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 Post subject: Occupy Wall Street
PostPosted: Thu Oct 06, 2011 6:41 pm 
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Quote:
A Suggested Theme for the Occupation of Wall Street
By William K. Black Oct 4, 2011, 7:55 AM Author's Website

The systemically dangerous institutions (SDIs) are inaccurately called “too big to fail” banks. The administration calls them “systemically important,” and acts as if they deserve a gold star. The ugly truth, however, is what Wall Street and each administration screams when the SDIs get in trouble. They warn us that if a single SDI fails it will cause a global financial crisis. There are roughly 20 U.S. SDIs and about the same number abroad. That means that we roll the dice 40 times a day to see which SDI will blow up next and drag the world economy into crisis. Economists agree that the SDIs are so large that they are grotesquely inefficient. In “good times,” therefore, they harm our economy. It is insane not to shrink the SDIs to the point that they no longer hold the global economy hostage. The ability — and willingness — of the CEOs that control SDIs to hold our economy hostage makes the SDIs too big to regulate and prosecute. It also allows them to extort, dominate, and degrade our democracies. The SDIs pose a clear and present danger to the U.S. and the world.

It takes a global effort against the SDIs because they constantly put nations in competition with each other in order to generate a “race to the bottom.” We are always being warned that if the U.S. adopts even minimal regulation of its SDIs they will flee to the City of London or be unable to compete with Germany’s “universal” banks. The result of the race to the bottom, however, as Ireland, Iceland, the UK, and U.S. all experienced is that we create intensely criminogenic environment that creates epidemics of “control fraud.” Control fraud — frauds led by CEOs who use seemingly legitimate entities as “weapons” to defraud — cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime — combined. Because of the political power of the SDIs and the destruction of effective regulation these fraudulent SDIs now commit endemic fraud with impunity.

Effective financial regulation is essential if markets are to work. Regulators have to serve as the “cops on the beat” to keep the fraudsters from gaining a competitive advantage over honest firms. George Akerlof, the economist who identified and labeled this perverse (“Gresham’s”) dynamic was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2001 for his insight about how control fraud makes market forces perverse.

“[D]ishonest dealings tend to drive honest dealings out of the market. The cost of dishonesty, therefore, lies not only in the amount by which the purchaser is cheated; the cost also must include the loss incurred from driving legitimate business out of existence.” George Akerlof (1970)
.

One of the most perceptive observers of humanity recognized this same dynamic two centuries before Akerlof.
“The Lilliputians look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft. For, they allege, care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, can protect a man’s goods from thieves, but honesty hath no fence against superior cunning. . . where fraud is permitted or connived at, or hath no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage.” Swift, J. Gulliver’s Travels

We are the allies of honest banks and bankers. We are their essential allies, for only effective regulation permits them to exist and prosper. Think of what would happen to banks if we took the regular cops off the beat and stopped prosecuting bank robbers. That’s what happens when we take the regulatory cops off the beat. The only difference is that it is the controlling officers who loot the bank in the absence of the regulatory cops on the beat. It is the anti-regulators who are the enemy of honest banks and bankers.

Top criminologists, effective financial regulators, and Nobel Laureates in economics have confirmed that epidemics of control fraud, such as the FBI warned of in September 2004, can cause financial bubbles to hyper-inflate and drive catastrophic financial crises. Indeed, the FBI predicted in September 2004 that the developing “epidemic” of mortgage fraud would cause a financial “crisis” if it were not stopped. It grew massively after 2004. The fraudulent SDIs (who were far broader than Fannie and Freddie, indeed, they only began to dominate the secondary market in sales of fraudulent loans after 2005) ignored the FBI and industry fraud warnings for the most obvious of reasons — they were leaders the frauds. The ongoing U.S. crisis was driven overwhelmingly by fraudulent “liar’s” loans. Studies have shown that the incidence of fraud in liar’s loans is 90% (MBA/MARI 2006) and that by 2006 roughly one-third of all mortgage loans were liar’s loans (Credit Suisse 2007). Rajdeep Sengupta, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, reported in 2010 in an article entitled “Alt-A: The Forgotten Segment of the Mortgage Market” that:

“Between 2003 and 2006 … subprime and Alt-A [loans grew] 94 and 340 percent, respectively. The higher levels of originations after 2003 were largely sustained by the growth of the nonprime (both the subprime and Alt-A) segment of the mortgage market.”

Sengupta’s data greatly understate the role of “Alt-A” loans (the euphemism for “liar’s loans”) for they ignore the fact that by 2006 half of the loans called “subprime” were also liar’s loans (Credit Suisse: 2007). It was the massive growth in fraudulent liar’s loans that hyper-inflated and greatly extended the life of the bubble, producing the Great Recession. The growth of fraudulent loans rapidly increased, rather than decreased, after government and industry anti-fraud specialists warned that liar’s loans were endemically fraudulent. No one in the government ever told a bank that it had to make or purchase a “liar’s” loan. No honest mortgage lender would make liar’s loans because doing so must cause severe losses. Criminologists, economists aware of the relevant criminological and economics literature on control fraud, and a host of investigations have confirmed the endemic nature of control fraud in the ongoing U.S. crisis.

But the banking elites that led these frauds have been able to do so with impunity from prosecution. Take one federal agency, the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). During the S&L debacle, the OTS made well over 10,000 criminal referrals and made the removal of control frauds from the industry and their prosecution its top two priorities. The agency’s support and the provision of 1000 FBI agents to investigate the cases led to the felony conviction of over 1,000 S&L frauds. The bulk of those convictions came from the “Top 100″ list that OTS and the FBI created to prioritize the investigation of the worst failed S&Ls. In the ongoing crisis — which caused losses 40 times larger than the S&L debacle, the OTS made zero criminal referrals, the FBI (as recently as FY 2007) assigned only 120 agents nationally to respond to the well over one million cases of mortgage fraud that occurred annually, and the OTS’ non-effort produced no convictions of any S&L control frauds. OTS’ sister agencies, the Fed and the OCC, have the same record of not even attempting to identify and prosecute the frauds. The FDIC was better, but still only a shadow of what it was in fighting fraud in the early 1990s. If control frauds can operate with impunity from criminal prosecutions, then the perverse Gresham’s dynamic is maximized and market forces will increasingly drive honest banks and firms from the marketplace.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reported on the results of the Great Recession that was driven by this fraud epidemic:
“As this report goes to print, there are more than 26 million Americans who are out of work, cannot find full-time work, or have given up looking for work. About four million families have lost their homes to foreclosure and another four and a half million have slipped into the foreclosure process or are seriously behind on their mortgage payments. Nearly $11 trillion in household wealth has vanished, with retirement accounts and life savings swept away. Businesses, large and small, have felt the sting of a deep recession.”

It is the fraudulent SDIs that are the massive job killers and wealth destroyers. It is the Great Recession that the fraudulent SDIs produced that caused most of the growth in the federal deficits and made the fiscal crises in our states and localities acute. The senior officers that led the control frauds are the opposite of the “productive class.” No one, without the aid of an army, has ever destroyed more wealth and dreams than the control frauds. It is essential to hold them accountable, to help their victims recover, and to end their ongoing frauds and corruption that have crippled our economy, our democracy, and our nation.

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 3:43 pm 
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Quote:
An Open Letter to the Self-Proclaimed ’99%’

Self-delusion is no way to go through life, but it’s clear from perusing the “We Are the 99 Percent” web site that self-delusion has become an epidemic. Anyone who believes that they represent 99% of Americans, without any supporting evidence, doesn’t. Deluding yourself that you do leaves you unprepared for opposition and rejection.

The 99 percent site reminds me of the “Sorry Everybody” site, on which liberals posted photographs of themselves apologizing to the world for the re-election of George W. Bush. Perhaps many of the 99 percenters still haven’t quite come to grips with that defeat. Regardless, common themes emerge from the photos posted there — excessive academic credentials that are mostly unrelated to producing anything in the real economy, high personal self-regard, massive personal debt, and shattered dreams.

Image

Image

For those whom those terms above describe, and it’s a heavy majority of the 99 percenters, it’s evident that they hold to a certain political world view in which abstract credentials entitle you to a comfortable life, and that the fact that you dream something entitles you to have it. In the real world, neither has ever been true. The world doesn’t care about your credentials. It doesn’t care about your self-esteem. It doesn’t care that you chose of your own free will to rack up a mountain of debt. It doesn’t now owe you a painless way out of that debt. And it really doesn’t care about your dreams.

Image

Image

That’s not an indictment of the times in which we live. In fact, if you take the sweep of human history into account, these times are obviously the most accommodating of our personal aspirations, by far. The Hobbesian world of short, brutish, and nasty lives still exists all over the world, but mostly far outside the America that has so disillusioned the 99 percenters. America is not a dark Dickensian place where wishes can’t come true, it’s a free land where anyone can succeed if they have enough determination, some useful skills, and a little luck. And of the three, luck is probably the least relevant. This was true at our nation’s founding, and despite the efforts of some, remains true today.

The self-proclaimed 99 percenters say they want jobs, and they cast blame hither and yon for why they don’t have them. Some seem to have replaced faith in God with faith in the state, faith which the state has never earned and will not live up to. But I’m not here to blame the unemployed among the 99 percenters. It’s a tough economy out there, the toughest in a very long time, and once you lose your job for whatever reason, it can be very tough to get another one. Anyone who has ever been unemployed, and most of us have been at one point or another, knows the terror of waking up each day without the dignity of work and the expectation of future gains. You feel the anxiety in your gut and in your chest. I don’t wish that feeling on anyone.

It’s good and right that the 99 percenters want jobs. It’s worth pointing out that it’s not necessarily the Wall Street bankers who are making things so tough to get jobs. The voters, presumably many among the 99 percenters included, elected someone who promised to “fundamentally transform” America. In order to transform anything at a fundamental level, much must be torn down first. And when the mighty tear anything down, the average person is often the one who ends up getting broken. That is how things have always been, and no weepy Internet photo gallery will change that. No political system will change that. If anything, capitalism makes such destruction less harmful to the average person.

The regulatory environment has private enterprise, the engine of the American economy, too skittish to consider hiring. That’s not my opinion, it’s the opinion of business leaders ranging from Donald Trump to BET Chairman Robert Johnson. When the government, for whatever reason, makes the business climate uncertain, businesses react negatively, hold back on hiring, and jobs become scarce. “Fundamental transformation” has its price, and many of the 99 percent page are paying it. Put another way, if you try to “bring down the system,” don’t be shocked if the system comes down on your own head.

So the 99 percenters need to do a few things, in my opinion. First, they need to put aside the notion that the world owes them a job. It doesn’t, and never did. They need to assess what makes them worth hiring, and then act accordingly. If you don’t have any marketable skills, get some. They need to put aside the delusion that they represent 99 percent of their fellow Americans. They don’t and never will. They need to come to grips with the fact that their unrealistic view of the world is not only getting in their way, it’s a big part of what has made our economy as weak as it is.

Will they 99 percenters heed any of this? Eh, at most maybe one percent will. It’s best to keep our expectations realistic.


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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 4:56 pm 
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Owl_Farmer wrote:
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/10/05/an-open-letter-to-the-self-proclaimed-99/?singlepage=true

Quote:
An Open Letter to the Self-Proclaimed ’99%’

Self-delusion is no way to go through life, but it’s clear from perusing the “We Are the 99 Percent” web site that self-delusion has become an epidemic. Anyone who believes that they represent 99% of Americans, without any supporting evidence, doesn’t. Deluding yourself that you do leaves you unprepared for opposition and rejection.

The 99 percent site reminds me of the “Sorry Everybody” site, on which liberals posted photographs of themselves apologizing to the world for the re-election of George W. Bush. Perhaps many of the 99 percenters still haven’t quite come to grips with that defeat. Regardless, common themes emerge from the photos posted there — excessive academic credentials that are mostly unrelated to producing anything in the real economy, high personal self-regard, massive personal debt, and shattered dreams.

Image

Image

For those whom those terms above describe, and it’s a heavy majority of the 99 percenters, it’s evident that they hold to a certain political world view in which abstract credentials entitle you to a comfortable life, and that the fact that you dream something entitles you to have it. In the real world, neither has ever been true. The world doesn’t care about your credentials. It doesn’t care about your self-esteem. It doesn’t care that you chose of your own free will to rack up a mountain of debt. It doesn’t now owe you a painless way out of that debt. And it really doesn’t care about your dreams.

Image

Image

That’s not an indictment of the times in which we live. In fact, if you take the sweep of human history into account, these times are obviously the most accommodating of our personal aspirations, by far. The Hobbesian world of short, brutish, and nasty lives still exists all over the world, but mostly far outside the America that has so disillusioned the 99 percenters. America is not a dark Dickensian place where wishes can’t come true, it’s a free land where anyone can succeed if they have enough determination, some useful skills, and a little luck. And of the three, luck is probably the least relevant. This was true at our nation’s founding, and despite the efforts of some, remains true today.

The self-proclaimed 99 percenters say they want jobs, and they cast blame hither and yon for why they don’t have them. Some seem to have replaced faith in God with faith in the state, faith which the state has never earned and will not live up to. But I’m not here to blame the unemployed among the 99 percenters. It’s a tough economy out there, the toughest in a very long time, and once you lose your job for whatever reason, it can be very tough to get another one. Anyone who has ever been unemployed, and most of us have been at one point or another, knows the terror of waking up each day without the dignity of work and the expectation of future gains. You feel the anxiety in your gut and in your chest. I don’t wish that feeling on anyone.

It’s good and right that the 99 percenters want jobs. It’s worth pointing out that it’s not necessarily the Wall Street bankers who are making things so tough to get jobs. The voters, presumably many among the 99 percenters included, elected someone who promised to “fundamentally transform” America. In order to transform anything at a fundamental level, much must be torn down first. And when the mighty tear anything down, the average person is often the one who ends up getting broken. That is how things have always been, and no weepy Internet photo gallery will change that. No political system will change that. If anything, capitalism makes such destruction less harmful to the average person.

The regulatory environment has private enterprise, the engine of the American economy, too skittish to consider hiring. That’s not my opinion, it’s the opinion of business leaders ranging from Donald Trump to BET Chairman Robert Johnson. When the government, for whatever reason, makes the business climate uncertain, businesses react negatively, hold back on hiring, and jobs become scarce. “Fundamental transformation” has its price, and many of the 99 percent page are paying it. Put another way, if you try to “bring down the system,” don’t be shocked if the system comes down on your own head.

So the 99 percenters need to do a few things, in my opinion. First, they need to put aside the notion that the world owes them a job. It doesn’t, and never did. They need to assess what makes them worth hiring, and then act accordingly. If you don’t have any marketable skills, get some. They need to put aside the delusion that they represent 99 percent of their fellow Americans. They don’t and never will. They need to come to grips with the fact that their unrealistic view of the world is not only getting in their way, it’s a big part of what has made our economy as weak as it is.

Will they 99 percenters heed any of this? Eh, at most maybe one percent will. It’s best to keep our expectations realistic.


Knowledge should be free, just like health care and music and movies and tv shows and books and...



That article right there hits on a lot of the problems I have with this whole thing, most notably the pictures on that site. I am techincally the 99%- as is everyone on this board with maybe the exception of g2t. The problem is, most of us aren't them. I don't want them speaking for me. I don't want the woman who says she hasn't made more than 10K a year in the past 4 years but HAS A 3 MONTH OLD speaking for me. We all have our problems. Sorry your PHD dad chooses to live in his car because he doesn't want to work for the system... man. That doesn't mean any of you are speaking for me and I hate the notion that you think you are. So many of these people forget that a very good majority of us go to work 5 days a week. Pay our bills, Spend too much, don't save enough, but are generally okay with our lot in life. Hey, I bet if you took out your nosering, you might be able to find a job that doesn't involve picking up shit.


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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 5:30 pm 
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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 5:36 pm 
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to write some of those people off completely, though, is a bit short-sighted. of course, knowing a lot about art history can't guarantee you a good life (though there should be some public funding for the arts and universities and the like, but different discussion). but there's this idea put out there, and i know this is a running theme in the College thread, that an "abstract credential" is what you need to succeed, and also is a fairly certain path to success. i get criticizing the idea: that's obviously the way to take that idea out of the popular mindset. but at the same time, that post has an air of superiority to it, and worse than superiority, the idea of "you're an idiot and you deserve your shitty life." that undercuts the valid points it makes on our obsession with and faith in credentials.

also, i sort of hate the term "real economy." it screams elitism. also, his (i assume) use of "the world."

Actually, that post reminded me of this: http://lhote.blogspot.com/2011/10/resen ... chine.html

Also:
Quote:
It’s worth pointing out that it’s not necessarily the Wall Street bankers who are making things so tough to get jobs.

:roll:

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 5:55 pm 
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It actually isn't.

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 5:58 pm 
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That Article wrote:
too skittish to consider hiring.



I misread this and felt like they were putting way too much pressure on me.


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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 6:04 pm 
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dkfan9 wrote:
to write some of those people off completely, though, is a bit short-sighted. of course, knowing a lot about art history can't guarantee you a good life (though there should be some public funding for the arts and universities and the like, but different discussion). but there's this idea put out there, and i know this is a running theme in the College thread, that an "abstract credential" is what you need to succeed, and also is a fairly certain path to success. i get criticizing the idea: that's obviously the way to take that idea out of the popular mindset. but at the same time, that post has an air of superiority to it, and worse than superiority, the idea of "you're an idiot and you deserve your shitty life." that undercuts the valid points it makes on our obsession with and faith in credentials.

also, i sort of hate the term "real economy." it screams elitism. also, his (i assume) use of "the world."

Actually, that post reminded me of this: http://lhote.blogspot.com/2011/10/resen ... chine.html

Also:
Quote:
It’s worth pointing out that it’s not necessarily the Wall Street bankers who are making things so tough to get jobs.

:roll:


This is a good post and a good set of points.

I read parts of the link you posted and this paragraph stands out to me in relation not only to the article posted before yours but also about this 20-something generation on a larger scale:

Quote:
The vehicle of modern American achievement prepares thousands of upwardly mobile young strivers for everything but the life they will actually encounter. The endlessly grinding wheel of American "success" indoctrinates a competitive vision in our young people that most of them never seem to escape. The numbing and frenetic socioacademic sorting mechanism compels most of the best and the brightest adolescents in our middle and upper class to compete for various laurels from puberty to adulthood. Every aspect of young adult life is transformed into a status game, as academics, athletics, music and the arts, travel, hobbies, and philanthropy are all reduced to fodder for college applications. This instrumentalizing of all of the best things in life teach teenagers the unmistakable lesson that nothing is to be enjoyed, nothing experienced purely, but rather that each and every part of human life is ultimately fodder for what is less human.

The eventual eats the immediate. No achievement, no effort, no relationship is to exist as an end itself. Each must be ground into chum to attract those who confer status and success.


It's also worth noting here that the photos in the "Open Letter to the Self-Proclaimed" article are of these fairly young people (at least from my perspective) - and really it shouldn't be much of a surprise that this is how they feel - this generation suffers more from a sense of entitlement than any other so far- and it's mostly my generation's fault(I could easily have had kids in their 20s by now, but don't...as well as the baby boomers) - all us who gave birth to this generation of 20s to 30-somethings...

We let this generation think they were the best, most wonderful, most intelligent, most talented group of kids around, and now the world isn't living up to their parent's promise that all they had to do was go out there and simply display themselves as the perfect little adults they believed themselves to be, and entry level jobs making 70-100,000/years would flood in.

The truth is, it's difficult for just about everyone to find a good paying job in a field of their choice these days, and most of us do what we have to do in order to live as well as we can with the money we make.
The Why of there being so many people (mostly youngish, but old enough to know better) who feel these rules shouldn't apply to them should be more cause for analysis and whatever ridicule than the feelings of these people themselves, in my opinion.

What did the rest of the world expect them to feel? most people start out their adulthood with the ideas given to them about themselves from their parents so...

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 6:31 pm 
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given2trade wrote:
It actually isn't.

in a long-term view, wall street bankers, and their cooperation with academia and government, certainly deserve blame for current economic woes.

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 8:16 pm 
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dkfan9 wrote:
given2trade wrote:
It actually isn't.

in a long-term view, wall street bankers, and their cooperation with academia and government, certainly deserve blame for current economic woes.



They are just doing what we, as consumers and voters and investors and students and parents, want. The problem is that what we want isn't necessarily what is best for us in the long run.

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 8:46 pm 
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broken iris wrote:
dkfan9 wrote:
given2trade wrote:
It actually isn't.

in a long-term view, wall street bankers, and their cooperation with academia and government, certainly deserve blame for current economic woes.



They are just doing what we, as consumers and voters and investors and students and parents, want. The problem is that what we want isn't necessarily what is best for us in the long run.


Exactly. Wall Street is at fault as much as the guy who bought 5 homes he couldn't afford or the girl who took out $100,000 for her Art degree. What ever happened to individual responsibility? We all lived beyond our means for too long and it's caught up with us. The housing crisis did not create the mess we're in right now. Wall Street's bailout ended up costing tax payers nothing. Wall Street is the big, angry, villain that we need cause we need someone to blame.

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 8:55 pm 
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given2trade wrote:
What ever happened to individual responsibility?

dkfan9 wrote:
Does the fact that I still bank with Chase make me a bad person?

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 8:58 pm 
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dkfan9, you don't really have room to talk. If you felt as strongly about the abusive practices of Wall Street as you claim, you would have changed banks a looooong time ago.

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 9:25 pm 
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Article that dkfan9 posted wrote:
They are trapped between their rejection of the means and an unchosen but deep hunger for the ends.



This is an interesting quote and I think it is a pretty accurate description of many of our disaffected countrymen.

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 10:20 pm 
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i'm just glad that i was so broke for most of my twenties that i couldn't even get enough credit to bury me in the future.

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 11:19 pm 
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thodoks wrote:
dkfan9, you don't really have room to talk. If you felt as strongly about the abusive practices of Wall Street as you claim, you would have changed banks a looooong time ago.

Once I cash in my reward points, I'll be on it.

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 5:03 am 
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given2trade wrote:
broken iris wrote:
dkfan9 wrote:
given2trade wrote:
It actually isn't.

in a long-term view, wall street bankers, and their cooperation with academia and government, certainly deserve blame for current economic woes.



They are just doing what we, as consumers and voters and investors and students and parents, want. The problem is that what we want isn't necessarily what is best for us in the long run.


Exactly. Wall Street is at fault as much as the guy who bought 5 homes he couldn't afford or the girl who took out $100,000 for her Art degree. What ever happened to individual responsibility? We all lived beyond our means for too long and it's caught up with us. The housing crisis did not create the mess we're in right now. Wall Street's bailout ended up costing tax payers nothing. Wall Street is the big, angry, villain that we need cause we need someone to blame.


Did it really cost taxpayers nothing? I mean, we loaned the banks money with which they largely bought T-Bills. I get that they paid the principal back, but aren't we on the hook for the interest?


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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 5:10 am 
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simple schoolboy wrote:
given2trade wrote:
broken iris wrote:
dkfan9 wrote:
given2trade wrote:
It actually isn't.

in a long-term view, wall street bankers, and their cooperation with academia and government, certainly deserve blame for current economic woes.



They are just doing what we, as consumers and voters and investors and students and parents, want. The problem is that what we want isn't necessarily what is best for us in the long run.


Exactly. Wall Street is at fault as much as the guy who bought 5 homes he couldn't afford or the girl who took out $100,000 for her Art degree. What ever happened to individual responsibility? We all lived beyond our means for too long and it's caught up with us. The housing crisis did not create the mess we're in right now. Wall Street's bailout ended up costing tax payers nothing. Wall Street is the big, angry, villain that we need cause we need someone to blame.


Did it really cost taxpayers nothing? I mean, we loaned the banks money with which they largely bought T-Bills. I get that they paid the principal back, but aren't we on the hook for the interest?


Have you seen the interest rate on a 1 or 2 year t-bill? It aint high my friend. It's almost 0. But regardless, let's say the bailout cost $100 Billion, which it didn't. Who gives a fuck! We have a trillion dollar ANNUAL deficit. It's like people getting pissed over earmarks. I'm so sick of this shit. Can we try and focus on the real problems? Entitlements. Tax rates. Wars (even that is tiny compared to the previous two). Those things. Unfortunately, they aren't as sexy as the big, ugly, banks.

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 11:27 pm 
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You can't make this shit up.

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“I am 116,000 in debt for being a social worker,” 2010 Columbia University grad Jess Horner said. “I don’t have a job. I have no healthcare. You can only get insurance through employment. So many people are unemployed.”

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/10/09/ ... -movement/

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 Post subject: Re: Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!
PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 12:40 am 
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