes added in. Unless 495 or more of those votes were actual votes then Gore still would lose. Note these figures also do not take into account a dispute over 500 asbentee ballots that Bush requested to be added to the certified totals. If found to be legal votes that would put Gore totally out of reach regardless of any manual recount standard.

Al Gore was a LOSER by any standard you want to come up with, but it tickles me pink that some people are still bitter about it 10 years after the fact! Hey, I'm not a big fan of 'dubbya', but I'm sure as hell glad that Al Gore lost so he could spend the next decade lying to world about global warming.

Even the article that you copy and pasted (twice) admits that Gore wins if all the ballots are counted. Get your head out of your ass.

[hard4janira]

I'm concerned about your lack of civics knowledge. You're getting less sensible and more antagonistic the more you post. It's sad you don't understand this but let me try to help you. See, there are 50 states and each state gets 2 senators for a total of 100 Senators. Still with me? Now each senator has the ability to hold up business indefinitely in the Senate if he or she were to decide to do so. Remember Jim Bunning a few years back? Now each state has 2 of these powerful people who can stop business in one of the two houses of Congress. Even if every Representative from a particular state would act together they would never approach this amount of negative power. This is why people in less populous states are MORE represented. This is introductory political science. Try not being an ideologue for a second and start worrying about reality.

Are you talking about a filibuster or Senate holds? If you're talking about holds then it isn't so much an individual move as it is a 'party' move, because you need leadership to agree to it. But still, you automatically asume that Montana Senators and New York senators are at odds, a contention that I disagree with. A senator from California could do the same thing to you, but you don't imagine that as a possibility because you think alike politically.

[hard4janira]

Even the article that you copy and pasted (twice) admits that Gore wins if all the ballots are counted. Get your head out of your ass.

Oh lord, read the last sentance you fucking dummy.

[BluegrassCat]

No, I made a very important point.


So your point was that you agreed with me. Took you a while to get there.



What would make you happy? Give me something in quantitative terms that you could be happy with. Hell, the progressives can't even come up with a fair number to tax the rich. Every time they are asked the question they balk and walk the other way. The only answer they ever have is 'more'.


I would be happy with the current rates if they weren't riddled with loopholes. But there is no absolute moral tax rate for the rich. It depends upon the economy and the level of inequality.




I don't acknowledge any 'gross levels' of inequality,


So you don't recognize that inequality has reached levels unseen since the Gilded Age? It wouldn't surprise me, you deny most other inconvenient facts.



Isnt' that exactly what the progressives and the OWS crowd is clamoring for right now? Tax hikes on the evil 1%! The rich aren't paying thier fair share! Lets' get them!


Taxes should be higher on the top earners, once the economy has recovered. Raising taxes during a slump is your contractionary game, not mine.




You just make up bollocks don't you? 'Averted disaster', saved 2 million jobs.....the nutty 'x2' multiplier.........lol.

It's not my fault you don't read and it's not my job to educate you. The numbers are real and easily verified. Google is your friend.




Ummm.... how can I be the one who wants to bankrupt the country when YOU'RE the one who wants to spend all of the borrowed money? I don't want to bankrupt the country!

Ahem.


I honestly hope that the US goes bankrupt one day !

Maybe you've changed your mind, I hope you have. It was a terrible goal, but at least your policies fit that goal. My goal remains the same: grow the economy, shrink unemployment, expand the middle class and the policies I espouse are backed by the best available evidence. Your position is backed only by your own fury and sense of indignation.

[BluegrassCat]

But still, you automatically asume that Montana Senators and New York senators are at odds, a contention that I disagree with. A senator from California could do the same thing to you, but you don't imagine that as a possibility because you think alike politically.

No, you dummy I don't assume that. YOU assume that. Good grief, think before you type.

[hard4janira]

Well BluegrassCat, I think we are finished here. I certainly am. I don't care to further any of this conversation. You may have the last word (I'm sure that it is very important to you).

[BluegrassCat]

Knock off the partisan hackery. Gore won by the tens of thousands of ballots.

"Using ballot-level data from the NORC Florida ballots project and ballot-image files, I argue that overvoted ballots in the 2000 presidential election in Florida included more than 50,000 votes that were intended to go to either Bush or Gore but instead were discarded. This was primarily due to defective election administration in the state, especially the failure to use a system to warn each voter when too many marks were on a ballot and allow the voter to make corrections. If the best type of vote tabulation system used in Florida in 2000—precinct-tabulated optical scan ballots—had been used everywhere in the state, Gore would have won by more than 30,000 votes. Florida's election experience points to the need to gather ballot-level data to evaluate the success of election reform efforts now underway in much of the United States"

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=563534E37E9957EBC5C69C9 D1C4EA62A.journals?fromPage=online&aid=246603

[Stavros]

It is a bit off kilter, but it occurred to me at the time that it would make sense for US voters to have a completely separate ballot paper for the Presidency, maybe even a diffierent colour, rather than have those weird looking ballot papers that look like lottery cards or a list of special offers from WalMart-I understand you have local country and state posts to vote for, but to put the whole lot on one ballot paper seems excessive to me -and it would, presumably, make counting the vote easier and more efficient.

Incidentally, here in the UK, we are given one small sheet of paper on which the candidates names and addresses and political affiliation are printed; and there is a pencil in the booth which we use to mark our preference with an X. We then fold up the ballot paper and put it in a black box.

[Silcc69]

It would be nice if we could have online voting. But for some reason we haven't even gotten there and I don't we will ever get there. Which is highly ironic given the technical advances of these days.

[needsum]

Yes having Dubya lie about WMD was a helluva lot better.


I hate to step in on this, but ever time I See this I can't help but comment. WHy s it that the Clintons, the Gores, The Kerry's and all the rest of the "Do gooders"of the 1990's said, emphatcally I might add, that they were SURE Saddham had WMDs and was a direct threat, and something needed to be done about it? I went on snopes asnd found that all those quotes floating around in those email chain-thingys were real. They all said it--Bush was not the first or only one to say he had WMDs, but he was the one to go after them. We gave them (the IRaqi's) 13 months to hide/destroy their stuff before we went in with inspectors, so nobody can sit back and say outright that "Bush Lied." The whole thing was one big clusterfuck, from both sides.

Having said that,I'm not defending him, rather, what I AM doing is trying to disspell that fucking phrase. I hate it. Seems like the only thing that the clinton administration DIDNT get away with is Ol Bill getting his dick sucked in secret. Everything else they said and did seemed to be pure gold (unless of course you're the fat-assed Rush Limbaugh... lol) In the era of "political correctness" all they had to do was sound concerned and it felt like things were being handled.

[BluegrassCat]

It would be nice if we could have online voting. But for some reason we haven't even gotten there and I don't we will ever get there. Which is highly ironic given the technical advances of these days.

It would be nice but there needs to be a paper trail.

[BluegrassCat]

I hate to step in on this, but ever time I See this I can't help but comment. WHy s it that the Clintons, the Gores, The Kerry's and all the rest of the "Do gooders"of the 1990's said, emphatcally I might add, that they were SURE Saddham had WMDs and was a direct threat, and something needed to be done about it? I went on snopes asnd found that all those quotes floating around in those email chain-thingys were real. They all said it--Bush was not the first or only one to say he had WMDs, but he was the one to go after them. We gave them (the IRaqi's) 13 months to hide/destroy their stuff before we went in with inspectors, so nobody can sit back and say outright that "Bush Lied." The whole thing was one big clusterfuck, from both sides.

Having said that,I'm not defending him, rather, what I AM doing is trying to disspell that fucking phrase. I hate it. Seems like the only thing that the clinton administration DIDNT get away with is Ol Bill getting his dick sucked in secret. Everything else they said and did seemed to be pure gold (unless of course you're the fat-assed Rush Limbaugh... lol) In the era of "political correctness" all they had to do was sound concerned and it felt like things were being handled.

I think there is a case that he and his administration lied about the nuclear capabilities of Iraq, something that was controversial, as opposed to the chemical weapons that we knew Iraq had at one point. When he asserted Iraq had sought uranium from Africa and acquired tubes for making a nuclear bomb we have to guess about what he knew and when he knew it. While both assertions were false, there is a case that Bush believed the uranium claim but the tubes claim was known to be false by his administration when he said it. So maybe proving that he lied is impossible but he certainly said things that were untrue at a time when some in his administration knew they were untrue.

[hippifried]

Ahhhh! We're back to arguing Bush v Gore & WMDs in Iraq. Almost as good as the fight over whether capitalism or socialism would have helpe man discover fire sooner.

[BluegrassCat]

Ahhhh! We're back to arguing Bush v Gore & WMDs in Iraq. Almost as good as the fight over whether capitalism or socialism would have helpe man discover fire sooner.

I think at that point, all we had was socialism.

[MrF]

Here's my summary of the current political stalemate. It's a bit simplistic, but fits a short-post format like this.

There are the "haves" and the "have-nots".

The have-nots clamor for more of what they don't have : more health insurance, more financial assistance, more unemployment benefits, more social security benefits, etc. Meanwhile, the haves pay the bill (taxes).

Politically, the have-nots are powerful because they are numerous, while the haves pull the purse strings that pay for elections. Groups like "Americans for Tax Reform", which are financed by the haves, are very powerful. In the case of ATR, they require congressmen to pledge that they will not raise taxes. A very simple pledge that is easy to enforce. And if the congressman breaks the pledge, the ATR heavily funds someone who will follow the pledge.

The equilibrium (i.e. stalemate) is achieved thusly: For whatever political fervor the have-nots muster, the haves will match by spending exactly enough to counter-act it, through campaign contributions, advertising, and propoganda. The danger for the haves is that, through democracy, the have-nots could effectively steal what they have.

I'm not saying it's good or bad, just trying to explain how it works.

[Ben]

Occupy Wall Street: Leaked Memo, Banks Plan Attack - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDiQb0K0TXk&feature=channel_video_title)

[beandip]

The best way to rob a bank is to own one.

Oh yea, fuck you and your "gun control".

Gun control is being able to hit what you're aiming at asshole.

[beandip]

Ahhhh! We're back to arguing Bush v Gore & WMDs in Iraq. Almost as good as the fight over whether capitalism or socialism would have helpe man discover fire sooner.

More wisdom from the moron who said Credit Default Swaps and CDO's were "no big deal" three years ago.

Funny that.

You won't be thinking that when Europe tanks, dumb-ass.

[Yvonne183]

Nothing much will come from these protests. Yea,, there will be some kind of window dressing and some leaders of the movement will get good jobs on Wall street but for the most part things will remain the same. Because most revolutions need the masses to be starving in order for real change to occur and people owning ipods, iphones and computers aren't starving.

If the protesters feel that the fed is being controlled by big money then they should do some learning. I understand that history isn't a hot subject in schools anymore but the protesters should learn from history on how to control the gov't to their needs. Just look back to the Tammany Hall Machine of old NYC. Although they were corrupt as hell, one can learn from them in how to use the vote to control the gov't for themselves.

What is lacking from the protest movement and I think the same can be said with unions as well, and that is they rely on democrats and maybe in some way republican parties for leadership. They try and make democrats and republicans do their bidding when a better way would be to put one of your own kind in power. They hope that change can come from the usual suspects that infest the fed gov't.

I know what I say is a bit confusing but what I am trying to say is the protesters(and unions) should not align with any party, instead use their numbers to elect one of their own. Don't rely on a democrat to make change, do it for yourself.

[Silcc69]

Nothing much will come from these protests. Yea,, there will be some kind of window dressing and some leaders of the movement will get good jobs on Wall street but for the most part things will remain the same. Because most revolutions need the masses to be starving in order for real change to occur and people owning ipods, iphones and computers aren't starving.

If the protesters feel that the fed is being controlled by big money then they should do some learning. I understand that history isn't a hot subject in schools anymore but the protesters should learn from history on how to control the gov't to their needs. Just look back to the Tammany Hall Machine of old NYC. Although they were corrupt as hell, one can learn from them in how to use the vote to control the gov't for themselves.

What is lacking from the protest movement and I think the same can be said with unions as well, and that is they rely on democrats and maybe in some way republican parties for leadership. They try and make democrats and republicans do their bidding when a better way would be to put one of your own kind in power. They hope that change can come from the usual suspects that infest the fed gov't.

I know what I say is a bit confusing but what I am trying to say is the protesters(and unions) should not align with any party, instead use their numbers to elect one of their own. Don't rely on a democrat to make change, do it for yourself.

They have been trying to get Ron Paul in there for years but he hasn't had much success. Democrats and the Republicans got this shit on lock plus they have media in there pockets. You'd think with congress being at an all time people would wake up and support a 3rd party candidate. But they will either vote the status quo or stay home.

[Stavros]

Nothing much will come from these protests. Yea,, there will be some kind of window dressing and some leaders of the movement will get good jobs on Wall street but for the most part things will remain the same. Because most revolutions need the masses to be starving in order for real change to occur and people owning ipods, iphones and computers aren't starving.

If the protesters feel that the fed is being controlled by big money then they should do some learning. I understand that history isn't a hot subject in schools anymore but the protesters should learn from history on how to control the gov't to their needs. Just look back to the Tammany Hall Machine of old NYC. Although they were corrupt as hell, one can learn from them in how to use the vote to control the gov't for themselves.

What is lacking from the protest movement and I think the same can be said with unions as well, and that is they rely on democrats and maybe in some way republican parties for leadership. They try and make democrats and republicans do their bidding when a better way would be to put one of your own kind in power. They hope that change can come from the usual suspects that infest the fed gov't.

I know what I say is a bit confusing but what I am trying to say is the protesters(and unions) should not align with any party, instead use their numbers to elect one of their own. Don't rely on a democrat to make change, do it for yourself.

It is not confusing, Yvonne, its the fact that you have created a two-party system that controls central and state governments, and it has proven impossible to break or replace over many decades. New parties tend not to emerge and gain political power in established democracies, even in the case of Italy where the party system collapsed after the Cold War, the remnants re-grouped under different names, even Berlusconi's vehicle was in effect a resurrection of the Christian Democrats. What this means is that change, if it ever happens, happens at the margins rather than at the core. That is why some people, when they realise they can't beat the system, decide to join it. I was once even told by someone offering an excuse for this sideways step from radical street protest to the corridors of power -I can't change things out here, but I can in there. Last I heard he gave up on politics altogether. The USA would have to fall apart in a new civil war before the system is changed. Assuming that works...

[hippifried]

More wisdom from the moron who said Credit Default Swaps and CDO's were "no big deal" three years ago.

Funny that.

You won't be thinking that when Europe tanks, dumb-ass.
LIAR!
If you can find it, quote it. You won't because it didn't happen.
You're confused & don't know what tou're talking about.

[El Nino]

My threads

[Ben]

November 23, 2011, 2:32 pm

Fatalism and the American Dream

By CATHERINE RAMPELL (http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/author/catherine-rampell/)http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/09/11/business/catherine.50.jpg[/URL]

Dollars to doughnuts.


[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/opinion/blow-decline-of-american-exceptionalism.html"]Two (http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/author/catherine-rampell/)of (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/exceptionalism-argument-may-prove-potent-for-republicans/) my colleagues have alluded to a recent Pew Research Center report (http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2011/11/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Values-Report-FINAL-November-17-2011-10AM-EST.pdf) on American exceptionalism, paying particular attention to the fact that Americans are more likely to say their culture is superior to others than are people in Germany, Spain, Britain or France.
One finding of the report that received little attention, however, was about cultural attitudes toward success. Of the five nationalities polled, Americans were least likely to believe that success in life was determined by forces outside our control.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/11/23/business/economy/economix-23success/economix-23success-custom1.jpg
Just 36 percent of Americans believe in this fatalistic statement, while the vast majority of their compatriots are greater believers in self-determination. Put another way, Americans are (not surprisingly) more likely to believe in the American dream.
Americans with less education are more fatalistic, however. The study found that 22 percent of college graduates believe they have little control over their fate, compared to 41 percent of Americans without a college degree.
Even so, American nongraduates still seem to think they have more control over their destinies than the average German, Frenchman or Spaniard does. Almost three-quarters of Germans, for example, believe that success is determined by factors outside our control.
These findings are particularly interesting when juxtaposed with a separate report (http://www.economicmobility.org/assets/pdfs/CRITA_FINAL.pdf) from the Pew Economic Mobility project. That report, which examined economic and social mobility in 10 Western countries, found that Americans actually appear to have less control over their success in life than their counterparts do.
In particular, the educational attainment of a person’s parents — a factor usually determined before that person’s birth — seems to matter more for mobility in the United States.
“There is a stronger link between parental education and children’s economic, educational and socio-emotional outcomes than in any other country investigated,” the report says.
As Richard Wilkinson suggested in a recent TED Talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html), if you want to live the American dream — and have greater control over your own likelihood of success — you should probably move to Denmark, where the poor have a better chance of moving up in the world.

[Ben]

To the left of President Obama a female in a purplish top is clapping at the 26 second mark... ha ha! Supporting the protesters.

Mic Check Obama - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0Jmqo1yQag)

[Yvonne183]

Maybe this isn't occupy related but it might make some sense.

Any alternative political group can control the US gov't, they don't need to be dems or repubs and they don't even need a majority to do so.

The congress and especially the senate are so tightly woven between dems and repubs that if a small group takes only 5 or senate seats would rule the country. Because both parties vote along party lines and because there is almost an even number of dems and repubs that this group of 5 senators would swing their vote in any way that pleases them. If they agree with a democrat position, they could swing their vote towards the dems and vise verca. So in effect they would control congress cause neither dems or repubs would get anything past without these swing votes, that is unless the dems and repubs agree and don't need their swing vote,, that day will be the same day Satan goes ice skating.

I think this is what is wrong with alternative political parties here in the US. They seem to think they need a majority in order to have a say. But I think they could rule if they have just enough votes to swing a policy which way they want. Of course the Pres can veto things but he/she can't veto everything. People got to learn how to use the system. Protesting is cute,, but if one learns the system they can tweek it to work for them without coming out like cry babies. If the big business and banks can do, it then so can anyone, brains aren't limited just for the rich.

[Stavros]

In this country, an MP who has been a member of say, the Conservative Party, and elected as such, can change if he wants to, just by saying: As of today I shall sit in Parliament as an Independent -usually such people join one of the other Parties -Churchill was a Liberal MP until the Liberal Party was sent into the wilderness when the Labour Party became so popular -so Churchill joined the Conservatives (many of whom loathed him and regarded him as a political opportunist, which he was). People argue if an MP changes party he should put it to a new vote, but they rarely do -MP's in the UK are elected to represent a place, not people or party, legally speaking. After all, there used to be 'rotten boroughs' in the 19th century where MP's were elected from constituencies where there were maybe two residents.

Can it happen in the USA? Eg, could like-minded Democrats and Republicans form a new party in the House after an election? Could the President form a new party with supporters in the Senate and House after an election, and without seeking new elections? I don't know.

[onmyknees]

In this country, an MP who has been a member of say, the Conservative Party, and elected as such, can change if he wants to, just by saying: As of today I shall sit in Parliament as an Independent -usually such people join one of the other Parties -Churchill was a Liberal MP until the Liberal Party was sent into the wilderness when the Labour Party became so popular -so Churchill joined the Conservatives (many of whom loathed him and regarded him as a political opportunist, which he was). People argue if an MP changes party he should put it to a new vote, but they rarely do -MP's in the UK are elected to represent a place, not people or party, legally speaking. After all, there used to be 'rotten boroughs' in the 19th century where MP's were elected from constituencies where there were maybe two residents.

Can it happen in the USA? Eg, could like-minded Democrats and Republicans form a new party in the House after an election? Could the President form a new party with supporters in the Senate and House after an election, and without seeking new elections? I don't know.


I'm not entirely sure of the Constitutionally of it, but it's highly unlikely. Members of Congress do switch political parties on occasion, which to me is a odd. If you're going to switch parties because of ideological concerns, do it prior to the election. What you're suggesting sounds more like a non violent coup. There has always from time to time been a moderately successful 3rd party presidential contender, Ross Perot being the latest, but here's the problem. Independents tend to be "moderate" and squishy and lack the ideological conviction that most voters look for. And the mechanisms ( money) always flows to the 2 parties and an independent or 3rd party candidate will never be able to mount a serious threat without that. Obama will raise a billion dollars for his 2012 run and it's largely about the money. The US can be governed by the current 2 party political system because that framework has allowed it to be the greatest experiment of individual freedoms and force for good the world has seen....but what's lacking is leaders. People follow leaders....not vice versa. Southern Democrats set their party affiliation aside and voted for Reagan twice, moderate Republicans liked Clinton's move to the middle and voted for him twice, but those individuals were skilled politicians and the understood and read the electorate. The current occupant does not possess those skills, and has not been able to transition from campaigning to actually governing a country as diverse as the US. So while the 2 party system presents huge monetary and ideological challenges, it can and has been managed.

[Ben]

Hartmann: Police Ray Lewis arrested at OWS has some advice - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwtdfB6YcOw&feature=channel_video_title)

[Dino Velvet]

Are the occupyers gonna occupy a place in line at the stores for Black Friday like the rest of us planning on occupying our carts with all those great bargains while having stomachs still occupied with turkey and dressing?

[Ben]

Are the occupyers gonna occupy a place in line at the stores for Black Friday like the rest of us planning on occupying our carts with all those great bargains while having stomachs still occupied with turkey and dressing?

Or: Occupy the Hi-Way.... Or what about occupying Ashley George's ass -- ha ha ha! :)

Hartmann: Occupy the Highway - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eQrJIEPUPE&feature=related)

[Dino Velvet]

Or: Occupy the Hi-Way.... Or what about occupying Ashley George's ass -- ha ha ha! :)

Hartmann: Occupy the Highway - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eQrJIEPUPE&feature=related)

Thanks Ben for that. You know how pathetically weak I am for Ashley.

Happy Thanksgiving, buddy! :cheers:

[Stavros]

I'm not entirely sure of the Constitutionally of it, but it's highly unlikely. Members of Congress do switch political parties on occasion, which to me is a odd. If you're going to switch parties because of ideological concerns, do it prior to the election. What you're suggesting sounds more like a non violent coup. There has always from time to time been a moderately successful 3rd party presidential contender, Ross Perot being the latest, but here's the problem. Independents tend to be "moderate" and squishy and lack the ideological conviction that most voters look for. And the mechanisms ( money) always flows to the 2 parties and an independent or 3rd party candidate will never be able to mount a serious threat without that. Obama will raise a billion dollars for his 2012 run and it's largely about the money. The US can be governed by the current 2 party political system because that framework has allowed it to be the greatest experiment of individual freedoms and force for good the world has seen....but what's lacking is leaders. People follow leaders....not vice versa. Southern Democrats set their party affiliation aside and voted for Reagan twice, moderate Republicans liked Clinton's move to the middle and voted for him twice, but those individuals were skilled politicians and the understood and read the electorate. The current occupant does not possess those skills, and has not been able to transition from campaigning to actually governing a country as diverse as the US. So while the 2 party system presents huge monetary and ideological challenges, it can and has been managed.

Thanks for this, but perhaps another reason is that there are some people who don't see a huge differencebe between the two main parties; as in the UK after the Cold War, it seems to appear on policy issues rather than overall ideology, although I don't know if many parties have a coherent ideology these days. Looks like your stuck with it anyway.

For anyone who is interested in Frank Miller's savage attack on the OWS protestors, there is an over-the-top anti-Miller diatribe in today's Guardian, and someone posted a link to a blog by Brin that comprehensively trashes the pseudo-history behind 300 -apart from Sin City the film I don't know who Miller is.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/nov/24/frank-miller-hollywood-fascism

http://davidbrin.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/move-over-frank-miller-or-why-the-occupy-wall-street-kids-are-better-than-spartans/

[onmyknees]

Thanks for this, but perhaps another reason is that there are some people who don't see a huge differencebe between the two main parties; as in the UK after the Cold War, it seems to appear on policy issues rather than overall ideology, although I don't know if many parties have a coherent ideology these days. Looks like your stuck with it anyway.

For anyone who is interested in Frank Miller's savage attack on the OWS protestors, there is an over-the-top anti-Miller diatribe in today's Guardian, and someone posted a link to a blog by Brin that comprehensively trashes the pseudo-history behind 300 -apart from Sin City the film I don't know who Miller is.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/nov/24/frank-miller-hollywood-fascism

http://davidbrin.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/move-over-frank-miller-or-why-the-occupy-wall-street-kids-are-better-than-spartans/



I hear that all the time ( no difference between the political parties) and I don't buy it for a second. While I concede that both parties ultimately act in their own self interest and preservation, and their mothers milk is money.....big money....if there were no differences in political parties we wouldn't have the gridlock we current have with the super committee or the debt commission. or the stalemate on illegal immigration, or Obama care or the debt ceiling or taxes or abortion or how and what to cut from the budget. There's a huge difference. As you well know....this is not a parliamentary system, and most folks like divided government.....when it works. lol I think it's accurate to say there's ultimately not a huge difference in politicians, they're by in large all whores selling themselves, but there certainly is a difference in philosophy, and that's what elections are about...choosing sides.

With respect to Mr. Miller........I need more time to contemplate his writings, but it might be no more complex than this.....I have a good friend working on the Batman set ( and others) in the Wall Street area where scenes are currently being filmed. The delays by the unruly and unpredictable protestors have cost millions in lost time and wages and production over runs. Shooting was halted for weeks, and at one point both the set crews and the actors begged NYFD to turn the hoses on the Woodstock like encampment and wash it all away! Perhaps Mr. Miller's rant is more about money that philosophy?

[Stavros]

I think you are right, onmyknees, and the explanation for the splenetic outburst of Senor Miller also sounds right; he doesn't have to be absolutely accurate in 300 anyway, creative writing should have license.

[Ben]

The Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy

The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality

by Naomi Wolf (http://www.commondreams.org/naomi-wolf)

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week (http://www.alternet.org/story/153134/caught_on_camera:_10_shockingly_violent_police_ass aults_on_occupy_protesters/). An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.
But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/nyregion/nypd-stops-reporters-with-badges-and-fists.html) that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding (http://www.cpj.org/2011/11/journalists-obstructed-from-covering-ows-protests.php). Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk."
In New York, a state supreme court justice and a New York City council member were beaten up (http://morallowground.com/2011/11/17/retired-ny-supreme-court-justice-karen-smith-roughed-up-by-cops-for-intervening-in-brutal-beating-of-occupy-protesters-mom/); in Berkeley, California, one of our greatest national poets, Robert Hass, was beaten with batons (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/21-5). The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/11/homeland-security-coordinated-18-city-police-crackdown-on-occupy-protest.html%20%5D%5Bhttp://markcrispinmiller.com/2011/11/raids-on-ows-coordinated-with-obamas-fbi-homeland-security-others/) that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on "how to suppress" Occupy protests (http://markcrispinmiller.com/2011/11/raids-on-ows-coordinated-with-obamas-fbi-homeland-security-others/).
To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first. Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalized police force, and forbids federal or militarized involvement in municipal peacekeeping.
I noticed that right-wing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo (http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/19/8896362-exclusive-lobbying-firms-memo-spells-out-plan-to-undermine-occupy-wall-street-video) that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. Message coordination of this kind is impossible without a full-court press at the top. This was clearly not simply a case of a freaked-out mayors', city-by-city municipal overreaction against mess in the parks and cranky campers. As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.
Why this massive mobilization against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? After all, protesters against the war in Iraq, Tea Party rallies and others have all proceeded without this coordinated crackdown. Is it really the camping? As I write, two hundred young people, with sleeping bags, suitcases and even folding chairs, are still camping out all night and day outside of NBC on public sidewalks – under the benevolent eye of an NYPD cop – awaiting Saturday Night Live tickets, so surely the camping is not the issue. I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response.
That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted.
The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message". Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.
The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.
No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.
When I saw this list – and especially the last agenda item – the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.
For the terrible insight to take away from news that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated a violent crackdown (http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/entry/12303/mayors_dhs_coordinated_occupy_attacks/) is that the DHS does not freelance. The DHS cannot say, on its own initiative, "we are going after these scruffy hippies". Rather, DHS is answerable up a chain of command: first, to New York Representative Peter King, head of the House homeland security subcommittee, who naturally is influenced by his fellow congressmen and women's wishes and interests. And the DHS answers directly, above King, to the president (who was conveniently in Australia at the time).
In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors, the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorize mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens.
But wait: why on earth would Congress advise violent militarized reactions against its own peaceful constituents? The answer is straightforward: in recent years, members of Congress have started entering the system as members of the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to vast personal wealth, as we see from the "scandal" of presidential contender Newt Gingrich's having been paid $1.8m for a few hours' "consulting" to special interests. The inflated fees to lawmakers who turn lobbyists are common knowledge, but the notion that congressmen and women are legislating their own companies' profitsis less widely known – and if the books were to be opened, they would surely reveal corruption on a Wall Street spectrum. Indeed, we do already know that congresspeople are massively profiting from trading on non-public information (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323221/congress-insiders-above-the-law/) they have on companies about which they are legislating – a form of insider trading that sent Martha Stewart to jail.
Since Occupy is heavily surveilled and infiltrated, it is likely that the DHS and police informers are aware, before Occupy itself is, what its emerging agenda is going to look like. If legislating away lobbyists' privileges to earn boundless fees once they are close to the legislative process, reforming the banks so they can't suck money out of fake derivatives products, and, most critically, opening the books on a system that allowed members of Congress to profit personally – and immensely – from their own legislation, are two beats away from the grasp of an electorally organized Occupy movement … well, you will call out the troops on stopping that advance.
So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organized suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not.
Sadly, Americans this week have come one step closer to being true brothers and sisters of the protesters in Tahrir Square. Like them, our own national leaders, who likely see their own personal wealth under threat from transparency and reform, are now making war upon us.

[trish]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/uc-davis-pepper-spray-incident-reveals-weakness-up-top-20111122

[jerseyboy72]

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6waBUeS4ZS8&feature=relatedWall St. has to worry about these guys showing up. Everybody is hurting in this economy.

[onmyknees]

The Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy

The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality

by Naomi Wolf (http://www.commondreams.org/naomi-wolf)

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week (http://www.alternet.org/story/153134/caught_on_camera:_10_shockingly_violent_police_ass aults_on_occupy_protesters/). An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.
But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/nyregion/nypd-stops-reporters-with-badges-and-fists.html) that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding (http://www.cpj.org/2011/11/journalists-obstructed-from-covering-ows-protests.php). Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk."
In New York, a state supreme court justice and a New York City council member were beaten up (http://morallowground.com/2011/11/17/retired-ny-supreme-court-justice-karen-smith-roughed-up-by-cops-for-intervening-in-brutal-beating-of-occupy-protesters-mom/); in Berkeley, California, one of our greatest national poets, Robert Hass, was beaten with batons (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/21-5). The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/11/homeland-security-coordinated-18-city-police-crackdown-on-occupy-protest.html%20%5D%5Bhttp://markcrispinmiller.com/2011/11/raids-on-ows-coordinated-with-obamas-fbi-homeland-security-others/) that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on "how to suppress" Occupy protests (http://markcrispinmiller.com/2011/11/raids-on-ows-coordinated-with-obamas-fbi-homeland-security-others/).
To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first. Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalized police force, and forbids federal or militarized involvement in municipal peacekeeping.
I noticed that right-wing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo (http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/19/8896362-exclusive-lobbying-firms-memo-spells-out-plan-to-undermine-occupy-wall-street-video) that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. Message coordination of this kind is impossible without a full-court press at the top. This was clearly not simply a case of a freaked-out mayors', city-by-city municipal overreaction against mess in the parks and cranky campers. As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.
Why this massive mobilization against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? After all, protesters against the war in Iraq, Tea Party rallies and others have all proceeded without this coordinated crackdown. Is it really the camping? As I write, two hundred young people, with sleeping bags, suitcases and even folding chairs, are still camping out all night and day outside of NBC on public sidewalks – under the benevolent eye of an NYPD cop – awaiting Saturday Night Live tickets, so surely the camping is not the issue. I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response.
That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted.
The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message". Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.
The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.
No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.
When I saw this list – and especially the last agenda item – the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.
For the terrible insight to take away from news that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated a violent crackdown (http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/entry/12303/mayors_dhs_coordinated_occupy_attacks/) is that the DHS does not freelance. The DHS cannot say, on its own initiative, "we are going after these scruffy hippies". Rather, DHS is answerable up a chain of command: first, to New York Representative Peter King, head of the House homeland security subcommittee, who naturally is influenced by his fellow congressmen and women's wishes and interests. And the DHS answers directly, above King, to the president (who was conveniently in Australia at the time).
In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors, the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorize mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens.
But wait: why on earth would Congress advise violent militarized reactions against its own peaceful constituents? The answer is straightforward: in recent years, members of Congress have started entering the system as members of the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to vast personal wealth, as we see from the "scandal" of presidential contender Newt Gingrich's having been paid $1.8m for a few hours' "consulting" to special interests. The inflated fees to lawmakers who turn lobbyists are common knowledge, but the notion that congressmen and women are legislating their own companies' profitsis less widely known – and if the books were to be opened, they would surely reveal corruption on a Wall Street spectrum. Indeed, we do already know that congresspeople are massively profiting from trading on non-public information (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323221/congress-insiders-above-the-law/) they have on companies about which they are legislating – a form of insider trading that sent Martha Stewart to jail.
Since Occupy is heavily surveilled and infiltrated, it is likely that the DHS and police informers are aware, before Occupy itself is, what its emerging agenda is going to look like. If legislating away lobbyists' privileges to earn boundless fees once they are close to the legislative process, reforming the banks so they can't suck money out of fake derivatives products, and, most critically, opening the books on a system that allowed members of Congress to profit personally – and immensely – from their own legislation, are two beats away from the grasp of an electorally organized Occupy movement … well, you will call out the troops on stopping that advance.
So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organized suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not.
Sadly, Americans this week have come one step closer to being true brothers and sisters of the protesters in Tahrir Square. Like them, our own national leaders, who likely see their own personal wealth under threat from transparency and reform, are now making war upon us.

Ben...Noami Wolf????? Seriously? She's notoriously anti porn Ben. If she catches you looking at pictures of Mint, she'll slap your pee-pee good. This chick is nuts !

[trish]

She's notoriously anti porn...which is not the issue.

[BluegrassCat]

The Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy

The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality

by Naomi Wolf (http://www.commondreams.org/naomi-wolf)

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week (http://www.alternet.org/story/153134/caught_on_camera:_10_shockingly_violent_police_ass aults_on_occupy_protesters/). ...
For the terrible insight to take away from news that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated a violent crackdown (http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/entry/12303/mayors_dhs_coordinated_occupy_attacks/) is that the DHS does not freelance.

While it might be true that the DHS has helped coordinate these crackdowns there isn't hard evidence as of yet and saying there is is irresponsible journalism. There's only one verified instance of the feds being involved, and that was in Occupy Portland where protestors were encroaching upon federal land. I expect better of Naomi Wolf.

[onmyknees]

which is not the issue.

of course it is....this is a porn forum. See how easy it is to conflate? You do it all the time. If it was anybody but a bat shit nutty left winger who engaged in her anti porn rantings, your g sting would be all in a knot.... That was the point Trish...you missed it.

[trish]

Yeah...right :roll:

[Tomahawkinit]

Yawn

[soul4real]

The Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy

The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality

by Naomi Wolf (http://www.commondreams.org/naomi-wolf)

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week (http://www.alternet.org/story/153134/caught_on_camera:_10_shockingly_violent_police_ass aults_on_occupy_protesters/). An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.
But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/nyregion/nypd-stops-reporters-with-badges-and-fists.html) that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding (http://www.cpj.org/2011/11/journalists-obstructed-from-covering-ows-protests.php). Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk."
In New York, a state supreme court justice and a New York City council member were beaten up (http://morallowground.com/2011/11/17/retired-ny-supreme-court-justice-karen-smith-roughed-up-by-cops-for-intervening-in-brutal-beating-of-occupy-protesters-mom/); in Berkeley, California, one of our greatest national poets, Robert Hass, was beaten with batons (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/21-5). The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/11/homeland-security-coordinated-18-city-police-crackdown-on-occupy-protest.html%20%5D%5Bhttp://markcrispinmiller.com/2011/11/raids-on-ows-coordinated-with-obamas-fbi-homeland-security-others/) that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on "how to suppress" Occupy protests (http://markcrispinmiller.com/2011/11/raids-on-ows-coordinated-with-obamas-fbi-homeland-security-others/).
To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first. Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalized police force, and forbids federal or militarized involvement in municipal peacekeeping.
I noticed that right-wing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo (http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/19/8896362-exclusive-lobbying-firms-memo-spells-out-plan-to-undermine-occupy-wall-street-video) that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. Message coordination of this kind is impossible without a full-court press at the top. This was clearly not simply a case of a freaked-out mayors', city-by-city municipal overreaction against mess in the parks and cranky campers. As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.
Why this massive mobilization against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? After all, protesters against the war in Iraq, Tea Party rallies and others have all proceeded without this coordinated crackdown. Is it really the camping? As I write, two hundred young people, with sleeping bags, suitcases and even folding chairs, are still camping out all night and day outside of NBC on public sidewalks – under the benevolent eye of an NYPD cop – awaiting Saturday Night Live tickets, so surely the camping is not the issue. I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response.
That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted.
The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message". Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.
The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.
No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.
When I saw this list – and especially the last agenda item – the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.
For the terrible insight to take away from news that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated a violent crackdown (http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/entry/12303/mayors_dhs_coordinated_occupy_attacks/) is that the DHS does not freelance. The DHS cannot say, on its own initiative, "we are going after these scruffy hippies". Rather, DHS is answerable up a chain of command: first, to New York Representative Peter King, head of the House homeland security subcommittee, who naturally is influenced by his fellow congressmen and women's wishes and interests. And the DHS answers directly, above King, to the president (who was conveniently in Australia at the time).
In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors, the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorize mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens.
But wait: why on earth would Congress advise violent militarized reactions against its own peaceful constituents? The answer is straightforward: in recent years, members of Congress have started entering the system as members of the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to vast personal wealth, as we see from the "scandal" of presidential contender Newt Gingrich's having been paid $1.8m for a few hours' "consulting" to special interests. The inflated fees to lawmakers who turn lobbyists are common knowledge, but the notion that congressmen and women are legislating their own companies' profitsis less widely known – and if the books were to be opened, they would surely reveal corruption on a Wall Street spectrum. Indeed, we do already know that congresspeople are massively profiting from trading on non-public information (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323221/congress-insiders-above-the-law/) they have on companies about which they are legislating – a form of insider trading that sent Martha Stewart to jail.
Since Occupy is heavily surveilled and infiltrated, it is likely that the DHS and police informers are aware, before Occupy itself is, what its emerging agenda is going to look like. If legislating away lobbyists' privileges to earn boundless fees once they are close to the legislative process, reforming the banks so they can't suck money out of fake derivatives products, and, most critically, opening the books on a system that allowed members of Congress to profit personally – and immensely – from their own legislation, are two beats away from the grasp of an electorally organized Occupy movement … well, you will call out the troops on stopping that advance.
So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organized suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not.
Sadly, Americans this week have come one step closer to being true brothers and sisters of the protesters in Tahrir Square. Like them, our own national leaders, who likely see their own personal wealth under threat from transparency and reform, are now making war upon us.





wonderful piece

[trish]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/opinion/krugman-things-to-tax.html

[onmyknees]

Yawn...

Another day, another crime spree for the Occupy folks.



PORTLAND -- Police have raided several Northeast Portland homes taken over by anarchists who claimed they were part of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Police were tipped off about the situation Sunday. Responding officers found that the squatters had changed the locks on the homes.
Inside they found anarchist literature, drugs and weapons, including machetes.
Photos: Anarchists take over NE Portland homes (http://www.kgw.com/news/slideshows/Photos-Anarchists-take-over-NE-Portland-homes-134591643.html?gallery=y&c=y&ref=%2Fnews%2Fslideshows)
“There's the body armor in there, the bucket of projectiles: broken up concrete, rocks,” Portland Police Sgt. Jeff McDaniel told KGW. “There was some body-armor-type stuff for someone who might want to fight the police for one of the protests.”
But he explained that most of the protesters were non-violent.
“The sad thing is they’re trying to associate themselves with the Occupy movement, which has basically been peaceful,” he said. “But this clearly shows that [the anarchists] truly want to come down there and cause problems.”
The owners of the homes asked that the addresses not be released.
Police detained one man found inside a home. He said he had lived there for a week. He was given a warning for trespassing.





Occupy Boston resident charged with threatening man with knife near South Station

http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/etaf/pointer_top.gif






By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

A man who told MBTA Transit Police he is living in the Occupy Boston encampment was arrested Sunday after he allegedly threatened to stab a man near the South Station bus terminal.
The victim, whose name was not released, told police he was standing outside the terminal around 5:20 p.m. with his girlfriend when the suspect, Christian Boucher, started “checking her out,’’ according to a transit police report.
“Hey, mommy, you free?” Boucher allegedly said to the woman. He also asked the man if his girlfriend - who is also his fiancee -- was working as a prostitute, police said. When the man told Boucher to stop harassing him and his girlfriend, Boucher allegedly pulled out a folding knife.
“According to the victim, the suspect then took out a silver knife and brandished the weapon toward him and stated he was a Latin King and was not to be messed with or he would ‘stab him up,’” according to the transit police report.
The man and woman ran to the commuter rail section of South Station and alerted a transit police officer. Police located Boucher waiting for a bus to New York City. He was arrested after the man identified him as the assailant, police said. No knife was found on Boucher at the time of his arrest.
Boucher is charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.
Following his arrest, Boucher told police he had been living in a tent at the Occupy Boston encampment in Dewey Square.

[BluegrassCat]

Yawn indeed. So homeless criminals take advantage of OWS' open boundaries therefore we shouldn't punish the corporate criminals who wrecked our economy. Makes perfect sense. :roll:

[onmyknees]

Yawn indeed. So homeless criminals take advantage of OWS' open boundaries therefore we shouldn't punish the corporate criminals who wrecked our economy. Makes perfect sense. :roll:
You need to send that concern to your buddy at the Justice Department. I'll hold my breath while you libs press Holder for indictments on Corzine, James Johnson and Franklin Raines. Gretchen Morgenstern did all the work in her book Wreckless Endangerment...all Holder has to do is open the investagation..( still waiting)
Homeless criminals? LMAO...There's been over 5000 arrests at these protests and you're here to tell me it was a couple of homeless guys gettin' in on the fun? You're delusional, and your party's over. Turn out the lights...lol

[BluegrassCat]

You need to send that concern to your buddy at the Justice Department. I'll hold my breath while you libs press Holder for indictments on Corzine, James Johnson and Franklin Raines. Gretchen Morgenstern did all the work in her book Wreckless Endangerment...all Holder has to do is open the investagation..( still waiting)
Homeless criminals? LMAO...There's been over 5000 arrests at these protests and you're here to tell me it was a couple of homeless guys gettin' in on the fun? You're delusional, and your party's over. Turn out the lights...lol

King Bubble calls me delusional, lol. I'll take that as a compliment given the twisted hate-party you call reality.

So you're conflating being arrested for civil disobedience with assault? If you don't know the difference, it's no wonder you're confused and angry about the modern world.

Look, it's clear you're too much of an ideologue to allow your precious CEO's to ever face the consequences for their actions, no matter what they've done. So you attack the movement that complains about them being above the law. Gretchenson's book was a partisan hit piece that I've already debunked in the politics section. If you care about what actually happened, try "All the Devils are Here" by McLean & Nocera.

[trish]

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/20/the_roots_of_the_uc_davis_pepper_spraying/singleton/

[onmyknees]

King Bubble calls me delusional, lol. I'll take that as a compliment given the twisted hate-party you call reality.

So you're conflating being arrested for civil disobedience with assault? If you don't know the difference, it's no wonder you're confused and angry about the modern world.

Look, it's clear you're too much of an ideologue to allow your precious CEO's to ever face the consequences for their actions, no matter what they've done. So you attack the movement that complains about them being above the law. Gretchenson's book was a partisan hit piece that I've already debunked in the politics section. If you care about what actually happened, try "All the Devils are Here" by McLean & Nocera.


Nobody's conflating anything silly boy. I gave you a stat that there have been 5000 arrests at these protests....some for serious felonies, some for drugs, lots for violence, some for rape, and some for civil disobedience. You can sort 'em out if you like.

And you....Bluegrass Cat moderately informed, and hopelessly naive poster on a porn forum debunked Ms. Morgensterns best seller that was meticulously written and footnoted? She's a columnist for the NY Times....she's a liberal and you call it a partisan hit piece? That's roll on the floor funny....You're a fool ....and a laughingstock.

And about those indictments...let me know when your ragamuffin band of anarchists, disgruntled college students and homeless bums start their march on the Justice department..I'll join in. lmao

[BluegrassCat]

Nobody's conflating anything silly boy. I gave you a stat that there have been 5000 arrests at these protests....some for serious felonies, some for drugs, lots for violence, some for rape, and some for civil disobedience. You can sort 'em out if you like.

And you....Bluegrass Cat moderately informed, and hopelessly naive poster on a porn forum debunked Ms. Morgensterns best seller that was meticulously written and footnoted? She's a columnist for the NY Times....she's a liberal and you call it a partisan hit piece? That's roll on the floor funny....You're a fool ....and a laughingstock.

And about those indictments...let me know when your ragamuffin band of anarchists, disgruntled college students and homeless bums start their march on the Justice department..I'll join in. lmao

Apparently you don't even know what the word "conflate" means, because that is exactly what you did. LOL!

It's sad and embarrassing (but not surprising) how quickly you rush to fellate (I know you know that one) the bona fides of anyone you agree with and engage in character assassination against anyone you disagree with. You never ever deal with the substance of any argument. You build up or attack the messenger, change the subject, or just make stuff up. This is the last recourse of people spoonfed talking points who don't know why they oppose or support things, they just know that they dislike certain people. So I look forward to your next post where you do anything but deal with the substantive shortcomings of Gretchen's book.

[Ben]

Exposed: Fed Bailout of Big Banks Dwarfs TARP (What Occupy Wall Street is About) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mohwrs3yp7o&feature=channel_video_title)

"26 TRILLION Dollars In Bank Bailouts! That's Not Including TARP!" Alan Grayson - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP362CWj2fo&feature=related)

Occupy Wall Street Porn: 'Occupy My Throat' - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su-AYhXgDis)

[Ben]

Alan Greenspan talks about the criminality on Wall Street. I think this might have something to do with the protests... ha ha!
And, too, if we valued and took pride in free market principles all -- I mean, ALL -- the big banks would've gone under.
Bailing out banks IS NOT free market orthodoxy. It's the antithesis.

2010-11-09 Greenspan Admission.mp4 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=731G71Sahok)

[onmyknees]

Alan Greenspan talks about the criminality on Wall Street. I think this might have something to do with the protests... ha ha!
And, too, if we valued and took pride in free market principles all -- I mean, ALL -- the big banks would've gone under.
Bailing out banks IS NOT free market orthodoxy. It's the antithesis.

2010-11-09 Greenspan Admission.mp4 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=731G71Sahok)



Ben....Maybe it's time to let this one die? I mean the bulldozers have leveled the tent cities, all the homeless losers are back panhandling. The druggies have checked back into rehab. The reactionary college professors are back in the class teaching their version of "liberal" arts, the parks have been retaken by the civilized and once again are safe for kids, pets and taxpayers. Cops are back to their normal working hours and not costing us millions in overtime. I know Blue Grass Cat and Trish are waiting for the next big wave, but it ain't coming. It's over.....unless of course they'd like to get behind what's going on out west where left over Occupy hoodlums are disrupting shipping ports? And they wonder why they lost public support. lmao

[Ben]

Exactly. We should protect and defend the criminally powerful and denigrate and hurl invective at the powerless, at the downtrodden.... It makes for a great society....

[onmyknees]

http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/12/ben-jerrys-new-flavor-hippie-hypocrite-fudge-video/#ooid=t0OGw0MzodMYunJ8zFX7VrFyeab-ExSB

Here's one for ya Ben. The lefty founder of Ben and Jerry's holding a press conference in support of OWS, and lamenting about corporations involved in politics.............While the company he founded spent a cool half million on lobbyists. You can't make this shit up !!!!!!! lmao

[trish]

I knowYou know shit, loser. Stick to politics and porn and leave what you think I think out of it. I'll tell the forum what I think and you tell the forum what YOU think.

[Los Angeles resident]

Why can't our Occupy Wall Street protesters look like them?

This group is known as FEMEN, a Ukranian women's rights group, protesting the Russian elections last Friday (Dec. 9) outside The Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.

[russtafa]

Why can't our Occupy Wall Street protesters look like them?

This group is known as FEMEN, a Ukranian women's rights group, protesting the Russian elections last Friday (Dec. 9) outside The Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.
wow i would love to arrest them:jerkoff

[Dino Velvet]

Why can't our Occupy Wall Street protesters look like them?

This group is known as FEMEN, a Ukranian women's rights group, protesting the Russian elections last Friday (Dec. 9) outside The Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.

wow i would love to debrief them. :jerkoff

[needsum]

wow i would love to debrief them. :jerkoff

I thought they were wearing panties? :dancing::dancing::dancing:

[Dino Velvet]

I thought they were wearing panties? :dancing::dancing::dancing:

That's why I debrief them then really probe for information. Even when the information is attained, the probing continues.

[onmyknees]

You know shit, loser. Stick to politics and porn and leave what you think I think out of it. I'll tell the forum what I think and you tell the forum what YOU think.

Kiss my fiscally conservative ass in the middle of now peaceful, sanitary Zucotti Park......The irony of you calling me a loser is rich. The protest you so aligned yourself with is history. Gone, because as previously stated it "lacked a brain" ...couldn't you have helped in that regard?? Stick to talking that good game of yours from the safety of your keyboard and let somebody else get pepper sprayed... Loser.

[trish]

Kiss my fiscally conservative ass in the middle of now peaceful, sanitary Zucotti Park......The irony of you calling me a loser is rich. The protest you so aligned yourself with is history. Gone, because as previously stated it "lacked a brain" ...couldn't you have helped in that regard?? Stick to talking that good game of yours from the safety of your keyboard and let somebody else get pepper sprayed... Loser.That's better (Although your post is still loaded with unfounded presumptions concerning my actions or non-actions and that's really creepy. Can you just stop obsessing about me, loser?) Speak for yourself and I'll speak for myself.

[trish]

Or maybe I just like Matt Taibbi

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/occupy-wall-street-the-squidding-of-goldman-sachs-20111213

[Ben]

Or maybe I just like Matt Taibbi

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/occupy-wall-street-the-squidding-of-goldman-sachs-20111213

Love Matt Taibbi. Thanks Trish....

[russtafa]

Kiss my fiscally conservative ass in the middle of now peaceful, sanitary Zucotti Park......The irony of you calling me a loser is rich. The protest you so aligned yourself with is history. Gone, because as previously stated it "lacked a brain" ...couldn't you have helped in that regard?? Stick to talking that good game of yours from the safety of your keyboard and let somebody else get pepper sprayed... Loser.On My Knees is a 100 per center,a very stand up guy

[BellaBellucci]

On My Knees is a 100 per center,a very stand up guy

Wait. But. I thought he was on his knees. Does. Not. Compute.

Family guy company suck up - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQhGaHTBBG8)

~BB~

[onmyknees]

That's better (Although your post is still loaded with unfounded presumptions concerning my actions or non-actions and that's really creepy. Can you just stop obsessing about me, loser?) Speak for yourself and I'll speak for myself.



Obsessing ....Presumption? Creepy? Here's one for ya......Delusional...It's a fucking post on a porn forum, loser. It's not all that significant, and you're not all that significant to me........really....Sorry to have to break it to ya. The extent of this obsession lasts about 2-3 minutes, or however long it takes to respond to one of your predictable political posts....Then it's on to the porn....It's not that I don't take what you say seriously....I don't take you seriously. Get the difference? You've taken self importance to a whole new level. And who's obsessed?

[trish]

... lasts about 2-3 minutes,...That's what all the girls have been saying about you. (Sorry but you dropped that line right out in the open. Who could resist??)

[BellaBellucci]

You've taken self importance to a whole new level. And who's obsessed?

Wow. Really?! :lol:

~BB~

[needsum]

That's what all the girls have been saying about you. (Sorry but you dropped that line right out in the open. Who could resist??)


D'oh! :yayo::yayo:

[soul4real]

Open question how do you think OWS movements will effect this election this year?

[needsum]

Open question how do you think OWS movements will effect this election this year?

I think they will polarize the two sides even more. you'll have the conservatives that will see the protestors as jobless, shiftless, lazy hipsters who are wasting everyones time, and these conservs will fiercely pull the lever to the right.

Then you'll have the screaming bloody liberals who, when they are done bastardizing the police for the cromes they've committed during the movements, will be sure to stray as far left from conservatism as possible.

Then of course you have those of us in the middle, who will be forced to shake our heads and sit and suck on the shit they are presenting us. The only people worth voting for are nowhere near the running, or even in the public eye for that matter.

[soul4real]

I think they will polarize the two sides even more. you'll have the conservatives that will see the protestors as jobless, shiftless, lazy hipsters who are wasting everyones time, and these conservs will fiercely pull the lever to the right.

Then you'll have the screaming bloody liberals who, when they are done bastardizing the police for the cromes they've committed during the movements, will be sure to stray as far left from conservatism as possible.

Then of course you have those of us in the middle, who will be forced to shake our heads and sit and suck on the shit they are presenting us. The only people worth voting for are nowhere near the running, or even in the public eye for that matter.



yeah almost in the same way republican candidates are only hurting the GOP chances at defeating Obama. Further divides just make coming together that much more far fetched.. Whats more scary is the national defense act.. i think will be used to target activists.

[needsum]

yeah almost in the same way republican candidates are only hurting the GOP chances at defeating Obama. Further divides just make coming together that much more far fetched.. Whats more scary is the national defense act.. i think will be used to target activists.

you go tthat right. one asshole is bigger thn the next. they havent got a chance.

as for the last bit, well, shit you may be right--we're bringing home a lot of troops that will have nothing to do here at home.......

[soul4real]

you go tthat right. one asshole is bigger thn the next. they havent got a chance.

as for the last bit, well, shit you may be right--we're bringing home a lot of troops that will have nothing to do here at home.......

yeah the troops are coming back getting out with ptsd and unemployed. so how will that play out

[soul4real]

Any one still continue any activists activities?

[onmyknees]

Any one still continue any activists activities?

Dead Thread?

I was in DC this weekend and there was a few left overs from the "glory" days of OWS. The cardboard shanties had collapsed in on themselves. The larger park area was returned to joggers, sun bathers, and families.. The three hold outs were moved into small area and hardly anyone noticed them . Sort of a metaphor I guess. :dancing:

[Ben]

Abby Martin, who is, well, just too beauteous. She supported Ron Paul in 2008. Because of his foreign policy positions.
She, yep, supported him. Albeit doesn't support the same outcomes as Ron Paul.
Anyway, I'm divagating....

Abby Martin's Tribute to Occupy Wall Street | Call to Action - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8Hez-7x2ZA)

[Ben]

Cecily McMillan jurors tell judge Occupy activist should not go to jail:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/cecily-mcmillan-jurors-judge-occupy-activist-jail

Occupy Wall Street on Trial: Cecily McMillan Convicted of Assaulting Cop, Faces Up to Seven Years:

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/5/6/occupy_wall_street_on_trial_cecily

[Ben]

Occupy activist Cecily McMillan sentenced to three months in jail:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/19/occupy-cecily-mcmillan-sentenced-three-months-prison