Political & Elections

zoosermom · Senior Member

RE: Occupy Wall Street versus Tea Party

john doe · Guru

"In addition, I think the general consensus is that the first stimulus did not work."

Oh really - back it up with economists surveys .

jazzy · Senior Member

busdriver:

I just think it's a mistake to see only the appearance of the street marchers, and their out-there attitudes and say it's just a bunch of radical slackers with time on their hands and a dose of class envy. I think they are the tip of the spear so to speak. There are millions of financially hurting, frustrated, angry Americans who are applauding what they're doing but are not out on the street. And there are millions who are sympathetic to the protestors even though we are financially comfortable.

I see polls like the very recent Bloomberg/Wapo poll that indicate a wide cross section of Americans that, while they may not identify with the demonstrators or like how they look or everything they do, but when asked, their opinions on key issues are not that different.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-10/cain-pulls-even-with-romney-on-economy-for-republican-supporters-in-poll.html

More than half of Republicans say wealthier Americans should pay more in taxes to bring down the federal budget deficit.

Fifty-three percent of self-identified Republicans back an increase in taxes on households making more than $250,000, a sentiment at odds with the party’s presidential candidates, who will meet tonight in a Bloomberg-Washington Post-sponsored debate focused on economic issues.

More than two-thirds of all Americans back higher taxes on the rich and even larger numbers think Medicare and Social Security benefits should be left alone, according to a Bloomberg-Washington Post national poll conducted Oct. 6-9.

More than 8 out of 10 Americans say the middle class will have to make financial sacrifices to cut the deficit even as the public strongly opposes higher taxes on middle-income families.

“While Americans see sacrifice as inevitable for the middle class, the only sacrifice to win majority support is a tax on those too wealthy to be considered middle-class,” says J. Ann Selzer, president of Des Moines, Iowa-based Selzer & Co., which consults with Bloomberg News on polls.

The poll also underscored differences between Republican supporters and the rest of the nation on the burden the military should bear in righting the country’s fiscal situation, with 61 percent of party backers opposing defense cuts, while 60 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of independents support them.

With poll responses like that, among Republicans as well as Democrats and Independents, I don't think the "class envy" meme works. It is inadequate to describe the level of dissatisfaction, anger, and concern about the future that's out there.

-- Edited by jazzy on Wednesday 12th of October 2011 11:54:43 PM

hope · Guru

In addition, I think the general consensus is that the first stimulus did not work.

It seems perfectly rational, reasonable and logical to me that people might believe that the second stimulus, renamed the Jobs Act, will not work either.

Even Barry conceded that the "shovel ready" projects were "not shovel ready." (With a chuckle--very endearing ).

Insanity--doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

hope · Guru

If this is true (and I have seen it other places), as David Brooks said Sunday in the Times:

Even if you tax away 50 percent of the income of those making between $1 million and $10 million, you only reduce the national debt by 1 percent, according to the Tax Foundation. If you confiscate all the income of those making more than $10 million, you reduce the debt by 2 percent. You would still be nibbling only meekly around the edges.

then these hapless protestors are just being duped. The "rage and frustration" really can't be anything other than class envy, can it?

He also adds:

This is a theme which allows the 99% to think very highly of themselves. All their problems are caused by the nefarious elite.

-- Edited by hope on Wednesday 12th of October 2011 08:05:52 PM

-- Edited by hope on Wednesday 12th of October 2011 08:08:31 PM

busdriver11 · Guru

Jazzy, I think you are way too hopeful in your interpretation of what the OWS generally want. I doubt that many people on either side of the aisle would take issue with your lists of protests, tea partiers and all....many people would be more sympathetic if that was all it was. But that sure as heck doesn't seem to be the general message they are displaying. It is hugely anti-corporation, anti-anyone who makes a high income or has a high net worth. At least that seems to be the main jist of it. You can pull some parts of it that sounds attractive and try to display it as the main message, but even reading my very liberal newspaper and watching my liberal local tv show/national show, that is not coming across.

jazzy · Senior Member

What Are Erick Erickson's Three Jobs?

Astroturf is a wonderful thing...

Suzy Khimm points us to redstate.org leader and right-wing establishment figure @ewerickson declares he is "one of the 53%": part of this generation's "silent majority" who are upset at #occupywallstreet and its attacks on the top 1%:

What Erick says:

I work three jobs.
I have a house I can't sell.
My family insurance costs are outrageous.
But I don't blame Wall Street.
Suck it up you whiners.
I am the 53% subsidizing you so you can hang out on Wall Street and complain.

Erick should blame not Wall Street but the health-insurance industry for the fact that his family insurance costs are outrageous--but at least come 2014 the Obama-Romney Affordable Care Act will give him the bargaining power that those of us who work for large organizations have in the health insurance marketplace and lower his insurance costs to more reasonable levels.

Erick should blame Wall Street for the fact that he can't sell his house: had Wall Street not broken mortgage finance, and had the breaking of mortgage finance not led to the general credit crunch that launched our Lesser Depression, then Erick would be able to sell his house.

And it is not clear to me what Erick's three jobs are: his internet biographies mention (i) right-wing internet community organizer, (ii) CNN commentator, and (iii) radio host. Are these his "three jobs"?

Most of us would say that those are three aspects of one occupation--not three jobs. People who work three jobs are people who teach elementary school in the morning and early afternoon, take a shift at the car wash around dinnertime, and work a pre-dawn shift at a 24-hour 7-11. That does not sound like Erick, Son of Erick to me.

We Are The 53

Suck it up you whiners? What a tool....of the oligarchy.

If the Republican candidate for president follows this idiot's lead and takes a "suck it up you losers" approach to the concerns that are putting supporters of OWS in the streets of cities throughout the country, he's gonna lose.

To respond the way Herman Cain has, the way Red State has, is unbelievably blockheaded. While the hippy dippy types get quoted in the media, the underlying rage and frustration with what the Wall Street gamblers and their enablers in the government have done to our economy is out there and it's not about people who want government handouts versus people who don't want government handouts (though that is such a useful tool for keeping the poor shlubs who work 70-hour weeks with no vacation and don't have health insurance on the same side as the top 1 percent of earners.)

The movement is about much the government is beholden to Big Money and deep pockets, about how crony capitalism is failing to do what's right economically for middle class and working poor, who are now barely treading water.

The OWS calls to end the wars and tax the rich are not rooted in a demand for more welfare and dole for the unemployed.

It's a call for politicians to fix the debt problem without putting all the sacrifice onto the middle class through spending cuts. Who gets hurt financially when Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, college grants, and well, everything but defense gets cut (it's not the 1 percent)? It's a call to stop spending billions and billions overseas while we ignore infrastructure needs in this country ---- which is probably the number one way we are failing in our responsibility to future generations.

Note: The U.S. now spends about 2 percent of GDP on infrastructure improvements; China is spending 9 percent. China spends about $119 billion a year on its military; we spend something like $700 billion. Eisenhower must be spinning in his grave.

Republican candidates favor a tax holiday so corporations can bring home the $1 trillion in profits that are sitting overseas so they don't have to pay taxes on it. No strings attached, apparently. It's just assumed that they will, hopefully, maybe, use that capital for creating jobs here in the U.S. But, well, we've heard that one before. How about a plan that brings that capital home, but rather than pay tax on it --- some portion goes into a fund to rebuild America's roads, bridges, rail and airport system? Why isn't something like that part of the debates?

In the Tea Party Republican vision of very small government, and very small corporate and income taxes, who is charged with investing in the bricks and mortar needs of the future?

So much of what's behind the OWS and protests in other cities reflects the same dissatisfaction seen in the polls that show the country is headed in the wrong direction. Red Staters's shallow, lunk-headed response indicates they don't have a clue.

-- Edited by jazzy on Wednesday 12th of October 2011 05:21:27 PM

longprime · Guru

And in the case of IRAQ and Afghanistan and maybe Iran. a core group of senior advisors then the "Decision Maker." Odd how the then Pres. made himself the sole heir for going to WAR, even though the decision to fight and fund the Wars lay with Congress.

That's 1 in 360million people. You can calculate the percentage. evileye

longprime · Guru

I'd be guessing and he'd be guessing:

CHINA

they are the elephant and tiger in the world

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

longprime,

I am curious to find out hat does your brother see as the solution to this mess?

longprime · Guru

Actually its the 1% of the 1%

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

RE: Occupy Wall Street versus Tea Party

busdriver11 · Guru

Hilarious links, CelticClan

longprime · Guru

10-12,000 Wall Streeter's getting laidoff-means that companies are streamlining {reducing management}, getting rid of rotting wood {older workers}, reducing overhead {benefit reductions}, becoming more efficient {offshoring}. evileye

Where's the beef?-(BTW, Not impressed with Wendy's reinvented burger-burger. What it needs is being flame broiled-service was terrible)

-- Edited by longprime on Wednesday 12th of October 2011 09:47:37 AM

CelticClan07 · Senior Member

Glad you brought up PBS, reminded me of these violent photos : http://www.tauntr.com/blog/occupy-sesame-street-gets-violent

And to counter the whining, hard working people like me who ask for nothing and give back something : http://the53.tumblr.com/

11th October 2011

Photo with 7 notes

-- Edited by CelticClan07 on Wednesday 12th of October 2011 09:01:35 AM

john doe · Guru

Jim Chanos, founder of $6 billion hedge fund Kynikos Associates, and billionaire bond-fund manager Bill Gross joined top asset managers in voicing understanding for anti-Wall Street protests as they spread to Manhattan’s Upper East Side, home to the city’s top financiers.

Chanos said New Yorkers don’t appreciate the impact government bank bailouts have had on other U.S. citizens. Gross, who runs the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., said that wage earners are fighting back after three decades of class warfare against them.

“New York is so finance-centric that people here underappreciate the reaction of the rest of the country,” Chanos said yesterday in an interview in New York. “People are angry, they feel the game is rigged, that they didn’t get their fair shake.”

Chanos, 53, who was born in Milwaukee, said the “disjointed” nature of the demonstration, which started last month in New York’s financial district and spread to cities such as Washington and Seattle, shouldn’t be underestimated because protests in the sixties started in a similar way.

‘Class Warfare’
“Class warfare by the 99%? Of course, they’re fighting back after 30 years of being shot at,” Gross said on a Twitter post.

Fink, whose firm has $3.7 trillion under management, said last week he understands the concerns of protesters speaking out against financial companies in New York and other cities.

“These are not lazy people sitting around looking for something to do,” Fink, 58, said on Oct 5 during an event in Toronto. “We have people losing hope and they’re going into the street, whether it’s justified or not.”

Fink received $23.8 million in compensation for 2010, a 50 percent increase from the previous year.

Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said in August that the nation’s richest people have been “coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress” and called for higher taxes for the “mega-rich” in the U.S.

Buffett, the world’s third-richest man, according to Forbes Magazine, told Charlie Rose in New York during a Sept. 30 interview on PBS that class warfare is going on, “and my class isn’t just winning, I mean we’re killing them.”

busdriver11 · Guru

"You may depend on these crooks - but they have destroyed the lives of countless people with their toxic instruments for skimming money out of the hands of investors."

Really, so these 10-12,000 people are crooks? Fascinating. Who are all these people who make up the Wall Street machine? That's alot of crooks. What it is, the traders who fill orders, the people who work on Wall Street in so many functions are all a bunch of crooks, hey? Interesting.

john doe · Guru

"Wall Street" is going to be laying off another 10-12,000 people this holiday season. It's going to beat the heck out of this city's already-teetering economy. We really depend on those evil people to keep the city afloat."

You may depend on these crooks - but they have destroyed the lives of countless people with their toxic instruments for skimming money out of the hands of investors.

jazzy · Senior Member

Well, winchester, Ronald Reagan must have believed there was a societal benefit to taking millions of poor people off the tax roles... which he did in his 1986 tax reform bill. He was very proud of that, I've read.

July 25, 1985
Reagan's Tax Revolution: A Big Boost for Families and the Poor
by Kondratas, S. Anna

INTRODUCTION

Ronald Reagan's tax reform plan offers major gains for the working poor. It does so as part of a comprehensive effort to lighten the tax burden on families, correcting in part the anti-family bias of the current tax code.IThe Reagan plan seeks specifically to raise the zero-bracket amount and personal exemptions and to expand the earned income tax credit, thereby improving the lot of the poor and of families. If enacted, the Reagan proposal would ensure that families with income at or below the poverty level no longer paid any federal income tax.

By removing poor families from the tax rolls, the Reagan tax revolution guarantees that they will never reenter those rolls so long. as they are poor. Indexation, already in place for this year, will prevent bracket creep. And the President's tax reform proposes to give big financial boost to families and the poor.

CONCLUSION

The reform proposed by Ronald Reagan marks a significant advance in federal anti-poverty policy. Single-parent households, poor families, and large families would benefit the most. It rejects those tax'measures that push people into poverty or place insuperable obstacles in the way of Americans trying to work their way out of poverty. Such policies merely and tragically abet welfare dependency and burden other taxpayers. The Reagan proposal, moreover, takes long overdue steps to lighten the disproportionately heavy tax burden on families.

That was an excerpt from a Heritage Foundation report, by the way.

I don't have the time to read and evaluate the critique of the cost of welfare versus the cost of wars. Welfare is everything from aid to dependent children to food stamps and Medicaid (mostly spent on nursing homes) and I wonder if the figure on the cost of wars includes the long-term health care costs for veterans, disability payouts, death benefits for the families of those KIA....not just logistics and weaponry.

It wouldn't surprise me if Obama's budget in 2009 had to boost welfare spending, particularly on food stamps.

A lot of people lost jobs and were in desperate straits when the economy crashed in 2008, which you'll recall occurred after the Tweedledums and Tweedledees of our major banks had to admit with President Bush in tow that "oops, we were playing around with it and we broke it...." and now unless you taxpayers make us whole, your world is going to come crashing down like nothing we've ever seen before.

Let's not forget the context of the increase in welfare spending when Obama came into office. hmm

zoosermom · Senior Member

"Wall Street" is going to be laying off another 10-12,000 people this holiday season. It's going to beat the heck out of this city's already-teetering economy. We really depend on those evil people to keep the city afloat.

winchester · Guru

A favorite chant of the Occupy Wall Street movement apparently is “They got bailed out, we got sold out!” where the "they" is big banks and businesses.

This sentiment is completely oblivious to the biggest bailouts of all: Progressive taxes and Welfare.

Through progressive taxes fifty three percent of the people “bail out” the remaining forty seven percent by paying their entire tax burden for them.

Through Welfare we've spent nearly $16 trillion bailing people out...so far.

“Since the beginning of the War on Poverty, government has spent $15.9 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars) on means-tested welfare. In comparison, the cost of all other wars in U.S. history was $6.4 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars).

In his first two years in office, President Barack Obama will increase annual federal welfare spending by one-third from $522 billion to $697 billion. The combined two-year increase will equal almost $263 billion ($88.2 billion in FY 2009 plus $174.6 billion in FY 2010). After adjusting for inflation, this increase is two and a half times greater than any previous increase in federal welfare spending in U.S. history. As a share of the economy, annual fedderal welfare spending will rise by roughly 1.2 percent of GDP.”

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/09/obama-to-spend-103-trillion-on-welfare-uncovering-the-full-cost-of-means-tested-welfare-or-aid-to-the-poor

zoosermom · Senior Member

Can anyone explain to me why these people have chosen to go camping instead of doing something productive for the poor, downtrodden or the environment? Is this really the best use of their time, energy and parents' money? I mean, except for the criminals being arrested for molesting female protestors and such, they clearly have their own their thing going on.

CelticClan07 · Senior Member

Generation Indulged and Whiny: A news clip on CNN radio was some soft-headed young female protester, 'we're like, um, um, demanding that the like, top 1% give more of like, their earnings so all of us can have more things!' OMG, mom and dad must be so proud. Young people like her, renew my respect and admiration of my own children and their friends.

zoosermom · Senior Member

I know you were being facetious. I'm just venting -- am getting angrier by the minute. Maybe I should start a movement of regular citizens to go down there are kick the brats out.

CelticClan07 · Senior Member

I was being facetious Zmom.........I think they're all thugs and losers quite frankly. Some are trying to liken them to Tea Partiers, hence my mention of them., which could not be farther from the truth. I would be so embarrassed to be related to any one of the OWS mob. Now they're going to private homes!
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20111010/FINANCE/111019988/1072

zoosermom · Senior Member

Tea Party protests didn't turn into lifestyle choices, as this one has. They are breaking many, many laws and it's time to enforce them. Crime is through the roof in this city and the next police class might be cancelled because of the staggering costs of this exercise in obnoxiousness. Their parents should have kicked their asses and didn't, so someone else needs to. Where is Rudy Giuliani when his city needs him?

CelticClan07 · Senior Member

zoosermom wrote:
It's time for the Mayor to grow some testicles and get the protesters the hell out of there. We simply can not afford to indulge their fantasies. Not to mention the public health issues of defecating on police cars.

I am ready to support police dogs, billy clubs and fire hoses.

C'mon now Zmom, you're not being very tolerant of the protesters exercising thier 1st Amendment Right. They're just like Tea Party participants, aren't they??? biggrin

zoosermom · Senior Member

It's time for the Mayor to grow some testicles and get the protesters the hell out of there. We simply can not afford to indulge their fantasies. Not to mention the public health issues of defecating on police cars.

I am ready to support police dogs, billy clubs and fire hoses.

Cartera · Guru

There are a lot of protesters who see the President as part of the problem. I note that MSNBC keeps trying to claim that there is lots of support for President Obama there, but the people actually following the protest always disagree and say that there are a lot of disenchanted Obama supporters there.

jazzy · Senior Member

I should have put a wink or smiley at the end of the last sentence.

Threw it out there because some of the news stories about the various Occupy protests mention that there are Ron Paul supporters and signs showing up to deliver an anti-war message (so it's not just hippies and lefties in the crowds).

hope · Guru

Wow! I totally missed that. Usually I'm pretty good at nuance. ;)

jazzy · Senior Member

Hope:

My third-party suggestion was just teasing.

This, from a 2007 interview with the Washington Post, is why Paul won't be the Republican nominee and everything else you've posted indicates why he'd have no chance as an independent candidate.

Still, it's amazing to me that someone with these well-known views --- he reiterated them in the first debate I believe --- is winning straw polls and is as high in the vote getting for the nomination as he is.

In an interview with Washingtonpost.com's PostTalk program, the Texas congressman said he could see "no reason" to justify military action if he were elected president. He compared the United States to a schoolyard bully and said the country has no reason to flex its muscles overseas.

"There's nobody in this world that could possibly attack us today," he said in the interview. "I mean, we could defend this country with a few good submarines. If anybody dared touch us we could wipe any country off of the face of the earth within hours. And here we are, so intimidated and so insecure and we're acting like such bullies that we have to attack third-world nations that have no military and have no weapon."

Paul has been intensely opposed to the war in Iraq and to a potential attack against Iran during his campaign for the presidency. During this week's GOP debate in Dearborn, Mich., he once again became red-faced as he blasted the Middle East war effort.

"The thought that the Iranians could pose an imminent attack on the United States is preposterous," he said Tuesday night. "There's no way. This is just war propaganda, continued war propaganda, preparing this nation to go to war and spread this war not only in Iraq, but into Iran, unconstitutionally. It is a road to disaster for us as a nation."

hope · Guru

I don't think the limited gov't., lower taxes, less spending view of Ron Paul is going to fly with the OWC crowd. Any third party candidacy of his will take votes from the R's, like it always does. Many young conservatives (like my kids) prefer to call themselves "libertarians"--sounds much cooler; but Paul's views (other than his isolationist stance and sexy stuff kids such as drug legalization) more closely align with the R's (in fact, the Tea Party). Plus, I noticed Paul is finally beginning to show his age--not as quick during the debates as he once was. His time is done.

"Paul would substantially reduce the government's role in individual lives and in the functions of foreign and domestic states; he says Republicans have lost their commitment to limited government and have become the party of big government.^[82] He would eliminate many federal government agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Education,^[83] the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Commerce,^[84] the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,^[84] the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Internal Revenue Service,^[85] calling them "unnecessary bureaucracies". Paul would severely reduce the role of the Central Intelligence Agency; reducing its functions to intelligence-gathering. He would eliminate operations like overthrowing foreign governments and assassinations."

I'd love to hear what the left thinks of his assertion that he will "never vote for legislation unless the proposed measure is authorized by the Constitution."

I'd really, though, love to hear their reaction to this view! -

"Paul believes that prayer in public schools should not be prohibited at the federal or state level, nor should it be made compulsory to engage in.^[144]^[145]

In a December 2003 article entitled "Christmas in Secular America", Paul wrote, "The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders' political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government's hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life. The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation's history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people's allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before putting their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation's Christian heritage. Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war."^[146]

-- Edited by hope on Monday 10th of October 2011 02:08:39 PM

-- Edited by hope on Monday 10th of October 2011 02:11:18 PM

jazzy · Senior Member

Time for a third party?

How fascinating would it be for Ron Paul to launch a third-party candidacy. He could siphon votes from both the Democratic and Republican nominees.

It's expected that conservative media would focus on the hippie-druggie-slacker aspect of the crowds at OWS, just as the left-leaning media zeroed in on the witch-doctor signs and Obama-as-Hitler inanities in the Tea Party crowds. But to do that misses the underlying frustration that gets crowds in the streets.

The policies that got us into this economic mess precede Obama.....they are as much the fault of the Republicans as they are the Democrats. That's what a lot of the anger is about ---- no matter who we put in to office, the Big Money interests get what they want and the average American fends for him or herself.

Ron Paul's anti-war spending stand would resonate greatly with many of those marching and those at home cheering them on.

I submit that a lot of the sentiment behind the polls showing dissatisfaction with the direction the country is going is not aimed just at Obama policies that Republicans oppose but with the policies he's followed that were the same as Bush's.

People are tired of spending on the endless war/prescence in Iraq and Afghanistan, building infrastructure there, spending billions in their economy, while we refuse to spend here to employ our own workers and fix our own infrastructure.

People, I think, do not want to gear up for confrontation any more and don't want to hear the saber-rattling the Republican candidates are doing to pander to the hawkish side of their base.

They don't want to be the world's security force anymore, watching that cost cripple our economy while countries that don't have that massive expense see their economies grow and prosper.

The OWS and wearethe99percent phenomenon offers a message to politicians from both parties, imo.

This could be Ron Paul's time.

winchester · Guru

how do you make the rules that will not encourage generations of fatherless neglected children, but will allow those who have fallen onto hard times to survive?

Decentralize.

circumstances differ depending on location. solutions must be tailored to the local conditions by the people who live there and are intimately familiar with them.

the notion that there can be a single set of rules at the national level is ridiculous.

CelticClan07 · Senior Member

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/it_nyc_lam_sterdam_bmE4vlV5aDUWhBRv9IbaiK

If there were articles about the Tea Party Rallies similar to this, I missed it. Look at these people, who would hire them?

Is it too much to ask for 1 main stream media lib, just 1, to have the intellectul honesty to admit that the failed policies of our unprepared, deer in the headlights president has caused this uprising??? Apparenty, it is.

hope · Guru

If Krugman were interested in being honest, he could start by including the fact that Obama received more money from Wall Street "fat cats" than any other candidate in recent memory.

Democrats and their media allies did everything they possibly could to demonize the Tea Party. (Including never-proven accusations that people hurled the "N" word at Pelosi and friends.) Today I heard her say "they" spat on her. Riiiight..

I think most people think OWS is nothing but a harmless, rag-tag bunch fueled by a some Marxist dreamers (what happened to Van Jones?) which will amount to nothing; unlike the Tea Party, which has truly moved the economic conversational goalpost.

It's Krugman's piece that is "hysterical!"

-- Edited by hope on Monday 10th of October 2011 06:49:18 AM

-- Edited by hope on Monday 10th of October 2011 07:10:24 AM

-- Edited by hope on Monday 10th of October 2011 07:15:21 AM

john doe · Guru

Panic of the Plutocrats

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: October 9, 2011

It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America’s direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.

And this reaction tells you something important — namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called “economic royalists,” not the people camping in Zuccotti Park.

Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police — confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction — but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in the summer of 2009.

Nonetheless, Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has denounced “mobs” and “the pitting of Americans against Americans.” The G.O.P. presidential candidates have weighed in, with Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging “class warfare,” while Herman Cain calls them “anti-American.” My favorite, however, is Senator Rand Paul, who for some reason worries that the protesters will start seizing iPads, because they believe rich people don’t deserve to have them.

Michael Bloomberg, New York’s mayor and a financial-industry titan in his own right, was a bit more moderate, but still accused the protesters of trying to “take the jobs away from people working in this city,” a statement that bears no resemblance to the movement’s actual goals.

And if you were listening to talking heads on CNBC, you learned that the protesters “let their freak flags fly,” and are “aligned with Lenin.”

The way to understand all of this is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.

Last year, you may recall, a number of financial-industry barons went wild over very mild criticism from President Obama. They denounced Mr. Obama as being almost a socialist for endorsing the so-called Volcker rule, which would simply prohibit banks backed by federal guarantees from engaging in risky speculation. And as for their reaction to proposals to close a loophole that lets some of them pay remarkably low taxes — well, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, compared it to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.

And then there’s the campaign of character assassination against Elizabeth Warren, the financial reformer now running for the Senate in Massachusetts. Not long ago a YouTube video of Ms. Warren making an eloquent, down-to-earth case for taxes on the rich went viral. Nothing about what she said was radical — it was no more than a modern riff on Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous dictum that “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”

But listening to the reliable defenders of the wealthy, you’d think that Ms. Warren was the second coming of Leon Trotsky. George Will declared that she has a “collectivist agenda,” that she believes that “individualism is a chimera.” And Rush Limbaugh called her “a parasite who hates her host. Willing to destroy the host while she sucks the life out of it.”

What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.

This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.

So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.

longprime · Guru

its a Mob.

Which asks the question, if no one is watching the Mob, do they still do rofl or do they go do something else? If no one is watching them, the Mob is essentially unemployed- So do they just lounge about hoping for some free electrons or do they go off and do something else until they are called for? evileye

BTW, it takes a lot of work in copy and pasting to get this many in the mob, especially when I have a weak wifi at mom's and a jumpy keyboard. I find that gathering a Mob covering 3/4 of a screen is about all that is practicable, even then you will notice, I can't get them to do everything in unison. I got a horny couple that got carried away when they rofl with each other. evileye

So, when you sell everything, what do you have left?

If you sell your stuff, those who buy gets a good deal, but doesn't that take away goods sold in the retail economy?

And when you get new jobs, how long does it take to recover things that you sold?

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

One of the very real truths to the unemployment issue is that it's hard to find a job if you are unemployed or underemployed. Prospective employers can discriminate if you don't have a job.

If you do find a temporary job, even at minimum wage, it's hard to go on interviews if you are at work. I work with a girl whose hours have been cut back by half, almost ready to graduate from college and every time she gets an interview has to miss work - and pay. She is getting pretty desperate.

Husband was able to take unemployment for a limited time due to becoming an independent contractor. I am not sure about the 99 weekers...I wonder how many of those who are technically unemployed cannot collect like him. They fall off the rolls, completely.

busdriver11 · Guru

Okay, I understand the blankstare but that's about all!

It would be more useful if people could look at the situation the way it really is. That there are so many un/underemployed people desperately looking for work out there, but are fighting for even menial jobs in some areas. But there are many people not even bothering to look, because why should they bother to find a low wage job when they're still getting unemployment benefits? That there are people who have falled onto hard times because of accidents, downsizing, health emergencies and misfortune. But others who are strutting around, bragging about all their "baby Mama's" that they aren't supporting. I work in the Mid South quite often (Tennessee), and I guarantee you all those segments of society are right there. They do exist. And it is hard to figure out whom to help or not to help....how do you make the rules that will not encourage generations of fatherless neglected children, but will allow those who have fallen onto hard times to survive? People don't want to take jobs that they feel are 'beneath them", yet they would if there was no other income coming in. I honestly don't think there would be many jobs beneath me if I didn't have an income and was running out of money. Manual labor, picking fruit in the fields, digging ditches, whatever. We gave up coffee, alcohol (serious sacrifice), heat/ac and most electricity when we lost our jobs....many people still keep their direct TV and iphones. My husband turned from an airline pilot into a valet when he lost his job. I wasn't as handy, but I turned into an extreme couponer scouring for coins and anything we could sell in the house, since I had to watch two tiny kids. Would we have done that with 2-3 years of unemployment pay? Doubt it, money still coming in.

There really isn't one or the other type of people. There are all sorts and it is hard to generalize.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

I might have to fine you for excessive use of emoticons.

evileye

longprime · Guru

Ok, guys, that's enough.

cry confuse blankstare:

thanks, guys evileye

-- Edited by longprime on Sunday 9th of October 2011 10:16:31 PM

soccerguy315 · Guru

---
Don't forget, you're young and would have had years ahead of you to make it through a Depression and come out the other side. Those of us who are closer to retirement age don't have as much time for 401Ks that have been wiped out to recover. And a lot people in the private sector don't have defined pension benefits anymore --- it's 401K or nothing. Well, that and Social Security.
---

The stock market broke 1000 permanently in 1983. Now the stock market is at 11000.

Is it realistic for me, as a 25 year old, to believe that the stock market will be at 121,000 (11x higher than it is today) when I retire? I don't think it is. We have been living in world where the stock market only goes up, along with housing prices for far too long. There has to be a correction, and yes, it will hurt. Countless Americans (and our federal government) are living beyond their means. It's just unsustainable.

Social security is going to be in big trouble when it is time for me to retire. My generation will likely be working until 70 instead of 55.

-- Edited by soccerguy315 on Sunday 9th of October 2011 09:20:14 PM

catahoula · Guru

Seperating out the neer-do-wells from the needy is kind of difficult, jazzy, something liberals seem fundamentally incapable of. What probably matters, though, is whether Cain can explain the ratio to enough independents to get elected.

And I agree about there being much more to the protests. It can't all be about the clueless wandering around looking for attention. The labor unions are in there somewhere, as is the president and party they prefer.

jazzy · Senior Member

Maybe he's just talking about the generational dependents we all support, along with the tax code's rounding-up of the lifestyles of underachievers to one of flat-screens and the latest cell phones.

If he is, he's more clueless than a presidential candidate ought to be.

There is much more wage slave frustration brewing beneath this protest than can be dismissed by focusing on the street campers. Hoovervilles were just the tip of the iceberg too.

catahoula · Guru

I'm trying to recall how many Tea Partiers were led off in cuffs from all those violent town hall protests the media were in such a lather about and I'm having trouble thinking of any. Maybe Loughner? No, no, that was just a case of wishful mistaken identity, as it turned out.

The Daily Mail had a charming photo of what they might have mistakenly assumed was one of the participants in the OWS movement, one who seem confused as to the difference between a port-a-potty and a squat car... squad car, I mean.

Another couple of weeks of this and the distancing will be painful to watch.

-- Edited by catahoula on Sunday 9th of October 2011 04:50:59 PM

catahoula · Guru

And btw, attacking the working poor and the unemployed as lazy and stupid, blaming them for income equality and the drop in their standard of living --- that's class warfare of the worst sort.

I thought Cain came from an upbringing considerably less advantaged than that of our current president and worked his way to privilege.

Maybe he's not talking about all the working poor, nor all the unemployed. Maybe he's just talking about the generational dependents we all support, along with the tax code's rounding-up of the lifestyles of underachievers to one of flat-screens and the latest cell phones.

You think?

jazzy · Senior Member

A Cain v. Obama contest in 2012 would be a sight to see --- stark contrast in visions for America's future and I have to assume a battle for voter approval free of the temptation to circulate funny emails of a watermelon patch-covered White House lawn.

I was musing about wincester's reference to how the OWS movement's moment to be independent of party connection has passed already (though I disagree ---- if I were the Dems campaign managers I would be far from assuming electoral help from those so severely disaffected with the current status of their representation). Involvement of the unions doesn't guarantee anything to Democrats other than what they already had --- support from most union members.

I counter with the observation that there was a time when the Tea Party looked like it was going to be an INDEPENDENT voice for reducing the deficit and that would have included both legitimate cuts in all areas of the budget ---- those that touch on Democratic constituencies and those that touch on Republican constituencies (defense and oil company subsidies and the like) and tax reform/increases so we could stop saddling future generations with our debts. But no. Lo and behold, the TP became another mouthpiece for the core conservative Republican (redundant since the progressive Republican ala Teddy Roosevelt no longer exists) goal to protect the wealthy and the tired blah blah blah that we don't have a revenue problem --- despite engaging in two foreign wars while enacting a massive tax cut --- we have a spending problem.

Really didn't take long for the billionaire money to pour in to finance Tea Party candidates to run in the place of mainstream Republicans --- except for the few cases where the locals took their elections back (a tip of the hat to Alaska.)

-- Edited by jazzy on Sunday 9th of October 2011 04:28:42 PM

-- Edited by jazzy on Sunday 9th of October 2011 04:30:57 PM

hope · Guru

I don't think some off-the-cuff (and off-the-wall) remarks by Herman Cain are quite in the same league as the Obama reelection strategy, consisting entirely of class warfare and Democrat "values."