Someone has to get into it more like this guy (Mac link – cut and paste). Fox, the alleged “news” network, that covered Tea Party rallies with obsessive and often photoshopped zeal, now avoids publicizing any of the news from the dirty liberal hippies on Wall Street. Of course good right wingers fighting to keep their food stamps, Medicare and farm subsidies from the grips of government are patriots, but these disorganized freaks in Manhattan are not even a news story. Move on, nothing to see here.
So they send a crew down there looking to find some loudmouth to say something foolishly inarticulate so they can broadcast it 75 times a day and say “look at that stupid liberal – they are all just like him”. But..when someone like Jesse LaGreca is articulate, to the point, cutting and really says it better than I could, suddenly there is no time to get it on the air. This recording of a Fox “News” reporter was made by the protesters themselves. They should just drop the pretense and just back themselves up as a propaganda arm.
It looks to me as if the silly hippies have something to say after all. And they’re quite adept at saying it. Take that Rand-bots!
I don’t think Solyndra is total nonsense. But hey, he is good at the talking points. Both sides have their narative and they both agree on more government. Just disagree over who to give the spoils of power.
When is CF coming back from vacation? Counting the minutes, painfully.
To date, the protest is extremely unorganized and most of those protesting have no idea what they are actually protesting against or who is responsible for creating the mess. It will not be an American version of an Arab spring until shit starts getting blown up.
http://www.infowars.com/occupy-wall-street-protesters-call-totalitarian-government-re-election-of-obama/
People expect a political slant from Fox the same way they do from MSNBC, or to a lesser extent, CNN.
The NY Times, which makes a BFD about its high standards of journalism, has a long history of simply ignoring scandals involving Democrats until weeks after they break elsewhere and then burying a 3 column inch item about it in between the obits and the classifieds.
I worked in the newspaper industry for years. Unbiased news has never existed. What we have now, a diverse set of news outlets and easy access to them from all over the world, is in many ways better.
Frank you knuckle head. If you actually watched Fox News you might have a clue rather than regurgitating the “oh we poor protestors, the mainstream media is ignoring us” crap. As I type this I am watching Bill O’Reilly spend a second segment on the Occupy Wall Street protests. Yes, O’Reilly, the me Isis of you and every Leftie, spending time discussing this, so how can you suggest it is being ignored?
Frank, I love you like the partner of a blogger I read regularly, but you have to realize that not everything you read on your Leftie blogs is necessarily the truth.
Dear readers, for an alternate view of what is actually happening in lower Manhattan, I suggest the following:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/40895
Even better, let them impress you with their own words. O’Reilly sent Jesse Waters down there to interview and it was sadly amusing.
http://nation.foxnews.com/occupy-wall-street/2011/10/01/watters-world-investiagtes-whos-really-behind-wall-st-protest
What astonishes me is these refugees from Abercrombie and Finch seem to believe that they or someone can take the money from banks and redistribute it. Or, that the banks are hoarding money when they could be creating jobs. What will they say when Wall Street does another round of layoffs in coming months because they have too little work for the existing workforce?
So Frank, when are you going to join your fellow truth-to-power speakers and camp out in Liberty Park? Then, when Fox returns with ambush interviews in mind, you can dazzle them with your wisdom.
i’ve been going to zuccotti park for lunch the last two weeks and last friday all afternoon.
The protesters are not just a bunch of hippies. I would dare say , they have more in common with the Tea Party crowd than one would think.
Francis –
I never thought I would say these two words…but…. I MISS CHRIS!!! Keep that between us girls, OK? You loser.
He has been gone for like what, a year now? How long can he contemplate his navel? Blogging is not hard, you dummy. Just post something interesting, you doofus, and the commentators will bail you out. And you are in a target rich news environment right now.
You post nothing on Amanda Knox? That little minx. Did you check her out? So she got a little stabby during a drug filled, kinky sex romp. A three way!! She is a kid, for Pete’s Sake. She is hot enough to work out the kinks, learn the safe word, and get it right. I will be her coach if that will help. What do you think, spud head?
And here is an uplifting little article about a guy who ripped out both of his eyeballs in church. I just don’t see why you would do that. Do you?
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3849743/Man-rips-out-own-eyes-in-church.html
So try and finish strong Francis, OK? You shit the bed coming out of the gate, but we will forgive you if you step it up. You have set the bar very low my friend. I am confident you can pick it up.
Your Pal,
Walt
I assume this if Frank. Seriously, do you ever wonder about the timing of things? Where have these folks been for the past three years? Why did they not take to the streets in 2010 when Wall Street profits rebound to near record levels after being bailed out by tax payers? Why now when their businesses are in the crapper and the have laid off thousands with thousands more to lose their jobs before year end? Why now when each day brings a headline of drastically reduced or no bonuses this year?
Why Frank? Could it be that this is an attempt to create the Left’s version of the Tea Party except this is more AstroTurf than grass roots? Could it be that this is being orchestrated to coincide with Obama opening up another round of class warfare? Is this faux populism supposed to distract from the fact that Obama’s economic policies have been a disaster and have deepened the malaise?
What I find astonishing is that the protestors, unlike the Tea Party, are actually protesting for actions and policies that are consistent with the Administration’s views. Bigger government. More regulation. More transfer payments from the rich to the so-called not so rich (better get that money from the rich quickly before Rosanne Barr has them beheaded). More student loans and tuition grants for the highly credentialed with no marketable skills so they can become more credentialed but no more valuable to business.
So go ahead Frank and support the useful idiots in their quest to turn the banks into public utilities. Just don’t tell us that this is about anything more than getting Obama reelected. Which brings up a sad irony, these folks protesting the evil banks most likely voted as a block for Obama who has no qualms demonizing the banks on one hand but then coming to town to collect money from them for his campaign.
No, there nothing incongruent in any of this. Move along, nothing to see here.
Why is it that this is about the evil Wall Street banks and not the hedge funds nor the pirate equity firms?! Why aren’t these guys camping out on here in Greenwich? If you wanted to protest outlandish compensation, a lack of regulatory oversight and sometimes unscrupulous ethics, the managers of these private partnerships are the perfect villains.
No, that would make too much sense.
Frankie,
Rant and rave all you want about Fox, but the polemic on media bias misses the point.
This is open source protest, spontaneous, leaderless, fueled by a diversity of beliefs, truths, ulterior motives, misunderstandings… the whole shooting match. The genesis is the same as the early tea party.
You, Fox News, the New York Times, you can cherry pick all the slices you want, to fit your particular narrative, but you’ll miss the point.
People are angry, a lot of people, all different kinds of people. These protests will grow in size and number. Each one is a pile of fuel and tinder just waiting for a spark.
I’m sure there are many other news outlets that play your narrative. Change the channel if you don’t like Fox.
Check out the live feed. The Occupy Wall Street people are lucky they are showing just one guy because there is an endless supply of fools down there.
http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution
Can’t let this go — earlier today MSNBC interviewed Al “Hymietown” Sharpton on the the Rick Perry “N*****head” story and never brought up Sharpton being a blatant race hustler. Watched Fox quite a bit today and they covered the Wall Steet BS quite a bit. You must know that almost all of those tools down there are losers, hipsters, welfare recip’s, assholes, anarchists, hippies and douchebags.
Speaking of douchebags, when do you take a hike…
yeah why isn’t Fox taking seriously a list of demands that includes $20/hr minimum wage, free college and a complete cancellation of all student debt without repercussions.
they also think borders that are even wider than the ones we have is just peachy. that would be the same border that has helped push wages down for years.
it isn’t Fox’s job to continuously search through a manure pile for diamonds.
And, duh, of course they couldn’t use it. The camera was too jumpy.
What a foolish post. You really are a lock-step, cool aid-drinking doofus. You are completely out of touch with mainstream America (and the readership of this blog).
Maybe you are just trying to stir the pot, so you don’t lose all of CF’s readers while he is away.
That’s all.
Agreed. As should the New York Times, MSNBC, and NPR.
Only someone who never watches Fox News could have written this.
Christopher; where ARE you?!?!
Why are liberal hippies protesting and blaming wall street when wall street gave their money and support to Obama? Just shows these liberals are dumb.
Yeah, that guy’s a genius.
Now that the “It’s all Bush’s fault” argument is exhausted, liberals resort to the “It’s all Fox News’ fault.” This is petty and ridiculou, and you’re ruining Chris’s blog!
You could have found a nicer word than that.
I confess that not blogging on Foxy Knoxy was a vital destruction of credibility
An anarchist interviews the Occupy DC crowd with amusing results:
They’re not quite ready to impeach Obama, but they’re close. And cancellation of all student loan debt seems to be a nonnegotiable demand.
Oh, and social justice. More of that too, but the policy implications aren’t really clear.
I’m with the protestors on this one – by all means those responsible for the Wall Street meltdown, crisis, and bailouts should be in prison. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd in striped outfits – that’s accountability.
Dollarbill and others who think these are rational folks offering rational solutions, I recommend you peruse their “demands”. I do not even know what to call this as some parts are socialist, others communist, other green and some are just loonie. And you want me to take these folks seriously?! Sorry, no can do.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-st-moveme/
Proposed List Of Demands For Occupy Wall St Movement!
Posted 8 days ago by LloydJHart (Vineyard Haven, MA)
Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.
Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.
Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.
Demand four: Free college education.
Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.
Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.
Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.
Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.
Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.
Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.
Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.
Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.
Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.
These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.
LLS2 (are there really two of you in these parts?) – Please tell me exactly what in the above I, as a Tea Party sympathizer, would be remotely in agreement with or hold in common.
No, the folks at Liberty Park are NOT a progressive Tea Party in the making. The TP was based on a narrow set of values of smaller government, states’ rights, lower taxes and more efficient government. That’s it, nothing more. No social issues. Little to nothing on immigration.
What you are seeing in lower Manhattan is a hodge podge of every mainstream and extreme progressive idea that has been raised since the 1960s and even earlier. What I find interesting and sad is that much of these demands are things that have been tried in Europe and elsewhere with little success and in many cases, true damage done.
But the most important thing, the Tea Party is a movement that is taking on not only the liberal/progressive ideal, but also mainstream Establishment republicans in DC. The TP seeks to remove those in the GOP who have been corrupted by being in government for too long. Also, the TP greatest gains were not necessarily in the House but on the state and local level where they have take offices and have gained control of the local GOP machinery. THIS I would argue will be the most lasting legacy of the Tea Party.
As for your kindred spirits down there, do you see them igniting a grass roots effort similar to what I describe above? Are these folks going to work to gain local legislative posts? Are they going to take time away from social networking with free Starbuck$ bandwidth in order to voluteer to get like minded folks elected? In case you have not noticed, most of the NYC local politicians are already sypatico with these folks.
No, this effort and its halting siblings in other cities are pure and simple AstroTurf. If they were genuine, they would have risen last year when things were as bad for folks as they are today. No, this is timed to coincide wwith Obama’s new-found populism and class-warfare strategy. The problem is, this protest is against a strawman in the banks, and not against the ruling class or the White House. Thus, it does not mean much once all the excitement dissipates.
Demand 11 is certainly thought provoking. If you’re going to forgive all debt public and private world wide presumably you’re going to forbid any kind of lending or borrowing in the future. So there goes car loans, mortgages and the whole banking system. I guess international trade will happen by barter, to the extent it happens at all.
Demand 12 is kind of moot. It’s hard to see how the credit rating agencies stay in business after demand 11 is met. I guess economics isn’t a required course in college anymore.
Fly – thanks for posting those demands. Very enlightening. I assume someone will tell New Orleans and people living downstream from the Hoover dam before restoring the natural flow of river systems. Other than that I see no problems.
hey frankie, where are your beloved NY Times and Huffington Post on this story?
http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2011/10/cbs-reporter-says-wh-screamed-at-her.html
Solyndra was felony fraud.
Your boys Barry and Eric have committed Treason and murdered two US agents with Fast and Furious.
Barry and Eric are American heroes
Fly angler : the protest is against the ruling elites. It’s about income inequality.
Poor education.
Workers rights.
Corporate profits while individual rights and salaries fall.
That’s just off the top of my head. When did tea partiers go camp out for 3 weeks ??
As Nixon said: “It can’t be illegal if the President does it”.
Lls2, can’t recall the tea partiers ever camping out for 3 weeks–they don’t need to. They made their point and went home. However, I seem to recall a little protest in Wisconsin not too long ago where protesters camped out for weeks as well–didn’t seem to go their way, as I recall.
The Wall Street occupiers are a bunch of “kids” who were raised by parents to think they are special and entitled–never heard the word “no” or told to try harder. They grew up thinking everyone should get a trophy whether they deserved one or not. Everyone should applaud them just for showing up. The problem is that kids today think they’re too good or too smart to start at a lowly position. They were taught that the world owed them. What a bunch of losers.
SEIU and ACORN astroturf, where were these people three years ago? Why now and not then? Eh?
Oh, here’s your “hero” on Twitter and DKos, read it and weep unless you agree with him, he’s another far left DU/Kos/moveon koolaid drinker. I doubt that he can persuade anyone to join his cause, but hey, fellow leftists love guys like this. http://twitter.com/#!/JesseLaGreca
Read more of his story in his own words and then ask yourself who really holds the key to his lack of success:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/06/1013939/-REALITY:-Losing-my-job-and-now-my-home-has-taught-me-an-important-lesson?via=user
I can see why you like him, he advocates using the same bludgeoning tactics (although more profanely) that you do. Sigh. So much for the Democratic leadership decrying the incivility of current political discourse.
LLS2 – But it is not against all the ruling elites, just the capitalist ones or the ones with money. Are they calling for nationalization of the wealth of their patron Soros? Uncle Warren? The Hollywood billionaires and centimillionaires? The liberal as all get-out VC and pirate equity barons in California?
No, they want to focus all their ire the evil rich bankers, especially if they work for JPGoldMorgBarclUBSAmericaaMerrillFargo.
Poor education? You mean the poor education delivered by the unionized school teachers?
Workers rights, which ones? Not the UAW who Barry saved when he wiped out the rights of debt holders more senior in the capital structure. No the UAW that was given breathing room through “Cash for Clunkers” that took tens of thousands of used cars off the road and into the scrapyard making it impossible for Americans of meager means to find a quality used car at this point. Those workers? What “right” allowed them to be put ahead of the rest of non-unionized America and rightful debt holders?
Falling salaries? You seem to think that corporations created the concept of globalization and made workers in other countries work for lower wages so that good paying American jobs can be off-shored. Private corporation are NOT public services/utilities which seems to be something lost upon you and your kindred spirits in NYC. The private sector exists to be competitive and to turn a profit in favor of their shareholders.
No, what you are complaining about is a lack of an USA industrial policy starting in the 1970s when Japan started to really compete with us in making stuff. The US auto industry, saddled with the most lucrative of union worker and retiree cost structures, could not compete when over $1,200 of the average new car’s cost was to pay worker benefits over and above that of non-unionized shops. Same in the mining, metal bending and textile industries. There was no planning by our leaders nor our industries for the day when the third world graduated to the second world and started to make more than tropical drink umbrellas and thong sandals.
That is a crime of epic proportions but it is a symptom of our election cycle where folks need to get re-elected every two to four years rather than plan over 5, 10 or 20 years. Which ultimately results in a great many Americans finding themselves in the sad predicament of having skills that do not match with the job market in this decade.
So I am sympathic to a point but ragging on the bankers is convenient, but not useful. If it was strictly profitable corporations that deserve your attention, how about GE and why aren’t your friends camping out in Stamford? Or at the Coke headquarters in Atlanta? Or outside the Weinstein Brothers studios? Or outside Uncle Warren’s crib in Omaha?
And are ytou really serious with your last question about the Tea Party and camping? Is sleeping under the star and forgoing basic hygeine a sign of strength in yoru midn? Is that “sacrifice” supposed to validate their message? Sorry, because it does not work that way. I could inquire how many of your folks turned up at town hall meetings around the country as the TP did in 2009 (Chris and I attended the Greenwich event together)? I could ask how many tens of thousands of your folks converged on DC for a massive rally to protest Obama’s healthcare program? I could ask how many signatures have been gathered by the great unwashed to get grass roots candidates onto local election ballots? I could ask how many of your miscreants did all this while holding down one or more jobs, raising kids, volunteering at church, hospital or school functions, paying their taxes and enjoying the life that their labors provide?
So LLS2, I could ask all that but why? You demonize corporate American, the banks, the Tea Party and just about anyone who believes you get what you work for in this country. Seriously, workers rights? The same workers with iPhones, iPods, Macbooks, new clothes, flat screens TVs, enhanced internet access, premium cable access and all the trapping of a very prosperous America?
I will understand that this is about “the workers” and the “disadvantaged” when I see your friends joined by out-of-work Virgina coal miners, Gulf Coast drillers, NASA engineers, and other folks who have been put out of work because of the Obama administrations policies. When the overweight, beer drinking, currently employed union folks join this weekend with Van Jones leading them, I will be reminded what this is, AstroTurf.
Did my previous comment get sent to a spam folder because I included two links in it? Dang it! I do know better than to do that but I got lazy.
And they are such classy people too:
Excerpted from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/04/occupy-wall-street-poses-challenge-to-main-street_n_993306.html
For Tzortzatos, the “occupation” has resulted not just in a loss in business. “I’ve had a lot of damage from the protesters,” she said. “I’ve had to put a $200 lock on my bathroom because they come in here and try to bathe. The sink fell down to the ground, cracked open, pulled the plumbing out of the wall and caused a flood. It’s a no-win situation. If I open the restroom for one, 30 people line up outside, disrupting my business.”
A manager at the nearby Essex World Cafe — who asked to remain anonymous — shared similar complaints. Referring to three young men waiting at the end of the counter, he explained, “They want to use the toilet, the phones, we give them free water and free ice. They sit here and don’t buy anything, but they recharge their phone batteries with our plugs, and I tell them, ‘Hey, if you guys are going to come, I need to do some business here. We are suffering, too!’ And then they start with their own words, going against you.” The three young men eventually left the cafe, each carrying large containers the staff had filled with hot and cold water for them.
This manager also cited damages, including graffiti on his restroom walls. “For eight and a half years, there was nothing on those walls,” he said. “Now it says ‘Viva la Revolution’ everywhere. Yes, ‘Viva la Revolution,’ but don’t write it on my toilet. I let you use my facilities without being a customer and this is what I get?”
This demonstration should leave no doubt that America is in deep decline and that we are going to get taken to the cleaners by the Chinese. Who would ever want to hire these fools? High unemployment is here to stay.
FlyAngler: I guess if you live in greenwich the status quo is OK, mostly.
Wall St = Wash DC
I think it’s useful to rage against bankers. They get handouts while the rest of us get shafted.
Ah yes, globalization is great for profits but not so great for the middle class , remember what that word means ?
The middle class is stupid. They buy the flat screen TVs, take expensive vacations on credit, have premium cable and new cars. They also get suckered into believing some college degree from a 4th rate college or university will be their ticket to prosperity, so they go into major debt to achieve this.
thanks for the refresher on private corporations and their responsibilities to share holders. I remember 7th grade social studies.
I still think TP members have more in common with the protesters than they do w/ the GOP.
the Unions, AFL-CIO, SEIU, UAW, and others have arrived to join the Occupy Wall St. protest.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/labor-unions-join-occupy-wall-street-york-rally/story?id=14673346
More fuel, looking for a spark.
I am curious to know what CF has to say about the protesters. I know he has more in common w/ them than the GOP or DNC.
truth is there are no partisan lines. or even Parisian lines.
check out this blog entry –> http://tmotr.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/going-for-broke-will-legislate-for-food/
this sums up my feelings very succinctly.
LLS2 – Not sure if this will ever get posted so I feel I can be real candid since few will pull comments up on this stale thread (presuming FF or GF post this comment).
While I do not agree with any of the “demands” of that one person, I do believe that the USA is in a world of hurt. I am not fatalistic but I do not see the leadership of any political flavor that the people can coalesce around. Yes, I live in Greenwich and I work for one of those evil WS firms and life, while not rosey, could be far worse.
That said, we as a people have lost our way. Our political process has prevented us from maintaining any sort of consistent economic plan over more than a couple of years. The political elite/establishment has expanded the size of government to suit their political needs and the people are left with the crap to clean up. Clinton did it, Bush did it and Obama has done it at a level that is staggering. The Clinton “budget surpluses” were a fiction because they were based on a surge in economic activity and wealth creation that was fleeting and not sustainable in the long run. Yet, the Dems see no deceit in using the then 10-year projection of the Clinton sweet years to suggest that Bush turned a multi-trillion dollar surplus into a deficit. That is just patently false as the projection could never come true and was revised downward each year after it was made. Yet, the Dems and their enablers harangue the GOP with that cannard on a regular basis. For fairness, the GOP is doing the same thing to Obama now with the deficit projections that I believe will look better as our system corrects itself over the next few years.
At a local level, politicians agreed to public service union wage and benefit demands that could not be supported on any real-world accuarial basis which we now see as retiree pension and OPEB costs are ruining municipal (and Federal) finances all over the country. But that did not matter when the negotiations took place because the pol taking the payola from the unions would be long gone when things blow up.
Crony capitalism is a non-partisan matter and is just a matter of who gets enriched. I HATE it and don’t care about the political affiliation of the beneficiary. Let markets do what they need to do.
As for bailouts and handouts to the banks, I get crazy when I hear that the “banks got a bailout and Main Street got the shaft”. I lived through the middle of the 2007-08 panic and I can tell you our entire system almost came down. I know books have been written but the average American does not appreciate how close we were from a redo of the Depression.
One example, if pre-opening on Friday, September 19th, Paulson and Bernanke do not announce their joint plan to support US money market funds, the entire money market fund sector might have collapsed that day or the following Monday. Recall that the Reserve’s Primary Fund broke the buck and siezed the Monday of that week and the MMFs bled asset for the three days after. That plan or “bailout” saved the MMF industry from collapse. It also prevented the freezing up of all manner of individuals’ and corporate funds. It was not inconceivable the employers would have found their payroll funds frozen. Retailers could not make payments to vendor. Banks might have seen their own assets frozen. That could have led to ATM machines running out of cash. It would have unleashed a cascade of counter-party payment failures that would have spread out to the general economy in a matter of days. Supermarkets, with only several days worth of inventory, would not be restocked as suppliers would want to be paid first. Think about the personal implications of that, no cash in your wallet, no cash in the ATM and possibly, your bank may have had its credit card network go dark. So, did that plan bailout the MMFs and banks, or did it bailout our entire economy?
The bailouts were imperfect in hindsight without question. But, when working in crisis mode, the regulators needed to find effective solutions, not perfection.
Over a couple of beers I could make a more expansive case as to why the government’s support of the banks was actually their way of supporting the entire country. Paraphrasing Warren Buffett on CNBC the morning he invested in Goldman, to think that the troubles on Wall Street would not spread to Main Street is like thinking you can sit in a bathtub and keep warm water in the back and cold water in the front, they will mix eventually.
I read a report yesterday that estimated that the US Government (taxpayers) made at least $10Bn on the fees, interest and other payments that they have received from the banks through the various support and funding programs. That is a net number and includes some of the programs where the USG lost money. The researchers suggested that the ultimate benefit to the govt might exceed $15Bn since many of these assets are still on the govt’s balance sheet or the loans are still to be repaid.
Back to the issue at hand. Obama was not wrong when he said Americans have become “soft”. We got lazy, consumed too much, believed that any college degree would lead to a great job and generally stopped saving for the rainy days. We used out homes as ATMs to feed a lifestyle that was not supportable by our incomes. We spent money that should have been saved for our kids’ educations assuming that they would borrow their way through college. We allowed college to become an extension of high school and diminished the value of a BS to the entry permit into the adult working world. We created an environment where advanced degrees were more credentials than valuable to a prospective employer. At the same time, unions got greedy and extracted future payment streams that could never be met in anything but the most rosey of scenarios. Industrial policy (lack of) exposed us to the forces of globalization. The media has divided us while also providing coarse content that deadens us to the plight of others.
Yet, Americans are still the most productive people on the planet. We are the most innovative. We are the most generous when measured by our individual and national contributions to others. And we are the most free.
So yes, as a Tea Party sympathiser, I can relate to much of what woes many across the country, including some of what draws people to Liberty Park. However, I totally reject the notion that the banks and bankers deserve all or even most of the blame in this. Extend that to the politicians, union leaders, acedemic management, the Media, the non-governmental organizations and others who spent the last 30 years getting us to this point and I will join the crowd. But, to vilify the banks is to put them up as a strawman for a set of much larger problems that they played only a small part in creating.
Peace!
Michael Lewis has an article in the newest Vanity Fair that talks about a lot of these public union issues and municipal debt woes, he interviews Meredith Whitney, city managers in San Jose and Vallejo, Ca, and former governor Arnold Schwartzenegger amongst others.
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/11/michael-lewis-201111
Read this and weep, if you have tried to live within your means and done all of the “right things” financially, you will probably want to give most of these people a good shake and ask them “what were you THINKING?”
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
FlyAngler:
I am in awe of that response. well said and well put. Could you list a works cited ?
of course you are biased in your view of bankers, BUT i will give you a pass. You seem like a stand up dude. and your sons and daughters probably married well and live in Darien, Wilton or New Canaan. Who can afford Greenwich RE these days ?
Your sharp analysis of US social history over the past 30 years is spot on IMO.
I still feel the bankers and politicians profited the most from their policies and the playing field they helped design and create.
Too bad they didn’t use their smarts to do something besides make lots of money. The vast majority of us try and make things or provide services that are of value instead of just investing or speculating.
who really understands how high finance works anyway ?
If i had children today, i would tell them to go into banking/high finance (as long as they don’t become sociopaths), learn a trade or join the FDNY, NYPD, DSNY.
Alas, i can’t afford to have children or even a girlfriend for that matter. I’m just living pay check to pay check trying to pay rent, credit card bills and student loans.
The temperature is rising
ll2 , you are sad and pathetic. it also sounds like you ran up your credit cards (living beyond your means because you think you are better than you really are) and now you have to pay for it. boo hoo.
@ Anon: welcome to the new reality.
if you live in greenwich (and moved here after 1998) then you probably think your house (in a marginal neighborhood) is worth more than someone would be willing to pay for it.
How’s this (war) economy working for you ?
This guy –>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFZrNSa3b8g&feature=youtube_gdata_player