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Author Topic: Occupying Wallstreet  (Read 294732 times)

RedKing

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #825 on: October 20, 2011, 09:58:35 am »

Another survey, with stupid results.

What the fuck.
If you look at the first demographic study that SalmonGod linked, it actually discusses this one and points out a lot of the problems with it. For one, it's a dinky sample-size and it's got an inherent selection bias.
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DJ

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #826 on: October 20, 2011, 12:19:32 pm »

I support the protests and I think banks should've been bailed out. Except it shouldn't have come for free, instead the banks should've issued shares for government to buy so they can get money to stay afloat, ie the shareholders should've been punished for keeping such CEOs by losing their controlling share. Of course, prior to this emission the banks' assets should've been reviewed so they couldn't inflate their value at the time with toxic assets. As for CEOs, those that have knowingly made bad investments should do 10-30 for fraud.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2011, 12:21:11 pm by DJ »
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mainiac

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #827 on: October 20, 2011, 12:26:25 pm »

Nationalizing the banks would have been so much easier.

No mess, no liquidity problems, no lobbyists blocking sensible banking regulation reforms.  Then we could have privatized them again 5-10 years down the line and everything would have been peachy.  So much simpler then a bailout.

But no, this is America, where we make the government jump through 20 hoops in order to avoid violating the sanctity of the "free" market.  Then we wonder why the government takes forever to get anything done.
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
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DJ

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #828 on: October 20, 2011, 12:29:35 pm »

Government handouts to businesses ain't exactly "free market" in my book either.
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Urist, President has immigrated to your fortress!
Urist, President mandates the Dwarven Bill of Rights.

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RedKing

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #829 on: October 20, 2011, 01:10:55 pm »

As for CEOs, those that have knowingly made bad investments should do 10-30 for fraud.
10-30 bullets? I'm good with that. 10-30 years is too light a penalty for people who literally caused billions of dollars in economic damage.
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Remember, knowledge is power. The power to make other people feel stupid.
Quote from: Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.

DJ

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #830 on: October 20, 2011, 01:12:29 pm »

They wouldn't last a year in prison.
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squeakyReaper

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #831 on: October 20, 2011, 02:41:32 pm »

They wouldn't stay a year in prison. Physically stealing a few thousand will get you grand theft, but economically lifting billions won't. Well, usually not. There are exceptions.
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Cthulhu

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #832 on: October 20, 2011, 03:46:23 pm »

A while ago I asked a question on a site that seemed to have a lot of occupy wall street supporters.  The gist of it was, "Someone with the power to solve the problems you're protesting walks up to you and says 'you're right, this needs to be fixed.  What's the plan?'  Who is he?  What do you tell him?  What happens if he never comes around?"

Only got one real answer, and it was that the protesters don't need a plan for how to solve the problems, they're just telling people there's a problem.  Thanks for deducing that all is not right, Detective Jackass.  When I mentioned that a bunch of angry people with no actual goals is dangerously close to a violent riot, they said they thought a violent riot would be a good thing.

:/
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mainiac

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #833 on: October 20, 2011, 04:07:58 pm »

The protesters are helping solve the recession.

Step 1) Protest
Step 2) Scare rich people who think everyone who isn't rich is communist
Step 3) Rich people use ample corporate funds to hire more security guards
Step 4) Security guards spend their paychecks, increasing aggregate demand and stimulating the economy.

Big help?  No.  But it will do more to help the economy then Congress will!  *zing*
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Ancient Babylonian god of RAEG
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
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Aqizzar

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #834 on: October 20, 2011, 04:26:20 pm »

While certainly saying you don't need a plan never helps your message, I for one don't hold them to too high a standard about plans, because there really isn't anything The Man On The Street can do about their grievances.  I imagine that's part of why they're pissed off.  To the extent you can hack down their specific demands:

1) Millionaires should pay more taxes.
2) The chief officers of the financial companies that precipitated the 2008 meltdown should face criminal charges (there are still laws against some of their business practices).
3) There should be new laws to prevent that stuff from happening again.
4) Stopping banks from steamrolling people out of their homes on increasingly suspect if not outright illegal foreclosures.
5) The federal government should at least leave welfare programs like Medicare/SS/Unemployment as is, if not expand them.
6) Forgiveness of certain debts: mortgages that are based on non-existent property values, and student loans drawn from tuition costs that have doubled or tripled over ten years.
7) American businesses should hire more American workers.
8) A panoply of other policy issues particular to each state.

There's nothing that anyone outside of a government office can do directly about at least 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6.  To that end, they're basically doing what the Tea Party did, scare elected officials and the people they appoint into enacting policies they want, Or Else they'll have a serious problem come next election.  That's all they really can do, and it doesn't need a plan beyond being loud and remembering to vote.

7 is a demand nobody who isn't in charge of a business can address, and there's certainly nothing people who want a job can do to force a company to give it to them.  What they can ask for is government policy that encourages businesses to hire more people and hire locally, but that's a question professionally economists have few and conflicting answers to.

2 may be the one area a average citizen might have some way to address.  It surprises me that I've yet to see anything like a class-action civil lawsuit against some bank managers, for Negligent Management and defrauding their stockholders if nothing else.  Other than Michael Moore's "citizen arrest" stunts anyway.  What they want more than anything is for the law enforcement institutions that were supposed to be charging people to actually do so - Obama's justice department and the New York Federal Circuit hold more responsibility for that than anyone else, and that's yet another area that nothing but voting can even indirectly pressure.

And 8, well that's it's own bag everywhere.


Let it be said that when you have a "movement" specifically comprised of people who are angry about having nothing better to do with their time than "protest", you're going to get a lot of shiftless dolts.
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SalmonGod

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #835 on: October 20, 2011, 05:00:27 pm »

Apparently, Yahoo accidentally marked any e-mail containing a link to occupywallst.org as spam within their system.  Some fuss has been raised about this.

Link
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Bauglir

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #836 on: October 20, 2011, 05:10:14 pm »

Apparently, Yahoo accidentally marked any e-mail containing a link to occupywallst.org as spam within their system.  Some fuss has been raised about this.

Link
That's a funny way of spelling ", most likely hoping nobody would notice,"
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At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

SalmonGod

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #837 on: October 20, 2011, 05:12:40 pm »

Yeah... I meant to put "accidentally" in "quotes" :P
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In the land of twilight, under the moon
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In the land of twilight

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SalmonGod

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #838 on: October 20, 2011, 05:39:54 pm »

Just came across this speech by Naomi Klein.  She makes many of the same observations about this movement that I have.  Line breaks added by me, because it pasted as a giant wall of text.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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In the land of twilight, under the moon
We dance for the idiots
As the end will come so soon
In the land of twilight

Maybe people should love for the sake of loving, and not with all of these optimization conditions.

MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #839 on: October 20, 2011, 05:53:39 pm »

Most of you have probably already seen this (it may even be buried in this thread somewhere, although if it is I couldn't find it), but here's an interesting outlook on Occupy Wallstreet and the Tea Party.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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