Wall Street Protests Enter 11th Day

nietzschefan

10-06-11, 12:14 PM

I urge anyone who thinks corruption is rank in the banking industry to read this.

The signs of corruption.--Consider the following signs of those states of society which are necessary from time to time and which are designated with the word "corruption." As soon as corruption sets in anywhere superstition becomes rank. and the previous common faith of a people becomes pale and powerless against it. For superstition is second-order free spirit: those who surrender to it choose certain forms and formulas that they find congenial and permit themselves some freedom of choice. Whoever is superstitious is always, compared with the religious human being, much more of a person; and a superstitious society is one in which there are many individuals and much delight in individuality...

Second, a society in which corruptions spreads is accused of exhaustion... But what is generally overlooked is that the ancient national energy and national passion that became gloriously visible in war and warlike games have now been transmuted into countless private passions and have merely become less visible. Indeed, in times of "corruption" the power and force of the national energies that are expended are probably greater than ever and the individual squanders them as lavishly as he could not have formerly when he was simply not yet rich enough. Thus it is precisely in times of "exhaustion" that tragedy runs through houses and streets, that great love and great hatred are born, and that the flame of knowledge flares up into the sky.

Third, it is usually said... that such times of corruption are gentler and that cruelty declines drastically, compared with the old, stronger age which was more given to faith. All I concede is that cruelty now becomes more refined and that its older forms henceforth offend the new taste; but the art of wounding and torturing others with words and looks reaches its supreme development...The men of corruption are witty and slanderous; they know of types of murder that require neither daggers nor assault; they know that whatever is said well is believed.

Fourth, when "morals decay" those men emerge whom one calls tyrants: they are the precursors and as it were the precocious harbingers of individuals... In these ages bribery and treason reach their peak, for the love of the newly discovered ego is much more powerful now than the love of the old, used-up "fatherland"... Individuals--being truly in-and-for-themselves-- care, as is well known, more for the moment than do their opposites, the herd men... The times of corruption are those when the apples fall from the tree: I mean the individuals, for they carry the seeds of the future and are the authors of the spiritual colonization and origin of new states and communities. Corruption is merely a nasty word for the autumn of a people.

from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, s. 23, Walter Kaufmann transl

Gustav

10-06-11, 02:08 PM

We have a method for changing our government and it's via going to the polls and via Amendments to the Constitution, not by force.

Arthur

a large, sustained protest could conceivably cause a sitting administration to resign. do you disagree?

adoucette

10-06-11, 02:12 PM

Yes, I disagree.

This certainly doesn't appear to be a lame attempt at an impeach Obama rally.

Kittamaru

10-06-11, 02:20 PM

Are you serious?

A True REVOLUTION?

Like going down to Washington and removing the President by force?

Really?

If you think that's what is going on then you are so out of touch with reality it is hard to carry on a conversation with you.

Oh, and by the way, I'd really suggest that you NOT advocate doing that, even on the internet.

We have a method for changing our government and it's via going to the polls and via Amendments to the Constitution, not by force.

Arthur

Uh... buh? Not all revolutions have to be by force of arms... nor do they have to be against the governmental heads... in my own opinion, our government is so top-ended and corrupt that it cannot function properly even WITH a good president...

I am in no way advocating forceful removal of our president (and, lets face it, the president is a fall-guy anymore, as the senate and house have the power to render him impotent)

adoucette

10-06-11, 02:32 PM

So what was your point about people from the Army and Marines being there being equated to a "true revolution"?

chimpkin

10-06-11, 03:28 PM

Uh... buh? Not all revolutions have to be by force of arms... nor do they have to be against the governmental heads... in my own opinion, our government is so top-ended and corrupt that it cannot function properly even WITH a good president...

Yeah...

My opinion of Obama is that he's not bad...not great, but not bad.

I've also said congresspeople should be required to wear their top 20 corporate donors' logos on their suits at all official functions, a la NASCAR. :cool:

I may have been joking, but it would make it a lot more obvious who was really running things...

adoucette

10-06-11, 03:36 PM

Yeah, the biggest donor by far is the National Education Association, at over 56 million.

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list_stfed.php?order=A

quadraphonics

10-06-11, 06:25 PM

Yeah, the biggest donor by far is the National Education Association, at over 56 million.

But not nearly the biggest donor to any particular candidate - the lion's share of that money went towards state-level ballot initiatives.

Any number of other organizations gave much more to candidates (particularly, candidates for US Congress). National Association of Realtors, for example.

Here's John Boehner's major contributors, for example:

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?type=C&cid=N00003675&newMem=N&cycle=2012

Paulson & Co
Moore Capital Management
Swisher International
American Electric Power
American Financial Group

So, we've got 2 hedge funds, and investment bank, a cigar company, and a major private utility company.

Interestingly, Michelle Bachman's stats on that cite seem to be missing a bunch of data...

Me-Ki-Gal

10-06-11, 07:35 PM

Yeah, the biggest donor by far is the National Education Association, at over 56 million.

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list_stfed.php?order=A

no wonder the kids get shit educations . Actually the schools are Great in Missoula . The quality of teachers blows me away and Dr. Apostle the school super is one smart cookie . I look up to him and he is working it out for the gifted kids so that is good for my son . You got kids " Missoula is the place for that . Making a living is the tricky part cause the powers that be chase business away. The schools are great

Soap funny !! Ha Ha Ha Rand Paul agrees with 3 bullet points of the occupiers. Stands behind them with the big 3 . The number one was bail out of banks was wrong. 2 special privilege for corporation and special interest is wrong . 3 to much government trying to control or lives.

I think that was the 3 he said . The point is he did agree publicly with much chagrin on his face . Like he bad mouthed them first and then when the interviewer brought up why a butt load were there for the big 3 he recanted with disappointment on his face like he wanted to continue to put the movement down but couldn't anymore . Begrudgingly agreeing This does have a feel of reverse tea partyism activity . Something learned , something borrowed and something blue . To funny to funny

The Esotericist

10-06-11, 07:49 PM

So what was your point about people from the Army and Marines being there being equated to a "true revolution"?
A Marine Discusses the Wall Street Protest and NYPD (http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/10/06/a-marine-discusses-the-wall-street-protest-and-nypd/)

Soon after 9/11, America’s government went into a rampage of monstrous behavior, kidnapping, murder and illegal invasions and nobody spoke up. We, “America,” became everything we were all taught to hate and nobody spoke up, almost nobody.

It was all part of the same crime, as any good cop recognized from “day one.” “Day one” was when it was time to speak up. Some did as a few privately know and paid for it dearly, some but not enough. Few, very few, stood by them. Others…..

The “sworn,” police and military were particularly silent. I am ashamed.

Now we have NYPD, a police force I have always admired, where I have more than a few friends, playing the “petty thug” for Wall Street.

I am ashamed.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Balogna_1.jpg
Trigger Happy Cmdr Bologna -Pepper Spraying

I am more than familiar with what “on the job” means.

Let’s talk a bit about 9/11. I have friends in NYPD. They know 9/11 was an inside job, that Building 7 was blown up, that Mossad terror teams were chased all over town.

More than a few were threatened with losing their pensions or being returned to uniform if they opened their mouths.

A police department is a petty tyranny, run by small time crooks and no matter how many brave and decent officers make up a department, it is still run by crooked politicians.

NYPD has a tough history, has had a lot to overcome and has brought itself back from a very sad state.

Because of that, officers serving in NYPD can be proud or, at least could have until recently.

Now some of you have crossed the line. I’ve been there. This “us v. them” bull doesn’t work anymore. We have put veterans on the streets and we plan to send in more. I don’t care if every protestor is gay, communist or a rich college kid.

I could care less.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/NYPD_Bad-Girl.jpg
Another Dangerous Terrorist Captured - Oh She's a Bad One for Sure! - Just Look at Those Eyes

I remember Vietnam, the real Vietnam, the Vietnam of the Marine rifle squad, the senselessness of it, the suffering. We all knew it as what it was, a huge con.

Now, nobody doubts the War on Terror was the same thing, Afghanistan, the drug producing capitol of the world, Iraq, the farce staged by the Bushites to loot oil and empty America’s treasury.

All of it made possible by dropping a couple of office buildings in the biggest insurance fraud in world history and rigging an investigation, something any cop has seen a hundred times over.

Now, a decade later, when it is time to speak up, you are chosen to club the real heroes into silence.

Look at those around you. If you aren’t hearing questions asked, questions about “right and wrong,” maybe its time for you to find some place else to work. On the best of days, being a cop is a nasty job.

These are not the “best of days.”

If ever there were a way for America, Americans fighting for their rights and freedoms, its now. There could be no dictatorship without the help of the police. You don’t think this is a dictatorship? Who are you kidding?

http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Coping-a-feel-320x213.jpg
Dear NYPD - Can You Feel Me Now?

The Army and Marines fought in senseless wars for these crooks. Now, when it is time to defend America from threats "domestic," they are coming in to protect Americans from a real threat.

Tiassa

10-07-11, 01:54 AM

Paul Constant (http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/10/06/notes-from-yesterdays-occupy-arrests), on the Occupy Seattle protest:

http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2011/10/06/1317948034-imag0484.jpg (http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/10/06/notes-from-yesterdays-occupy-arrests)

This protester was clutching his ragged, pamphlet-sized copy of the Constitution as he sat in the tent waiting for the police to come and get him. You could tell it meant a lot to him; it was like his security blanket. When they finally grabbed him by the arms, one police officer took the Constitution away from him. "GIVE ME BACK MY CONSTITUTION," he shouted, "GIVE MY CONSTITUTION BACK TO ME!" An amiable-sounding stoner youth standing next to the action said to a police officer, "Just give me the Constitution, man. I'll get it back to him when he gets out." They then had a quieter conversation, where logistics were discussed. I don't know what happened to the Constitution after that.

As I said before, I was impressed with how methodical the police were about it: Let the parks people talk to the protesters, form a circle around the tents, arrest the protesters one by one, and then let the parks people take the tents down. I really wish I could've been there for the briefings the officers must have gone through before they swept the park. I'm sure the steps of the plan and the importance of proceeding with extreme caution must have been drilled into their heads over and over again.

And then, this evening, Mayor Mike McGinn (http://mayormcginn.seattle.gov/update-on-occupy-seattle/):

We understand that Occupy Seattle wishes to have a sustained presence in Westlake Park for the purpose of expressing their views. From the outset we have been trying to work out a solution that meets the city's needs and Occupy Seattle's need to protest against wealth inequality in our country.

My staff has been reaching out to and communicating with members of Occupy Seattle. Here's how we are proceeding:

• We are providing a permit for protest activities at Westlake Park which will allow them to have an organizing tent that can remain overnight. As a condition of the permit, protestors will have to allow for cleaning of the park, protect park property, accommodate the other existing permitted events, and protect access to businesses.

• We are making City Hall Plaza available for those that wish to stay overnight, with reasonable restrictions on the tents so as to allow free use of the plaza during the day. Unlike Westlake, City Hall also has restroom facilities available. Both the permit and the ability to set up tents at City Hall Plaza would last for two weeks, at which point we can assess whether the arrangement is meeting everyone's needs and should be extended.

These are extraordinary times. We have seen the Occupy Wall Street movement take off in cities across the country, and there's a reason for it. There is real anger about the unprecedented concentration of wealth and power in this country and the inequality it has produced. I share the values and the message of the Occupy Wall Street movement. We want to provide the opportunity for the people of Seattle to express their views. And we are.
____________________

Notes:

Constant, Paul. "Notes from Yesterday's Occupy Arrests". Slog. October 6, 2011. Slog.TheStranger.com. October 6, 2011. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/10/06/notes-from-yesterdays-occupy-arrests

McGinn, Mike. "Update on Occupy Seattle". October 6, 2011. MayorMcGinn.Seattle.gov. October 6, 2011. http://mayormcginn.seattle.gov/update-on-occupy-seattle/

adoucette

10-07-11, 09:25 AM

The Army and Marines fought in senseless wars for these crooks.

Ah, what crooks started the wars we are fighting?

At least get your basics right because Wall Street wasn't responsible for starting either war.

And then to make your point you choose to quote a complete moron:

I have friends in NYPD. They know 9/11 was an inside job, that Building 7 was blown up, that Mossad terror teams were chased all over town.

Really?
Do you believe that BS too?

Arthur

adoucette

10-07-11, 09:38 AM

But not nearly the biggest donor to any particular candidate - the lion's share of that money went towards state-level ballot initiatives. Any number of other organizations gave much more to candidates (particularly, candidates for US Congress). National Association of Realtors, for example.

Well it gave nearly $20 million to parties and candidates, so yeah, it was still a major direct contributor, indeed more $'s than the NAR gave to Parties and Candidates.

Here's John Boehner's major contributors, for example:

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?type=C&cid=N00003675&newMem=N&cycle=2012

Paulson & Co
Moore Capital Management
Swisher International
American Electric Power
American Financial Group

So, we've got 2 hedge funds, and investment bank, a cigar company, and a major private utility company.

Interestingly, Michelle Bachman's stats on that cite seem to be missing a bunch of data...

Not a lot different than Harry Reid

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=Career&type=I&cid=N00009922&newMem=N

Well except for the Casinos and Gambling.

Arthur

Hellenologophobia

10-07-11, 11:54 AM

We are the 53% (http://the53.tumblr.com/)

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsm0ktjJ4u1r4q8eoo1_500.jpg

Billy T

10-07-11, 12:16 PM

"... The protestors are convinced the system is broken and needs to be overhauled. While they have been unable to articulate their real concerns or offer any concrete solutions one thing is certain. THEY ARE RIGHT!

The system IS broken and it is time for us to take the necessary steps to restore our credibility.

If one is looking for ground zero in this epic battle you need to look no further than the board of directors. With a mandate to protect shareholders it is clear that their first loyalty is to the executive suite. {bold added by Billy t}

Let's take a look at the life of a CEO. When first hired by the board there is excitement around the potential of the new chief executive to drive shareholder returns. Negotiated up front is a severance package for the CEO in case he is let go or the company is acquired. Usually given a mandate, the CEO takes the helm and the corporate ship sets sail.

It is understandable that chief executives should want to be paid large sums of money when they succeed, but must we reward failure?

Leo Apotheker was fired from Hewlett-Packard (HPQ:NYSE) and given a $13 million severance package. Add that to the $10 million he received for signing, he made a cool $23 million for 11 months work while the company burned, causing billions of dollars in losses for shareholders. I doubt any of the unemployed protestors received anything more than two weeks' severance if they were lucky.

America's "Day of Rage" Could Change Your Life! ...

Stock option compensation has become a weapon of mass destruction. Given to executives at the discretion of the board of directors, it is supposed to align the interests of management and shareholders.

However, studies show the practice encourages risk taking to drive the stock higher so that options are in the money. A 2003 Louisiana State University study concluded that firms known to have committed fraud often had significantly larger equity-based compensation plans than similar firms within the industry.

Corporate waste and greed takes many forms. Investors get excited when they see corporate buybacks. Usually it is advertised as a return of capital, but when you delve into the numbers what you soon find is that the true purpose of the buyback was to offset the continued dilution of earnings due to stock option compensation plans.

Cisco (CSCO:NASDAQ) over the years has wasted billions of dollars in shareholder capital for stock buyback programs. The end beneficiaries were the executive suite and in turn the board. ..."

By David Nelson, Guest Editor, Smart Investing Daily. Today in Email to me.

adoucette

10-07-11, 12:31 PM

Billy,
CEO compensation is an issue, and of course, with the thousands of CEOs in the country one can always come up with a few outrageous examples of excess, greed etc.

BUT

We do need to put it in perspective.

A little research shows that the CEOs of the top 500 companies made $5.1 Billion in total compensation, (2005 figures, include salary and bonus plus "other" compensation, which includes vested restricted stock grants and "stock gains,").

Or an average of $10 million per CEO.

Of course they were taxed on their earnings, at about 35%, so they netted about $7 million each.

So let's take 2/3rds of that (leaving them just over $2 million each) and give all that equally to each household in the US.

Better yet, let's give it to only the bottom 25% of households.

That's about $50 per household.

So, NO, an extra $50 per the bottom 25% of households isn't really going to change a thing and is not worth a "day of rage" or evidence that the system is broken.

Particularly when you consider that those CEO's included people like Steve Jobs, who was worth just under $2 Billion when he died.

Was he worth it?

Yeah, I think he was.

Arthur

http://www.forbes.com/2005/04/20/05ceoland.html

Me-Ki-Gal

10-07-11, 12:39 PM

Wow that 53 monster is creeping around every were . Whats up with that ? 53 this 53 that copy , Rodger and out

nietzschefan

10-07-11, 12:53 PM

We are the 53% (http://the53.tumblr.com/)

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsm0ktjJ4u1r4q8eoo1_500.jpg

Ok...and...? He should also be pissed off. He's is working 60 hours a week because we are all getting dragged into the industrial revolution working conditions again by the globalists. He should be pissed also. I know I am.

Billy T

10-07-11, 01:13 PM

... So let's take 2/3rds of that (leaving them just over $2 million each) and give all that equally to each household in the US.

Better yet, let's give it to only the bottom 25% of households.

That's about $50 per household.

So, NO, an extra $50 per the bottom 25% of households isn't really going to change a thing and is not worth a "day of rage" or evidence that the system is broken. ...You miss the point of the article (or else are just blowing smoke screen for CEO abuse). The article is NOT suggesting distrubution of the excessive greed gains the CEOs pull down even when the company they manage is losing Market Value. (Nor would I as those funds given to so many don't make much difference to the total US population.)

The two points of the article were:
(1) There should be a connection between benefit the CEO supplies to the company and what he takes from it. Not that he gets "his" millions while killing the company with bad decisions as is the current case in the US "broken system."
AND
(2) The bad CEO, still collecting millions, is legally stealing from the stock holders - a much smaller group than the total US population of your smoke screen. To that smaller group 10 or 20 million dollars taken from the company's bottom line is significant. Especially bad (a broken system) when the CEO has greatly lowered the bottom line even before taking millions from it for his personnel benefit.

adoucette

10-07-11, 01:20 PM

You miss the point of the article

No Billy, the article starts out like this:

The protestors are convinced the system is broken and needs to be overhauled. While they have been unable to articulate their real concerns or offer any concrete solutions one thing is certain. THEY ARE RIGHT!

The system IS broken.....

Now you want to say that "the system" is only about your two narrow points.

Sorry, that lead in is just wrong and totally misleading.

Which is why I said we need to put CEO compensation in perspective.

You know.

SCALE

And I've got no problem with the Board of Directors of organizations getting smarter when it comes to CEO compensation.

Arthur

Billy T

10-07-11, 01:44 PM

...Now you want to say that "the system" is only about your two narrow points. ...ArthurNo again you are trying to put words in my mouth. - I did not say anything like that. I only pointed out to you that the article does NOT suggest distribution of CEO's massive gains to the large US population - Yes doing that (your smoke screen to protect CEO abuse of stockholders) would make insignificant changes.

As you clearly missed the point of the article (if you were not just making protective smoke screen for abusive CEOs) I did summarize the two main points of the article to help you understand what was its focus.

I can not tell which is the case:
(1) you understood and are blowing a protective smoke screen for abusive CEOs.
OR
(2) you did not understand and honestly think the article was suggesting distributing the excessive greedy gains of stockholder abusing CEOs to the US population despite there not being even the slightest suggestion of this in the article.

BTW, my two points in the summary of the article are not "narrow."
The first is the broad idea that CEO rewards should be linked to the good the CEO does for the company.
The second ideas is that it is "legal stealing" from the stockholders if the abusive CEO not only reduces the bottom line by his bad decisions but further reduces it by taking millions from the bottom line for his personnel use.

Both are very general ideas - not "narrow."

BTW 2 -Yes Steve Jobs was a great CEO for Apple - worth 100s of millions to the stock holders, but do you know what his salary was? - one dollar per year and no "servance bonus" in his contract. He did not "legally steal" from the stock holders as many bad CEOs do. He got his reward when they did - i.e. in stocks. You can not tie the CEO reward any more closely to CEO performance than that.

adoucette

10-07-11, 02:02 PM

Billy,

I understood the two points.
I don't disagree with either of them.
I simply pointed out (via showing how little the financial impact would be if 2/3rd of the income of the CEOS of the top 500 companies was distributed to the bottom 25% of the households) that the intro to the article, the global vision of a "broken US political and financial system", isn't supported by an article that deals only with a narrow issue of CEO compensation.

Arthur

Hellenologophobia

10-07-11, 03:23 PM

Ok...and...? He should also be pissed off. He's is working 60 hours a week because we are all getting dragged into the industrial revolution working conditions again by the globalists. He should be pissed also. I know I am.

I think this is just another form of aggressive panhandling.

“You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.” – unknown

nietzschefan

10-07-11, 07:01 PM

William J. H. Boetcker

And pay particular attention to "You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn". That's what the banks did and then made the Peon income tax payer take it up the ass for their mistake. That's what this is about for many.

Also you missed:

You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money

Also his 7 National crimes:

I don’t think.
I don’t know.
I don’t care.
I am too busy.
I leave well enough alone.
I have no time to read and find out.
I am not interested.

Billy T

10-08-11, 07:47 AM

Goals for Americans, angry with Wall Street (and banking system), to work for:

1. Break up too-big-to-fail banks so they aren't threatening our financial system .
2. Investigate failed banks for fraud, and indict and incarcerate guilty parties.
3. Scale banker bonuses progressively with long-vesting stock options.
4. Legislate pay claw-back provisions and criminal statutes for bad banker behavior.
5. Eliminate volatility-inducing high-frequency-trading and ETF program arbitrage.
6. Make all derivatives exchange traded, highly margined, and transparent.
7. Limit credit default swaps to two times the value of at-risk underlying credits.
8. Mandate exhaustive studies of the potential market impact of newly created financial products.
9. Create simple, effective, light-touch regulations with heavy criminal penalties .
10. Cap Wall Street's political contributions and make them transparent.
11. Audit the Federal Reserve and limit its lending to domestic banking institutions.
12. Give the Consumer Protection Finance Bureau (CPFB) criminal indictment powers, including over the Federal Reserve.
13. Make Wall Street answer to the needs of Main Street, not the other way around.

From: http://moneymorning.com/2011/10/07/dear-occupy-wall-street-will-you-stand-with-me/

Billy T agrees with all but thinks that at times (goal 11) it may be desirable for FED to help prevent collapse of foreign banks, etc if their collapse will do great damage to US economy. Also goal 12 may be worse than the evils it tries to cure. I would not do it, now. A reasonably independent FED is essential. Goal 6 alone, would probably have prevent the current economic crises - It is a version of "Mark to Market" that makes a real market placing correct values on derivatives, not false ones typically carried on the books at face value for as long as that is even slightly plausible.

Chipz

10-08-11, 08:23 AM

I think this is just another form of aggressive panhandling.

“You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.” – unknown

The citation is out of line. We rejected nepotism, we rejected feudalism, and we rejected oligarchy. Why wouldn't we reject plutocracy?

The Tea-Party was one valid central idea conflated by accompanying nonsense.
These rally's are numerous valid ideas lacking a central theme. It lacks a central theme because the questions, at this point, are more valid than any answer which can be provided.

Roughly the questions boil down to this...
- Is there a system where 10% don't own 71% of the wealth?
- Why do business men get to rule the world? Do we need so many damned managers, human resources, and under-educated degree holders taking from the skilled tradesmen?
- Why do we need to work 60 hours a week and sacrifice our family lives and personal enjoyment just to barely survive?
- Why do big business dictate and inflate prices of health-care for the rest of us such that we can literally not afford to live without paying them?
- Why can I not get paid (and cash my check) unless I pay dues/fees to a bank? That's right...I pay more than 25% of my income to the govt, and to get the rest I have to pay a bank to cash it.
- Why are these corporations allowed to spend the workers profits on propaganda which works against the workers without their consent!

These are just a few questions.

Yes, you can work hard -- work 60 hours a week, if you're fortunate enough to have been born somewhat bright you can make a wage at which you can afford to live comfortable. But what about the '53%ers' who have been duped by propaganda to accept working 60 hours a week, not being able to afford health care, having sizable chunks of income taken from them to be spent on things they don't agree with...is not only a right...but a privilege!

It seems archaic to me.

--
I'll add. The movement on the street is not about the 53% giving them money. It's about the system being designed in such a way that they can provide for themselves. I'd wager that at leas 95% of men would like to provide for their families by the work of their own hands. When there is no opportunity for them; they must scar their dignity and accept things for free.

adoucette

10-08-11, 08:28 AM

Goals for Americans, angry with Wall Street (and banking system), to work for:

1. Break up too-big-to-fail banks so they aren't threatening our financial system .

Where has SIZE of bank been implicated in this?
It hasn't.
Indeed much of the issues we had didn't have anything to do with banks at all, but other players in the Financial Industry.
Indeed, all the large banks have paid back the TARP funds they received and we made a decent profit on the loans (as much as 23%), the largest loan outstanding is with AIG and they are an Insurance company.

And finally all that would mean is US banks would not be quite as competitive with larger foreign banks.

http://www.rabobankamerica.com/content/documents/worlds_safest_banks.pdf

Silly idea.

2. Investigate failed banks for fraud, and indict and incarcerate guilty parties.

Comes up all the time, but even with the intensive investigations no significant fraud has been found, indeed, virtually none that rise to the level of criminal, merely civil.

Housing bubbles like this required millions of people to make bad financial decisions but no one wants to look in the mirror and accept any personal responsibility for defaulting on their mortgage.

Others in the list imply that there was significant criminal activity in the Financial Crisis.
Well where is it?
It's been years since the banks and markets crashed and the list of criminal acitivity uncovered (particularly when you consider the scope of any indictements compared to the size of the financial losses) is pretty much nill.

Clearly this wasn't a criminal issue, it was a risk management issue.
The few in the list that deal with risk might be needed, the rest are mainly window dressing.

Arthur

adoucette

10-08-11, 08:32 AM

- Why can I not get paid (and cash my check) unless I pay dues/fees to a bank? That's right...I pay more than 25% of my income to the govt, and to get the rest I have to pay a bank to cash it.

Hmmm?

Really.

My bank doesn't charge a penny for depositing my paycheck or for use of their ATMs and if you keep a relatively small balance ($500) nothing for checks either.

Most banks are the same.

Arthur

Chipz

10-08-11, 08:41 AM

Hmmm?

Really.

My bank doesn't charge a penny for depositing my paycheck or for use of their ATMs and if you keep a relatively small balance ($500) nothing for checks either.

Most banks are the same.

Arthur

That's missing the point. Why do I have to use a bank? Why am I not given the option to never visit or deal with one, period? Public Interest Research Group finds this --> http://www.pirg.org/consumer/banks/CONSTIPS.HTM

adoucette

10-08-11, 08:56 AM

That's missing the point. Why do I have to use a bank? Why am I not given the option to never visit or deal with one, period? Public Interest Research Group finds this --> http://www.pirg.org/consumer/banks/CONSTIPS.HTM

Because our system doesn't operate on just a CASH basis.

Do you really want to be paid in cash and then have to pay all your bills IN PERSON with cash?

Of course not, that's why we use alternate forms of payment.

Well who do you think operates the national Payment system that handles over 1 TRILLION non-cash payments each year.

That's Debit Cards, Credit Cards, Checks and ACH (automatic deposits/payments)

And on the Cash side who do you think holds, counts and redistributes all the cash needed for the cash payment system to work?

Here's a hint, the BANKS.

And sure, if you live in California and get a paycheck drawn on a NYC bank, you CAN fly to NYC and get the cash from the bank, but on the other hand, your local bank will clear that check for you for nothing and give you the cash for it in 2 days. Indeed, if you've had an account at a bank for a while and maintain a relatively small average balance most banks will allow you to use some or all of the funds even before they collect them from the other bank.

Arthur

Billy T

10-08-11, 09:07 AM

1. Break up too-big-to-fail banks so they aren't threatening our financial system .

Where has SIZE of bank been implicated in this? It hasn't. ...
ArthurNot true:

"...Three more U.S. banks were closed by regulators Friday,{day 351 of 2010} bringing the total number of bank failures for the year to 157. ... The three bank failures will cost the federal deposit-insurance fund a combined $102.3 million, the FDIC said. ..." From: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/three-us-bank-failures-bring-years-total-to-157-2010-12-17 ...ALL 351 were of modest size - would not collapse the economy as "too big to fail" banks would have. So they were not "bailed out" (more than once in some cases, like BoA) with taxpayer's money while their CEOs collected billions in bonuses.
From: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2664659&postcount=156

Indeed much of the issues we had didn't have anything to do with banks at all, but other players in the Financial Industry.That is not true either for two different reasons:
(1) When the economic troubles were being made, there was no required separation between “banks” & "financial institution" making speculative use of the depositors funds . All of the big ones were unified institutions, offering both banking and investment services. I do not recall exactly when these “unified organizations” were required to split into separate operating divisions, but that was imposed upon them AFTER the damage was done to the economy by the abuses they made when they were unified.

(2) Certainly the banks granting "no money down" mortgages to any homeless bum they found on the street and could pour enough coffee in him to get him sober enough to sign his name (well that is a slight exaggeration but you get the point) were a major cause of the eventual housing price collapse, which in most cities is still continuing. These banks were not required to keep even 1% of these rotten mortgages on their books, so they did not. They packaged them together with mortgages from all over the US (safer with this diversity they told S&P etc so got AAA ratings) Then these packages were sold all over the world as safe AAA "collateralized securities." The mortgage granting banks not only got profits when selling their toxic trash, but mortgage placement fees, etc. taken out at the time of issue. Fanny May holds a lot of this "toxic trash" too so the final bill to Joe Taxpayer is not yet known.

Chipz

10-08-11, 09:12 AM

Because our system doesn't operate on just a CASH basis.

Do you really want to be paid in cash and then have to pay all your bills IN PERSON with cash?
[quote]

Yes. The way you make it out to be insane makes me wonder just how many bills you have. A nice rule of thumb; if it's too many to do in cash, it's too many.

[quote]
Of course not, that's why we use alternate forms of payment.

Well who do you think operates the national Payment system that handles over 1 TRILLION non-cash payments each year.

That's Debit Cards, Credit Cards, Checks and ACH (automatic deposits/payments)

And on the Cash side who do you think holds, counts and redistributes all the cash needed for the cash payment system to work?

Here's a hint, the BANKS.

And sure, if you live in California and get a paycheck drawn on a NYC bank, you CAN fly to NYC and get the cash from the bank, but on the other hand, your local bank will clear that check for you for nothing and give you the cash for it in 2 days. Indeed, if you've had an account at a bank for a while and maintain a relatively small average balance most banks will allow you to use some or all of the funds even before they collect them from the other bank.

Arthur

Ech... All you've proven is you understand how things work. Nobody denies how things work (well maybe someone does?). They dislike how things are done....

adoucette

10-08-11, 09:23 AM

Because our system doesn't operate on just a CASH basis.

Do you really want to be paid in cash and then have to pay all your bills IN PERSON with cash?

Yes. The way you make it out to be insane makes me wonder just how many bills you have. A nice rule of thumb; if it's too many to do in cash, it's too many.

Horsepucky

My mortgage company is three states and 500 miles away.
My car payment is to a company on the other side of the country.
My cable company doesn't have an office to even take cash.
The phone company is Verizon, with no local office.
My Electric company has an office downtown
My Gas company has an office on the other side of town.
My insurance company for my Boat is in a different city than the one for my car and house, but only one has a local office I could pay at.
My Credit card is from a bank in a different state.
I shop on the internet, where is the closest Apple store, Amazon, Ubid etc etc

No, that assertion, that we revert back to cash is based on someone who has no clue about the nature of the over Trillion non-cash payments we make each year and how important that is to our economy functioning and how restrictive a cash based economy would be.

Ech... All you've proven is you understand how things work. Nobody denies how things work (well maybe someone does?). They dislike how things are done....

Oh BS

Every Internet purchase uses Electronic forms provided by the banking system.

About 90% of paychecks are deposited electronically via the ACH network.

Almost all Federal disbursements (Social Security, Medical) are done electronically via the banking system.

We switched from cash to alternate payments systems because we PREFERED them.

Arthur

adoucette

10-08-11, 09:25 AM

Billy T

10-08-11, 10:00 AM

Billy, if the big banks were broken up into smaller banks, the sum of the amount needed to cover them would still be the same.

It's not size that is the issue. ...ArthurBut none, not one, of these smaller banks which were poorly managed, took excessive risk, etc. would need to be "bailed out" - they could just be allowed to fail as 353 did in 2010. Thus, SIZE IS THE ISSUE.

Not only that, but generally speaking local banks know their local community better than branch of big NYC bank, being directed from 500+ miles away. I.e. on average they can better evaluate loan applicants. The two reason they fail and not the big city banks are:
(1) they don't get loans from the government when in trouble or to participate in the great "circle jerk" with essentially zero cost deposits from the FED, which they do not lend out, but send to the US treasure and collect at least 2% (on 10 year paper or 3% on 30 year paper) totally risk free. (I call it somewhat vulgarly a "circle jerk" as when the funds get back to the Treasury then the FED can start the circle all over again. This "circle jerk" may be the most important way the Government aids the big banks, without much notice of it. I'd like to get in on a 3% risk free deal that I contributed zero of my own funds to.

(2) Their total loan portfolio is much smaller so a run of a few "non-performing" loans can do them in - I.e. the big banks do have a statistical advantge. It is just like a small life insurance company can't stand an unlucky streak of deaths but a big one can. What the small banks need to do is unite to spread the risk - For example: swap 10% of each loan with 10 other small banks, Note this is far different from selling 100% of the risk away to investors as the big financial institutions did.

Chipz

10-08-11, 10:11 AM

Horsepucky

My mortgage company is three states and 500 miles away.
My car payment is to a company on the other side of the country.
My cable company doesn't have an office to even take cash.
The phone company is Verizon, with no local office.
My Electric company has an office downtown
My Gas company has an office on the other side of town.
My insurance company for my Boat is in a different city than the one for my car and house, but only one has a local office I could pay at.
My Credit card is from a bank in a different state.
I shop on the internet, where is the closest Apple store, Amazon, Ubid etc etc

No, that assertion, that we revert back to cash is based on someone who has no clue about the nature of the over Trillion non-cash payments we make each year and how important that is to our economy functioning and how restrictive a cash based economy would be.

You've decided to focus on one bit of minutia of my overall point for whatever reason. But I've marked all of the debt items in your list. If you want to live that way...be my guest. :rolleyes:

Oh BS

Every Internet purchase uses Electronic forms provided by the banking system.

About 90% of paychecks are deposited electronically via the ACH network.

Almost all Federal disbursements (Social Security, Medical) are done electronically via the banking system.

We switched from cash to alternate payments systems because we PREFERED them.

Arthur

So that means it should be the only option? I guess I am old fashioned in that respect. But it seems like forcing people to interact with a bank just to get paid for the work they already did is off kilter with our day to day values. Could you imagine if I paid you to mow a lawn, then gave you a stub which forces you to sign up with a corporation which forces your to relinquish private information and (on the American average) costs you $288 dollars per year? My only other option being giving up 15% of the income to a check cashier; which in the event I decided to cancel payment... YOU got screwed?

That doesn't seem quite right to me...

Billy T

10-08-11, 10:23 AM

"... The anger is growing. The protests that started in the streets of New York over Wall Street's barbaric ways are now growing to other cities across the country. Ordinary citizens have had enough of the "privileged few" raking in the money while most everyone else suffers. Worse yet, the misery can be directly traced back to Wall Street institutions, which went hog wild selling toxic mortgage-backed securities. ..."

From today's Email to me from SmartInvesting.com

Possibly the most important thing Steve Jobs unintentionally did was to make mass revolution possible even in the modern "Big Brother" age. Social media made the "Arab spring" possible despite brutal oppression by the ruling class. Who knows where it will end in the USA with an outraged population?* It is little wonder that China has nearly 100,000 employees filtering what is available on their internal internet - the CCP understands what could happen.

--------------
* As I have posted, predicted, earlier: mostly likely in suspension of the Constitution and Martial Law rule by the Army / National Guard. They can confiscate food produced in the Mid West and distribute it to avoid food riots when most can not buy food for their families. The very rich, who can not get themselves and their ever more concentrated wealth out of the US, will have reason to regret the destruction of the US middle class currently taking place.

cosmictraveler

10-08-11, 10:58 AM

Billy T

10-08-11, 01:53 PM

If only the SEC and bank Federal regulators would have just done their jobs before this mess ever started there would never had been a failure of the banks or the stock market . The laws that were already on the books addressed every problem that was going on and those problems should have never been happening if the would have been properly regulated. ...Part of why I call the coming US&EU depresion "GWB's depression"

When congressional committee was grilling the former head of the SEC under GWB about their failure to stop Maddoff's Ponzi scheme even after their Boston office was supplied with very well documented proof that it was (21 separate example of false "after the fact" profitable trades Madoff claimed to have made but could not have, one being a volume of option trades in one stock that greatly exceeded the total trades in it made that day) the SEC head said: "We were kept on a very tight leash." (as to what and who we could investigate implied but not said by his just prior testimony) :

"... financial analyst Harry Markopolos informed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that he believed it was legally and mathematically impossible to achieve the gains Madoff claimed to deliver. According to Markopolos, he knew within five minutes that Madoff's numbers didn't add up, and it took four hours of failed attempts to replicate them to conclude Madoff was a fraud.[57] He was ignored by the Boston SEC in 2000 and 2001, as well as by Meaghan Cheung at the New York SEC in 2005 and 2007 when he presented further evidence. He has since published a book, No One Would Listen. ..." From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff

But the main reason I was able to predict GWB's depression was "inevitable" was that GWB only created 4 million jobs in his 8 years as POTUS when 22 million were needed just to keep up with the growth of he labor force. Thus, job hungry workers accepted a steady decline in the purchasing power of their salaries under GWB. This was a disaster for a "consumer economy" that depended 2/3 on Joe American buying. Joe unfortunately did not immediately reduce his buying to fit within his reduced real income. Instead he went into debt, "negative saved" even using the equity in his home as an ATM cash machine when credit cards were maxed out. This delayed the start of GWB's second recession (which many think we re still in) until the last year of his term.

Oh, yes also a factor why it will be GWB's depression: he started two needless wars, one of which is still going strong and now, on the 10 year anniversary, the bill already totals 444 billion dollars, not counting at least an equal amount due later in services to returning veterans, re-building infrastructure US has bombed into dust, etc.

Even if some idiot Republican replaces Obama and has the depression starts on his watch, it will not be his fault. - GWB's "reward the rich, screw Joe American" tax policy (Which built the more modern factories in China and closed no longer competitive US factories) and all of the things mentioned above, made the coming depression INEVITABLE. GWB will never admit it is his, but it is.

Billy T

10-08-11, 08:10 PM

Protest is becoming anti-government too:

"... The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington was closed today after a security officer used chemical spray to thwart the assault of another when about 150 people converged to protest the use of drones. ..."

From: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-08/smithsonian-closed-after-scuffle-with-protesters.html

adoucette

10-08-11, 08:30 PM

You've decided to focus on one bit of minutia of my overall point for whatever reason. But I've marked all of the debt items in your list. If you want to live that way...be my guest. :rolleyes:

No, you ignored the TRILLION non-cash payments that are made each year via the banking system.

Which is why we aren't going back to cash.

Arthur

adoucette

10-08-11, 09:02 PM

Not true:
ALL 351 were of modest size - would not collapse the economy as "too big to fail" banks would have. So they were not "bailed out" (more than once in some cases, like BoA) with taxpayer's money while their CEOs collected billions in bonuses.
From: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2664659&postcount=156

BFD Billy, this is in 2011, the other post was in 2010.
The big failures were years earlier.
And no, the big banks like BofA and Wells absolutely didn't do what you were claiming.

The big bank failures was Wachovia and WAMU, neither overly large.
The others, like AIG and Bear Stearns weren't even banks.

That is not true either for two different reasons:
(1) When the economic troubles were being made, there was no required separation between “banks” & "financial institution" making speculative use of the depositors funds . All of the big ones were unified institutions, offering both banking and investment services. I do not recall exactly when these “unified organizations” were required to split into separate operating divisions, but that was imposed upon them AFTER the damage was done to the economy by the abuses they made when they were unified.

So?
The issue wasn't with the size of the banks.

(2) Certainly the banks granting "no money down" mortgages to any homeless bum they found on the street and could pour enough coffee in him to get him sober enough to sign his name (well that is a slight exaggeration but you get the point) were a major cause of the eventual housing price collapse, which in most cities is still continuing. These banks were not required to keep even 1% of these rotten mortgages on their books, so they did not. They packaged them together with mortgages from all over the US (safer with this diversity they told S&P etc so got AAA ratings) Then these packages were sold all over the world as safe AAA "collateralized securities." The mortgage granting banks not only got profits when selling their toxic trash, but mortgage placement fees, etc. taken out at the time of issue. Fanny May holds a lot of this "toxic trash" too so the final bill to Joe Taxpayer is not yet known.

Total BS Billy, but if you want to believe in fairy tales of your own making go ahead.

A much more rational discussion of the MULTI-FACETED problem can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis

Arthur

nietzschefan

10-08-11, 11:37 PM

Arthur, did you know Billy basically made a called shot on the 2008 crisis right here on this forum?

Show some respect boy.

eyeswideshut

10-09-11, 07:18 AM

They packaged them together with mortgages from all over the US (safer with this diversity they told S&P etc so got AAA ratings) Then these packages were sold all over the world as safe AAA "collateralized securities."

This has been going on a long time, real interesting inside viewpoint;

"Liar's Poker is a non-fiction, semi-autobiographical book by Michael Lewis describing the author's experiences as a bond salesman on Wall Street during the late 1980s.[1] First published in 1989, it is considered one of the books that define Wall Street during the 1980s"

Catch phrases

* Big Swinging Dick — A big-time trader or salesman. ("If he could make millions of dollars come out of those phones, he became that most revered of all species: a Big Swinging Dick." p. 52.) The opposite of this term is Geek, used to describe a just-hired trainee.
* Equities in Dallas — A particularly undesirable job within a finance firm. ("He belonged to the dreaded equity department, the sleepy backwater in which lurked such career stoppers as Equities in Dallas." p. 49.)
* Blowing up a customer — Successfully convincing a customer to purchase an investment product which ends up declining rapidly in value, forcing the client to withdraw from the market.
* Feeding Frenzy — Term used to describe the Friday-morning meal shared by a certain clique of bond traders. At this meal, traders would order astounding quantities of take-out food. The traders would then compete with each other to see who could display the most gluttony, and always bought far more food than they could eat (e.g., insisting on five-gallon tubs of guacamole with an order of $400 dollar's worth of Mexican food).
* The Human Piranha — Nickname for an employee [2] at Salomon Brothers who constantly used the word "fuck" and its variants in his speech. A reference to Tom Wolfe's character in Bonfire of the Vanities.
* Shorting Salomon — Steps taken by a Salomon Brothers' employee to ensure a future job if something bad happened at the home firm. Term taken from the process of short selling, or investing on the premise that the equity in question will soon decline in value.
* The Arabs — A catch-all explanation for unexpected swings in capital markets. Traders blamed "the Arabs" for any trend they could not explain. As there was no reliable way to determine what Arab investors were doing at any particular time, any explanation for market behavior that mentioned them was as likely to be true as any other."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker

QUOTES FROM
MICHAEL LEWIS’ LIAR’S POKER

“This isn’t some fucking story about a bunch of fat analysts sitting around an ofiice,” he said over the music. “It’s not a bunch of big swinging dicks making bets on the serial numbers on dollar bills.”

I smiled at the allusion. He was referring to Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker, probably the definitive book on the culture of the financial industry. In it, Lewis described the casino that was Wall Street through the eyes of the macho traders who made billion-dollar deals from behind their computer screens, then went home to their mansions in Connecticut. The book had spawned a decade of Wall Street tell-alls, covering nearly every aspect of the financial industry. If a broker had scratched his ass while shouting Xerox, someone somewhere had written a book about it.

- Ugly Americans, Ben Mezrich

Foolish names and foolish faces often appear in public places.

The larger the number of people involved, the easier it was for them to delude themselves that what they were doing must be smart. The first thing you learn on the trading floor is that when large numbers of people are after the same commodity, be it a stock, a bond, or a job, the commodity quickly becomes overvalued.

The men on the trading floor may not have been to school but they have PhDs in Man’s Ignorance.

In any market, as in any poker game, there is a fool. The astute investor Warren Buffet is fond of saying that any player unaware of the fool in the market probably is the fool in the market.

Ask any astute trader and he’ll tell you that his best work cuts against conventional wisdom. Good traders tend to do the unexpected.

The firm’s management created a training programme, filled it to the brim, then walked away. In the ensuing anarchy the bad drove out the good, the big drove out the small, and the brawn drove out the brains.

Then bosses wanted him not for any other reason, but simply because other bosses wanted him.

Those who say don’t know, and those who know don’t say.

In joining equities we could be a part of something far larger than ourselves. I’m not sure we could conceive of anything much larger than ourselves.

Whenever calculus is brought in, or higher algebra, you could take it as a warning signal that the operator was trying to substitute theory for experience.

The only thing that history teaches us, a wise man once said, is that history doesn’t teach us anything.

What was the secret to dealing with assholes? “Lift weights or learn karate.”

I was fascinated by Ranieri. For several years running he and his traders made more money than anyone on Wall Street. I didn’t like them one bit, but that was probably a point in their favour. Their presence was like a sign of health of the firm, just as mine was the sign of the illness. If the mortgage traders left Salomon, I figured, we’d had it. There would be nothing remaining but a bunch of nice guys.

‘I don’t do favours. I accumulate debts’ - Ancient Sicilian motto

That was how a Salomon bond trader thought: he forgot whatever it was that he wanted to do for a minute and put his finger on the pulse of the market. If the market felt fidgety, if people were scared or desperate, he herded them like sheep into a corner, then made them pay for their uncertainty. He sat on the market until it puked gold coins. Then he worried about what he wanted to do.

‘If it weren’t for the fact that I can do anything I want around here, I’d quit.’

“All that stuff about me in the mail room is true,” says Ranieri. “And when I ran mortgages I religiously picked people from the back office. At first I did it for moral reasons. But it worked. They appreciated it. They didn’t feel like the world owed them a living. They were more loyal.”

Stupid customers (the fools in the market) were a wonderful asset, but at some level of ignorance they became a liability - they went broke.
http://www.factbehindfiction.com/index_files/liarspokerquotes.htm

Good entertaining book.

cosmictraveler

10-09-11, 07:31 AM

Billy T

the SEC head said: "We were kept on a very tight leash."

By who? Just wondering who then why.

adoucette

10-09-11, 09:05 AM

Arthur, did you know Billy basically made a called shot on the 2008 crisis right here on this forum?

Show some respect boy.

You mean the crisis that started two years before that?

The immediate cause or trigger of the crisis was the bursting of the United States housing bubble which peaked in approximately 2005–2006. High default rates on "subprime" and adjustable rate mortgages (ARM), began to increase quickly thereafter.

By October 2007, approximately 16% of subprime adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) were either 90-days delinquent or the lender had begun foreclosure proceedings, roughly triple the rate of 2005. By January 2008, the delinquency rate had risen to 21% and by May 2008 it was 25%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis

Wow, imagine that.

Arthur

Billy T

10-09-11, 09:19 AM

By who? Just wondering who then why.The SEC is under and controlled by the adminstration, so during that time, it was controlled by GWB, either directly or more likely by people doing what he wanted for him.

The "Why" is that most of GWB's support came from the wealthy - Major employers especially like his policies that reduce the purchasing power of the average salary. - That lowered their real labor costs.

To further expand his support, GWB introduced the corn to alcohol program, which transfers billions to a few very well off supporters like the Cargill family, but now uses 1/3 of all US corn production making cost of food like chickens and pork more expensive.

I.e. Joe tax payer send money to some of the world's most wealthy (in farm subsidies to big corporation (or to the ~100 multi-billionaires of the Cargill family) with the main effect of these extra taxes on Joe being his food cost are also higher.

For more on the Cargill family, their huge mansions on their large private lake, etc. See:
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2788880&postcount=83

Billy T

10-09-11, 09:44 AM

... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis ...Wow, imagine that. ...ArthurYes with 20-20 hind sight Wiki does now say:
“By October 2007, approximately 16% of subprime adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) were either 90-days delinquent or the lender had begun foreclosure proceedings, roughly triple the rate of 2005. By January 2008, the delinquency rate had risen to 21% and by May 2008 it was 25%. .”
but in October 2007 I POSTED:

“…Here we go again, but this is the last time, I predict, before the crash.” – The last sentence from 8Oct2007 post at: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1502039&postcount=1

Which describes why and how the government policies are destroying the US economy in what I called a “6 l- cycle.”

adoucette

10-09-11, 09:57 AM

To further expand his support, GWB introduced the corn to alcohol program, which transfers billions to a few very well off supporters like the Cargill family, but now uses 1/3 of all US corn production making cost of food like chickens and pork more expensive.

Actually these programs passed with broad bi-partisan support.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 Passed in 2005 when the Republicans had majorities in both houses

Passed the House on April 21, 2005 (249 - 183)
Passed the Senate on June 28, 2005 (85 - 12)

But the Energy Indpendence & Security Act passed in 2007, when the Democrats had majorities in both houses.

Passed the House on January 18, 2007 (264 - 163)
Passed the Senate on June 21, 2007 (65 - 27)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Independence_and_Security_Act_of_2007

And both extended the use of Ethanol significantly.

As to Corn Subsidies to the Cargills.

Nope

This lists who the subsidies go to and who the owners are.

http://farm.ewg.org/top_recips.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn&yr=2010&regionname=theUnitedStates

And to put the subsidies in PERSPECTIVE, the amount of subsidies is ~25c per bushel of corn and corn goes for ~$6 per bushel.

Arthur

adoucette

10-09-11, 10:08 AM

Yes with 20-20 hind sight Wiki does now say:
“By October 2007, approximately 16% of subprime adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) were either 90-days delinquent or the lender had begun foreclosure proceedings, roughly triple the rate of 2005. By January 2008, the delinquency rate had risen to 21% and by May 2008 it was 25%. .”
but in October 2007 I POSTED:

“…Here we go again, but this is the last time, I predict, before the crash.” – The last sentence from 8Oct2007 post at: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1502039&postcount=1

Which describes why and how the government policies are destroying the US economy in what I called a “6 l- cycle.”

Of course Billy.

By late summer of 07 everyone who was watching the financial markets was aware that the bubble had burst.

The crisis began to affect the financial sector in February 2007, when HSBC, the world's largest (2008) bank, wrote down its holdings of subprime-related MBS by $10.5 billion, the first major subprime related loss to be reported. During 2007, at least 100 mortgage companies either shut down, suspended operations or were sold.

In March 2007, the United States' sub-prime mortgage industry collapsed due to higher-than-expected home foreclosure rates (no verifying source), with more than 25 sub-prime lenders declaring bankruptcy, announcing significant losses, or putting themselves up for sale.[89] The stock of the country's largest sub-prime lender, New Century Financial, plunged 84% amid Justice Department investigations, before ultimately filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 2, 2007 with liabilities exceeding $100 million.[90] The manager of the world's largest bond fund, PIMCO, warned in June 2007 that the sub-prime mortgage crisis was not an isolated event and would eventually take a toll on the economy and ultimately have an impact in the form of impaired home prices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_housing_bubble

Arthur

Billy T

10-09-11, 10:56 AM

To adoucette:

Both posts below are from 2004. Were you concerned back in 2004 with US collapse? If so give link to one of your posts. I have the impression, from most of your posts, that you still don’t get the danger to the US economy from the rise of China, collapse of the dollar, with eventual loss of its status as world’s only reserve currency, etc.

... I only can see where the US is headed in the next generation, I think.

I only mentioned fact that China and India are producing 15 times more advanced degree graduates than the US as evidence that they are, as I stated “filled with hard working, smart students.” Unfortunately many US students, not all, look for the easy courses etc.

I think it very important that almost all students have a better understanding of the world they live in (and must compete in) which is increasingly built on the products sciences has made possible. Asians seem to understand this and are making great progress in their education systems.

If present trends continue and the scientific basis of US economy is also lost to Asia, US exports will be mainly rock music and movies, but even that may cease quickly. These exports, like the current export of dollars, will only find buyers while the rest of the world has great faith in / admiration of the US. – How long do you think that faith / admiration will last when some Asian, like the child who said “the king has no clothes” observes:

“The US is bankrupt and can’t even understand our science now.”(Tried to fully exploit the features of your Asian made CD player’s program lately?)...

Sad fact for US is that when the science is gone, US can’t even mount an agricultural based economy, which is competitive globally against countries like Brazil that have better natural gifts in agriculture. The US will not prosper on lawyers suing each other. What will you do when science leadership joins already transferred technological leadership in Asia? Start a rock band and try to sell records to those lawyers? You will no longer export records or movies to a world that holds a lazy, ill-educated culture in low esteem. The current administration is already generating a lot of global hate for US, even boycotts of US products. ... From: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=688978&postcount=16

... Alarmed as I am about the mismanagement of the US economy, this is not the greatest threat to long term prosperity in US. Even if a deep global depression occurs, the factories, farms, roads etc. are all still there.

The real long term disaster, IMHO, is in US education. Not only do several Asian countries have approximately four times the US economic growth rate, they are filled with hard working, smart students. India and China alone are annually producing 15 times more ADVANCED degree students in the hard science than the US. Technological leadership is already lost to Asia. For example US can’t make any flat screen display, not even one which is now two generations obsolete. ...

India does NOT ONLY computer related work, but also judgment work. For example, you last loan application or Xray, may have gone thru the net to India while you slept (its daytime there). It was evaluated, the report written and sent it back to the US in less than 24 hours. You only assumed a US banker or doctor looked at it.

All must help prevent the impending loss of scientific leadership, which is foundation of a modern economy. ... From:
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=688804&postcount=11

adoucette

10-09-11, 11:44 AM

Ah, nothing in them at all related to the SPMC Billy.

Nor has the US collapsed.
Far from it.
But Billy, every post you make about the US is negative, so when ever we have a bump in the road you are always going to say you are right.

So?
Even blind pigs find acorns now and again.

And of course China is going to prosper, since it's leaders finally saw the light, and they have an incredible amount of manpower and resources.

But they will now add to the world's wealth.
Which is additive, not a zero sum game.

Arthur

Billy T

10-09-11, 12:51 PM

... But they will now add to the world's wealth.
Which is additive, not a zero sum game. ... ArthurThat may be a comforting belief to hold, but ignores the fact that modern economies run on oil which is very much like a "zero sum game" - China's demands for it are rapidly growing, but the supply is not. China will not like to pay >$200 / barrel to fuel the world's fastest growing car fleet, etc. but it can. The US can not, and don't expect China to lend the US the money it needs to buy oil in competition with China's buying.

It will be to China's advantage in a few years to see US economically collapse with its oil demand cut in half (or more). Not yet; - they first need to, as they are doing, grow their internal markets and make their exports to US an ever smaller percent of their total exports as they are also doing now.

Of course the US has not collapsed yet - more than five years ago I predicted the collapse would quickly follow a run on the dollar, which would occur no later than Halloween 2014 - I still stand by that prediction. The current rush to low yield US treasury bonds, for their "security" is IMHO insane - much like a horse, also out of habit, running back to the safety of his stall in a burning barn.

adoucette

10-09-11, 01:02 PM

But there are indeed alternatives to oil, like use of CNG, coal to gas processes etc so there are options for us besides collapse.

http://205.254.135.24/analysis/studies/usshalegas/

But you have shown that you can only see the negative side of any equation.

Billy T

10-09-11, 01:06 PM

But there are indeed alternatives to oil, like use of CNG, coal to gas processes etc so there are options for us besides collapse.

http://205.254.135.24/analysis/studies/usshalegas/ Certainly there are, what we don't have is more than two decades needed to make a conversion to them.

adoucette

10-09-11, 04:36 PM

Billy we aren't going to run out of oil in two decades.

Proven Oil Reserves in 1990 was 1,003.2 Billion barrels.
In 2000 it was 1,104.9
And at the end of 2009 it was 1,376.6 Billion barrels

Proven Natural Gas Reserves in 1990 were 125.7 Trillion M3
In 2000 it was 154.3
And at the end of 2009 it was 186.6 Trillion M3

(and for coal, proven reserves are 860,938 million tons at end of 09)

NO SHORTAGE OF FOSSIL FUELS.

If there were no one would worry about their contribution to rising CO2 levels, the need for Carbon Taxes etc.

Beyond that the price of oil drives the rate of conversion to alternate fuels.

If it goes up the conversion happens faster.
If it doesn't then that means the conversion isn't needed.

Arthur

Billy T

10-09-11, 05:21 PM

Billy we aren't going to run out of oil in two decades. ...
If it {the price of oil} goes up the conversion happens faster.
If it doesn't then that means the conversion isn't needed. ArthurWe will never "run out of oil" - I certainly never said we will run out in two decades. I did suggest that well before 20 year have passed the price of oil (due in large part Asia's growing demand) will be > $200 / Barrel (in current dollars) which China will be able to pay but the US will not.

A decade from now, most cars on US roads will still be using gasoline. You can not just wave your hands and ignore the capital cost of abandoning the huge investment already made* in these cars OR the gasoline stations that serve them. I agree that $5/gallon gas will accelerated adoption of alternate fuel cars;but there is a great deal of inertia when you speak of replacing cars with 10 year useful lives with items that cost $35,000 or more.

Even if US could afford to make 50% of the cars on the road not use gasoline in 10 years, just building the associated support infrastructure and retraining mechanics etc. will also take a decade and be very expensive. That cost is added to the cost of making the alternative energy system (batteries, PV collectors, solar thermal, NG supply expansion, wind machines, or "what ever")

The US is too broke to do much of the conversion you dream of in the time scale needed. Feeding the jobless etc. comes with higher claim on the funds available.

When a new car is sold in China, it typically is replacing a bicycle not a lower MPG car as in the US. Thus, Asian demand for oil will grow very rapidly while US's will hold about steady or even shrink. The supply of cheap oil is about over so as the US's converts to 50% non-gasoline cars the price of gasoline will surely become >$10 /gallon.

To summarize my POV:
The US has run out of both time and money to not be very badly hurt economically by Asia's growing demand for oil. Or from the US's POV, oil will be very definitely a "negative sum game."

----------
* In another thread you said: “Federal Subsidy for these 15,000 cars will be about $112 Million.” 112E6/15E3 = $7467 per car. When added to ~$40.000 purchase cost, and at least $2533 in new support facilities (not even counting the batteries in replacement inventory) We have a conversion cost of $50,000 per gas car replaced. I don’t know the size of the US gas car fleet, but for round numbers lets say we try to replace 8 million each year.

5E4x8E6 = $400,000,000,000 annual cost. Given the current economic conditions of the US that is impossible. Again you can not just look at the rising cost of gasoline and say we will switch to non-gas fueled cars in time to avoid a very serious problem with Asia's growing demand for oil and Asia's ability to pay for it. Note that $4E11 annual cost of converting does NOT include the cost of the windmills, solar sytems, NG development, etc, that will provide the energy these new cars use instead of gasoline. When that is included, you are looking at about 1 trillion dollar per year cost of conversion from gasoline cars for at least a decade! US is too broke - It ain't gona happen.

adoucette

10-09-11, 05:53 PM

Billy, if you double the price of oil to $6, the amount of recoverable oil in the US goes up by a huge amount.
So no, we won't be paying $10 per gallon, though we could if we had to.

And I never said we would switch to EVs as complicated as the Volt, so using it as a benchmark is silly.

What we will do is go to ever more efficient cars as our MPG keeps increasing, so by 2030 our fleet miles per gallon will be significantly higher than it is today and of course, Biodiesel, biofuels, EVs and NG are all going to play an ever larger role.

And of course, about 20% of our driving could probably be eliminated simply by carpooling, using transit a bit more and combining trips, so as the price of gasoline goes up people will adapt.

You are just a pessimist Billy and can only see the negative side of everything.

Arthur

Billy T

10-09-11, 06:55 PM

... You are just a pessimist Billy and can only see the negative side of everything. ArthurNo, I am a realist, not a wishing it were so dreamer.

If you think the US would not need to spend (people + government) on the order of 1 trillion dollars per year (which it does not have) for about 10 years that I conclude with numerical analyse in last post to convert most of current gasoline cars to non-gas cars, then you redo the analysis with your numbers, but don't just wave your hands and say "as gas prices rises we will switch to X + Y + Z" instead.

Show me an REALISTIC analysis of the cost of switching from the current huge capital intensive gas-car system to "what ever" (which surely will be a much greater capital cost than already sunk in to the gas-car system.) Dreaming + hand waving does not cut the cards against cost analysis.

Michael

10-09-11, 07:48 PM

Extreme Money (http://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Money-Masters-Universe-Cult/dp/0132790076) by global finance expert Satyajit Das tells how the human race created money and finance and then, how our inventions recreated us. Das reveals the spectacular, dangerous money games that are generating increasingly massive bubbles of fake growth, prosperity, and wealth--while endangering the jobs, possessions, and futures of virtually everyone outside finance.

Das was talking about some very interesting out of the box ideas the other day. Such as issuing money they must be spent in two years or disappear. ANYTHING could happen. Maybe we will go the way of the Samurai, 20 years of zero growth and a new norm in a crippling economy.

adoucette

10-09-11, 07:55 PM

No, I am a realist, not a wishing it were so dreamer.

If you think the US would not need to spend (people + government) on the order of 1 trillion dollars per year (which it does not have) for about 10 years that I conclude with numerical analyse in last post to convert most of current gasoline cars to non-gas cars, then you redo the analysis with your numbers, but don't just wave your hands and say "as gas prices rises we will switch to X + Y + Z" instead.

Show me an REALISTIC analysis of the cost of switching from the current huge capital intensive gas-car system to "what ever" (which surely will be a much greater capital cost than already sunk in to the gas-car system.) Dreaming + hand waving does not cut the cards against cost analysis.

No Billy you are an extreme pessimist.
There is no need for conversion as we replace our entire fleet every 15 years and the cars that are used the most are replaced the fastest.
Arthur

Billy T

10-09-11, 08:03 PM

... There is no need for conversion as we replace our entire fleet every 15 years and the cars that are used the most are replaced the fastest. ArthurThat is more "hand waving" not cost analysis - for example how much does the government compensate the gas station owners,* what is the cost of the new energy supply and distribution system, who pays for the technical re-training and how much does that cost etc. If batteries are used, what is their annual replacement and waiting inventory cost etc.

-----------------
* Any way you want to look at it abandoning existing gas stations is "capital destruction" - real cost to society as a whole.

madanthonywayne

10-09-11, 08:08 PM

adoucette

10-09-11, 08:08 PM

Billy, the market will answer those questions, but considering that we replace our entire fleet every 15 years clearly it's NOT an issue of accelerated conversion costs as you were suggesting.

Billy T

10-09-11, 08:33 PM

Billy, the market will answer those questions, but considering that we replace our entire fleet every 15 years clearly it's NOT an issue of accelerated conversion costs as you were suggesting.Nonsense! Replacement is not the same as creation of one or more entirely new energy generation and distribution systems, which require investment in re-training of mechanics etc. Any new energy system will be much more expensive than the one it replaces (getting the energy from oil wells)

If you do not want to do the full needed analysis, at least compare the KWH cost of the new energy system to the cost of a KWH of energy in oil. I am just guessing but bet the new energy system will be at least five times more expensive than the one it destroys.

adoucette

10-10-11, 07:47 AM

Nonsense! Replacement is not the same as creation of one or more entirely new energy generation and distribution systems, which require investment in re-training of mechanics etc. Any new energy system will be much more expensive than the one it replaces (getting the energy from oil wells)

Any new system phases in Billy, and the cost is absorbed over time.
New systems would use much of the existing infrastructure.
A gas station today sells gas and diesel. No reason it can't offer recharge ports and CNG dispensers with only a modest incremental investment.
The infrastructure for moving both electricity and NG around the country already exists. As far as the mechanics, the majority of the car still requires the same skills and of course a NG engine is pretty much identical to a gasoline engine and mechanics have been dealing with various electrical systems nd batteries for years, so going to electric is no big learning curve.
Again, your pessimistic views color the fact that over a 10 to 15 year period what you percieve as major problems are simply handled via normal training and development.

If you do not want to do the full needed analysis, at least compare the KWH cost of the new energy system to the cost of a KWH of energy in oil. I am just guessing but bet the new energy system will be at least five times more expensive than the one it destroys.

No way.
I'm sure NG and Electrical based systems are roughly the same as gasoline is today (Electrical are based mainly on Coal, Nuclear and NG today and that's less expensive today than gasoline, the cost is in the vehicle, not the fuel) and as the price of gasoline goes up, they will be less.

Arthur

Billy T

10-10-11, 01:04 PM

By Ed Pawelec - Creator: Price Shock Trader

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That when any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute new Government ... Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of the pieces and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a designed to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
-- Group of Protesters in Wigs, 1776

Two hundred and thirty-five years after these words were endorsed by the Founding Fathers, their enduring truth seems particularly applicable to the spreading “Occupy” movement. ..."

spidergoat

10-10-11, 01:08 PM

...

Nice strawman. No one is against having corporations, only the unfair power that corporate money gives them.

chimpkin

10-10-11, 02:24 PM

Nice strawman. No one is against having corporations, only the unfair power that corporate money gives them.

Right. This is supposed to be government by the people, for the people. Not for and by corporations.

Billy T

10-10-11, 02:27 PM

Any new system phases in Billy, and the cost is absorbed over time. New systems would use much of the existing infrastructure.Perhaps we have different understanding of "new system" - I thought you were speaking of non-fossil system, reducing CO2 etc. but it now appears you mainly are speaking of changing from oil to another fossil fuel (LNG, or liquids and/ or electrical energy from coal) as car fuel. In that case, I agree that still getting the energy out of the ground will not be much more expensive than from oil, but compared to wind or solar, the cost is much greater. Nor will staying with "energy from the ground" need as much new infrastructure. Even the EV's batteries can be recharged during off peak demand periods from existing central power station without much need for new distribution systems.

Wind and solar will need massive investments both for the generation and the entirely new long distance distribution systems, which will probably use the more efficient and cheaper High Voltage DC for distribution (as Sweden has for years used to move hydro power from the North to the Southern cities). Also even if tied in a national grid, for more source diversity, significant storage cost will be required.

If however you were speaking of a switch to wind and solar, the capital cost would be many times greater - that is what I was saying the US can not afford on any scales which significantly reduced fossil fuel use.

adoucette

10-10-11, 03:13 PM

No Billy, I never said all the cars had to be non-fossil fuel based.

But you still don't get it.

You described what was supposedly impossible:

We have a conversion cost of $50,000 per gas car replaced. I don’t know the size of the US gas car fleet, but for round numbers lets say we try to replace 8 million each year.

5E4x8E6 = $400,000,000,000 annual cost. Given the current economic conditions of the US that is impossible

But the average price of a new car in the US is already $30,000 and Americans bought 11.5 million new cars in 2010, or ~$345 Billion.

So no, even if it was $400 billion a year we could do it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/business/21auto.html
http://www.suntimes.com/business/3156874-420/sales-companies-percent-million-2010.html

Arthur

Billy T

10-10-11, 03:37 PM

... So no, even if it was $400 billion a year we could do it. ... Arthur My 400 billion / year was clearly (even stated to be) the cost of just replacing 8 million cars annually with for example EVs recharged during the night from US's mainly coal fired central power plants.- Yes we can do that.

What we can not afford is to switch to a "new system" which would not be just a different fossil fuel but a truly new system, nearly eliminating CO2 production etc. The capital cost of wind or solar energy "fueled" cars is more than the US, with its current debt, can afford.

I have many posts suggesting the switch to LNG, which is a well tested old system (For >30 years most of Sao Paulo's taxis have used it.) because the cost of LNG will be at least static for decades, while that of oil will at least triple before LNG becomes significantly more costly.

When you spoke of a "new system" - I did not think until a recent posts of yours that you too were recommending and speaking of LNG as that has been in wide use (mainly out side of the US) for at least 40 years. - Definitely is not a "new system."

adoucette

10-10-11, 03:50 PM

My 400 billion / year was clearly (even stated to be) the cost of just replacing 8 million cars annually with for example EVs recharged during the night from US's mainly coal fired central power plants.- Yes we can do that.

No Billy, you said we COULDN'T do that.

lets say we try to replace 8 million each year = $400,000,000,000 annual cost. Given the current economic conditions of the US that is impossible

Seems pretty clear.

What we can not afford is to switch to a "new system" which would not be just a different fossil fuel but a truly new system, nearly eliminating CO2 production etc. The capital cost of wind or solar energy "fueled" cars is more than the US, with its current debt, can afford.

Billy we can afford $400 billion per year regardless of what new technology we are buying with that money. And yes, $400 billion per year could convert us to a truly new system over a 15 year period.

I have many posts suggesting the switch to LNG, which is a well tested old system (For >30 years most of Sao Paulo's taxis have used it.) because the cost of LNG will be at least static for decades, while that of oil will at least triple before LNG becomes significantly more costly.

When you spoke of a "new system" - I did not think until a recent posts of yours that you too were recommending and speaking of LNG as that has been in wide use (mainly out side of the US) for at least 40 years. - Definitely is not a "new system."

It would be for the US.
But I pointed out, our "new system" will likely be a combination of lots of solutions, Biofuels, NG, EVs and plain old Hybrids.

Arthur

joepistole

10-10-11, 04:11 PM

It would be for the US.

Arthur

No that is not true. Natural gas as a fuel for cars, trucks, etc. has been in use for several decades in The United States. Back in the 70's we were running LNG ambulances. Although it has not been a major source of vehicle fuel because of availability issues. One cannot reliably jaunt into your local gas station and fill up with natural gas. Thus why would anyone want a natural gas vehicle if they intend to use their vehicles for long distance travel.

But things are a changing. Companies like Clean Energy Inc. are emerging and slowly making headway. The old adage, "build it and they will come" is appropriate here.

quadraphonics

10-10-11, 04:28 PM

Nice strawman.

I like how madanthanywayne is reduced to tossing an occasional troll bomb or petulant link-dump, and then retreating back onto the sidelines. It's difficult to think of anyone who achieves so much counterproducitivty with so little actual output.

Billy T

10-10-11, 04:56 PM

... And yes, $400 billion per year could convert us to a truly new system over a 15 year period. ...ArthurI don't think so even if we were to switch to the most economical no-CO2 system, wind energy and assume, which I think is correct, that there is more than the needed wind energy in the US, but with 15 years* for the switch, I am not certain we could not. I would need to see some analysis indicating it possible. Just consider the cost of the wind machines, their energy conditioning,** and distribution grid. (We can let EV car batteries be the storage system at least for simple analysis.)

* Problem is, as I noted earlier, with Asia's rapid growth in oil demand and ability to pay more for it than US can and the limited growth, if any, in oil production, we don't have 15 year to get off oil powered cars. Thus, I still advocate a rapid effort to switch US cars to the LNG powered car. - It has been tested in 40+ years of use by more than a million cars*** and is still in wide use, just not in the US.

** To use in part the existing power grid they need to make 60Hz. Quite possibly to get energy close to the load they use High Voltage DC for transmission more than ~250 miles? They certainly will not make 60Hz even if AC in variable winds.

*** Something on the order of 50 million car-years of use. - Is a well-proven, economical, old system.

adoucette

10-10-11, 07:29 PM

The cost of wind and Solar and Nuclear is front loaded.
They are not that expensive per kWh over a 20, 40 and 60 year operating lifetime.

So yes Billy, if we had to, we could.

Billy T

10-10-11, 07:50 PM

The cost of wind and Solar and Nuclear is front loaded. They are not that expensive per kWh over a 20, 40 and 60 year operating lifetime. ...Fully correct. Problem is they are paid for up front too - who is going to lend the money?

If US just prints it, then the cost in inflation and increased interest on the debt is much greater over their operating life times than their cost.

IMHO we don't have the QE3 we need but a "twist" instead, which failed terribly* the one time it was used about 50 years ago because printing another 200 billion or so would cost more than 200 billion on the 14 trillion debt in interest. I.e. in crude terms, the US has maxed out its credit card. Can only get big chunks of new loans if it pays much higher interest. May even lose its AAA rating if it tries.
--------------
* Only lowered long term debt by 0.15% and raised short term financing much more. Same seems to be happening again but worse: 30 year interest is actually rising, not dropping. (Was below 3% but no longer)!

quadraphonics

10-10-11, 08:27 PM

Fully correct. Problem is they are paid for up front too - who is going to lend the money?

The same people who lend money for any kind of power project, presumably.

You do understand that US investment spending totals trillions per year, right?

Trippy

10-10-11, 09:28 PM

The same people who lend money for any kind of power project, presumably.

You do understand that US investment spending totals trillions per year, right?

This has been posted in a couple of threads now, and given the turn this one has taken, it seems pertinent to share it here:
http://www.bobcesca.com/argumentsAgainst.jpg

Michael

10-10-11, 09:45 PM

http://1-www-accel-pss.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?container=accel&gadget=www.powerlineblog.com&debug=0&nocache=0&v=qs6cqf1rqa40t87o5tuiib7jdk&rooe=1&html_tag_context=img&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpl-mgroup-akamai.powerlineblog.com%2Fadmin%2Fed-assets%2F2011%2F10%2F310473_10150344819678190_5630 68189_8047513_505664322_n.jpg

I didn't realize the protest was about Corporations? I thought the problem was with greedy Bankster's anti-Capitalistic practice of socializing all of their too-big-to-fail loses while keeping their gains. Which is pure bullshit. THEY created the markets they're now trying to divulge from by sticking it to the people. I hope we see even bigger rallies.

nietzschefan

10-10-11, 10:01 PM

Ya that's the way I think most protesters see it. Quite a few different bitches amoung them though. Most of them are fairly legitimate, but "the man" focuses on the easily ridiculed ones.

madanthonywayne

10-10-11, 10:58 PM

Check out this video of of John Lewis attempting to address the "Occupy Atlanta" crowd. The protesters act like some sort of bizarre cult or perhaps retarded kindergarten students. The entire crowd repeats everything anyone says and they are advised to speak with their hands. I found it disturbing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3QZlp3eGMNI#!

Me-Ki-Gal

10-10-11, 11:07 PM

The word Revolution is sure getting passed around .

joepistole

10-11-11, 12:09 AM

Me-Ki-Gal

10-11-11, 12:13 AM

Rain Dance Maggy "turn around " is fair play . We learn from each other Joe . High Five ! Occupy . What is the deal with Occupy until Jesus comes ? What is that all about ? So strange

billvon

10-11-11, 12:36 AM

Funny you didn't find it disturbing when the Tea Baggers were doing it.

I keep wondering what will happen when the Tea Party and the Wall Street protesters meet. I worry that their opposite political charges will cancel, resulting in a complete conversion of idiocy to energy. On the minus side the explosion would be huge. On the plus side, if we could harness the energy we could power the US for decades - and the average IQ of the nation would go up by 10 points.

Me-Ki-Gal

10-11-11, 12:40 AM

I keep wondering what will happen when the Tea Party and the Wall Street protesters meet. I worry that their opposite political charges will cancel, resulting in a complete conversion of idiocy to energy. On the minus side the explosion would be huge. On the plus side, if we could harness the energy we could power the US for decades - and the average IQ of the nation would go up by 10 points.

They would find out they are fighting the same demon. Corporation U.S.A.

Question ? Is the U.S. Government incorporated like Cities and Towns ? Are states incorporated ?

Gustav

10-11-11, 03:47 AM

Billy T

10-11-11, 06:41 AM

The same people who lend money for any kind of power project, presumably. ... Do you think the supply of new capital for loans to US already 14 trillion in debt is infinite or finite but far from the limit still?

If that last alternative, why did the FED opt for the "twist" which requires no new capital, but has never worked, instead of QE3? At least QE1 & QE2 did help even thought they did not cure US's economic woes (which I think, and for years have said, are incurable - past the point of no return on the road to depression)

The Esotericist

10-11-11, 08:51 AM

They would find out they are fighting the same demon. Corporation U.S.A.

Question ? Is the U.S. Government incorporated like Cities and Towns ?
Yes. I refer you to a very excellent article. So excellent in fact, that an attempt was made to steal it. Here is a nice excerpt. I highly recommend you read the whole thing, very enlightening.

With the passage of the Act of 1871, a series of subtle and overt deceptions were set in motion — all in conjunction and collusion with the Congress, who knowingly and deliberately sold the People down the river. Did they tell you this in government school? I doubt it. They were too busy drumming the fictional version of history into your brain — and mine. By failing to disclose what THEY did to the American People, the people became ignorant of what was happening. Over time, the Republic took it on the chin to the point of a knockdown. With the surrender of their gold in 1933, the People essentially surrendered their law. I don't suppose you were taught THAT in school either. That's because our REAL history is hidden from us. This is the way Roman Civil Law works — and our form of governance today is based upon Roman Civil Law and Admiralty/Maritime Law — better known as the "Divine Right of Kings" and "Law of the Seas", respectively. This explains a lot. Roman Civil Law was fully established in the original colonies even before our nation began and is also known as private international law.

The government which was created for the District of Columbia via the Act of 1871 operates under Private International Law, and not Common Law, which was the law of the Constitutional Republic. This is very important to note since it impacts all Americans in concrete ways. You must recognize that private international law is only applicable within the District of Columbia and NOT in the other states of the Union. The various arms of the corporation are known as "departments" such as the Judiciary, Justice and Treasury. You recognize those names? Yes, you do! But they are not what you assume them to be. These "departments" all belong to the corporation known as THE UNITED STATES. They do NOT belong to you and me under the corporate constitution and its various amendments that operate outside of the Constitutional Republic.

I refer you to the UNITED STATES CODE (note the capitalization, indicating the corporation, not the Republic) Title 28 3002 (15) (A) (B) (C). It is stated unequivocally that the UNITED STATES is a corporation. Realize, too, that the corporation is not a separate and distinct entity from the government. It IS the government. YOUR government. This is extremely important. I refer to this as the "corporate empire of the UNITED STATES," which operates under Roman Civil Law outside of the Constitution. How do you like being ruled by a cheesy, sleazy corporation? You'll ask your Congressperson about this, you say? HA!!

Congress is fully aware of this deception. You must be made aware that the members of Congress do NOT work for you and me. Rather, they work for the Corporation known as THE UNITED STATES. Is this really any surprise to you? This is why we can't get them to do anything on our behalf or to answer to us — as in the case with the illegal income tax — among many other things. Contrary to popular belief, they are NOT our civil servants. They do NOT work for us. They are the servants of the corporate government and carry out its bidding. Period.
The United States Isn't a Country
— It's a Corporation! (http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/us_corporation.htm)
http://www.serendipity.li/censored_at_wp2.gif

adoucette

10-11-11, 09:02 AM

What unadulterated BS.

Is there any off the wall internet driven conspiracy you DON'T believe in?

the stated scope of this definition is limited to “this chapter” i.e. CHAPTER 176 of Title 28 – Federal Debt Collection Procedures. Overlooking the limited scope of such definitions is a very common error among many, if not all self-styled experts. At best, this section cannot be used as evidence that the federal government should be treated as a valid corporation for all other intents and purposes. It takes a LOT more text than this one limited definition to create any federal corporation!

http://www.supremelaw.org/letters/us-v-usa.htm

The Esotericist

10-11-11, 09:11 AM

Me-Ki-Gal

10-11-11, 09:55 AM

I'll admit to being a bit excessively open minded. It helps perception. I am unclear what your quote is trying to say. You'll need a third party source if you want to try to prove anything though. . .

see that sounds just like the tea party . Exactly . I will tell you when the shit hit the fan . I think it was Roosevelt. They created the forest service . What a battle that was for the public . People lived off the land and money was not the necessity. Then along came the Forest patrol . What did they say to the folks living off there land ? No can do you must stop . Gun battles erupted big time . Can you imagine your self back then . Your hungry so you go get some food from the forest , build your self and family a little homestead . Etching out an existence and along comes a Man with a gun in his hand and tells you you got to go buy a license . You can no longer feed your self off the land you home stead-ed . You can't cut no more trees for warming by the fire . The people said bull shit it is my god given right and hence gun play came about . This still goes on unbeknown too you folks . Not so much gun battles , but the Tribes around here have the right to live off the land . Or so they say . Yet it is constantly being tested in court . It was maybe 3 years ago it started back up when a Black Foot killed a moose out of season . I think the Black Foot won in the end after much in the way of harassment and court costs . Souvenir of Sovereignty is what it is .
When I was young I got busted for selling corn on the corner of the street . It was the same corn My competitors sold . I didn't have licensing to sell corn on the corner of the street. If I was to pay the 11,000 in fees to get licensed to handle produce then all would be fine the federal Agent told Me . He handed me the paper work and said to shut down until all was completed . O.K. 17 year olds just wipe out the money . Fuck we were 17 year olds trying to make some money not selling drugs . We didn't have 11,000 to pay the government . So what did we do ? Some of us grew and sold drugs . The risk was a lot less than corn sales !

Edit for additional information on the illegal corn sales . So we had a truck load of corn in the truck with no place to go . What did we do? We sneaked around town looking for new location to illegally get rid of the corn . Didn't go so good . We managed to sell half of the truck load of corn and the rest we blanched and froze in my dads freezer . That was a shit load of corn . We did eat most of it but it was not long after that that my Dad moved to Montana and I would bet you a dollar he threw corn in the trash before he moved . So in the end the question was did we make any money . Yeah about 75 bucks a piece after about 4 or 5 truck loads of corn . It was all going good for the first 3 truck loads and we were making about 150 each before the bust went down and ate heavily into our profit margin. We thought we had life by the balls as between sales we could practice our music and study our school books . Life was good for about 3 days , until that dreadful day the feds raided our corn stand .

adoucette

10-11-11, 10:23 AM

I'll admit to being a bit excessively open minded. It helps perception.

You appear to just be paranoid.

I am unclear what your quote is trying to say. You'll need a third party source if you want to try to prove anything though. . .

How about this.

Your quote was complete BS.

The United States is NOT a Corporation.

Simple enough for you?

Arthur

eyeswideshut

10-11-11, 12:40 PM

Max Keiser on the banks, Herman Cain and the protests.

The Keiser Report
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=behbKi7ef8I

towards

10-11-11, 01:13 PM

in chicago....

Mortgage Bankers Association CEO David Stevens had advised conference attendees in the morning not to "engage or confront" the protesters, and to use pedestrian tunnels and other means to leave the building if needed.

"We all recognize that our industry faces a trust deficit with policymakers and the public, and that people in our industry contributed to the events that led to the financial crisis," the Association said in a statement.

why thank you

The ignorance regarding bank's role in the recession is astonishing. Banks DID NOT cause this economic downturn, they have merely been used as a convenient scape goat. I
The part of the TARP program most people are familiar with is the emergency lending of funds from the government directly to banks. This program actually charges the banks considerable interest (up to 10%), and is on track to make the government somewhere around 20 billion.

The part of TARP people are less familiar with is the program to buy back bad securities, namely from Fannie and Freddie. The government has spent hundreds of billions doing this, and will ultimately lose about 200 billion. This seems like a vast amount of money until you realize that it is only 1.4% of annual GDP. The reality is that Fannie and Freddie were a combination government and private hybrid. The government actively supported the lending guidelines that the banks had to follow (for those of you who do not know, in order for a bank to get protection from Freddie and Fannie on a conventional mortgage, they have to follow the specific lending rules or risk owning the loan. This is why Freddie and Fannie purchase so many U.S. mortgages).
Why did the government support the lending policies (remember Clinton's home for everyone campaign)? It was because over two-thirds of the U.S. economy is spending. The appearance of a good economy gets votes. Since no one is able to buy without access to credit, the jobs in service and retail have vanished. People used access to cheap credit and their homes as piggy banks, and spent money they did not have to by cheap Chinese made crap. When people needed more money, they just refinanced and took out the equity so they could buy more crap. Or they just got another credit card. I guess that must be the banks fault.
Cheap money was gladly contributed by Asian banks, specifically Japan and China. They, of course, were willing to allow Americans to continue to spend as much as possible. What people did not realize is that the United States bleeds 600 billion a year in trade deficits, with almost 300 billion absorbed by the Chinese. Did you ever wonder where your job went to? This MUST be the banks fault to, right?
The reality is that people need to look at themselves. They will have to except more expensive products if they want to keep their jobs. Did you ever buy a Japanese car? How about a pair of Chinese made jeans because they were cheaper (yes, there once was an American made pair). The people and their spending habits have caused this downturn, not the banks.
Obama will happily accept that you blame the banks and the top 1% rather than the government. A little class warfare never hurts when you are struggling in the polls. Any coincidence that Obama starts talking about the top income earnings, and then all of a sudden there are "Grassroots" rallies against the banks?
I guess the wealthy are not "paying their fair share" even though the top 10% of income earners pay 75% of the income taxes. Those 50% of Americans who do not pay any income taxes need some MORE entitlements dammit!! The United States economy needs serious revamping in order to become healthy. Somehow Germany managed to protect their jobs, so it is possible. I doubt politicians will have the political will, since it is easier to blame the rich.

billvon

10-11-11, 01:40 PM

Banks DID NOT cause this economic downturn, they have merely been used as a convenient scape goat.

Banks did indeed play a role in this economic downturn. Banks (specifically their bundling of MBSes and CDSes into securities that were traded opaquely) set up the loan-based "house of cards," needing only a small trigger to cause a collapse.

The reality is that people need to look at themselves.

The people also played a significant role in the economic downturn. During this particular downturn, the biggest role consumers played was in purchasing homes they could not afford via risky loans.

They will have to except more expensive products if they want to keep their jobs.

Well, asking a capitalist society to oppose capitalism may not work in the long run. I agree that the reason that we are losing jobs to China is because people do not want to pay more for US goods. But the solution to that is to make US goods more affordable, not to force people to pay uncompetitive prices for goods.

I guess the wealthy are not "paying their fair share" even though the top 10% of income earners pay 75% of the income taxes. Those 50% of Americans who do not pay any income taxes need some MORE entitlements dammit!! The United States economy needs serious revamping in order to become healthy. Somehow Germany managed to protect their jobs, so it is possible. I doubt politicians will have the political will, since it is easier to blame the rich.

We don't need more entitlements. We need to cut spending and raise taxes to plug the deficit hole. Then reduce taxes once the economy recovers, and keep both of them lower.

billvon

10-11-11, 03:15 PM

So yes, as a fuel/vehicle system it would indeed be NEW to the US motoring public.

Hmm. We have six NG filling stations here in San Diego, most of San Diego has natural gas delivered to their homes, and half our buses say "Fueled by Natural Gas" on them. And they are currently selling Honda GXes here, and I occasionally see them on the roads here. It's not exactly new to people in San Diego at least.

adoucette

10-11-11, 03:33 PM

According to this, only 4 are for PUBLIC use

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/progs/ind_state.php/CA/CNG

This indicates that in contrast, there are probably about 1,000 gas stations.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/258-Gas-Stations-Miss-Pollution-Deadline---.html

And there are only about 500 public CNG stations in the US (and most of them are in just 2 states, California and NY).

But there are ~120,000 Gas Stations in the US.

http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/number-gas-stations-us-1995.html

And you can't actually fill up via a gas line at your house, you need CNG. The company that was making a home compressor went out of Business. The new company doesn't list the price, but the old price was around $8,000, it uses 240V and 800 watts.

http://www.brcfuelmaker.it/ing/residenziale.asp

As for the Civic GX, it is the only CNG vehicle for sale in the US, it costs about $7k more than a conventional Civic, it has lost it's trunk to a fuel tank and has a limited 200 mile range and that's why only about 2,000 of them are sold in a year.

So again, while .0004 of our vehicles are CNG (again mostly fleet vehicles) and we have a tiny amount of NG fuel stations in two states, still converting to CNG would be pretty much like converting to any other new fuel, with the only real advantage that NG pipelines are already available (but probably not sufficient to also drive our transportation system without major upgrades)

Arthur

madanthonywayne

10-11-11, 09:38 PM

An interesting article on the probable impact of this sort of protest:

If the existential hope of the Occupy Wall Street movement is to recreate the 1960s, then the protestors need to watch out. Culturally, the Left dominates our memories of the decade. But, in fact, it was the Right who politically triumphed. In 1960s America, antiwar protests generated counter demonstrations that were often bigger. While some students occupied campuses, others held “bleed ins” to provide blood for the troops. Ronald Reagan made his name as Governor of California by facing down students at Berkeley and popular reaction against radicalism helped elect Republican Richard Nixon in 1968. On 4 May 1970, four students were shot dead by the Ohio National Guard at a protest at Kent State University. Shockingly, the public had little sympathy. A Gallup poll found that 58 percent blamed the students for the deaths, 11 percent blamed the National Guard and 31 percent expressed no opinion. Two years later, the squares re-elected Nixon in one of the biggest landslides in American history.
Protest is exciting when you are young, and everyone deserves their chance to burn something down. But the political reality is that voters don’t actually want the wheels of Capitalism to stop turning. They don’t want free love or a rainbow nation of stoners. They want a job. That’s why Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have made a big mistake in expressing sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street movement. They’ve endorsed a happening that is moral in principle but politically toxic. Ordinary voters – the boring, unpretty folks who get up every day and go to work and never once complain – will reject it at the polls. The silent majority will be heard eventually, just like it was back in 1968.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100109958/the-1960s-radicalism-of-occupy-wall-street-will-help-elect-a-republican-in-2012/

joepistole

10-11-11, 10:05 PM

An interesting article on the probable impact of this sort of protest:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100109958/the-1960s-radicalism-of-occupy-wall-street-will-help-elect-a-republican-in-2012/

Then why is it that the American right, including Fox News, investing so much in trying to discredit the movement?

Me-Ki-Gal

10-11-11, 10:33 PM

An interesting article on the probable impact of this sort of protest:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100109958/the-1960s-radicalism-of-occupy-wall-street-will-help-elect-a-republican-in-2012/

It is d funny thing . They still sing that song . 4 dead in Ohio . I heard it on the radio just recently. Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, 4 dead in Ohio. Something tells me the Hippies growd up and they remember. They remember " 4 dead in Ohio . What !! 4 dead in Ohio 4 What What . Tin soldiers and Nixon coming . Were finally on our own ,this summer I hear then coming 4 Dead in Ohio What

The Esotericist

10-12-11, 07:41 AM

http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/297275_293828190643721_100000496279908_1187220_209 2403772_n.jpg

The Esotericist

10-12-11, 07:54 AM

An interesting article on the probable impact of this sort of protest:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100109958/the-1960s-radicalism-of-occupy-wall-street-will-help-elect-a-republican-in-2012/
ha ha. best comment I read from the article. . .

Right wing response to people protesting bailouts and the cozy relationship between goverment and wall street;

If overweight and angry, with misspelled spelled sign and silly militiaman costume -> heroic american patriots fighting against an authoritarian goverment

If skinny and angry, with occasionally witty sign, wearing silly tie dye shirt -> SEND IN THE NATIONAL GUARD TO SHOOT THESE AMERICA HATING ANARCHISTS

cosmictraveler

10-12-11, 08:28 AM

Billy T

The SEC is under and controlled by the adminstration, so during that time, it was controlled by GWB, either directly or more likely by people doing what he wanted for him.

But do you really think that GWB had that much knowledge of what was going on in the market or wouldn't those in charge of the SEC be more the ones to be running the show? It would seem to me that GWB didn't understand what was happening within the SEC to tell them anything to do but the officials at the SEC were the ones pulling the strings to let the Wall Street Gang have their way with the public. That, to me, would be more easily to do with the corrupt public servants doing the "blind eye" to everything they knew was happening.:shrug:

joepistole

10-12-11, 09:37 AM

But do you really think that GWB had that much knowledge of what was going on in the market or wouldn't those in charge of the SEC be more the ones to be running the show? It would seem to me that GWB didn't understand what was happening within the SEC to tell them anything to do but the officials at the SEC were the ones pulling the strings to let the Wall Street Gang have their way with the public. That, to me, would be more easily to do with the corrupt public servants doing the "blind eye" to everything they knew was happening.:shrug:

Except for one small thing, George Junior appointed all of the SEC commisioners and those commisioners were ratified by a Republican congress. And the SEC was just one part of an overall failure to adequately regulate.

I don't typically associate knowledge or intelligence with George Junior. I think he did whatever his handlers told him to do.

joepistole

10-12-11, 09:39 AM

And just where is this inflation you keep speaking of Esotericist? Maybe if you keep chanting it enough it will someday show up. :)

The Esotericist

10-12-11, 03:24 PM

And just where is this inflation you keep speaking of Esotericist? Maybe if you keep chanting it enough it will someday show up. :)
How old are you? What country and planet do you live on? Who buys your food, clothing, and gas?
http://www.hotlikesauce.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Devaluation-of-the-dollar.gif

http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/10/23/saupload_dollar_20long_20term.png
Even the Fed Doesn't Want to Hold U.S. Dollars (http://seekingalpha.com/article/168518-even-the-fed-doesn-t-want-to-hold-u-s-dollars)

Inflation is the illusion that prices are going up. The reality is that the value of the dollar is going down. Foreign nations are aware that the FED is printing so many of this worthless green pieces of paper, they no longer want them as much. They want something much more tangible, like commodities and products. Food, gold, silver, products. Where does this leave the average American? With more and more worthless pieces of paper.

spidergoat

10-12-11, 04:01 PM

Yes. I refer you to a very excellent article. So excellent in fact, that an attempt was made to steal it. Here is a nice excerpt. I highly recommend you read the whole thing, very enlightening.

Bullshit.

joepistole

10-12-11, 08:22 PM

How old are you? What country and planet do you live on? Who buys your food, clothing, and gas?

Does it matter how old I am? I am old enough to have served in the military durring the Vietnam war. And I am old enough to have earned and saved some money.

And I live on planet Earth, and I don't believe the cow jumped over the moon. Nor do I believe every crackpot that comes along with some bogus whacko theory about the economy and business. I also had the benefit of a good business education in academia and spent a life time as an active participant in the business world.

Unfortunately for you and the guy you are quoting, the numbers and the facts just don't back up your claims. Inflation in the US is low by any standard. There are a couple of things that you are confusing. One, inflation is a measure of purchasing power. And that is and has been almost non existent in The United States over the course of the last several years.

And if you had taken his investment advice, you would have lost a lot of money this year. He predicted the collapse of the dollar by now. It didn't happen. In fact the dollar has strengthened this year as investors across the globe fled to the safety of the dollar in the face of the potential collapse of European banks.

Inflation is the illusion that prices are going up. The reality is that the value of the dollar is going down. Foreign nations are aware that the FED is printing so many of this worthless green pieces of paper, they no longer want them as much. They want something much more tangible, like commodities and products. Food, gold, silver, products. Where does this leave the average American? With more and more worthless pieces of paper.

No inflation is real and quantifiable. And it is measured and reported every month by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Inflation today is lower than it was during the presidency of Ronald Reagan - that great icon of conservatism.

You are also confusing inflation with the international purchasing power of the dollar. The two are connected. But they are very different. When the dollar falls against a curency like the Euro, it makes goods produced in the EU more expensive and comparable goods produced in The United States cheaper in the EU. That is normally considered a good thing. It gives the US a competitve advantage. China keeps it's currency artifically cheap by pegging it's currency so that it can maintain a perpetual trade advantage.

So while The US has for decade pursued a policy of a cheap dollar, it has not done it much good this year as the dollar has appreciated this year as investors around the globe have fled to the dollar for safety for fear of European contagen.

Instead of using bogus charts and reading bogus articles, I suggest you do some reading from credible sources and take the advice of people who know something of that which they speak - maybe even people who have consistently made money in the markets.

Gustav

10-12-11, 08:26 PM

Does it matter how old I am? I am old enough to have served in the military durring the Vietnam war. And I am old enough to have earned and saved some money.

/disappointed

you better be wearing a bandana at the very least

joepistole

10-12-11, 08:28 PM

/disappointed

you better be wearing a bandana at the very least

I was a hospital corpsman in the Navy.

The Esotericist

10-13-11, 07:28 AM

Instead of using bogus charts and reading bogus articles, I suggest you do some reading from credible sources and take the advice of people who know something of that which they speak - maybe even people who have consistently made money in the markets.
My apologies. You are very correct. You and I live in different worlds apparently. Probably the rest of the world and your world get food and gas in a different place.

Three years ago when I went to buy some macaroni and cheese, it was fifty cents. Now when I buy it, it's a dollar. When I started driving? Gas was a dollar and it really doesn't seem like that long ago, my son is only nine. A first class postage stamp? EIGHT GOD DAMN CENTS? That's how much it cost grandma to send me a birthday card and two bucks. Now it cost my grandma 44cents to send my son that? What's the point? And two dollars won't buy you a Star Wars figure any more anyhow. Nope. If my boy wants one of those, he's looking to shell out, oh, eight, sometimes nine bucks for just a piece of plastic? (I know, I know, most of that sticker price is represented as money that goes to wall street. ok, I got it. Your world, my world. :p)

First there was QE1 a startling increase in liquity. Followed closely by another injection, QE2. It doesn't matter which source I use, or where I read it, liberal, conservative, neutral, they all agree, these measures aren't good and could lead to even more expansion in the money supply, which correspondingly leads to an erosion in purchasing power. But. . . maybe I have it wrong. I live in a real world and have a real budget. I don't much care what your theories and numbers say about your reality. I have to pay real money to real businesses in my reality.

Billy T

10-13-11, 07:30 AM

"... when it comes to the {"occupy" movement's} complaint that the rich have been getting richer while things keep getting worse for the poor, downtrodden and unemployed, you gotta admit, they have a point. ... while the stagnant economy continues to hurt those at the bottom of the American workforce, there’s plenty of money for the .0001% at the top.

Compensation for the chief executives of America’s biggest corporations is way up in 2011, 28% higher than last year on average, according to GovernanceMetrics International. (The totals, compiled by Forbes’ stats guru Scott DeCarlo, include salary, bonuses, perks and the value of exercised stock options through Sept. 6. Sources are CompuStat ExecuComp and SEC filings).

From: http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2011/10/12/americas-25-highest-paid-ceos/?partner=daily_newsletter {Forbes is not some "left wing rag" At link get details on the top 25 in a video}

The Esotericist

10-13-11, 07:33 AM

http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/313302_2454436278417_1177361481_2872048_1483082756 _n.jpg
ha ha ha ha

Billy T

10-13-11, 07:44 AM

... A first class postage stamp? EIGHT GOD DAMN CENTS? That's how much it cost grandma to send me a birthday card and two bucks. ...Amateur Radio operators often exchange "QSL cards" to confirm the contact. - In my youth I collected one from each of the 48 states to get a WAS (Worked All States) certificate. I was radio W8IJM - Only ~50 W radiated by my 807 final stage tube (less than most light bulbs), but with code, not voice, you can make contacts to the 48 states. I also got a 35 words per minute code certificate but that was a lucky error free minute in the test - I was not that good.

I printed my QSL cards myself in the high school print shop (Expression "Mind your "P"s and "Q"s " comes from fact those type pieces look almost identical* in the type tray) on US post cards. I bought 100 for one dollar (cost of both postage and the card!) What does post card cost now (even with the PO losing money)?

-------------
* They are of course are left/right reversed, but when loose in the tray some are upside down - very easy to take the wrong one if someone put it in the wrong compartment after use.

joepistole

10-13-11, 11:13 AM

My apologies. You are very correct. You and I live in different worlds apparently. Probably the rest of the world and your world get food and gas in a different place.

Three years ago when I went to buy some macaroni and cheese, it was fifty cents. Now when I buy it, it's a dollar. When I started driving? Gas was a dollar and it really doesn't seem like that long ago, my son is only nine. A first class postage stamp? EIGHT GOD DAMN CENTS? That's how much it cost grandma to send me a birthday card and two bucks. Now it cost my grandma 44cents to send my son that? What's the point? And two dollars won't buy you a Star Wars figure any more anyhow. Nope. If my boy wants one of those, he's looking to shell out, oh, eight, sometimes nine bucks for just a piece of plastic? (I know, I know, most of that sticker price is represented as money that goes to wall street. ok, I got it. Your world, my world. :p)

You are mixing long term and short term cost comparisons. In my youth, we could get soda for a nickel and penny was really worth something. I can remember 35 cents per gallong for gasoline. We do not live in a static world. Things change, especially over prolonged periods of time. And over that time frame income rose as well as costs. In my first regular job I earned a dollar an hour working after school at a local restaurant.

I think the point you are trying to make is that the middle class in this country is being squeezed and treated unfairly. And if that is the point you are trying to make, I agree with you. But the reason the middle class is being squeezed is not because of Bernanke or inflation.

The American middle class is being squeezed because jobs, especially for the unskilled, are becoming scarce as jobs migrate overseas. Welcome to the new world of globalization. At a time when the American middle class needs assistance from government for better education; better trade deals; infrastructure investment the American conservative movement is not acting in the interests of the middle class. Instead they are favoring Wall Street special interests at your expense. I understand your anger. Put it to good use. And when you fire your guns in protest, make sure they are not pointed at you.

First there was QE1 a startling increase in liquity. Followed closely by another injection, QE2. It doesn't matter which source I use, or where I read it, liberal, conservative, neutral, they all agree, these measures aren't good and could lead to even more expansion in the money supply, which correspondingly leads to an erosion in purchasing power. But. . . maybe I have it wrong. I live in a real world and have a real budget. I don't much care what your theories and numbers say about your reality. I have to pay real money to real businesses in my reality.

Well then you are not reading the right sources. The US today is in much better shape than it was when Obama took office. The economy is now growing again at a 2 to 3 percent rate versus shrinking at a 9 percent rate when he came into office. Instead of loosing almost a million jobs a month, we have been consistently adding a 100k private sector jobs to the nation every month. And despite all that you may have heard, the US is still the worlds largest manufacturer. That job growth rate has been enough to stabilize the unemployment rate at around 9 percent. But it has not been enough to move it down to more normal levels (5 percent). And a 9 percent unemployment rate is something we have seen many times before and come out of it just fine (e.g. Reagan era). It is not the end of the world. And it is a solvable problem. But we just do not seem to have a political system that will act in favor of the middle class. In this case, Republicans keep actively trying to thwart a recovery (e.g. preventing Obama's jobs bill). You don't get more jobs by eliminating jobs. But that is exactly what Republicans are arguing for and disguising it in the debt and deficit discussions.

The immediate problem the middle class faces is not because of monetary policy. It is not the Fed. It is because of failed trade and fiscal policies. It is because we have been spending money overseas on two wars; funneling money to the wealthy (e.g. Medicare Prescription Drug); decreasing taxes on the wealthy and putting it on the national credit card and not investing in ourselves. If you want to get angry, get angry at the the real cause of your angst - Republicans in congress who have been and continue to be fiscally irresponsible and who refuse to invest in you.

Is there a very gloomy atomsphere out there? Absoutely. But it in my view is more reflective of our polticial climate than our economic climate. The American political climate is down right scary. Republicans in congress threatening to intentially cause a US default is more than stupid and more than wreckless.

So you are angry, I understand. But make sure you are not played for a stooge. Unfortunately most Americans have little knowledge of economics and finance. And there is a media empire out there that is very good at misleading average Joe's and Jane's. Make sure that when you direct your anger, you have it targeted at the appropriate foe and not you head.

madanthonywayne

10-16-11, 08:44 PM

The Occupy Wall Street people have picked up some auspicious endorsements. Including:

The American Nazi Party:

Racial Comrades: I am going to address the issue of this "Occupy Wall Street" fervor that has been sweeping the land like a breath of cleansing air!

THE NATIVES ARE GETTING RESTLESS, AND ZOG FEARS IT MIGHT HAVE A POPULAR UPRISING ON ITS HANDS - finally!

This issue is TAYLOR MADE for National Socialists, as well as WN who are serious about DOING SOMETHING - MORE - than shouting "racial slurs" and acting like "poster boys of hate" loons.

After all - JUST WHO - are the WALL STREET BANKERS? The vast majority are JEWS - and the others are SPIRITUAL JEW materialists, who would sell their own mother's gold teeth for a PROFIT. And MORE and MORE people are AWARE of this truth, are not only NOT afraid to TALK ABOUT IT - they're shouting it on WALL STREET!

I urgently URGE all of you to TAKE PART and JOIN IN when these protests hit your neck of the woods.

Comrades, National Socialism is NOT some "right-wing, reactionary" ideology that sucks-up to the WEALTHY and the INFLUENTAL no matter "HOW" greedy and evil they are, like lick-spittle SLAVES! NO!

National Socialists are REVOLUTIONARIES seeking a BETTER, HEALTHIER, more COMPASSIONATE WORLD for their children's needs.

http://www.americannaziparty.com/news/index.php
The American Communist Party

This is an exciting time! Thousands of mainly young people have been occupying Wall Street for three weeks already, and the “Occupy Movement” has spread to more than 200 other cities. On Oct. 6 the actions spread to our nation’s capital.

The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) will hold a national teleconference to discuss it:

Southern California Party leader Arturo Cambron will share how the CPUSA and Young Communist League (YCL) are working in “Occupy Los Angeles.”

This movement, also known as the “99% movement,” is being hailed across the country. Movements and organizations are reaching out in solidarity. The AFL-CIO is opening union halls and offering other material assistance. Ordinary people are donating food, money and materials.

In many areas, the “Occupy Movement” is linking up with the National American Wants to Work Week of Actions, Oct. 10-16.

The movement is the newest wrinkle in the all-people’s upsurge against the banks and corporations and reflects a new level of class-consciousness.

While there is a wide range of political and ideological trends, there is a consensus against corporate greed, getting money out of politics, taxing the rich and putting people before profits.

A big challenge for the CPUSA and left, progressive movements is to link these demonstrations with the labor led all-people’s coalition and help deepen understanding that the path to progress must be through electoral and political action including defeating Republican Tea Party reaction in 2012.

Of primary importance is linking it with the burgeoning fight for jobs and especially passage of the American Jobs Act.

We can also play a role in offering more advanced programmatic ideas like nationalizing the banks and socialism.

To have a positive impact, the CPUSA and YCL must be a part of the “Occupy” movement, participating at every level and building greater local support for the actions among labor and progressive forces.

See you all on the call October 11!
http://www.cpusa.org/solidarity-with-occupy-wall-street-teleconference-oct-11/

Gustav

10-16-11, 11:56 PM

The Occupy Wall Street people have picked up some auspicious endorsements. Including:

The American Nazi Party:

The American Communist Party

don't you just love mad's slimy and trollish insinuations? :D

StrawDog

10-17-11, 03:41 PM

Surely no-one is surprised that the disenfranchised can and will mobilize and call for a more equitable system? Why would the US be exempt from popular revolutions? The knee jerk reactions form the establishment is laughable and predicable.

Trippy

10-20-11, 12:18 AM

Move along.
http://i.imgur.com/JcS2H.png
Nothing to see here.

scheherazade

10-20-11, 12:23 AM

This may be of some interest to this thread.

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/wall_streets_opponents_are_not_moving_20111016/

adoucette

10-20-11, 07:27 AM

Move along.
http://i.imgur.com/JcS2H.png
Nothing to see here.

Well you are comparing a State court and a Federal Court so of course things are different because the State Courts consider PRIOR convictions (in 1994 Louisiana adopted a Three Strikes sentencing law, which makes your sentance go up based upon your previous history), thus the state routinely sends people to jail for what appears to be long periods for a given crime, but it is about a pattern of criminal behavior and so what is conveniently missing from the story is the fact that Roy Brown had at least 8 prior arrests and several convictions for parole violations, battery, assault, criminal neglect of his family, DWI, as well as possession of marijuana.

Also conveniently missing from the other story is that Allen was not found guilty of perpatrating the fraud, but only of aiding and abetting his superior, Lee B. Farkas, who was the CEO at the time and was convicted of the fraud and sentenced to 30 years in prison without parole.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/mortgage-executive-receives-30-year-sentence/
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2011/lr22007.htm

With our 50 states, each with their own laws/sentencing criteria and then the many various federal crimes (whose sentence guidelines/requirements are quite different) one could probably find any number of sentences/crimes that appear to be mismatched every day of the week.

But I think, in general, our sentencing is reasonably appropriate to the crime.

But as they say, if you can't afford the time, don't do the crime.

Arthur

Me-Ki-Gal

10-20-11, 12:23 PM

Arthur my applaud My Man . You just showed the disparity in black and white with a little yellow high light . I think that C.E.O. can afford the crime . They probably took all the money . All that they could find . When I had a problem were it was beneficial to hide money I gave it to someone, or several people . Not that I did it but if I was to. I may have I may not have . It is a lot harder to do stuff like that . Bank tracking is big business these days . Like cashing a check over 1000 not so easy any more . It is all recorded . Part of the nakedness of the world we live in

Trippy

10-20-11, 04:12 PM

But I think, in general, our sentencing is reasonably appropriate to the crime.

But as they say, if you can't afford the time, don't do the crime.

Arthur
So you think that 15 years for taking $100, which is then returned, when he hands himself in is justified?

I don't know about there, but here Judges tend to take things like early guilty pleas, and co-operation with the authorities into account along side aggravating factors such as repeat offenses (they generally take the form of a discount from a starting point).

Even considering repeat offenses, the punishment seems disprortinate to the crime.

Me-Ki-Gal

10-20-11, 05:09 PM

So you think that 15 years for taking $100, which is then returned, when he hands himself in is justified?

I don't know about there, but here Judges tend to take things like early guilty pleas, and co-operation with the authorities into account along side aggravating factors such as repeat offenses (they generally take the form of a discount from a starting point).

Even considering repeat offenses, the punishment seems disprortinate to the crime.

I thought he was showing the injustice of the 2 cases . Were the bigger white crime guy should have gotten a 100 years if justice was served .

Oh silly Me it was Trippy that pointed out the inequality . My bad ! Trippy you the Man . Thumbs up .

That list Forbes put out of the highest paid C.E.O.s . Anybody see that . I bet Occupiers did . No one is worth 43 million in bonuses if you ask Me . After they got bail out money . I think the article said they got bigger bonuses than ever, like a 26% increase in Bonuses . That is Cronyism Capitalism if you ask me . I think we should have just let them fail my self . Lets see what happens ? It is enough to make people mad . I think they are starting to look like Kadafi to the common person .

adoucette

10-20-11, 07:25 PM

So you think that 15 years for taking $100, which is then returned, when he hands himself in is justified?

I don't know about there, but here Judges tend to take things like early guilty pleas, and co-operation with the authorities into account along side aggravating factors such as repeat offenses (they generally take the form of a discount from a starting point).

Even considering repeat offenses, the punishment seems disprortinate to the crime.

Could be, but I haven't seen his criminal record.

But one thing that has changed in the US recently is to crack down on people based on multiple prior convictions, so like I pointed out, on the "third strike" the sentence can indeed appear to be harsh compared to the crime.

Secondly, In Louisianna just the suggestion by the robber that he had a gun (as he supposedly did) makes it a charge of First Degree Robbery, even if a gun isn't actually used, and the minimum sentence for that (10 years) is not related to the amount of money taken.

Finally, the judge might have been doing the guy a favor. It would appear just from the description of the crime that the guy may have WANTED to be arrested. Remember he was homeless and hungry and on drugs and so now he is going to get clean and fed and housed and medically treated. I know for most of us that seems strange, but I understand that it isn't that uncommon for people to prefer jail to being homeless.

Arthur

adoucette

10-20-11, 07:27 PM

I thought he was showing the injustice of the 2 cases . Were the bigger white crime guy should have gotten a 100 years if justice was served .

The guy who did the fraud got 30 years without Parole and the guy is in his 50s.

You do the math.

quadraphonics

10-20-11, 08:07 PM

The Occupy Wall Street people have picked up some auspicious endorsements. Including:

The American Nazi Party

The American Communist Party

Well, if both the Nazis and the Communists can agree on something, it must be pretty unambiguously correct. This would seem to imply that the debate is over, and that OWS is clearly on the right track. All that remains for us now, is to embrace OWS and get to work implementing their vision. I mean, if neither the Nazis nor the Communists disagree, we shouldn't encounter much resistance.

billvon

10-20-11, 08:29 PM

Move along. Nothing to see here.

Makes sense to me. Someone who steals deserves to go to jail. Someone who steals AND threatens people with violence deserves to go to jail for a longer time.

Trippy

10-20-11, 08:31 PM

But one thing that has changed in the US recently is to crack down on people based on multiple prior convictions, so like I pointed out, on the "third strike" the sentence can indeed appear to be harsh compared to the crime.

Secondly, In Louisianna just the suggestion by the robber that he had a gun (as he supposedly did) makes it a charge of First Degree Robbery, even if a gun isn't actually used, and the minimum sentence for that (10 years) is not related to the amount of money taken.
You understand, I trust, the point being made when I repeat this:

I don't know about there, but here Judges tend to take things like early guilty pleas, and co-operation with the authorities into account along side aggravating factors such as repeat offenses (they generally take the form of a discount from a starting point).

Even considering repeat offenses, the punishment seems disprortinate to the crime.
With key portions emphasized?

Finally, the judge might have been doing the guy a favor. It would appear just from the description of the crime that the guy may have WANTED to be arrested. Remember he was homeless and hungry and on drugs and so now he is going to get clean and fed and housed and medically treated. I know for most of us that seems strange, but I understand that it isn't that uncommon for people to prefer jail to being homeless.

Arthur
I've raised this point myself on this forum at least once.

However, there are things called 'restorative justice' and 'community service' and even 'halfway houses', which, even for repeat offenders, at least under the circumstances - such as they appear to be, migh prove to be more effective, given the relatively minor nature and scale of the crime, pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity, the seemingly genuine remorse he has expressed, and the restitution prior to conviction or trial.

Trippy

10-21-11, 01:28 AM

http://cdn.inquisitr.com/wp-content/2011/10/occupy-mordor.jpg

S.A.M.

10-21-11, 01:33 AM

So its been over a month. Whats changed?

Trippy

10-21-11, 02:20 AM

So its been over a month. Whats changed?

About what you'd expect to have changed.

Gustav

10-21-11, 03:49 AM

So its been over a month. Whats changed?

what have your anti-corruption protests changed?

nietzschefan

10-21-11, 08:00 AM

Could be, but I haven't seen his criminal record.

But one thing that has changed in the US recently is to crack down on people based on multiple prior convictions, so like I pointed out, on the "third strike" the sentence can indeed appear to be harsh compared to the crime.

Secondly, In Louisianna just the suggestion by the robber that he had a gun (as he supposedly did) makes it a charge of First Degree Robbery, even if a gun isn't actually used, and the minimum sentence for that (10 years) is not related to the amount of money taken.

Finally, the judge might have been doing the guy a favor. It would appear just from the description of the crime that the guy may have WANTED to be arrested. Remember he was homeless and hungry and on drugs and so now he is going to get clean and fed and housed and medically treated. I know for most of us that seems strange, but I understand that it isn't that uncommon for people to prefer jail to being homeless.

Arthur

Do you have Aspergers?

Billy T

10-21-11, 08:24 AM

In case you missed it, See: http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/wall_streets_opponents_are_not_moving_20111016/
For demonstration of US government's hypocrisy; Its very inconsistent policy.
I.e. US's “Do as I say, not as I do” policy.

So its been over a month. Whats changed?It is spreading, growing and starting to organize platforms /goals, etc.:

http://bailoutpeople.org/images/nov5_email.jpg

adoucette

10-21-11, 09:49 AM

Do you have Aspergers?

No, do you?

adoucette

10-21-11, 10:01 AM

You understand, I trust, the point being made when I repeat this:

With key portions emphasized?

I've raised this point myself on this forum at least once.

However, there are things called 'restorative justice' and 'community service' and even 'halfway houses', which, even for repeat offenders, at least under the circumstances - such as they appear to be, migh prove to be more effective, given the relatively minor nature and scale of the crime, pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity, the seemingly genuine remorse he has expressed, and the restitution prior to conviction or trial.

Trippy, our judges are people just like yours and they deal with these issues every day and I'm sure they take the exact same things into account that yours do and I'm sure there are lenient judges in NZ and "hanging" judges as well, and as we are a nation of States, each state has it's own set of laws and sentencing guidelines, and availability of alternate treatments besides jail.

BUT

The point is, the Banker who actually committed the fraud, Lee Farkas, got a much harsher sentence, 30 years without possibility of parole. This guy got a shorter sentence and he can be paroled, and that could actually occur quite soon.

Arthur

Gustav

10-21-11, 01:27 PM

However, there are things called 'restorative justice' and 'community service' and even 'halfway houses', which, even for repeat offenders, at least under the circumstances - such as they appear to be, migh prove to be more effective, given the relatively minor nature and scale of the crime, pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity, the seemingly genuine remorse he has expressed, and the restitution prior to conviction or trial.

yea. priors have always been a consideration in sentencing. judges do not need a crazed and bloodthirsty mob to tell them that

in cali, 3 strikes got a 72% yea vote in 94
prop 66, a reform of the law, got a 52% nay vote....

so i see progress
a return to sanity

red=inbred okie scum
green=tree hugging hippies

http://i.imgur.com/S8n9U.png

----------------------------------------

*Make Three Strikes applicable only to violent felonies.
*Count as strikes only crimes committed after the law’s passage in
*Treat multiple counts committed during a single act as only one strike.
*Secure a “wash-out” period whereby convictions older than ten years don’t
count as strikes.
*Exclude burglary of unoccupied dwellings from the list of strikeable offenses.
*Exclude juvenile offenses from Three Strikes provisions.

http://facts1.live.radicaldesigns.org/img/facts_index_con_03.jpg (http://facts1.live.radicaldesigns.org/article.php?id=34)

http://newamericamedia.org/2011/05/court-ruling-puts-three-strikes-reform-back-on-radar.php

Trippy

10-21-11, 02:24 PM

yea. priors have always been a consideration in sentencing. judges do not need a crazed and bloodthirsty mob to tell them that

in cali, 3 strikes got a 72% yea vote in 94
prop 66, a reform of the law, got a 52% nay vote....

so i see progress
a return to sanity

red=inbred okie scum
green=tree hugging hippies

http://i.imgur.com/S8n9U.png

----------------------------------------

*Make Three Strikes applicable only to violent felonies.
*Count as strikes only crimes committed after the law’s passage in
*Treat multiple counts committed during a single act as only one strike.
*Secure a “wash-out” period whereby convictions older than ten years don’t
count as strikes.
*Exclude burglary of unoccupied dwellings from the list of strikeable offenses.
*Exclude juvenile offenses from Three Strikes provisions.

http://facts1.live.radicaldesigns.org/img/facts_index_con_03.jpg (http://facts1.live.radicaldesigns.org/article.php?id=34)

http://newamericamedia.org/2011/05/court-ruling-puts-three-strikes-reform-back-on-radar.php

Proposition 66 sounds a lot like the three strikes law we currently have in place.
Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill (http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2009/0017/latest/whole.html#dlm1845340)

In fact, I believe that there was a Cali judge who is opposed to the Cali three strikes law, that was here visiting family at the time, that reckoned ours was good - as long as the list of eligible crimes didn't grow.

adoucette

10-21-11, 02:42 PM

Just to be clear, Prop 66 didn't pass in California, and that was 7 years ago.

It was rejected by voters, with 52.7% voting against the proposition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_66_(2004)

This is what is in effect in California:

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Proposition_184,_the_Three_Strikes_Init iative_(1994)

California is the only state where the third felony does not have to be regarded as serious or violent to count as the third strike.

Billy T

10-24-11, 11:56 AM

If the three strikes and out discussion is thru, back on subject, some prefer to act alone against the current economic structure:

"... A man has reportedly admitted burning more than 100 luxury cars in the German capital Berlin, in attacks that raised fears of political extremism.

Police say the 27-year-old, who is unemployed and has debts, was motivated by social envy and frustration to set fire to 67 cars over three months. A further 35 cars parked nearby also went up in flames.

Some 470 cars - mainly BMWs, Mercedes and Audis - have been burnt this year in the city. ..."

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15429744

adoucette

10-24-11, 12:07 PM

If the three strikes and out discussion is thru, back on subject, some prefer to act alone against the current economic structure.

"He wasn't motivated by politics but rather social envy," said senior police official Oliver Stepien. "He said in essence: 'I've got debts, my life stinks and others with fancy cars are better off and they deserve this'."

Well I guess he will see how much better he thinks his life is in prison.

Trippy

10-24-11, 01:05 PM

adoucette

10-24-11, 01:12 PM

No offense meant Trippy.

The Esotericist

10-24-11, 01:32 PM

So its been over a month. Whats changed?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eJ-Z23tZR38/Tm_FZTLmUAI/AAAAAAAAAgI/Fp-bj2RCZrA/s400/change-obama1.jpg
Oh. . . . about as much as the change he promised. Three years compared to one month? I think they are doing a pretty good job. And they never promised anything. ;)

I really enjoyed this.
1 Marine vs. 30 Copshttps://goldsilver.com/re/common/images/newsuploads/20111017191213-screen-shot-2011-10-17-at-7-11-43-pm.png (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmEHcOc0Sys)

occupy wall street - USMC Sgt Shamar Thomas on Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yEm87vZ82E)

adoucette

10-24-11, 02:07 PM

The police aren't hurting anyone, which is his complaint and his issue with them being in riot gear and having guns is silly. Of course the police will have riot gear and guns, but the police have not shot anyone nor did they do anything to stop his ranting.

One of the comments:

If he is an active Marine he is in trouble. Demonstrating in Uniform is against the UCMJ. If he is a former Marine than he has dishonored himself, his unifom and his family behaving in this way. If is a faker than he is introuble for impersonating a vetern under the Stolen Valor rules. I am a 23 year veteran. I do not agree with this mans behaviour or actions. Neither do I believe that he is a combat vet. Probably spent his time in an office.

oldschoolgreentube

MacGyver1968

10-24-11, 03:02 PM

I am no longer under contract with the USMC so I do NOT have to follow military uniform regulations.

That's from the guys own mouth. If was active military, he would have been in some shit for appearing in public dressed like that.

Gustav

10-24-11, 03:17 PM

http://api.ning.com/files/eaD0vq4PM0MCVEMB9fNYINQj2MA9WaGMw2JQpX7GMLFkrz-Y5E8WLsFhdGupRloAxq3iIi2JE5OyF-18rV6MSQ0BP5lg6lby/JoinTeaPartyNation.jpg?width=407 (http://www.teapartynation.com/profiles/blog/show?id=3355873%3ABlogPost%3A1566647&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_post)

I’m on strike!” - Ellis Wyatt, from the end of the movie "Atlas Shrugged, Part 1", based on the novel by Ayn Rand

Resolved that: The Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Senate, in alliance with a global Progressive socialist movement, have participated in what appears to be a globalist socialist agenda of redistribution of wealth, and the waging of class warfare against our constitutional republic's heritage of individual rights, free market capitalism, and indeed our Constitution itself, with the ultimate goal of collapsing the U.S. economy and globalizing us into socialism.

Resolved that: President Obama has seized what amount to dictatorial powers to bypass our Congress, and that because the Congress is controlled by a Progressive socialist Senate that will not impeach one of their kind, they have allowed this and yielded what are rightfully congressional powers to this new dictator.

Resolved that: By their agenda and actions, those in our government who swore oaths to protect and defend our Constitution have committed treason against the United States.

Resolved that: The current administration and Democrat majority in the Senate, in conjunction with Progressive socialists from all around the country, especially those from Hollywood and the left leaning news media ( Indeed, most of the news media. ) have worked in unison to advance an anti-business, an anti-free market, and an anti-capitalist ( anti-individual rights and property ownership ) agenda.

Resolved that: These same factions expect that, by carrying out a radical anti-business agenda, which includes the passage and inflicting of Obama"Care" on our nation, class warfare and redistribution of wealth, and expanding the government, while killing businesses in this country with an environment hostile to business, including excessive regulations ( the average business must now spend about $11,700 per year per employee to comply with government regulations! ), and by borrowing and wasting more money than has been spent in the entire previous existence of our republic, that they will "create jobs", when in fact all they have "created" have been government jobs that consume wealth, and don't "create" it.

Resolved that: Our President, the Democrats-Socialists, most of the media, and most of those from Hollywood, have now encouraged and supported "Occupy" demonstrations in our streets, which are now being perpetrated across the globe, and which are being populated by various marxists, socialists and even communists, and are protesting against business, private property ownership and capitalism, something I thought I'd never see in my country, in my lifetime.

I, an American small business owner, part of the class that produces the vast majority of real, wealth producing jobs in this country, hereby resolve that I will not hire a single person until this war against business and my country is stopped.

I hereby declare that my job creation potential is now ceased.

“I’m on strike!”

/woot!

The Esotericist

10-24-11, 04:20 PM

I do not agree with this mans behaviour or actions. Neither do I believe that he is a combat vet. Probably spent his time in an office.

So you think he went on a nationally televised interview, with a nationally recognized interviewer, Keith Olbermann, and lied about everything, because it doesn't fit with your reality and point of view?

Your understanding of this situation is non-existent. Your ability to view footage and analyze it critically is abysmal. He is giving the rant to the cops b/c days previously he saw heinous brutality unleashed by the NYPD on peaceful Americans that he himself didn't do to rock throwing Iraqi's in order to protect the right of Americans to protest. It made him fucking furious that he went to protect our rights, and treated Iraqi's more civilly than the NYPD was treating those whose freedom he went to "defend." THAT is the point.

spidergoat

10-24-11, 04:33 PM

Chemical bomb thrown at Occupy Maine camp (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-20124833/chemical-bomb-thrown-at-occupy-maine-camp/)

spidergoat

10-24-11, 04:35 PM

...I do not agree with this mans behaviour or actions. ...

You don't agree with a vet objecting to a perceived issue of police brutality? What's wrong with you?

adoucette

10-24-11, 04:35 PM

So you think he went on a nationally televised interview, with a nationally recognized interviewer, Keith Olbermann, and lied about everything, because it doesn't fit with your reality and point of view?

He might have.
I don't know him so I have no particular reason to believe him and while clearly upset in the video he was yelling at police officers who were doing nothing to him or anyone else, so yeah, he seems a tad unhinged.

I didn't watch the Olbermenn interview (I rarely watch YouTube videos) but you see while anyone can make any claim they want to I'll believe it when there is independent corroboration for this heinous brutality you speak of, you know like ER admissions.

Got any?

spidergoat

10-24-11, 04:40 PM

If you don't know what you're talking about, Arthur, maybe you should shut up.

adoucette

10-24-11, 04:41 PM

You don't agree with a vet objecting to a perceived issue of police brutality? What's wrong with you?

That wasn't my comment.

I simply reposted one of the most recent ones from the YouTube site

As to the actual video, IMHO he wasn't making any sense.

He was yelling at policemen for having guns and wearing riot gear.

Except that all policemen carry guns and none of the police I saw in the video were wearing riot gear.

As to police brutality, I've heard of one case of a macing that might not have been justified, but I can't recall any stories of rampant police brutality against the protesters, just a lot of arrests on one or two occasions for blocking traffic.

(though I admit I've not paid much attention either)

Arthur

adoucette

10-24-11, 04:44 PM

If you don't know what you're talking about, Arthur, maybe you should shut up.

WTF do you know about it?

Were you there?

Besides, what have I said about it, except to ask for corroboration?

Do you have something to corroborate what he was saying?

spidergoat

10-24-11, 04:52 PM

It's been in the news, people getting maced, thrown to the ground, run over by a scooter, arrested and harassed all over the place. That's what he's talking about.

The Esotericist

10-24-11, 04:52 PM

(though I admit I've not paid much attention either)

It's not that you haven't paid much attention, it's that the sources you listen to are very biased, or don't report anything at all. I remember in one thread we were discussing, your view is that, at most, these protests amounted to a couple of hundred kids. :shrug:

You are uninformed due to the media you choose to listen to and believe.

adoucette

10-24-11, 04:57 PM

It's been in the news, people getting maced, thrown to the ground, run over by a scooter, arrested and harassed all over the place. That's what he's talking about.

This has been going on for over 5 weeks.
There have been very scattered reports of any unaccpetable action by the police and NOTHING SERIOUS.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/10/24/idINIndia-60098620111024

Which by the way, I am familiar with:

http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1T4GGHP_enUS419US419&q=1968+chicago+democratic+convention+protest&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1058&bih=423

adoucette

10-24-11, 05:02 PM

It's not that you haven't paid much attention, it's that the sources you listen to are very biased, or don't report anything at all. I remember in one thread we were discussing, your view is that, at most, these protests amounted to a couple of hundred kids. :shrug:

You are uninformed due to the media you choose to listen to and believe.

Well how many is it?

Not including the FAKE pictures that have been circulating on the internet (one posted here in fact)

As I pointed out in one thread, if it was 1% of just NYC residents it would be 90,000 people.

But it's not.

At its CORE it is indeed just a couple of hundred kids (Supported by a Canadian company Adbusters), maybe a thousand at most, but from what I saw it PALES in comparison to the huge demonstrations I remember from back in the 60s, so pardon me if I don't get all worked up about this yet.

http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&q=chicago+demonstrations+1968&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1280&bih=679

Arthur

spidergoat

10-24-11, 05:08 PM

This has been going on for over 5 weeks.
There have been very scattered reports of any unaccpetable action by the police and NOTHING SERIOUS.

...

Which by the way, I am familiar with:

...

There hasn't been much violence except for NYC, where the police started it.

spidergoat

10-24-11, 05:18 PM

By the way... occupy sciforums here (http://fffff.at/occupy/www.sciforums.com).

Me-Ki-Gal

10-24-11, 05:30 PM

Has anyone heard from Ms. Lucy ? She was in the thick of it last I heard

adoucette

10-24-11, 07:13 PM

There hasn't been much violence except for NYC, where the police started it.

Wait a second, I've been told that there was heinous brutality unleashed by the NYPD on peaceful Americans

Now I've yet to see anything that resembles actual violence, let alone heinous brutality, and in this day and age where virtually everyone carries a camera and most have a video camera and that movement is totally Internet enabled, I'm asking you to post a link to an actual video of this HEINOUS BRUTALITY being inflicted by the police at Wall Street.

So far I've seen a few people who were pepper sprayed and a few people in holds while being arrested, nothing more.

Considering this has been going on for 5 weeks and from all the reports I've seen I would not characterize this event as being unlawful on either side.

Arthur

The Esotericist

10-24-11, 09:33 PM

Has anyone heard from Ms. Lucy ? She was in the thick of it last I heard

Yeah, I know, she started a much better titled thread, Calling all keyboard protestors, ranter and ravers, (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=110168&page=5) but people continued to post at this poorly named one since it was posted first I guess.

She last posted at that thread. (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=110168&page=6) Needless to say, the protests are nearing a month old. How long will they last? Will Lucy reappear to give an update? Was she arrested, kidnapped, maced, beaten or possibly brainwashed by inside agents of the banks, corporations or big brother? :eek:

How long will the protests last?
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/10/22/WS_AP111021023747.jpg
Apparently long enough for Arthur to make an appearance. :eek:

nietzschefan

10-24-11, 10:05 PM

lol That's close the the image I had in my head too.

The Esotericist

10-24-11, 10:28 PM

Now I've yet to see anything that resembles actual violence, let alone heinous brutality, and in this day and age where virtually everyone carries a camera and most have a video camera and that movement is totally Internet enabled, I'm asking you to post a link to an actual video of this HEINOUS BRUTALITY being inflicted by the police at Wall Street.

More NYPD Police Brutality Against Peaceful Protesters? (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/more-nypd-police-brutality-against-peaceful-protesters.html)

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/10/14/article-2049137-0E5F4EA500000578-857_634x423.jpg
"Confrontation: A New York City police officer shoves a demonstrator affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests as they march through the streets in the Wall Street area on Friday"

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/10/14/article-2049137-0E5F7F0200000578-203_634x453.jpg
"Injured: Members of Occupy Wall clash with police during a celebration march on Friday morning in New York [Note: This is not the same protester who was run over by a motorcycle; that gentleman had no facial hair and was more clean-cut and muscular]"
http://cbsnewyork.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/wall_street_protest6.jpg?w=420&h=279
New York City police officers runs over a Legal Aid Society observer as Occupy Wall Street demonstrators march through the streets near Wall Street, Friday, Oct. 14, 2011. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Police scooters were shaped like a V and moved toward the protesters in the standoff. One man lost his balance, and was run over by a police scooter. Police descended on the protester and got him out from under the bike. Some witnesses tell Sandberg the man was beaten during the arrest.

The Gothamist reports:

Here is disturbing video of a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild getting run over by an NYPD scooter during this morning’s Occupy Wall Street march. We’re still trying to determine how badly he was injured, but one witness speculated that he broke his leg. Attorney Gideon Oliver, a member of the National Lawyers Guild, confirms that the man seen in this harrowing video is in fact a legal observer for the NLG, and that he was arrested and then hospitalized. He’s currently in police custody in the emergency room. We’ll update more as it comes in, but for now, there’s this:

'Occupy Wall Street' NYPD runs over a protester with motorcycle 14/10/2011 [MIRROR] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VrzQedHM6SY&skipcontrinter=1)

The NYPD repeatedly drove scooters at high speeds through crowds of demonstrators during this morning’s march, and another demonstrator was beaten after kicking a police scooter. In this case, the unidentified legal observer will be charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, obstruction of governmental administration, and two counts of criminal mischief.

Oliver tells us, “It’s absolutely outrageous he was assaulted in the first place, it is outrageous that he was arrested, and outrageous he was assaulted after he was arrested—he has injuries to his face. It’s an example of the police putting charges against someone just to cover their ass. We ask that the NYPD releases him without charges immediately after he’s treated.”

Here’s video from a different angle, via The Local:
OWS_PoliceScooter (http://vimeo.com/30550909)

NYPD Punches Protestor Out Cold - OCCUPY WALL STREET (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BsnupGU8-Y&feature=related)

UNEDITED - COP KNEE ON THROAT 9/24/2011 #OCCUPYWALLSTREET (http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=5rbXfelyIoM)

Trippy

10-24-11, 10:55 PM

Yeah, I know, she started a much better titled thread, Calling all keyboard protestors, ranter and ravers, (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=110168&page=5) but people continued to post at this poorly named one since it was posted first I guess.

Bite me :p

No, seriously.

The thread title is the same as the title of the article linked to in the OP. Fancy that. :eek:

:Shrugs:

(In short, I'm not going to apologize for not coming up with some smart zippy attention grabbing emotion blazing title, and placing emphasis on function over form, and at the time, I wasn't even sure if 'Occupy Wallstreet' was what they were calling themselves, or being called by the media).

Trippy

10-24-11, 11:56 PM

The Shocking, Graphic Data That Shows Exactly What Motivates the Occupy Movement (http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/152811/the_shocking,_graphic_data_that_shows_exactly_what _motivates_the_occupy_movement_/?page=entire)

Brian Foley

10-25-11, 12:53 AM

Seriously?
Seriously!!! Why didnt they occupy Wall Street in 1987 after Black Tuesday? Why they didnt occupy Wall Street in 1991 with the post Gulf War recession? Why not after the 2001 recession? Why could this not of happened in 2008 before their Government handed over $2 trillion of their money to bail out these parasites.

http://studentsfordemocracy.net/sfd/forum/uploads/BrianFoley/StudentsForDemocracy_2011-10-23_191852_bull.jpg

W A L L S T R E E T I S F U C K E D ...... :)

The Esotericist

10-25-11, 07:31 AM

Bite me

No, seriously.

The thread title is the same as the title of the article linked to in the OP. Fancy that.

:Shrugs:

(In short, I'm not going to apologize for not coming up with some smart zippy attention grabbing emotion blazing title, and placing emphasis on function over form, and at the time, I wasn't even sure if 'Occupy Wallstreet' was what they were calling themselves, or being called by the media).
I know. I was just giving you a hard time. You should be commended for actually being on the ball and bringing it up. I didn't bring it up, because, frankly, I didn't think anyone around here cared much. I don't generally start threads. . . that. . . is usually a disaster.

Interestingly enough, back around Easter when the house was debating the budget, my grandmother had asked me about what I thought was going to happen with the whole fiscal mess. She knows I have studied Pol-sci at University for over eight years, and it is what I constantly do, so she wanted my take. Plus, she is a very wise old German woman whose father fought in the First World War for the Germans, she knows a thing or two about what goes on in the world. You could say, she is non-partisan.

So, I told here honestly. Her husband Joe, a retired Post master general, wasn't entirely incorrect in his views, that conservatives wished to make draconian cuts to every domestic program they could get their hands on. (He's always having good-natured debates with my dad.) And my dad, isn't entirely incorrect that the liberals would like raise any and every tax, surcharge and user fee they can think of. Neither will ever let the other do what the other would like to do. But. . . it doesn't matter, because the same power funds both parties, and wishes to do both, it just plays both off of each other in the public arena. I told her nothing is going to happen until maybe October when they are forced to do something. . . then from what I have heard, they would produce something called an Austerity Budget, that would do both. Have draconian cuts, and raise taxes. But that through my research, then, there would be a massive rally against such a thing in D.C. of historic proportions.

Well, here it is many moons later. We have a super committee meeting behind closed doors. I was wrong about where these protests were going to be taking place, and I myself am as shocked as anyone that those rumors of massive protests were true. I am very suspicious of them to say the least. That rumors were circulating back and plans for their organization were formulated during the debt ceiling crises makes me weary that they may be a COINTELPRO/PSYOPS event, and I have told Ms. Lucy as much. Not only that, when they first started, they were aimless, w/o any real demands, they didn't seem to have a full grasp of the real issues, what is at stake, and how we got here. :shrug: It seemed to just want "boots on the ground" and people in the street.

So where are we now? Two things I would look for. Even though the weather is getting colder, and I think this will naturally wane and dissipate of it's own accord, it will still be there, just under the surface, because nothing has been resolved. I think people could be out on the street on a moments notice. And really, events are moving quickly.

I don't understand a lot about finance, but from what I do understand, it's much like a house of cards, you take one out, the whole thing starts collapsing. And it still all seems to be very shaky. Greece and the EU are far from out of the woods. The IMF is directly tied to that mess. . . . and, the FED can pump our money into the IMF w/o any consent from congress or the taxpayers. :eek: So yeah, we're all connected, whether we like it or not, and those protestors know, at some level, they are powerless at this point from getting screwed over by the elites.

Added to this deadly looming disaster, the last crises of 2008 is coming back, like a bad 80's slasher flick. Those toxic assets we once thought were buried and dealt with, well, they are now, again, trying to have taxpayers guarantee more money for them as more foreclosures are staking up, further weakening once again the value of hedge funds and derivatives. See post http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2842869&postcount=141

How about two symbolic gestures to move the masses? The revealing of the results of the super committee on the budget. . . and the 5th of November?

Congress returns from its summer recess and the joint select committee charged with reducing the deficit also begins its work in earnest this week. With talk of the deficit dominating headlines, here's a look at key dates for the committee.

Sept. 8: The committee holds its first organizational meeting; on the agenda will be setting the rules.

Sept. 13: First public hearing, which will include testimony on "The History and Drivers of Our Nation's Debt and Its Threats" from Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf.

Sept. 22: Deadline for Congress to consider a resolution of disapproval for first $900 billion tranche of debt limit increase.

Oct. 1-Dec. 31: Timeframe in which both houses of Congress must vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment.

Oct. 14: House and Senate committees must submit recommendations to the committee by this date.

Nov. 23: Deadline for the committee to vote on a plan with $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction.

Dec. 2: Deadline for the committee to submit report and legislative language to the president and Congress.

Dec. 23: Deadline for both houses to vote on the committee bill.

Jan. 15, 2012: Date that the “trigger” leading to $1.2 trillion of future spending cuts goes into effect, if the committee’s legislation has not been enacted.

February 2012: Approximate time when the first $900 billion of debt ceiling increase runs out.

February/March 2012: During this period, 15 days after the president uses his authority in the bill to increase the debt ceiling a second time, is the deadline for Congress to consider a resolution of disapproval for the second tranche ($1.2-$1.5 trillion) of debt limit increase.

Fall/Winter 2012: The additional $2.1-$2.4 trillion of borrowing authority from this law runs out.

Jan. 2, 2013: OMB orders sequestrations for defense and non-defense categories of spending necessary to meet spending cuts required by the “trigger."

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs12/i/2006/270/2/5/Guy_Hawkes_Mask_by_p2pnadie2pp.jpg

Remember, Remember The Fifth of November
London : United Kingdom | Nov 05, 2010 at 5:23 AM PDT
By sanain

Remember, remember the fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason,

Why the Gunpowder Treason,

Should ever be forgot

Today is the fifth of November that is also popularly known as the “Guy Fawkes Day” and on this day people celebrate the execution of Guy Fawkes aka Guido Fawkes. Fifth of November is primarily observed in the United Kingdom.

Guy Fawkes (13 April 1570 - 31 January 1606) belonged to a group of Roman Catholic restorationists from England and he was the mastermind of the 1605 Gunpowder plot. Guy Fawkes in collusion with other conspirators planned to blow off the entire house of parliament including King James I and Catholic aristocracy in a bid to displace the Protestant rule.

Guy Fawkes was arrested on fifth of November few hours prior to the planned explosion in the United Kingdom and was later executed at Westminster on January 31, 1606.

Is the fifth of November when the establishment makes its move against the protestors?

adoucette

10-25-11, 07:55 AM

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/more-nypd-police-brutality-against-peaceful-protesters.html

That's it?

The motorcycle was going 1/16th mile an hour, clearing the street of protesters, which was a legitimate police action (what if an ambulance had to get through to someone in a medical emergency?), and trying to prevent them from doing so was not legal, and so NO, he didn't RUN him over as the article implies. The idiot put his foot in front of a barely moving motorcycle and got it run over.
Instead of "heinous brutality" as you suggest, it would appear that after the front wheel went over his foot they stopped and got the bike off him with out even running over his foot with the rear tire.

The other pictures, we can't actually see what started it, but you can't unilaterally say the police are over-reacting in any of these shots. They indeed have batons and could inflict far more hurt on the people than they did, but used very limited force. Considering they are leaving virtually all of the protesters alone suggests that they are only reacting to actual assaults on themselves (such as that one punch).

Again, I've been in protests, including ones that turned ugly, and I know for a fact that the confrontations aren't always one sided.

Arthur

spidergoat

10-25-11, 11:41 AM

Wait a second, I've been told that there was heinous brutality unleashed by the NYPD on peaceful Americans

Now I've yet to see anything that resembles actual violence, let alone heinous brutality, and in this day and age where virtually everyone carries a camera and most have a video camera and that movement is totally Internet enabled, I'm asking you to post a link to an actual video of this HEINOUS BRUTALITY being inflicted by the police at Wall Street.

So far I've seen a few people who were pepper sprayed and a few people in holds while being arrested, nothing more.

Considering this has been going on for 5 weeks and from all the reports I've seen I would not characterize this event as being unlawful on either side.

Arthur

I never said it was like Tienanmen Square! But there were incidents as people have pointed out.

adoucette

10-25-11, 11:48 AM

I never said it was like Tienanmen Square! But there were incidents as people have pointed out.

Police have to enforce the laws and the protestors don't like being told what to do, and since there are always ones on both sides of the line who are a little quick to start something, of course there will be incidents.

BUT

Overall they appear to be relatively minor and from what I've seen it has appeared to have been a reasonably restrained affair from both sides, so to characterize it as one of HEINOUS BRUTALITY by the cops is a little over the top.

Arthur

spidergoat

10-25-11, 12:21 PM

Just compare it to the reactions to the tea party protests, and you can see the bias.

adoucette

10-25-11, 12:36 PM

Huh?

Whose reactions?
What bias?

spidergoat

10-25-11, 12:37 PM

Who ever got arrested at a tea party rally? They even brought their guns.

adoucette

10-25-11, 01:02 PM

Who ever got arrested at a tea party rally? They even brought their guns.

I don't think people are being arrested at the OWS protests if they aren't breaking the law.
The vast majority of OWS arrests so far are from that one march where they were blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge during rush hour (blocking traffic like that is illegal as it is a safety concern).

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-more-than-700-arrested-after-protesters-block-traffic-on-brooklyn-bridge-during-rush-hour/

As to the Tea Party, notice what you called them a RALLY, and I agree with that so I'm not sure I'd characterize their gatherings as protests, and so the mood is entirely different and much less confrontational.

http://biggovernment.com/wthuston/2011/10/21/tea-party-group-harassed-by-ga-capitol-police-while-occupy-wall-streeters-given-pass-to-break-laws/

Comparing the two is somewhat apples and oranges.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111002173611AAYGd60

Most states allow carry permits, so someone having a gun doesn't mean they are breaking a law does it?

Trippy

10-25-11, 01:13 PM

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs12/i/2006/270/2/5/Guy_Hawkes_Mask_by_p2pnadie2pp.jpg

Is the fifth of November when the establishment makes its move against the protestors?
Most commonwealth nations (including where I live) celebrate the 5th of November with fire works, bonfires, and occasionally burning effigees of Guy Fawkes (we call it Guy Fawkes night - i've often joked that we're effectively celebrating a terrorist act).

I grew up with that rhyme you quipped (I think every kid my age did), so in that respect it's 'nothing significant'.

In so far as the picture goes, that stems from a comic book:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/V_for_vendettax.jpg
Which was made into a movie in 2006:
V for Vendetta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_%28film%29)
Which has since become associated with the group 'Anonymous' which started as a bunch of script kiddies on 4chan (hence Project Chanology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_chanology)).
The final piece of the puzzle is that Anonymous is planning on hacking Facebook (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJpcwsG7cBk) on the 5th of November.

The Esotericist

10-25-11, 01:51 PM

adoucette

10-25-11, 02:01 PM

And, like I said, it may be significant that this day is looming as these protesters have been occupying the streets and slowly formulating their demands from the establishment.

That's pretty funny.

Ready, Fire, Aim....

What do you mean DEMANDS????

How is it that you think that their ideas have any extra relevancy simply because they are willing to sit out on the street for a few weeks?

Arthur

Trippy

10-25-11, 04:46 PM

Thanks for the history lesson Trippy. I think most of us are aware of all of this already and have seen V for Vendetta. The point for America, and indeed the world is, in the end, who are the treasonous ones? In retrospect, we can see who the government and the crown set up as the "bad guy" in this famous event. However, to the powerful, it is their prerogative to write history, isn't it?
:Shrugs: Perhaps, but there is only so much control that can be exerted.

Guy Fawkes was a catholic restorationist fighting against the heathen protestants and their reformist ways in the 80 years war.

In modern parlance, Guy Fawkes would be a conservative.

The Gunpowder plot was, in essence, a failed coup d'état, and was one of several plots at the time to assasinate Queen Elizabeth I, or King James I, and replace them with a Catholic monarch.

Long story short (as I understand it) Henry VIII declared his other children bastards, and declared Edward VI as his successor.
Parliment returned Elizabeth I and Mary I to the line to the throne behind Edward VI and his children.
Edward VI died without issue at the age of 15 and nominated Lady Jane Grey as his heir.
Lady Jane Grey lasted 9 days, there were some legal issues with her succession relating to Crown law versus Parlimentary law, and she was executed for high treason.
Mary I was nominated as the heir to the thrown by the Privy Council (who had initialy supported Lady Jane Grey, and changed their mind within 9 days), however, by 1558 Mary I had become terminally ill, and remained childless, so nominated Elizabeth I as her successor.
Elizabeth I reigned for 45 years or so, before sinking into a depression and dying unmarried, and without children, and proclaiming James I as her successor - the target of the Gunpowder plot.

Which brings us to my point (more than just a ramble).

The Treason Act of 1547 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_Act_1547) made it treason to intefere with the succession to the thrown. This act, incidentally, introduced the 'Two Witness' rule whereby two witnesses must be present for arraignment on the charge of treason who witnessed the same overt act, and must also testify in court, a rule which found its way into Section III, Article 3 of the (US) Constitution (although it was repealed in 1554 and reinstated in 1661).

The point, ultimately being that - at least in the case of Guy Fawkes, the definition of his actions as treason was dictated by pre-existing law, rather than neccessarily the prevailing view of the day.

The whole of which was precipitated by increasing Protestant persecution of Catholics by Parliment and royalty, and dated back to King Henry VIII or Edward VI.

AFAIK, the only real questions in the whole thing are:
Was there really a Tunnel? Guy Fawkes only confessed to this after his fifth torture, but was unable to recall where it was, no evidence for it has ever been found, and the logistics seem unlikely. That in and of itself is not sufficient to call the plot into question. To me, at least, it suggests nothing more than Guy Fawkes being used as a scape goat to cover the ineptness of the guards which allowed the placement of the gunpowder in the first place.
What was Salisbury's involvement? Questions have been raised regarding how much Salisbury knew, or was involved, in part (at least) on the grounds that the events allowed him to push for harder laws persecuting catholics and catholicism.

Addendum:
Perhaps I'm one of the few, but I haven't yet seen V for Vendetta.

adoucette

10-26-11, 09:43 AM

I don't understand a lot about finance,

Since you admit this lack of understanding, why do you think that this statement has any meaning?

the last crises of 2008 is coming back, like a bad 80's slasher flick. Those toxic assets we once thought were buried and dealt with, well, they are now, again, trying to have taxpayers guarantee more money for them as more foreclosures are staking up, further weakening once again the value of hedge funds and derivatives.

A derivative could just as well rise in value based on a weakening housing market.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_(finance)

Arthur

Billy T

10-27-11, 01:42 PM

See CNN video of the Oakland police in action here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/26/us/occupy-wall-steet/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 and links to videos in other cities too, including London.

Oakland police said they had to use tear gas as some demonstrators threw paint on them, but no policeman in the dozens shown has any spot on his uniform. Their officials also said:

“The overnight camping had to end because of health and safety concerns,”

That at least is true. –Tear gas does damage the eyes and lungs slightly. Many with locked arms, singing “We shall over come” (some day) were led away, one at a time, by the police to the waiting paddy wagons – They must have been singing too loud – I.e. disturbing the peace.

One thing funny on the right side of the linked page is:
"...Want a revolution? Run for office. - Paul Scracic says Occupy Wall St. protesters who want to transform America could use the existing methods for change. ..."

As if Wall Street and corporate paid lobbyist were just waiting to give a few million dollars to them for their election campaigns.

MacGyver1968

10-27-11, 02:27 PM

Oakland police said they had to use tear gas as some demonstrators threw paint on them, but no policeman in the dozens shown has any spot on his uniform.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46946106/cop.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46946106/cop2.jpg

Me-Ki-Gal

10-27-11, 02:38 PM

wow looks like paint

Billy T

10-27-11, 03:04 PM

To MacGyver1968:

Thanks for correcting me - if that is from the video I linked too and watched run - I missed that paint seen in a still shot.

nietzschefan

10-27-11, 03:10 PM

so what asshole # 85 got hit with paint and everyone had to REPEC their AUTHORITAH because of it.

adoucette

10-27-11, 05:44 PM

Why is 85 an asshole?

He was doing his job and some ASSHOLE ruined his uniform.

I don't know about Oakland specifically, but most areas that comes out of the policeman's pocket, and it's not cheap.

http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=134375

Trippy

10-27-11, 06:05 PM

Yeah, cops have families to support to.

chimpkin

10-27-11, 09:18 PM

Trippy

10-27-11, 09:22 PM

Acrylic and latex paint will come off of a uniform shirt if you wash it off with soap and lots of water before it dries. (I'm a security guard, ok, and I paint in acrylics...Sometimes inspiration strikes hard enough I forget I'm still wearing my work shirt...oops. )

There's a key point in your post, which I've emphasized. What about once it dries? What do you think the likelyhood of these officers getting back to the station, let alone back to the house before it dries are like?

Workaholic

10-28-11, 12:05 AM

There's a key point in your post, which I've emphasized. What about once it dries? What do you think the likelyhood of these officers getting back to the station, let alone back to the house before it dries are like?

I think a little perspective is needed here. You are arguing for helping these police officers perserve the cleaniness of their SHIRTS.

Firing tear gas canisters has already serverly injured someone causing BRAIN damage to someone who was hit in the HEAD.

Aparently helping keep police shirts clean is more important then someone's brain.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/27/occupy-oakland-scott-olsen-surgery?newsfeed=true

Trippy

10-28-11, 01:21 AM

I think a little perspective is needed here. You are arguing for helping these police officers perserve the cleaniness of their SHIRTS.
Get a grip - preferably on reality, you clearly have no grasp on it at the moment.

Workaholic

10-28-11, 01:33 AM

Get a grip - preferably on reality, you clearly have no grasp on it at the moment.

You're right, I need to focus on the dynamics of how police shirts interact with paint.

Just ignore the war veteran injured by police gas canisters.

Trippy

10-28-11, 01:34 AM

Trippy

10-28-11, 01:34 AM

You're right, I need to focus on the dynamics of how police shirts interact with paint.

Just ignore the war veteran injured by police gas canisters.

:rolleyes:

Trippy

10-28-11, 01:36 AM

Here's a hint.

The blather exuding your mouth has little, if anything, to do with anything I've actually said.

Kindly fuck off.

Workaholic

10-28-11, 01:37 AM

I mean no, we get it, all pigs are sadistic mindless automata that are only in it for the money and the power, whos sole purpose is to uphold the status quo, and innocent until proven guilty, and other considerations don't apply to them, because like evil henchmen, they're not human.

That's quite a leap. I forgot where I stated police are "sadistic mindless automata". Can you point that out?

I merely stated that piorities need to be adjusted. Brain > dirty shirt. repeat after me.

Trippy

10-28-11, 01:40 AM

That's quite a leap. I forgot where I stated police are "sadistic mindless automata". Can you point that out?

I merely stated that piorities need to be adjusted. Brain > dirty shirt. repeat after me.

That's funny, I don't recall suggesting that Brain < dirty shirt.
Repeat after me:

Here's a hint.

The blather exuding your mouth has little, if anything, to do with anything I've actually said.

Kindly fuck off.

Workaholic

10-28-11, 01:45 AM

That's funny, I don't recall suggesting that Brain < dirty shirt.
Repeat after me:

Here's the sequence of events:

There's a key point in your post, which I've emphasized. What about once it dries? What do you think the likelyhood of these officers getting back to the station, let alone back to the house before it dries are like?

Me: A little perspective is in order. IE Focusing on dirty shirts? Protester rights are more important.

Trippy goes ballistic:

Get a grip - preferably on reality, you clearly have no grasp on it at the moment.

Here's a hint.

The blather exuding your mouth has little, if anything, to do with anything I've actually said.

Kindly fuck off.

(bolded part by me)

hmmmmm...

Trippy

10-28-11, 02:01 AM

Here's the sequence of events:

There's a key point in your post, which I've emphasized. What about once it dries? What do you think the likelyhood of these officers getting back to the station, let alone back to the house before it dries are like?

Me: A little perspective is in order. IE Focusing on dirty shirts? Protester rights are more important.
What about the rights of the individual cops? Do they not have any?

Besides. Nothing in that sentence suggests that I think that the paint stains are the most important thing.

You forgot the context, I was responding to a post:

Acrylic and latex paint will come off of a uniform shirt if you wash it off with soap and lots of water before it dries. (I'm a security guard, ok, and I paint in acrylics...Sometimes inspiration strikes hard enough I forget I'm still wearing my work shirt...oops. )

It's a tangential discussion on a related topic, and I asked a salient question:

There's a key point in your post, which I've emphasized. What about once it dries? What do you think the likelyhood of these officers getting back to the station, let alone back to the house before it dries are like?

And even that's not the full sequence of relevant events - that goes back to nietzschefan's comment:

so what asshole # 85 got hit with paint and everyone had to REPEC their AUTHORITAH because of it.

And Adoucette's reply:

Why is 85 an asshole?

He was doing his job and some ASSHOLE ruined his uniform.

I don't know about Oakland specifically, but most areas that comes out of the policeman's pocket, and it's not cheap.

http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=134375

The only other point I've raised in this... Discussion with you is to question the deliberatness of the action, which has the apperance of being an assertion that's being made.

So again, we come back to the point that nothing I have said implies (at least, not to a native anglophone with a reading age above 5) that I consider paint on a shirt more important than protestors rights, or a possible head injury, only that I'm willing to engage in what otherwise might almost have been a humorous aside with another chatter.

And so, once again, we come back to this point:

Here's a hint.

The blather exuding your mouth has little, if anything, to do with anything I've actually said.

Kindly fuck off.

Or, to put it slightly more politely - stop wasting my time.

Workaholic

10-28-11, 02:15 AM

What about the rights of the individual cops? Do they not have any?

Besides. Nothing in that sentence suggests that I think that the paint stains are the most important thing.

You forgot the context, I was responding to a post:

It's a tangential discussion on a related topic, and I asked a salient question:

And even that's not the full sequence of relevant events - that goes back to nietzschefan's comment:

And Adoucette's reply:

The only other point I've raised in this... Discussion with you is to question the deliberatness of the action, which has the apperance of being an assertion that's being made.

So again, we come back to the point that nothing I have said implies (at least, not to a native anglophone with a reading age above 5) that I consider paint on a shirt more important than protestors rights, or a possible head injury, only that I'm willing to engage in what otherwise might almost have been a humorous aside with another chatter.

And so, once again, we come back to this point:

Or, to put it slightly more politely - stop wasting my time.

First off, there's no need for vicious remarks like "fuck off". You will never catch me posting something like that, no matter how much I disagree. Also, "wasting time" on an internet forum? I don't think we're doing anything world changing here.

Second of all, never once was I stating policemen don't have individual rights. The only point I made was that piorities needed to be examined, ie. Is it appropriate to shoot canisters at protestors in response to a paint attack? It's a tough choice to make, but in hindsight I think it was the wrong choice. Someone got hurt badly.

Trippy

10-28-11, 02:31 AM

First off, there's no need for vicious remarks like "fuck off".
But antagonistic comments with no basis in fact are fine?

You will never catch me posting something like that, no matter how much I disagree.
That's nice, apparently i'm not you. Who would have seen that one coming? Generally I'm quite mild mannered, and slow to anger, but certain things make my blood boil quite quickly, and people putting words in my mouth is one of them - even then, it depends on context. What you did was quite blatant.

If you're going to post flame-bait (in this case, antagonistic and agressive comments) be prepared to get flamed.

Also, "wasting time" on an internet forum?
Yes, wasting time, on an internet forum, there are more productive discussions I could be having, even on Sciforums.

I don't think we're doing anything world changing here.
Well, you may not be, however I've been able to track down information and advice for my work, through this forum, that had otherwise eluded me.

Is it appropriate to shoot canisters at protestors in response to a paint attack? It's a tough choice to make, but in hindsight I think it was the wrong choice. Someone got hurt badly.
They were assaulted, and responded with force. What else did they expect to happen?

What do you expect to happen when you assault a police officer?

There's a reason that the Occupy movement is supposed to be non-violent. The people that bought the paint along violated that principle the moment they assaulted the police officer with it.

Assaulting a police officer is not the mark of a peacful protest, nor is it an act of passive resistance (my local occupy movement have been giving workshops on passive resistance in light of their looming eviction). Assaulting a police officer with paint is the mark of a protest turned, or turning violent (kind of like some of the new comers in the occupy wall street protest are violating agreements that were in place - eg the musicians that refuse to adhere to the two hour part of the agreement).

Addendum:
I saw what you originally posted, incidentaly, both in the thread, and in the email notification I recieved when you replied (I have my account set up to autosubscribe to all threads I participate in, and send me instantaneous notifications, which includes the text of the reply).

However, in the process of gathering the evidence to illustrate your error, I noticed that you had removed your last sentence, so I'm going to let it slide, and simply say "I saw what you did there".

Workaholic

10-28-11, 03:29 AM

But antagonistic comments with no basis in fact are fine?

That's nice, apparently i'm not you. Who would have seen that one coming? Generally I'm quite mild mannered, and slow to anger, but certain things make my blood boil quite quickly, and people putting words in my mouth is one of them - even then, it depends on context. What you did was quite blatant.

If you're going to post flame-bait (in this case, antagonistic and agressive comments) be prepared to get flamed.

Yes, wasting time, on an internet forum, there are more productive discussions I could be having, even on Sciforums.

Well, you may not be, however I've been able to track down information and advice for my work, through this forum, that had otherwise eluded me.

They were assaulted, and responded with force. What else did they expect to happen?

What do you expect to happen when you assault a police officer?

There's a reason that the Occupy movement is supposed to be non-violent. The people that bought the paint along violated that principle the moment they assaulted the police officer with it.

Assaulting a police officer is not the mark of a peacful protest, nor is it an act of passive resistance (my local occupy movement have been giving workshops on passive resistance in light of their looming eviction). Assaulting a police officer with paint is the mark of a protest turned, or turning violent (kind of like some of the new comers in the occupy wall street protest are violating agreements that were in place - eg the musicians that refuse to adhere to the two hour part of the agreement).

Addendum:
I saw what you originally posted, incidentaly, both in the thread, and in the email notification I recieved when you replied (I have my account set up to autosubscribe to all threads I participate in, and send me instantaneous notifications, which includes the text of the reply).

However, in the process of gathering the evidence to illustrate your error, I noticed that you had removed your last sentence, so I'm going to let it slide, and simply say "I saw what you did there".

Not sure what you would contrue as "antagonistic", but that post wasn't meant to be. Also, it was mistake to hit the quote button on the original post instead of "reply" below. I noticed that when I went back to check, so it wasn't originally intended for you.

As for the topic on hand, I don't think any one denies the police would respond to a paint attack. The question is: was the response appropriate? IMO, the situation was escalated too far.

Here's a video of the Olsen incident:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqNOPZLw03Q
Couple things to notice in this video:
1. The policemen holding onto the gun which shot the canister. That was literally a point blank shot.
2. The thrown flashbang onto the crowd attempting to help Olsen.

Here's Olsen being carried away afterwards:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMUgPTCgwcQ&feature=related