Monday, October 17, 2011
Various Videos of Occupy Wall Street
32 Comments:
By 
antithaca, at
Mon Oct 17, 03:12:00 PM:
i only watched one of these. the motorcycle was clearly stopped when he "ran over the protester".
didn't watch anymore after that.
By Willuz, at
Mon Oct 17, 03:33:00 PM:
I have to agree with Antithaca on this one. Every video I have seen has been a grossly exaggerated reaction like the guy in the first video pretending to be run over, or the video starts with the reaction of the cop and not the action of the protester.
I think the NYPD have done an amazing job of maintaining order without injuring any peaceful protestors.
By W.LindsayWheeler, at
Mon Oct 17, 04:07:00 PM:
I like the difference on how the Mainstream Media and the Left treat the Tea Party and the Occupiers. The Occupiers are this saintly group of people, but the Tea Partiers are a vicious type of people. The Occupiers can pull all sorts of shenanigans, but they are righteous. The Occupiers are NOT taxpayers.
The Tea Party are Tax payers. Many of them Veterans. They obey the law and have a loyalty to the constitution.
Obviously loyalty to the constitution is passe, old school, BORING.
Is not the Occupiers saying the same thing as the Tea Partiers? Yet, the Occupiers get the Press. And the Press kisses their posteriers, the Tea Party is called disgusting names and is villified.
Bespeaks more to the values of the Mighty Press and the demogogues that run this country.
By 
, at
Mon Oct 17, 05:06:00 PM:
I'm not a knee-jerk fan of police. Often the opposite. But I've seen enough in my years to conclude that for the most part the NYPD are good and professional, at least comparatively. Small town cops can be a pain in the ass, because they have too little to do. There are muscle head power freaks among cops everywhere, but few that I've seen in the NYPD.
Have you ever talked to a real cop? The good ones are actually front line social workers. I know a few that were instrumental in the turnaround of The Bronx -- mostly by being tough on illegal gun possession, and homicide convictions. Cops will tell you that the hardest thing about their job is that they mostly deal with civilians when the civilian is at his worst. So the cop is often the target of bad energy. One cop I know called it a slow drip of acid. Oh yeah, everyone loves the fireman, who mostly do nothing. I know an NYPD who became FDNY: in his words, "I traded a gun for a pillow".
That's a lead-in for my real point. OWS wants trouble. They make it up when they can't get it. I expect that this will escalate and will end badly. But OWS needs "incidents" to drive news -- there's no substance in their platform.
It gets to a point where this occupation -- mostly by outsiders -- becomes an attack on my home city. There may be an anti-Semetic edge to it, I'm not sure. Chicago-based Jessie Jackson used to call us "hymie-town"
You're a fool if you can't see the puppet strings in this.
Part of me says enough -- tear gas and truncheons, if that's what you want.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Mon Oct 17, 05:14:00 PM:
I have worked at an acute psychiatric hospital for decades. In my early years, fresh from hippiehood, I had the role of trying to keep order in difficult situations. Until you have been present when things suddenly have gone bad, I don't think you can quite watch these things objectively. I can look at the police and think "that wasn't necessary. There was another way to do that." And I can watch protesters and see "That prick is trying hard to bait the police, obstructing and challenging as if they have no right to be there and clear a way." Being technically peaceful is rather similar to the "technical virginity" of my era. (I don't think that issue comes up anymore, but perhaps I miss my guess.)
We too quickly see what we wish. WLW does not ask himself what protester in 1989 in Bucuresti should do and how this compares, because he starts from the premise that this does not. Aegon01 does not put himself in the place of a policeman who has a job to do in a hostile situation.
Additional note: remember that the peaceful protests of Gandhi very clearly carried the threat of half a billion people who had some history of violence against authorities behind the smiles and flowers. If you do not treat with me, you will get worse people to deal with was the constant subtext.
By Aegon01, at
Mon Oct 17, 05:18:00 PM:
It may not be unprovoked violence, but gee, there's certainly a lot of it out there. Maybe they could afford to cut down on it a little bit? Maybe? They certainly know that whenever they make someone eat curb, they're gonna get video-d.
WLW, pretending the Tea Party doesn't have racists and homophobes in it is the same as pretending that there aren't Communists and drug addicts in OWS. It's also irrelevant.
By , at
Mon Oct 17, 05:24:00 PM:
These people have no right to block city streets! This interferes with everyone else, especially fire and ambulance traffic. It throws all the traffic from these streets on the others worsening a tough situation.
NYPD has been quite restrained so far.
Fire and sanitation should be called out to hose out this mess.
Bloomberg is a wimp.
By , at
Mon Oct 17, 05:30:00 PM:
I actually thought WLW went back on his meds. I agreed with everything he said.
By Georg Felis, at
Mon Oct 17, 07:33:00 PM:
I'll side with WLW and the rest this time. The cops were very restrained in the face of some complete and total arrogant loons.
On a side note, is there any way in YouTube to make a search like: Videos shot on Date _____ within _200_ yards of Lat:_____ Long:____? With as many cameras as were there, and with GPS tagging as common as its becoming, it would make an interesting composite.
By Aegon01, at
Mon Oct 17, 08:06:00 PM:
I've got a line-drawing question to ask, then.
If their behavior up to now has been "restrained," that means that they're doing less than they normally would, or should, do. What would their normal behavior consist of? Obviously "unrestrained" would be like tear gas, riot guns, and dogs. That's also, obviously, overkill for anyone and is worthy of outrage.
Would regular, "normal" behavior involve some officer writing tickets for everyone there? Flashing handcuffs for people who don't listen? I'm just curious to see where people draw the line.
On a side note, I think the people there should really EXPECT to get arrested. I know Quakers who wear a civil disobedience arrest record as a badge of pride (and I admire the conviction it takes to put yourself at that much risk for the sake of your beliefs). If they're screaming and struggling as if they were actually going to prison or jail, then they probably deserve the treatment they're getting.
By , at
Mon Oct 17, 09:36:00 PM:
Aegon ... punks walking belligerently down the middle of the street, when there are police instructing them to get off the street and onto the sidewalk are asking for an unhappy ending. You won't see violence meet violence until the real organizers of this 'movement' resort to it.
If you touch a cop, in or out of uniform, you're asking for a trip to an implant surgeon, and the ER. That's the way it is. I don't like cops, not one bit. However, I think they're really holding back dealing with these people.
You're too young to get this, but back around 1980, when Ft Lauderdale was the place, the cops took you down an alley and beat the hell out of you for walking in the street. Was it right? no. Did you stay out of the street? damn right.
These idiots may think they have a cause, but their outrage and 'movement' is misplaced. March on DC. Protest in front of Dodd and Frank's houses. Protest the 'unjust wars' this POTUS has escalated, and the new places he has our men and women in harm's way. Protest his cabinet selections, and the people he's made rich on the secret trillion he ran thru 'too big to fail'.
Be righteous and work to help a person with an underwater mortgage pay, or perhaps help them move out. Do something, other than stand around whining.
Or perhaps these 'occupiers' should move to the utopia of their choice.
And BTW ... painting TEA partiers as racist, or homophobic, etc. is just lame.
By , at
Tue Oct 18, 07:40:00 AM:
Walking the Highline on Sunday I had no hint that all the wonderful people enjoying themselves being active in good weather contrasted so completely with the foul collection of self-involved, envious, shallow people lazing their way through another day less than a mile south of me.
Police? Not a problem. If I lived on Zucotti Park I would expect the cops to clear these people away. If I owned a business there I'd be seriously pissed off that my right to work was being disrupted by OWS. Go cops!
.
By E Hines, at
Tue Oct 18, 09:12:00 AM:
Others have already well-addressed the dishonest hypocrisy of OWS. I'll ask another question:
Honestly, #Occupy has made me angrier at the police than it has at Wall Street.
On what basis are you angry with Wall Street? They're just--and have been just--operating within the rules imposed on them by a too-large, over-controlling government?
The $5 debit card charge imposed by BA is a case in point. Dodd-Frank severely capped their ability to turn a profit for their owners along one path; they were forced to take another path. The distortions and unintended consequences from government interference abound. Yet the anger is aimed at the businesses that must respond to those interferences and not at the originators of them.
Finally, It may not be unprovoked violence, but gee, there's certainly a lot of it out there. Maybe they could afford to cut down on it a little bit? You're absolutely right on this. What are you doing to get OWS to cut down on it a little bit?
Eric Hines
By W.LindsayWheeler, at
Tue Oct 18, 11:50:00 AM:
The Occupy Wall Street protest is a typical communist movement and action. If you study communist praxis, they always have a "movement from below" so that their communist captured press can report on it. Then, the Marxist leaders in government can "supply" the answer to the protest movement that they engineered in the first place.
See the "answer from above" is like a guide. They organize the protest to get their pet project passed by a dumbed down populace!
Dr. David Yeagley points this out It is abundantly clear. The “Occupy Wall Street” movement is a socio-psychological regression. It is socio-pathological. It is clarion infantile behavior. (From Wall Street Flea Party, Refulgence of Infantility)
His title speaks volumes about it.
Next is Richard Evans at henrymakow.com where he points out, OCCUPY WALL STREET and the OCCUPY TOGETHER MOVEMENT is the work of SERBIAN contract revolution organizers the CENTER FOR APPLIED NONVIOLENT ACTION AND STRATEGIES [C.A.N.V.A.S] in Belgrade and it's field operative organizer company, "OPTOR!" (From Occupy Wall Street is cointelp
The same symbol is evident, the raised fist. OPTOR is a communist agiprop organizaiton. It is about organizing pressure from below, the media magnify it and work it up, then, the Marxist leaders can come up with THEIR solution to the problem, thus moving the people, the sheeple, to adopt Marxist solutions! That is all this is---one big con game.
By , at
Tue Oct 18, 12:10:00 PM:
USA Today Poll: When asked whom they blame more for the poor economy, 64% of Americans name the federal government and 30% say big financial institutions.
Sounds right. If I had to apportion relative fault, I'd go with 64% BigGov, 30% BigBanks, and 6% little consumers. Funny 'dat.
"March on DC. Protest in front of Dodd and Frank's houses", indeed.
****
I agree with the first part of WLW's post. I'm not sure how much of this is "controlled", and by whom, or how much is just fellow travelling. If we had real MSM reporters we'd know more. I saw one story in Mother Jones I suspect is disinformation: supposedly it sprung spontaneously from meetings of a small committed group in SoHo: "What is to be done?"
Obama & Co are planning to go populist, and will get at least 30% of the angry. The rest is jump ball. Most of the rest can go to the right Republican, as I've been harping on. Romney is not the right Republican. That may not make a difference to the Presidential outcome, but it will in Senate races. e.g. Liz Warren can beat Brown in Massachusetts, a home state Romney may not carry.
Now that Sarah jilted me, I'm all for Raising Cain.
By Sarah Palin's Uterus, at
Wed Oct 19, 08:58:00 AM:
The $5 debit card charge imposed by BA is a case in point. Dodd-Frank severely capped their ability to turn a profit for their owners along one path; they were forced to take another path. The distortions and unintended consequences from government interference abound. Yet the anger is aimed at the businesses that must respond to those interferences and not at the originators of them.
Eric nailed it.
You're mad at Wall Street, Aegon?
That doesn't make any more sense to me than OWS "occupying" Wall Street supposedly b/c they are mad as hell about the government being in cahoots/co-opted by Wall Street.
Seems to me that OWS should be occupying WASHINGTON. It was Congress that forced banks to set aside lending criteria that have worked for centuries. Washington created artificial risk, and banks acted to insure themselves against a risk they would never have taken on voluntarily.
What happens when government artificially lowers the cost of mortgage loans? More people apply for them, and they buy more expensive houses than they could have bought under the old rules set by banks (20% down, interest directly tied to risk/creditworthiness, etc.). Artificially low prices increase demand. Speculators enter the market and bid up prices.
How did government help the poor or make housing more affordable? It didn't - it had precisely the opposite effect. When lower income families take out larger loans at variable interest rates in the [false] hope that their income won't drop and housing prices will continue to rise at present rates, they are taking on artifical risk created by the federal government and morons like Barney "Fannie/Freddie are sound and anyone who says otherwise hates poor people" Frank.
It used to be common practice for banks to charge all kinds of service fees - checking account fees are a great example (remember checks? They're the debit cards of yesteryear). Banks aren't charities - they are businesses who have obligations to their shareholders. And Congress has no business telling banks how to run their businesses. They don't have the requisite knowledge or expertise - they're amateurs.
But demonizing banks is much easier than taking time to understand how the banking business works. No one ever had to tell me not to take out loans I couldn't afford, and I was a lowly HS graduate until the ripe old age of 39. No one had to tell me that a variable interest rate might go up or that negative amortization schemes can result in you owing more than the amount of the original loan (or more than your house is worth).
You don't get something for nothing, except of course in the fevered pipe dreams of pandering politicians.
By , at
Wed Oct 19, 12:12:00 PM:
"But demonizing banks is much easier than taking time to understand how the banking business works."
Agreed, but not for the reasons that you say.
The following is a Bloomberg News story from yesterday:
"Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
The Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. disagree over the transfers, which are being requested by counterparties, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting, said the people. The bank doesn’t believe regulatory approval is needed, said people with knowledge of its position."
If true, this is actually a Holy Shit Headline.
BAC is no longer a good enough counterparty, so this move would in effect make the FDIC (and the USA) a guarantor for BAC's swaps business.
For all I know BAC might have to pay off billions (trillions?)(quadrillions?) on European bets gone wrong. Who knows? Our BigBanks have been eating a lot of long-tail risk. Once you start doing this, you can't stop.
There are many posters here who blindly defend Big Banks who don't have a clue about what's actually going on, $5 debit fees included. I admit that I only have half a clue about Known Unknowns, let alone the UnkUnks. And that's the real problem -- a lack of transparency.
Europe is propping up Greece, lest it trigger a contractually-defined "Event of Default" for deals between other parties NOT GREECE. Reread that last sentence slowly -- we have an imbedded risk multiplier. Other dominoes would fall, who knows how many. I have no clue. Does anyone? These deals neve made any sense to me in the first place.
Goldman helped Greece lie its way into the European Union. WTF?
But I doubt a dozen people in Zuccotti Park understand anything about what I just wrote.
Am I wrong?
By Aegon01, at
Wed Oct 19, 12:40:00 PM:
I'm not actually not ridiculously angry at Wall Street, because lots of the blame rests with the Government. I think that both OWS and the Tea Party are ill-informed and irrationally angry about a huge list of things. The Tea Party also isn't as unified as everyone seems to be claiming. There's still regional branches everywhere, and I bet most of them address numerous social issues, too. If you're willing to overlook those, then if you want to be intellectually honest you have to overlook the differences between the Occupy movements, and maybe forgive them for their ADHD set of demands.
However, I'm of the belief that both the Tea Party and OWS are right. We should be angry at the huge multinational companies, the banks, AND the government. Financial institutions, under duress or not, caused the financial crisis, and there's no way around that. Even overlooking their predatory behavior lately, we can't exactly hold them blameless for causing this huge mess. And SOMETHING fishy is still going on, as Ignoramus pointed out.
At the same time this is going on, I'm convinced that multinational companies and the government are in cahoots. Obama gets his regulation advice from big CEOs. Big companies benefit from regulation by cutting out the medium-sized competition, who can't deal with regulatory changes as easily as big companies can. Then, without intending this effect, American companies can't hire because of the regulations. Meanwhile the multinationals grow, hiring Chinese workers at Industrial Revolution prices (because they pay for Industrial Revolution working conditions). As a reward, politicians get money to stay in office, which they'll spend 9 months running for.
Saying all of that essentially means I'm a conspiracy theorist, and maybe I'm jut being paranoid. But it's really hard NOT to have thoughts like this when times are as tough as they are.
By , at
Wed Oct 19, 12:58:00 PM:
The beat goes on ...
Citigroup to Pay $285 Million to Settle SEC Charges for Misleading Investors About CDO Tied to Housing Market
Washington, D.C., Oct. 19, 2011 – The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Citigroup’s principal U.S. broker-dealer subsidiary with misleading investors about a $1 billion collateralized debt obligation (CDO) tied to the U.S. housing market in which Citigroup bet against investors as the housing market showed signs of distress. The CDO defaulted within months, leaving investors with losses while Citigroup made $160 million in fees and trading profits.
15 investors in the Class V III transaction lost virtually their entire investments while Citigroup received fees of approximately $34 million for structuring and marketing the transaction and additionally realized net profits of at least $126 million from its short position.
By E Hines, at
Wed Oct 19, 01:07:00 PM:
...said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
So, with integrity like that, we should take their words seriously....
And what are they objecting to? A bank moving questionable deals from one unit less equipped to handle their blowing up to another unit that's better equipped....
Financial institutions, under duress or not, caused the financial crisis, and there's no way around that.
Of course not. Not when you're going to stop at secondary causes and ignore the primary causes: government-pressured loosened standards for lending, government subsidies for borrowing by those who couldn't afford the borrowing, over-controlling regulations that manipulate the market environment rather than make that environment easier for all the players. Government couldn't possibly be the primary cause.
Obama gets his regulation advice from big CEOs.
And, of course, the guy in charge is utterly blameless for following plainly self-serving advice. Nope. It was the Financial institutions that caused the Panic, no government cause at all.
And all those evil businesses hiring cheap labor where they can find it. Hmm... No union culpability here. Not at all. Slap that bad Boeing for wanting to manufacture in a plant where they can reduce labor costs--American worker labor costs, yet. Or are right to work states unAmerican?
Eric Hines
By Aegon01, at
Wed Oct 19, 01:18:00 PM:
Eric, did you even read my comment? The Government shouldn't get involved regardless, but at the end of the day, the Bank decides who it lends to and who it doesn't. Just because the Govt. made the banks lift some automatic restrictions doesn't mean the bank is FORCED to lend to EVERYONE.
Furthermore, the union thing only goes so far, too. COMPLETELY absolving the big companies for moving jobs overseas makes it sound like we should have Chinese working conditions and wages. Just Google the name "Foxconn" and ask yourself if that's REALLY what we should have. (See? I can do hyperbole too.)
Did it honestly look like I was forgiving the Govt. for pandering to big business, or did it look like I was attacking them for it? Read more closely.
By E Hines, at
Wed Oct 19, 01:35:00 PM:
Aegon01, did you even read your own comment? Financial institutions, under duress or not, caused the financial crisis, and there's no way around that.
Moving on, ...the Bank decides who it lends to and who it doesn't. Only within limits set by the government: CRA and Dodd-Frank, for instance.
It's true enough that the union thing only goes so far. Perhaps you can quote my words where I said anything different. Further, COMPLETELY absolving the big companies for moving jobs overseas makes it sound like we should have Chinese working conditions and wages. overstates the case. Other than that, this is the way free markets work. Businesses go where their costs are lowest--which also produces lower costs of goods for us American consumers.
While we're about it, to back up to another subject, The Tea Party also isn't as unified as everyone seems to be claiming. Who's claiming this?
Eric Hines
By , at
Wed Oct 19, 02:00:00 PM:
@ E Hines:
Re "So, with integrity like that, we should take their words seriously...."
It's a Bloomberg News story based on an insider leak, so it's fairly reliable. Compare any public statement from Tim Geithner which I always suspect is at least half a lie. (Who understands what Bernanke says). The leaker is likely from the FDIC, and has an agenda: they object to the Fed using the FDIC deposit insurance fund to fix a BAC-parent level problem. But --now I'm in speculative mode -- promises were made to Warren Buffet.
"A bank moving questionable deals from one unit less equipped to handle their blowing up to another unit that's better equipped"
It could be a huge deal -- and sounds like one. Sounds like that after a credit downgrade BAC would have had to post collateral on some part of its derivative book and couldn't do it with only parent-company eligible assets. This same phenomenon snowballed at AIG and is exactly what brought AIG down: AIG couldn't use assets in its well-capitalized -- but strictly regulated -- insurance subsidiaries. Faced with a similar problem here, the Fed's answer is to push the liabilities down into BAC's FDIC-insured bank subsidiaries. So the risk to the USA-backed FDIC insurance fund just went up.
And Dodd-Frank was supposed to end Too Big Too Fail.
By davod, at
Wed Oct 19, 02:03:00 PM:
Aegon01:
The ratbags orchestrate the police arrests.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/10/setting-the-stage-ows-leaders-caught-on-tape-orchestrating-mob-activity-and-arrests-videos/
By , at
Wed Oct 19, 02:04:00 PM:
@ Aegon01
E Hines is right about how government meddling in the mortgage market created the problem. This had been building for decades but reached a Barney Frank-climax from 2004 until 2008. BigBanks played along because they were encouraged to / were told to; saw opportunities to profit; and saw opportunities to lie, steal and cheat.
By Aegon01, at
Wed Oct 19, 02:08:00 PM:
Maybe I imagined it, but I thought I read someone posting that the Tea Party was unified in its principles of limited government and such. Oh well. Whether or not someone said it, my point about the factional nature of OWS and the Tea Party as grassroots movements still applies (despite WLW's claim that the former was started by Serbian Communists or something) Most of the criticisms applied to the characteristics of one movement also apply to the other.
IMO, if a Republican candidate can reconcile their differences and woo some OWS people on the basis of "change we can believe in" (lol) then the combination of both movements will be a force to reckon with. The only question is whether or not they'll be able to stand each other's company.
John, (about 12 comments ago) you played right into my statement about the Tea Party vs. OWS. To repeat, saying that the Tea Party doesn't have racists or homophobes in it is the same as saying that there aren't Communists and drug addicts in OWS (because there's obviously both in both.). Pointing out the fact is still irrelevant, however, and distracts from the important points. Someone ought to tell the MSM and FOX.
Back to Unions, of course they and OSHA often take things too far, and Obama forcing Boeing to do anything just so he can get union votes a year from now is extremely stupid and immoral. There's nothing wrong with Boeing, I don't care where they're based as long as they're still American. Still, if we keep moving jobs overseas and China's Cheap Crap Industry keeps expanding, it'll get to the point where stuff will HAVE to be cheap in order for anyone to afford it.
And that's why everyone should Buy American.
By davod, at
Wed Oct 19, 02:25:00 PM:
The OWS is a ground up movement like the Coffee party movement.ce
By Aegon01, at
Wed Oct 19, 02:26:00 PM:
davod, I can't watch the video right now, but I think it's dangerous (and kind of far-fetched) to assume that everyone in the movement got the memo or that every video involving police violence (unwarranted or completely justified) has been staged. Also, just because there's a Maestro doesn't mean the orchestra has to do what he says, or even in the way he says to do it. It IS an interesting fact that the difference between this protest and any other national movement in the past is that pretty much everyone has a camera-phone.
But I agree, anyone who stages or instigates things like that or puts other people at risk for their ego is a complete ratbag, and they deserve every ounce of punishment they receive.
By E Hines, at
Wed Oct 19, 02:29:00 PM:
insider leak
That's my fundamental problem in this sub-thread, and it's more with the "leak" part than with the "insider" part. If he's not supposed to be talking, why is he? What commitments--explicit or implied--is he violating by talking publicly?
It could be a huge deal....
It certainly could be, and BAC's movement of bad assets to a sounder facility may prove inadequate. I might fault them for not trying hard enough, but I won't fault them for not trying. And, unfortunately, Dodd-Frank codified "too big to fail."
...posting that the Tea Party was unified in its principles of limited government and such....
They are unified on this broad principle. And on low taxes and lower government spending. But they're highly fractured on the proper pathway to achieve those. The OWS also is unified on their principle (apparently) of captalism is bad and wealth must be redistributed.
But a critical difference between the two sets (aside from the differences in respect for private, or public, property) is that most of the Tea Party groups have concrete, measurable plans for achieving their goals. The OWS have not articulated theirs yet, which after this amount of time implies to me they have none.
As to China's Cheap Crap Industry, a free market will self-correct on that. The bad products won't sell--recall when "made in Japan" meant trash, and how well that trash sold. Americans deserve, though, the chance to buy quality goods--and even cheap crap: that's their choice, not government's--at the lowest price available.
Eric Hines
By , at
Wed Oct 19, 02:34:00 PM:
Aegon ... he homophobe statement was completely irrelevant. I thought the TEA party thinks above all that our taxes are too high. I am yet to see any evidence that their events are 'occupied' by professional protesters from SEIU or other organizations.
And by the way ... lending by banks to those who aren't credit worthy wasn't optional. There are/were progreams to put the 'underserved' into the American Dream of homeownership. Favorable lending rules, etc. Then the government relaxed mark-to-market accounting. And then, the government/FDIC insured accounts up to 250K rather than 100K, encouraging new deposits to try to balance underwater balance sheets (the banks assets were impaired because of falling home prices). When that failed, the government borrowed a trillion from China to 'invest' in the banks, since the requirements for liquidity/net worth couldn't be fulfilled by a loan (assets - liabilities = equity). So the government pumped a trillion of the people's month in the form of Chinese credit as investment (debit cash, an asset, credit equity investment). The banks still couldn't lend (they needed it to be solvent again), so they 'invested' it in treasuries, so we could issue more debt, and took a return on an investment in the US made with the people's money they got free. And no doubt fat cats took a vig on it, and the bank stocks went up for the built in additional profit(s).
Again ... 'occupy' DC and protest the jackasses who make the rules. The banks did what they do, enabled by the government. I have no doubt any occupier would gladly take a piece of that action given the chance, or other hope/change legally or fraudulently. It pays more than camping out in a public park.
JT
By , at
Thu Oct 20, 10:58:00 AM:
Aegeon, those occupying #Occupy spots are being shamelessly exploited and manipulated by professional politicians and agitators. The financial crisis is a product of government market manipulation, starting with Clinton's administration and reaching it's apogee under Bush. Overlaying our own mortgage problems are rent-seeking here and abroad, some currency issues originating in China, some debt issues in Europe and conflict problems, but the prime driver of our problems is government intrusion into markets for political purposes.
Democrats know this. Obama can't get elected because of it. They are using the young, some of whom are facing the product of bad decision making and lazy-assed personal education choices (and want to blame the consequences of this personal choices on someone else), to AstroTurf the real issues and distract voters.
Think for yourself. Avoid the trap. Get educated, work your butt off and seek opportunity. Leave these bums in your personal rear view mirror.
By Carolyn, at
Sat Oct 22, 10:04:00 AM:
With protesters in places like Minnesota complaining about not getting arrested and MSNBC encouraging a "Kent State Moment", the police have a challenge on their hands. Not that one or two of them may not succumb to the "totalitarian temptation", which we must guard against among police. But the protesters are trying really, really hard to produce a "Kent State Moment" even if they have to fake it. As Iowahawk points out, it's odd that the Occupiers hate the police so much yet seem to want more power for IRS agents.
