It seems that climate advocate Bill McKibben has jumped the shark. As evident on the 350.org website, it is no longer about climate in any way shape or form, of course, based on past behavior, it probably never was. Just have a look at some of the recent pronouncements from the 350.org website:
and from two days ago…
Listen to what McKibben and some of his fellow protestors have to say:
But even our own Willis Eschenbach thinks the XL pipeline issue is ridiculous, because there is really only one question: Where will the oil be burned?
I think this image sums up this farce pretty well:
I wonder what corporate airline Bill McKibben uses to jet around the world to speak of the evils of CO2 and corporations?
The only thing missing from the picture (though it is likely in there somewhere) is Apple Corporation, purveyor of (in my opinion, highly overpriced) computers which have an almost fanatical following in some circles.Now before you launch into an automatic Mac-vs-PC war, please read why I’m pointing this out.
Apple is company number one (according to Bloomberg) in growth and revenue, and #1 in tech (according to NYT) but the same people who complain about Wall Street, think nothing of getting fleeced by Apple for a computer you can buy for about a third of the price elsewhere.
While everyone is free to choose what computer works best for them, I find that lack of labeling of Apple as a “greedy corporation” very ironic, particularly in light of the worker abuse, child labor problems and environmental problems left in the wake of the manufacturing of Apple’s products in China. It is doubly ironic that some of the loudest and most acidic voices about climate and greed, are Apple product users, and raise not a peep about such problems. Apple gets a pass, probably because the Goreacle endorses the company and sits on its board.
But that’s a side issue, especially when one of the most intelligent and reasonable persons I know, WUWT author Willis Eschenbach, is a Mac user. I only point out Apple Corporation in this context because the occupy protesters and climate activists don’t see the very profitable and ethically/ecologically questionable Apple Corporation as being in the same class of evil corporations they protest for the very same reasons.
The real issue with “occupy” is the lack of rational thought and direction by this “movement”. Even the MSM and some university newspapers are noticing this. For example, watch this video from “occupyAtlanta”. They are actually proud of making a civil rights leader leave.
And in case you were wondering about the political angle, be sure to recite the Marxist chant:
The mindless droning has spread to Seattle:
They may as well be chanting Imhotep Imhotep! Imhotep!!
There’s a name for people like this: useful idiots.
Yup. The worst part of all is that their protests against “global warming” are serving Wall Street perfectly. Goldman Sachs loves Bill McKibben, because Goldman loves chaos.
Middle-sized corporations that actually produce things (ie Main Street) have been slow to get on the carbon bandwagon, though many of them have succumbed to peer pressure by now.
The carbon bandwagon has been pulled by Wall Street speculators who see an entirely new market for derivatives and securitization.
I’m of the camp that agrees with SOME of what the original Occupiers seemed to stand for. I think there is way too much power with the banks. And when major corporations like GE can get away with paying little or no taxes, that’s just plain wrong. Not for a second am I going to be lead around by the nose by FOX believing the “job creators” should pay less – sheesh, give me a break. But when I see the McKibben’s of the world, and the various unions that have hijacked this movement, I get sick to my stomach. What, to my eyes, started off as a groundswell of ordinary people “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore”, suddenly shifted to opportunists with a pet cause jumping in with both feet. The message that the people are fed up with being kept down, doesn’t mean they want a different set of boots on their neck — this time from the political left who long ago decided they knew what was best for everybody.
To be fair there is an “END the FED” sign on that photo (funny though the captions are) which suggests there are some very awake and aware folks (Ron Paul climate realist types) at #occupyWallSt
I think it is pretty clear where the political leanings of this site now lie. Views on climate change correlate with political views pretty well. Seems science has been forgotten.
REPLY: Heh funny! Sure, go ahead, criticize this site for pointing out the failings of science in a purely political organization that claims to be about science, but isn’t. Show me the last time those bozos at 350 actually discussed any science, showed a graph for analysis or linked to a dataset, then you might have a point. Until then, your comment is MegaFAIL – Anthony
I supose they have to do something/anything to divert attention from the White House.
proof this blog is backed by greedy 1% ers
REPLY: yeah sure, whatever you say. 😉 But you forgot the /sarc tag there anonymous coward – Anthony
@Anthony
Reasonable intelligent people don’t have a history of serious drug abuse, incarceration, and institutionalization for mental problems. Those are things that reasonable intelligent people manage to avoid.
One of those spontaneous outpourings of emotion, by people against everything, who see conspiracies everywhere, and who spend months organizing a movement that appears to spring up overnight. Once it catches the media’s eye, it’s becomes birds of a feather all flocking together.
I wonder what the ramifcations of all this will be , especially if things turn ugly – which could easily happen .
We need to contact the Union of Concerned Scientists immediately. They have been quite concerned over the politicization of science for some time now. I’m sure they’ll be right on this ASAP.
Exactly. This is 99% about getting Obama re-elected. It’s not like he can run on his record.
Talk about mindless chanting and robot like groupthink.
It is a substitute for actual thinking.
As the Professor observes, it’s all about the narrative. Looks like another re-play of Mario Savio’s Filthy Speech Movement at UC Berkley, or the Seattle WTO demonstrations. Sponsored and supported be Anarchists United, plus a few unions and President Pouty Face.
Seems both the left (occupy wall street folks) and the right (tea party folks) are just generally angry. They are angry for different reasons (i.e. one is focus on big business and one is focused on big government) and angry for some of the same reasons (i.e an economy that isn’t creating enough jobs fast enough and where the middle class is feeling squeezed, etc.)
That 350.org would rally around the occupy wall street crowd is not surprising as both these groups tend to lean pretty radically left and tend to attract the younger (mac using and loving) crowd. It also would stand to reason that as the AGW movement has generally suffered from a lack of interest as of late, there may be some move to pull some energy back into the cause by attaching themselves to and sucking it from the occupy wall street crowd…sort of like a Green Vampire.
Too bad they have it all backwards. Our centralized government gives tax breaks and incentives to big companies in order to control them. And the more control government has over companies, the more control they have over individuals. Regulations are written in favor of big business because it limits the ability of entrepreneurs to create new, smaller and less controllable companies.
Ultimately, the goal is to rule us.
What do you expect from people who have wasted a $100K or so on a worthless college education by avoiding all math, science, economics, etc. possible and majoring in subjects that no company with any functioning brain cells would possibly consider hiring. I wonder how many of the protesters have majoried in Victorian Female Authors or Organic Composting or Transgender Studies or Sustainability Studies? You imbeciles don’t have good paying jobs because you don’t know anything that is of even minimal value to any employer.
If the 99% really was 99% they wouldn’t have to stage sit ins. (this totally grass-roots message brought to you thanks to generous contributions from SEIU, OFA, attackwatch.com, & IWW)
99% says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:03 pm
proof this blog is backed by greedy 1% ers
Oh, don’t forget the BIG OIL money this site is getting too!
I bet Anthony can rest back in his mansion and sip his 1000$ wine now…
Kathy Wolfe 12.47pm
A word of warning. This site is addictive and there is no known cure. The ‘links’ and comments section plus the ‘information pages’ require a minimum of 4 hrs. a day!
So much to read and SO much to learn.
Regards and happy reading.
Anthony, you were spot on when you stated, “The real issue with “occupy” is the lack of rational thought and direction by this “movement”.
Here is a quote from a person engaged in that movement, from an AP article…… Karen Livecchia, 49, agreed. “For now, it’s a lot like the Internet — leaderless, spaceless,” she said as she collected signatures at the march, spurred to action by an email from the liberal group MoveOn.org. “It’s hard to tell what it will lead to. But I’m not concerned that we don’t have specific demands — that will come.“
I wrote about it here…… http://suyts.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/more-about-the-wall-street-wackos/
Looks pretty normal to me… What started out as a reasonably genuine protest against the supposed power of Wall St (even though I might personally not agree with their premise) got taken over by the normal ratbaggery that wants to protest anywhere, anytime about anything.
Look at Greenpeace as another example. The Australian Greens (a useless collection of ragbags if ever there was one).
What constantly amazes me is that the people in these protests understand that they have the right to free speech and the right to express their political opinions, and want to remove those rights from everyone else. Oh, well… It’s at least consistent with the rather clever summation image.
It’s obvious that McKibben will surf the wave of the OWS movement for his Climate Crusade. Clearly the Climate Crusade has gone out of breath and this will help him, he thinks. Also because most of the demonstrators belong to the same group of melons.
Completely agree with the “Useful Idiots” moniker. We now see, predictably, older and more experienced groups like the Unions muscle their way in to profit from the momentum. We have a similar protest movement going on in Germany, the “Pirate party” who don’t know what the want, only that they want free downloading of copyrighted material. And that the Banks and the established parties are evil.
If any of these movements would explain what kind of system they have in mind once they toppled the existing one, I would be able to decide whether I agree with their goals or not. At the moment you can’t even call them leftist as they don’t define their desired policies. Well, they will end up as ordinary lefties, that’s easy to see, and if only because the experienced agitators will come to dominate them.
@ Allencic,
Last year some time, I heard a call to Dave Ramsey where a woman had done a PhD in German Polka Dance and had run up a massive student loan debt. She was wondering how she was going to pa it all back since she wasn’t employable…
He uses that call as a warning about useless education all the time now.
That Seattle get together had the feel of a religious revival. Call and response of the snakeoil evangelist.
Useful idiots. The perfect description of emotional Manics blindly reacting without thinking.
Frustration without rational thought.
michael says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Exactly. This is 99% about getting Obama re-elected. It’s not like he can run on his record.
__________________________________________________________
Never thought of that. But you could be correct.
The Blair-Rockefeller Poll conducted after the mid term elections showed the Democrats are losing the traditional base of support among older voters who “….vote in high percentages, compared to younger cohorts, clear support for the Democratic Party is confined largely to African Americans…. If these trends continue, the 2012 presidential election will require the Democratic Party to continue to bring young, and often unreliable, voters to the polls.” http://blairrockefellerpoll.uark.edu/5292.php
The “Tea Party”/Ron Paul supporters are the group who are anti-Federal Reserve, anti-big government and against the Mega-corporations/government collusion often called neo-corporatism. This looks like a smearing of that message and converting it into a “socialist” message to confuse the youngsters who get caught up in the drama of it all.
Big Al, and the Gorcs……
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/we-will-roc-you/
Steele says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Precisely. Foaming at the mouth right-wingers (like the Tea Party) see big business and government colluding to screw regular people over, and they somehow get the weird notion that the problem is the government.
Peaceful, nonviolent, well groomed moderates (like the Occupy Wall Street crowd) see the same thing but they understand that big business are the ones who have guns and can put you into jail for not using their product correctly.
I’d also like to point out for the record that if standing around chanting slogans doesn’t count as “fighting for change” then why is Manhattan under water? Why have we had a record number of hurricanes making landfall this year? Their pithy slogans are causing climate change, and that’s what 350.org is in favour of.
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Seems both the left (occupy wall street folks) and the right (tea party folks) are just generally angry.
====================================================================
Well, their are marked differences between the two, hygiene not being the least. Respect for the law, and general decent respect for local venders and general cleanliness in care for the areas of the rallies. Oh, yeh, one other thing……… the Taxed Enough Already party actually has specific areas when peacefully assembling when asking for redress from the government.
Grizzled Bear says:
October 9, 2011 at 12:53 pm
“And when major corporations like GE can get away with paying little or no taxes, that’s just plain wrong. ”
That was an effect of losses they incurred the year before.
Of course they don’t have the remotest idea of what they are talking about. Everyone of the mentioned corporations either actively or tacitly supports AGW remediation. Most drastically. GS is the primary carbon trader in the USA. The established oil companies love the artificial scarcity created bu CO2 hysteria.
350 methodology. Find a parade, stand at the front, and pretend everyone is following you. Hijack the movement for your own benefit.
There is an economic problem in the US and Europe. A lot of investment money is sitting on the sidelines, largely as a result of uncertainty over public policy. As a result we are told we have a “debt crisis”.
However, what we really have is a policy crisis. The money is there, it is simply sitting on the sidelines due to uncertainty. Politicians in the US and Europe continue to live in a world where you can replace CO2 with taxes and the economy will create jobs. Investors are not convinced, so there is no money to finance the debt to pay the taxes. Thus there are no jobs.
This is most obvious when you compare China, the US and Europe. Historically economic prosperity has been tied to CO2 production and there has been no recent development or technological breakthrough that would change this. The growth of all three economies, along with the relative change in prosperity of the citizens, remains in lock step with their CO2 production.
CO2 levels in Europe and the US are down about 7% annually, while at the same time CO2 levels are up about 13% annually in China. At this rate the prosperity of the citizens of the US and the EU will be cut in half over the next 10 years, while the prosperity of the citizens of China will quadruple. This mirrors what we are seeing.
Love this interview on the CBC (!) with “Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author Chris Hedges”, who has clear Marxist sympathies in his defence of the “occupiers”. Best part is Kevin O’Leary taking Hedges to task, and Hedge’s descent into incoherence. :-> Must-see TV.
Envy, misplaced anger, entitlement society, a need for drama, way too much time on ones hands, and a coddling political class.
The anger part I get, but why not protest in front of the White House or Congress, where the policies that enabled human greed to run rampant in the housing sector, were born.
Time to face facts, the Government has no more money to hand out.
Get a job, your payroll taxes can then help pay off Government promises.
Do it for the children, it was done for you.
Rant/
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:17 pm
People are angry, R. Gates, just plain ordinary people who have been abandoned by thier leaders.
The streets are no different than the blogs, with trolls aplenty out to misdirect and steal the movements.
People are getting wise to the game. There is no list of grievances for a William Jennings Bryan to sell to the Democrats and Republicans for the express purpose of disbanding the protest and absorbing the platform as thier own.
Irregardless of the matter at hand, whether Science or Politics or Economy, the selling of Agenda Swaps is losing it’s customers. Junk Issue salesmen, like Al Gore, are feeling the pain, so now we find one Bill McKibben out in the street hawking his wares.
The days of consensus sales are numbered.
100 years of occupation?
In Vancouver (BC, Canada) they are also planning an “Occupation”. Canada also has useful idiots. Our economy is not doing bad but again.
I live in the Fraser Valley and there are lots of vegetables and fruits to pick up. The people doing the picking are easily recognizable. They have turbans and are usually dark skinned. They often come on a seasonal work visa and go back to their country at the end of the season with loads of money.
If those people wearing tagged clothes and having the latest tech gadget don’t have anything else to do and complain they don’t have money could just take a ride to the area, there are plenty of jobs here. You don’t need to live in a big mega-city.
There are lots of jobs out there, just don’t be so picky and difficult. I don’t see those people in the fields complaining… on the contrary.
… and this is not sarcasm.
Useful Idiots is the correct term. The term was apparently coined by V.I. Lenin in reference to western liberals.
What really gets me about these wall street protesters is the zombie chant repetition of everything they are told by their “leaders”.
What is that about? It just makes them look and sound stupid.
What the zombies in NYC, Atlanta and elsewhere are protesting about is that there has been no global protest movement since the Vietnam war. So climate change is the designer cause du jour for the rebel without a cause, 2011 edition. Oh, and something rad about Wall Street … something, something, mumble, mumble. This is what you get when rebellion skips a generation. As we say in Australia, give us a spell!
Is an astrotruf movement, and the high level acceptance and credulity given to it by much of the media any surprise since we have a self-described “community organizer” serving as President?
OWS, corporate shakedowns, greenmail, etc. are all the tools of “community organizing”.
We are seeing only the tip of the iceberg.
The Tea Party really scared the lefties: How dare middle class tax payers actually agitate and demand anything other than the right to pay their taxes and do as they are told by their progressive betters?
So, we have the extreme left agitating in their incoherent whining fashion, and more and more pseudo-scientific groups like 350 will join in.
It will be massively entertaining and maybe a bit dangerous before it plays out. The lefties that are carrying out our President’s deepest wishes don’t see themselves as the losers they actually are. They delude themselves that they are heroic revolutionaries.
Leon Brozyna says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:04 pm
One of those spontaneous outpourings of emotion, by people against everything, who see conspiracies everywhere, and who spend months organizing a movement that appears to spring up overnight. Once it catches the media’s eye, it’s becomes birds of a feather all flocking together.
________________________________________________________
II agree with you that it was probably organized. However there are protests all over the place especially in Washington D.C. The Media ONLY films those that are “On Message” as determined by their board of directors/owners.
Main Stream Media Control:
U.S. Congressional Record February 9, 1917: J.P. Morgan interests bought control of the media. http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Morgan-Buys-Newspapers9feb17.htm
JP Morgan: Our next big media player? (April 13, 2010) JP Morgan controls 54 U.S. daily newspapers,and owns 31 television stations. http://www.newsandtech.com/dougs_page/article_f3a45be0-4717-11df-aace-001cc4c03286.html
Then there is MSNBC, Comcast and General Electric not to mention the interlocking board of directors.
http://www.examiner.com/la-county-nonpartisan-in-los-angeles/prostitution-journalism-yup-mainstream-media-is-intentional-propaganda-accept-the-evidence
http://carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php
@polistra says at 12:50 pm “The carbon bandwagon has been pulled by Wall Street speculators who see an entirely new market for derivatives and securitization.”
For at least the last decade, “global warming” and “climate change” have been exclusively about monetizing and taxing the air.
That covers everything one needs to know about the interests of Wall Street, DC, and the U.N.
These hippie “occupiers” are once again the ignorant dupes of those interests.
The U.S. political system is awash in corporate money. And to a lesser extent, union money.
That, in a nutshell, is the problem.
Elections must be funded with public money, and free access to broadcasting. If the government can’t be used to ensure free and fair elections, what can it be used for?
American politicians come out of elections beholden to special interests. That is wrong on its face.
It is all the same people with all the same “Agenda.” No matter how you view the climate truthers, they are all in the same camp as the others who want to crush the economy, do away with moral behavior, and by all means do away with Christianity. These people who are Occupying the streets are just goons of the same mother.
Your offhanded dismissal of this movement is very saddening. “Down with evil corporations” is not the message. “Get the big corporate money out of politics” is the message. The AGW crowd trying to get involved is irrelevant. A government of the people, by the people and for the people, not of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations. I think you may have stepped out of your area of expertise on this issue. Maybe you’re unaware the your country has been looted.
The bankers got to keep their money and unload their debts onto the taxpayer and the governments went along with that, (that’s the money that gets them elected) so now 90% of the people are screwed.
As to the Apple part of the post- Not to date myself, but I really appreciated the graphical capabilities (and curve fitting capability) of cricket graph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CricketGraph compared to my alternative (lotus 123) back in early 90’s. Personally, the premium price for a Mac/Apple (OS2 based system) has always been more then I have been willing to pay.
Some of the early (non-server) based experimental design software (e-chip http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=0h&oq=e-chip&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBF_enUS318US318&q=e-chip+experimental, and business simulation software- Powersim 2.5 http://sydney.edu.au/science/uniserve_science/newsletter/vol8/chapman.html) -that I used were written for PC based systems as that is what most engineers used. The graphic capabilities (which I associate with the sales and marketing side of things) of the mac/apple products were the benchmark way back when. For response surface (RSM) graphics e-chip worked well for me.
You have to be living in a cave if you don’t understand what the Tea Party and the OWS crowd is protesting against. The last thirty years has seen a tremendous concentration of wealth at the top, a bubble-driven economy for the rest, and significant loss of wealth for the middle class.
This state of affairs has not come about by natural laws or divine edict. It is a result of national policy over the last 30 years. The policies in effect concentrate wealth among a few people at the top. We can change the policies.
@DirkH The Pirate Party movement is both international and quite well defined in what future they would like to see. Sweden voted a pirate into the EU parliament in 2009 and has managed to cause quite a bit of ruckus with regards to secrecy around ACTA, copyright and US influence over EU legislation.
Have a look at http://www.pp-international.net/
(This being an american blog I know everything must either be “left” or “right”, but the Pirate Party movement is neither. Refreshing)
The global warming scare was never about science, it was always about the theft of the West’s wealth by UN kleptocrats:
“One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”
~ Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair, UN/IPCC WG4
Obama winks to them on his way to a $38,000/plate fundraiser.
Grizzled Bear says:
October 9, 2011 at 12:53 pm
And when major corporations like GE can get away with paying little or no taxes, that’s just plain wrong.
Where does the money come from that Corporations use to pay their taxes? Don’t they add the cost of the taxes to their products, so that when you and I buy them, we end up paying the tax?
And to pay that tax don’t we need to work for a corporation, and doesn’t the government take a good chunk of what we earn as taxes as well. So, in the end, when the government taxes a corporation $1, you and I have to work to earn $2. $1 to pay our taxes, and $1 to pay the corporations taxes. And that is before we even start to pay for the product itself.
If you want a fair system, eliminate income tax all together. Replace it with a sales tax on NEW items only. Let people earn as much as they like, tax free. Only tax them when they spend. This will encourage savings, and it will eliminate much of the tax for the poor who tend to buy second-hand (used) goods anyways.
The system will be much simpler and lower cost, as the number of retail store required to collect the taxes is only a fraction of the number of the number of people that currently file taxes. The main advantage of the system is that the government would no longer have any idea how much you and I earn each year.
The number 1 reason governments like the income tax is because it removes the citizens right to privacy. What possible business is it of the governments how much you and I earn? That should be strictly private unless and until you ask for a hand out.
“Doug in Seattle says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:52 pm
What really gets me about these wall street protesters is the zombie chant repetition of everything they are told by their “leaders”.
What is that about? It just makes them look and sound stupid.”
It is essentially a form of propaganda that you’d expect to see in a cult. I don’t know what explanation as given to them to repeat like that or who trained the “community organizers” like that, but it is essentially a form of mirroring.
It is meant to bring about greater group bonds and conformity.
In short, they are being brainwashed, but for what, or whose, purpose?
Tom says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:52 pm
“So climate change is the designer cause du jour for the rebel without a cause, 2011 edition. ”
Ah, no… a few climateers like McKibben try to get in but they’re also-rans. Just go to youtube and search for Anonymous. You get a slew of their videos, all featuring a lengthy well-made computer animation intro followed by some manifesto staccato by a computer voice which is difficult to understand against a backdrop of opera music; accompanied by the usual generic demo TV scenes. In general they use the overindebtedness of Western nations and the resulting inconveniences (like a dropping standard of living for many) as motivation; ignoring climate change entirely.
The REASON for this financial crisis IS of course the vast amounts of money squandered on renewable subsidies, crazy CO2 taxation schemes; throttling manufacturing in the West for two decades now, moving jobs eastwards. But Anonymous and OccupyWallStreet are not analytic enough to understand that. The correlation of CO2 emissions and GDP and wealth is unrefutable so the throttling of CO2 emissions MUST have an effect; and that effect accumulates over time when your competition, China, can act without this brake on their economy.
The more analytically minded of the Left, the institutionalized part, like OECD, try to handwave their way out by suggesting to measure the wealth of a nation not via the GDP but via some new to-be-defined metric like a National Happiness Product, but that doesn’t change anything. As we see in Greece, they’re not too happy now. Their GDP also goes down. The correlation holds.
Troed Sångberg says:
October 9, 2011 at 2:11 pm
“@DirkH The Pirate Party movement is both international and quite well defined in what future they would like to see.”
Thank you, but I looked at the party program of the German section, specifically under Economics; and found a page in their wiki that said “Here should be our common economic position”.
They don’t have one.
If you want to rule and you can’t tell me what kind of economic system you want, you’re a nutter; and you will end up as a leftist as soon as a few experienced cadres from the Left get into your movement and fill this void.
AND once again I think we go ‘a bridge too far’; as if being “Taxed Enough Already” is not sufficient to rise in lawful, peaceful protest …
.
I have some sympathies with these people and their protest. It is difficult to make sacrifices and believe that we are all in this financial crisis together when we see banks that have been bailed out by the government awarding themselves massive bonuses that we as tax payers are funding.
Having said that, confusing a valid issue with a debatable stance on climate change is really unforgivable and detracts from the validity of their protests.
DirkH says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:36 pm
“That was an effect of losses they incurred the year before.”
Nice try. Reference http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-exxon-walmart-business-washington-corporate-taxes.html for Forbes take on it. Uncanny how GE Capital just manages to lose money each and every year, isn’t it? Just enough to lower their contribution to YOUR government. I’m not American. I stand back and shake my head at how FOX can attack evil money grubbing teachers, yet ignore the true fat cats avoiding paying their share. My wife is American. Left the U.S. when she was 8. Has never “enjoyed the privileges” of American citizenship. Now, the IRS, desperate to bring in more and more money, is threatening her for failure to file a U.S. income tax return for the past 25 years. WUWT? American society has become so polarized. Each side is so convinced it’s ALL the other guy’s fault. And then you add reality challenged loudmouths like McKibben to the mix… damn! I admit I’m an outsider. But being outside allows me some measure of perspective.
LET’S check the timeline, shall we?
– June 9, 2011 – a Canadian anti-consumerist magazine* called Adbusters (http://www.adbusters.org/) registers the domain name occupywallstreet.org
– July 13, 2011 – Adbusters makes the initial proposal for a peaceful demonstration to occupy Wall Street.[3]
– July 14, 2011 – independent activists register occupywallst.org
– August 2 – with the “debt-ceiling deadline” of midnight August 2 drawing near a group calling itself “New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts” chooses this day to incorporate their “General Assembly” with another group holding a strategy session for OWS. The two groups join in a demonstration at the Charging Bull at 4:30 pm. Afterwards, these two groups “gather into working groups to plan for the September 17 event.”
– August 23 – The hacktivist group Anonymous encourages its followers to take part in the protest.
– September 3, 2011: A planning session for Occupy Wall Street is held at night in Tompkins Square Park
– September 17 (Day 1) – the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street gathering. An estimated 1,000 people[7] attend on the first day. NYPD police officers prohibit protesters from erecting tents, citing loitering rules. Masses of people walk up and down Wall Street. Roseanne Barr speaks to protesters during the first day of the demonstration.
More details see:
Per: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Occupy_Wall_Street
Adbusters history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adbusters
Note the bold above?
Also, it should be noted that such cities as Seattle have had on-going mini-protests through the last dozen or so years with essentially the same ‘core’ issue protested. It has only been as a result of additional organizing over the past three or four months that the ‘occupy’ even(s) have seen those plans to fruition.
.
Mods – Looks like one flew into the spam filter (don’t know why either)! TIA _Jim
Mike H. says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:27 pm
That Seattle get together had the feel of a religious revival.
The Seattle Communist movement been in a slump for quite a while….I’m sure we have more then a few that would like to ‘relive the glory’.
http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/cpproject/timeline.shtml
“There’s a name for people like this: useful idiots.”
A.K.A drones, zombies and green socialist voters. :p
It amazes me the blindness of the 350 crowd who are now protesting the banks that have been backing the carbon trading scam that promised to deliver 100s of billions of dollars in yearly commission revenue into there already very deep pockets.
Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, HSBC, Citbank, Bank of America all belong to the “To Big to Fail” club of FED Primary Dealer banks that have been bailed out off the back of main street america taxes by the Bush and Obama administrations (no change there), and all would be lining up to feed at the golden trough of carbon revenue.
Damn, dude. It’s one thing to deny that there’s a climate, but dissing on Apple is going to make you seriously controversial.
REPLY: I’m not doing anything but pointing out what others have said about the company. While I make other choices for my own computer use, Apple has an an undeiable flair and success, and that’s what capitalism allows. For many people, it is the best choice. -Anthony
So explain the Obama banner in the background. Who again pushed for TARP, and handed all that money out to the banks?
David says:
October 9, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Your offhanded dismissal of this movement is very saddening. “Down with evil corporations” is not the message. “Get the big corporate money out of politics” is the message. The AGW crowd trying to get involved is irrelevant……………
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Its very relevant. It exposes the concerted efforts. The OWS crowd are trying to pretend this is a grass roots movement. It is nothing of the sort. It was a concerted effort to dilute the message and prevent a serious discussion of the reforms needed.
I get to watch videos of an organizer acknowledging that some of the protesters are getting paid. People are holding signs up, written in English, yet the ones holding the signs can’t speak a word of it. Its a joke. A very poor joke. They are asking us to believe a Soros machination endorsed by Huffington is anti- Wall Street? Riiiight.
The thing is, 90% of this country agrees that the money diverted to the banks and large corporations was tantamount to theft of the people. I can get behind that idea. But when you’ve got a bunch of imbeciles stating they don’t know why they’re there other than to rage against the man, then I’m repulsed from the movement. Its like they get 1/2 of the equation but don’t know how they got there. Do they have any idea why the banks were headed toward default? Do they not understand that the federal government played a large role in making the banks extended as they were? And that the banks and government, in pursuit of social equality were responsible for the housing market failure. Do they not realize how large corporate interests are now intractably tied to the workers retirement?
It is the protested stubbornness and failure to accept reality as the very reason why we can’t move forward from here. Add to that now 350.org’s advocacy……….. the deprivation of essential energy and fuel that prevents empowering individuals. We’ll never move forward with those pinheads. And the organizers of this know that.
Grizzled Bear says:
October 9, 2011 at 2:34 pm
“Uncanny how GE Capital just manages to lose money each and every year, isn’t it?”
Every citizen tries to get every tax rebate he can. Why should a company ignore that.
“Just enough to lower their contribution to YOUR government. I’m not American.”
Me neither. See: When they have to pay more taxes, less money will go to the shareholders or the employees. Less tax will be paid by those groups. Dividends are taxed. Wages are taxed. The state can’t lose.
Economics 101: Corporation’s do not pay taxes, their customers do. Many times.
The idea that ‘big corporate money’ is ruining politics in the US is an amazing claim from groups supported by Soros and unions.
Madoff, the biggest thief of our time, was a huge democratic party contributor.
Soros is buying off media players by the dozen. And unions,representing workers who vote something like 40% Republican,are forcing their members to pay dues that are in effect simply ways to launder money that goes over 90% to democrats.
Union exemptions, and media exemptions tobe as pro-democrat as they are has been tolerated for decades.
The Supreme Court points out that the people who control corporations are as free to express themselves politically as unions or media is driving the democrats and other lefties crazy.
Well suck it up.
We on the right get to vote as well.
We get to play on a more even playing field now, thanks to the USSC.
The idea that the same government that is funding corrupt climate science and screwing up the postal service is going to conduct a free and fair election b y controlling the money is a cynical joke.
Clever Anarchist strategy, just requires the dummies to perform on script, reminds me of the political media “nodders” trained to nod when their “leader” speaks. Good to see that some had the good sense to walk away from a mindless mob. More power to those individuals!!
David says:
October 9, 2011 at 2:01 pm
******
If these morons actually cared about getting corporate money out of Washington, it would be one thing, but most of them think it’s more fun to carry a sign and shout at “the man” than find a job. These are the same people who go to a $50k a year liberal arts college, graduate with a bachelor’s in English literature, and get pissed off because they can’t even get hired as a Starbucks barista – just a group of “frustrated” hippies who are looking for someone else to blame their problems on.
I agree 100% with this post – what was a good idea has become a pitiful joke.
/end conservative rant
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DirkH says:
October 9, 2011 at 2:21 pm
******
“The REASON for this financial crisis IS of course the vast amounts of money squandered on renewable subsidies, crazy CO2 taxation schemes…”
I don’t think that’s entirely true. There are obviously some negative short-term economic impacts resulting from regulation, but it’s kind of unrealistic to suggest that subsidies for renewable energy and CO2 taxes caused the financial crisis, especially if you’re talking about the US, where there isn’t a nation-wide carbon tax (or in the large majority of states, for that matter).
Also, there’s no national happiness product – or at least no serious person would try to argue that there is. There are things like Green Net National Product, which subtracts environmental damage from GDP, but even countries like oh-so-scary China have been incorporating environmental degradation into their GDP calculations – for quite a few years now. See http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-06/06/content_609350.htm for evidence. (BTW, that source is state-run and represents the government’s views, not some liberal academic somewhere.)
The Chant:
What do we want? We want “it”
When do we want “it”?. We want “it” now.
Where do we get “it”? From those who have “it”.
Why have they got “it”?. They went and earned “it”.
How do we get “it”?
We shout about “it” until they give “it” to us.
Why would they do that?
To shut us up and get us off the street so they can earn more of “it”.
Keep shouting.
[snip – you don’t know what my opinion is sir, and since you don’t have the integrity to put your own names to your own opinion, I won’t have you declare what you “know” mine is or isn’t – Anthony]
This “anarchist organisation” has a narrow path to tread: protest government without protesting obama.
Also, I’m a PC user.
Sure a Microsoft windows computer is cheaper to buy…than a Mac…but how much is your time worth?
For those that haven’t used them…you take a Mac out of the box and ‘turn it on’ and it works and keeps working.
I look back with anger and amazement on the wasted weeks of misery and frustration spent wrestling with Billy Boy’s dire machines.
If I were to calculate the amount of my time I have saved since I moved over to Mac at 1 dollar an hour, I could probably buy another Mac and still be ahead!
Please stick with climate issues. Don’t get onto the slippery “Occupation” slope! Yes, most of thes folk are AGW supporters and they will suck WWUT right in!!
Trying to do some background on McKibben, I’m coming up blank on his CV. Graduated from Hahvahd, lots of honerary degrees, … but I can’t find any research papers by him, or what his degree is in, only lots of accolades without saying WHAT he’s done, just that he’s talked about it a lot.
Interesting that he’s a Schumann Distinguished Scholar….and the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy has provided funding for the prestigious Union of Concerned Scientists (that’s ME).
On point, that people like McKibben is trying to take what could be a successful, and needed, grass roots movement and warp it into something it was not intended to be is patently offensive. I believe we need serious changes on Wall St., like banning automated computer trading and leveling the playing field for guys like me and you. The real 1%ers.
While it’s fun to poke fun at these people, this sort of mob can easily get out of hand. Mob mentality is a terrible thing to behold. We all better pray for a good hard rain and cold to break this up.
“Elections must be funded with public money, and free access to broadcasting. If the government can’t be used to ensure free and fair elections, what can it be used for?”
So the government will decides who gets taxpayer funding to promote themselves before an election.
No chance of corruption there, no sir, none whatsoever.
Back in the real world, the problem is big government. So long as it exists, big business will be happy to spend a few million lobbying for changes which will result in billions going their way.
You could create a document specifically limiting the government to the few things that it does better than private industry, and you could give it a fancy name like ‘The Constitution’ and then the government would have so few powers that there’d be no point lobbying it for preferential treatment because there would be very little you could gain from doing so. It’s only when government sucks up 30-50% of the economic output and sticks its nose and fingers into every aspect of daily life that lobbying becomes vital for any big company to be able to continue in business.
charles nelson says:
October 9, 2011 at 3:34 pm
“For those that haven’t used them…you take a Mac out of the box and ‘turn it on’ and it works and keeps working.”
Your last Windows PC must have been before XP.
Let 350.org continue I say.
Seems they want to flush themselves down the toilet with even more gusto… One less mouthpiece to worry about.
I love Apple products, but Apple does not get a pass by any means. They are extremely anti-competitive and greedy. They innovate, but do everything in their power to make sure others can’t innovate. They are not alone in the software industry. Please see the following link for how corporations use their force to stifle innovation in software: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/26/138576167/when-patents-attack.
As far as the “Down with evil corporations” picture goes, all of those items can be purchased from smaller companies. There is no indication that any of those products are branded by corporations. Corporations don’t necessarily innovate, and they certainly don’t make our lives better. Where you will be hard-pressed to find alternatives from smaller companies, you can blame patents and anticompetitive practices by market dominators. Large corporations will either buy out and cannibalise smaller, more innovative competitors (sometimes under duress), or they will just outright sue them into oblivion with their B.S. patents (see the above link). Corporatism != Capitalism, and the corporate culture of today does not resemble capitalism at all. Corporatism today stifles innovation, destroys competition, and regularly lobbies for their further entrenchment.
However, none of this matters does it? This is supposed to be about climate change. I have been a reader of this site for about three years now. I probably visit the site several times a day. Can we drop the politics? I am anti-corporatist, but I am also anti-CAGW. Let’s stick to the science at hand.
Tis indeed an Obomao reelection effort. These individuals are his base.
Pffffffffftttttttttttt Ptu!
Some of ya’ll might want to be a bit more careful of what sort of critter you hitch your wagon to.
Matthew says:
October 9, 2011 at 3:13 pm
I would only add, that often, you’d find those guaranteed student loans that financed that useless education.
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I don’t think it is so much the pursuit of an unworkable energy source, rather than the rejection, and thus the limitation on proven energy and fuel sources.
In order to put people back to work, this nation needs more cheap and reliable energy and fuel. By our unwillingness to such ensures mining, manufacturing, transportation of goods will remain stagnate. This will continue to strain the banking and housing markets. It will further require more people on federal and state assistance.
The reliance on Wall Street instead of Main street for economic expansion is all but assured by our policies.
ferd berple says:
October 9, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Grizzled Bear says:
October 9, 2011 at 12:53 pm
And when major corporations like GE can get away with paying little or no taxes, that’s just plain wrong.
Where does the money come from that Corporations use to pay their taxes? Don’t they add the cost of the taxes to their products, so that when you and I buy them, we end up paying the tax?
————————————————————-
Much of what passes for information in the U.S. is garbage Ferd / Grizzled Bear. Take the GE not paying any taxes for example. Last year GE paid $1.05 billion in taxes and took a tax deferral of some $3.2 billion for the losses incurred ($30 billion) in GE Capital due to the market meltdown and subsequent asset write-down. The ability of these large companies to carry forward losses (thereby offsetting but not avoiding taxes) is to smooth out the extremes so they don’t get into serious trouble for a specific year (where the economy goes into the toilet – 2009, or if they have an enormously profitable one-of year and face a formidable tax bill the next). Make no mistake. GE is paying tax. It was just much lower in one year. Check how much GE paid in taxes in 2005, 2006, 2007.
Which corporations pay the highest taxes? You would be surprised to learn it’s mostly the oil companies. While ExxonMobil, Conaco Phillips, Chevron, Goldman Sachs,Wells Fargo, Wall-mart pay above average taxes, companies such as Apple and Google pay proportionally lower taxes and park enormous amounts of money (over $100 billion) off shore to avoid paying US tax.
I’m not sure what these protesters are protesting – it isn’t to re-elect Obama as he will surely find out. But do they really want to take down corporate America? This is fool-hardy. The American economy, more than other countries is based on innovation, something that does not require territorial barriers. The next Steve Jobs will just set himself up in a low-tax country and import into the US. And Americans will be testing on their new iphone equivalents how unfair this is – but they will be texting. So good luck with that.
geo says:
October 9, 2011 at 12:57 pm
I think it is pretty clear where the political leanings of this site now lie. Views on climate change correlate with political views pretty well. .
Views on climate change don’t align with political views particularly well. There are quite a few of us at WUWT who are way to the left in US terms. I personally have never voted right of the Democrats in my life, nor am ever likely to.
I think you are making two mistakes. First, assuming that the US is the world. In general the non-US sceptics are quite different politically.
Two: being swayed excessively by the noisiest people. Of course the right wing are going to be more loudly sceptical. They gain politically by doing so. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t loads of quietly sceptical left-wingers.
(You are also leaving out the many, many people on the right who believe in CO2 induced AGW. Prince Charles is no leftie, and neither is David Cameron.)
Stark Dickflüssig says:
If the 99% really was 99% they wouldn’t have to stage sit ins. (this totally grass-roots message brought to you thanks to generous contributions from SEIU, OFA, attackwatch.com, & IWW)
If the 99% really was 99%, our country would have plopped into the bottomless cesspool that statist regimes have been since time began.
Sean Hill says:
“Corporations don’t necessarily innovate, and they certainly don’t make our lives better.”
Maybe you should be commenting on the UFO thread.☺
RE: The John Lewis video:
Tell me what idiocy looks like?
This is what idiocy looks like!
Rinse and repeat.
@MarkG
And when there are six major providers of television media in the United States, there is no chance of corruption there either, right? I’m not sure why people seems to believe that corruption can only exist in government, as if an oligopoly cannot be negatively influenced and collude to keep certain viewpoints and ensure that others are trumpeted. The thing is, the government has a role to play in keeping the media fair and open. That role is preventing the consolidation of media networks, keeping a plural of viewpoints instead of keeping licensing fees such that only large corporations can afford them.
Lobbying is nothing new, and it has been around since the days of Thomas Jefferson (aka The Constitution’s Golden Years). As long as there is a source of power, people will find ways to exploit it and twist it to their needs. Most “WTF” moments in U.S. legislative, executive policy, and case law have been influenced by power hungry, corporatist interests. Each time corporate desires meets our basic freedoms, we lose.
I am statistically one of (and support) the 99%’ers and I DO NOT Believe in the CAGW movement (CAGW is just bad science run amok),
I’m a conservative except when I’m Liberal and against corporate extremism. There are allot of people visiting this web site that can do heavy math, what surprises me is so many people think its ok that 1% of Americans control 90% of the wealth. By the way these statistics are pretty clear cut and not the work of climate science. 1% of the population controlling 90 % of the wealth, isn’t that what we saw historically with ROYALTY? Soooo we now have a new ruling 1% Royal elite of business super stars and robber barons, why is anyone OK with that.
Maybe its the give them circuses hollywood crowd that likes to distract the serfs with You To Can be a Superstar and make it rich or the SHAM (self help actualization movement) that tries to tell us you can be anything you want to be if you just believe in yourself (ie. get rich quick).
America has transformed into some type of perverted Corporate Democracy, please try to find your way back to a Democracy Of the People By the People For the People !!
DirkH says:
October 9, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Grizzled Bear says:
October 9, 2011 at 2:34 pm
“Uncanny how GE Capital just manages to lose money each and every year, isn’t it?”
Every citizen tries to get every tax rebate he can. Why should a company ignore that.
“Just enough to lower their contribution to YOUR government. I’m not American.”
Me neither. See: When they have to pay more taxes, less money will go to the shareholders or the employees. Less tax will be paid by those groups. Dividends are taxed. Wages are taxed. The state can’t lose.
————————————————————-
Do some homework people. GE paid taxes of $3.427, $2.794 and $2.552 billion in 2008, 2007 and 2006 for a 23% effective tax rate.
If you want to crap on one of the largest employers in the US go ahead. That is what is going wrong with America. It is beginning to hate success.
Are they taking time off school or work to go to the protest.
“Apple has an an undeiable flair and success, and that’s what capitalism allows. For many people, it is the best choice. -Anthony”
No, no, no! For all people, it is the best choice. Capitalism that is, because without capitalism communism doesn’t work.
Eating apples, or using apples, well, that’s the real choice. :p
I don’t know why the accusations of child labor and harsh labor practices are always linked to Apple. Maybe it gets more clicks. Foxconn, the Apple supplier accused of harsh labor practices, has a long list of clients including Dell, HP, Nintendo, Intel, and Microsoft: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Clients But whenever Foxconn is mentioned in the press, it’s always “iPhone maker Foxconn”.
Microsoft and child labor: http://www.globallabourrights.org/alerts?id=0011
Working in a Chinese sweatshop for HP, Microsoft, Dell and IBM: http://www.globallabourrights.org/press?id=0068
I clicked through to the report on that NYtimes link discussing environmental issues with Apple, and one of the offending suppliers “is also a suspected supplier to: Sony, Panasonic, Hitachi, Canon, Motorola, Siemens, Sanyo and Samsung.” Another company is a suspected supplier to “Toshiba, HP, Dell and Lenovo”.
@Smokey
What I mean is that they don’t make our lives better by virtue of being corporations. There are some corporations which play fairly, don’t partake in anti-competitive practices, contribute back to the community (especially in software with open source projects), etc. Large corporations started small, and just because they make it doesn’t mean they’re evil. Besides, using the word “corporation” is kind of a misnomer. I mean, I own a corporation… it has one employee, myself. 🙂
The beef is with companies who work the system to their favor through lobbying efforts, government subsidies and handouts, manipulation of the legal (especially patent) system. I can’t speak for the “Occupy” movement, but these are the types of companies where my anti-corporatist rancor is directed. It is important to remember that our corporatist culture is not capitalism.
The occupados say they are protesting corporate greed, but among their demands: minimum wage of $20, free health care, guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment, free college education, immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all.
And they point the finger at others for being greedy? Hah!
The Seattle video is simply frightening: these people repeating after the microphone holder… Is it Kindergarten of what?
Sean Hill says:
October 9, 2011 at 4:38 pm
“However, none of this matters does it? This is supposed to be about climate change. I have been a reader of this site for about three years now. I probably visit the site several times a day. Can we drop the politics? I am anti-corporatist, but I am also anti-CAGW. Let’s stick to the science at hand.”
==============
I agree with your position.
But, the politics are only beginning to ramp up. By this time next year, it should be really interesting.
hunter says:
October 9, 2011 at 3:01 pm
The idea that ‘big corporate money’ is ruining politics in the US is an amazing claim from groups supported by Soros and unions…..
_______________________________________________________________
It does not matter whether a politician is a democrat or a republican, what matters is WHO donated massive amounts of money to their campaign. Heck Maurice Strong, Canadian, Senior Advisor to China and father of Global Warming donated mega bucks to both the Democrats and Republicans. It was BUSH who interceded and got him into Kyoto!
Another example is Dwayne Orville Andreas CEO of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). He contributed MILLIONS to both the democrats and republicans. He was linked to illegal campaign fund raising in the Watergate scandal. He used multiple donors from ADM to get around the campaign funding laws. He is alleged to be very well known for his donations among politicians but not the public.
Here is a third example.
Ann Veneman served on the board of directors for Calgene Inc. that was bought out by Monsanto. She joined the USDA and worked on GATT which later became WTO. She left the USDA and went to work for the law firm and lobby group Patton, Boggs & Blow. (Then later went back to the USDA)
“Patton Boggs began as an international law firm concentrating in global business and trade in 1962…We were among the first law firms to recognize that all three branches of government could serve as forums in which to achieve client goals, enabling us to emerge as the nation’s leading public policy law firm, and we have developed our extensive business law capabilities into the firm’s largest practice area.” http://www.pattonboggs.com/about/overview/ [I think that is pretty explicit as to the goals and Veneman was an instrument of meeting those goals]
Veneman was also Members Emeritus of “IPC or the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council or International Policy Council, for short.
The IPC was created in 1987 explicitly to drive home the GATT agriculture rules of WTO at Uruguay talks. The IPC demands removal of ‘high tariff’ barriers in developing countries, remaining silent on the massive government subsidy to agribusiness in the USA…. In effect the IPC is run by US-based agribusiness giants including Cargill, Monsanto, Bunge, ADM, the very interests which benefit from the rules they drafted for WTO trade.” http://www.publiceyeonscience.ch/images/the_wto_and_the_politics_of_gmo.doc
Anyone who thinks we and not the large international corporations and central banks are running the world has not done their homework.
Why has not anyone rejected their premise? “We are the 50% who pay 97% of the taxes.” How many of us are in the streets protesting? probably not many, too busy working I guess.
Sean Hill says:
“The beef is with companies who work the system to their favor through lobbying efforts, government subsidies and handouts, manipulation of the legal (especially patent) system. I can’t speak for the “Occupy” movement, but these are the types of companies where my anti-corporatist rancor is directed. It is important to remember that our corporatist culture is not capitalism.”
I agree with that. Except for the last sentence, and I don’t like the word “capitalism”. It’s a Karl Marx word that tries to demonize the free market. When someone builds a company, employs people, and produces a product that people want, money naturally flows to that person. Capital is the result of the free market. It is not a cause.
And the “99%” number of the Occupy mob is so bogus. There are almost no truly poor people in America. Despite propaganda to the contrary, almost everyone has enough to eat [those with the lowest incomes tend to be the most obese], almost everyone has a place to live, and everyone is entitled to medical care.
Truly poor people have distended bellies and arms like broomsticks. Today’s “poor” are generally that way due to bad choices: drug abuse, unmarried pregnancies, preference for welfare over work, etc. And there is tremendous churning within the population cohorts. Those in the bottom 20% tend to rise out of that cohort over time… and plenty of people in higher cohorts end up dropping into lower ones.
In a free market there will always be income disparities. People are not created with equal abilities, drive, intelligence or ambition. These “99%” mob gatherings are simply coveting the financial results of others’ drive and discipline. The top 1% of the population pays most of the country’s tax receipts. So how much more is their “fair share”? The entire bottom half of the population pays no federal taxes. What should their “fair share” be? And name one ‘poor’ person who ever created a job for someone.
The most despicable thing about Obama is his fanning of the class warfare flames. He might reap the whirlwind. Or worse, the rest of us might. [BTW, I am not a rich guy. Retired, on a fixed income.]
I love the photo with all the consumer products highlighted. I wonder how many of the occupiers could go one week (one day) without the benefits of “Big Oil’s” petroleum products. Even the very street they’re standing on is made from asphalt. I’m sure they all didn’t walk to get there, meaning they had to expend fossil fuels to travel. Plastics, pharmaceuticals, synthetic materials, energy and on and on. It’s almost impossible to take fossil fuels out of our daily lives. I give Ed Begley and Bill Nye some credit for at least trying to walk the green walk by trying to live it in their daily lives. There’s one word that rings truer than most for the occupiers — hypocrites.
“The thing is, the government has a role to play in keeping the media fair and open.”
Expecting big government to ‘keep the media fair and open’ is like expecting a Great White Shark to go vegan. Big government loves big media because it’s easy to control, and actively prevents fair and open media. Government, for example, sells radio frequencies and prevents anyone else from broadcasting on those frequencies. Government has also been trying to impose controls on the Internet ever since they discovered it, precisely because it is ‘fair and open’.
“As long as there is a source of power, people will find ways to exploit it and twist it to their needs.”
So we appear to agree. But your solution is to make that ‘source of power’ more powerful, whereas mine is to make it less powerful.
Big government and big business are symbiotic organisms: big business ensures that taxes are collected from their employees with a minimum of fuss and big government then hands much of that tax money back to big business. You can’t fix that by making government even bigger, or hoping that it will do things that clearly aren’t in its best interest.
I saw all I needed to see when I watched the John Lewis video. The mindless repetition of whatever the cult leader said was chilling. It was like watching Jim Jones indoctrinating his followers in the virtues of drinking Kool-Aid.
Torgeir Hansson says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:58 pm
Elections must be funded with public money
Voila, everyone gets to run for office! Or mabe we’ll let the Obamacare Execs decide who gets to run, because they know the cost/benefit “worth” rates for each person in the U.S..
@MarkG
No, my solution is to strengthen and enforce rules that have been in place and make licensing more accessible. We have had media ownership rules in place for decades which have only been relaxed, several times, in the last fifteen years or so. Before the relaxing of these rules, the number of corporations which owned a majority of media outlets was 20+. Since the relaxing, we’re down to six.
My point about lobbying being around since the early days of this country was that the government had little power then, yet it was still targeted. It is largely through the influence of powerful lobbying efforts that the power of the government has grown.
Really, neither of our solutions solve anything, right? The powers of government have grown through lobbying efforts, and the media protections that were in place have been eroded by lobbying efforts. The only real, long-tern solution is getting people interested and involved in the world around them, and to fight decisions that are against their best interests.
TomRude says:
October 9, 2011 at 5:28 pm
The Seattle video is simply frightening: these people repeating after the microphone holder… Is it Kindergarten of what?
It’s a capacity almost necessary to defining a Progressive humanoid “mob”, although the less naive and much better behaved Parrots might also be induced to perform the same feat. And if that was a large paper mache’ dummy one of them beheaded, they’ve got two more very important skills sets covered right there as well.
Having spoken to a member of the younger generation earlier today it appears that all of the AGW panic and scaremongering ,ay be dying out as it doesn;t appear to be as fashionable or trendy as it once was.
They are misdirected.
It should not be “Occupy Wall Street”.
It should be “Occupy K Street”
They are mistaken in blaming the private sector. For all of Wall Street’s past sins and present, Wall Street creates jobs.
They should be focusing their energy at the Federal Government, which with private sector arrogance (but with the money of “the 99%”) that has grown so big it is its own nation in and of itself, to an oligarchy of publicy-funded fat cats.
And they should turn on their union fuelers in this case as the unions are nothing but rackets which go into the deep pockets of those at the top, again, mostly taxpayer funded money in the process (over HALF of the union population are public sector employees!).
The unions are HYPOCRITES. On the one hand they say they stick up for the common man. But on the other they’ll take your money by force.
At least Wall Street is honest about the profit motive.
So this whole movement “Occupy Wall Street” is misdirected.
Upper echelon public sector employees (including the climate elitists like Hansen) are the Nouveau Riche. They make sometimes more than TWICE their private sector counterparts, and this is not just the case for federal, but also municipal.
They are amassing great amounts of wealth at the expense of the taxpayer, and they make up more than half of the union population.
Will somebody tell me why taxpayer funded cushy jobs more than twice the national average, needs unions?
Hey Occupiers! You are not only barking up the wrong tree….you are in the wrong forest altogether!
Wanna get me on board??
Occupy K Street.
Occupy M Street.
Occupy City Hall
Then we’re talking.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
rbateman says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:49 pm
“People are getting wise to the game.”
___
Sadly, no. The occupy wall-street crowd on the left and the tea-party on the right will both be played by the well-monied groups for their own “higher” purpose…i.e.control of Washington. Each side simply has their own way of spinning it to best meet that goal.
When I listen to those mental patients of “Occupy Atlanta”, I am reminded of the following scene from Star Trek TNG;
The same monotonous voices all speaking in unison. You will be assimilated.
I’ve been to a number of protests and seen other protests on YouTube, but the mindless chanting is unique. However, it appears in the Atlanta Group AND in the Seattle Group. This makes me wonder if this is NOT just some spontaneous unplanned protests, BUT a carefully planned series of events across the US. There is one hint of the source:
Instead of Useful Idiots these guys qualify as Marching Morons. They don’t grasp that it is the collusion between the Corpratists (I can’t bring myself to call them Capitalists) and the government. Their solution is more government which caused the problems in the first place. Who do they think caused this mess and who did Obama and Bush pick to fix it? Could it be the same people? Maybe the ones who bailed out the executives that ran the banks and then gave themselves bonuses?
green is the new red
I’m guessing a large number of the posters on this thread are perfectly happy with how things have gone – some have managed to buy up foreclosed properties, had good returns from investments in third world countries where people are forced or coerced into working for far less than the equivalent job in North America… but it’s all fair, for if the corporations hadn’t sent the jobs off shore then these same folks wouldn’t have the good things given to them by their new prosperity!? And the same corporations already knew that if they or none of their corporate buddy companies were no longer giving jobs in North America, then eventually there’d be no-one at home to buy their off shore products – but hey, the Asian market would be there to replace it… wouldn’t it?
I guess it would seem more authentic to the majority of posters who feel that the occupations are a joke if the protesters showed up naked, used smoke signals to communicate…
When the US or Canada goes to war somewhere, the soldiers are met with opposition from people native to the lands being invaded, who have guns and other weapons – some of which were made in the US or perhaps Canada. I’m guessing the majority of posters feel that the rebels in those countries are just fake, for they’re using the same weapons, purchased from the countries that they’re fighting against…??
What will it take before you wake up? Do you have to feel the wrath of the corporate and banking elite? You’re either one of them, or eventually you’ll be asked to leave their party. If there’s no other way, I’m thinking it may be a good thing for some event or personal issue to make it so that you miss just enough mortgage payments to threaten your ownership of your home – nothing too serious, just something that will cause you to lose your home and savings, maintain good enough health. I don’t wish this on you because I hate you, or even dislike you. You’re my peers, you’re my relatives, you just happen to have been brainwashed into an unsustainable paradigm that is unhealthy for the majority of the other people on the planet. I dearly hope you wake up, realize how utterly LUCKY you’ve been, and stand with those who would like to fix what’s broken. The protesters may not have refined their goals at this time, but they at least realize that there are very big problems that need to be addressed. They’re working it out. If you choose to ignore problems, as you’ve become accustomed to doing, you will eventually pay – that is, unless the protesters are successful. If they are, then you will most likely benefit as well.
Time to grow up, there’s more to life than money and a job. If you disagree, you’re a sad human.
As soon as my subsidy check comes in from Exxon, I’m going down and occupy the unemployment office.
@JPeden – The reason they are repeating the words of one person is due to the banning and criminalisation of megaphones. It does look sort of dumb though.
McKibben’s just a paid fifth columnist for Goldman Sachs’ execs. In the top corner offices don’t care a hoot what they say about them down in the streets, but if they can get their stooge McKibben to hijack the movement and somehow swing carbon trading then they will make lots of money brokering phoney paper all over again just like with subprime loans.
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 6:27 pm
rbateman says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:49 pm
“People are getting wise to the game.”
___
Sadly, no. The occupy wall-street crowd on the left and the tea-party on the right will both be played by the well-monied groups for their own “higher” purpose…i.e.control of Washington. Each side simply has their own way of spinning it to best meet that goal.
=====================
Uh no. Rather…Happily, yes.
The sad part is that people with simplistic arguments full of holes like you continue to run their mouth, as opposed to wising up, and listening, to those wiser than you, like Bateman.
And by the way, people ARE getting wise to the game. It is as Bateman said:
“People are angry, R. Gates, just plain ordinary people who have been abandoned by thier leaders. The streets are no different than the blogs, with trolls aplenty out to misdirect and steal the movements.”
I concur 100%.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
savethesharks says:
“It should not be “Occupy Wall Street”. It should be “Occupy K Street”… Occupy M Street. Occupy City Hall”
Exactly right. Doubled and squared.
And DTarris, certainly you must realize that this is no spontaneous movement like the Tea Party [and IANATP’r]. This is a rent-a-mob organized to take the spotlight off of Obama’s wrecking of the economy through his deliberately ruinous spending [which was what sparked the Tea Party grass roots movement in the first place]. There isn’t much at all to show for all that profligate, irresponsible spending of $Trillions, and now we have to pay it all back.
The rent-a-mob has no interest in trying to “fix what’s broken.” Coveting the property of others is their motivation. Their orchestrated diversion is intended to blame anyone but Obama – always blaming others being Obama’s stock in trade.
DTarris says:
October 9, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Time to grow up, there’s more to life than money and a job. If you disagree, you’re a sad human.
===============================================
DTarris, you’re misunderstanding what you’re seeing here. I’m 100% for reforming the banking system so that they’d remain solvent. For instance, they should no longer be forced to make loans to people they know have no chance to make the payments. We should no longer be financially responsible for the student loan guarantees.
There should have never been bailouts and we should move to ensure there never will be again. Before you condemn and board up Wall Street, you need to understand that the American people under their current condition require it to be of good health. Is that wrong? Yes, but you need to fix those problems first, before you destroy everybody’s retirement plans. (the majority of the American workers are vested in their 401K) I’ve got no belief there’ll be much for me when I leave the work force, but we have millions of American workers that have nothing else but their 401K and are nearing retirement. (Baby boomers) These miscreants are biting the hands that are literally feeding them and have literally raised them.
As to taking up with known fraudsters such as 350.org or marxist organizations such as moveon.org or the brainchild of this silliness, George Soros……….. I’ll pass. Thistles and dead trees don’t render good fruit.
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 6:27 pm
rbateman says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:49 pm
“People are getting wise to the game.”
___
Sadly, no. The occupy wall-street crowd on the left and the tea-party on the right will both be played by the well-monied groups for their own “higher” purpose…i.e.control of Washington. Each side simply has their own way of spinning it to best meet that goal.
_________________
For once we agree on something.
>> This makes me wonder if this is NOT just some spontaneous unplanned protests, BUT a carefully planned series of events across the US.
Of course it’s not spontaneous. Our President’s background was a “community organizer”. It’s not surprising what techniques he is using to get re-elected.
Why don’t these morons buy shares of GE, Exxon, and any other large corporation (newsflash: you can buy shares of an S&P 500 fund). Then, you can be a fat cat like the 1%. Then again, that would be too logical for these idiots.
DTarris says:
October 9, 2011 at 6:39 pm
I’m guessing a large number of the posters on this thread are perfectly happy with how things have gone….
_________________________________
I think by now (or at least I hope) that most of us are aware that we do not have control of our governments, the rich and powerful do.
The problem is protests can be twisted and used against us ESPECIALLY when those protesting do not have specific goals.
Remember it was the protest of the sixties and seventies that were used to “grow” the government into the bureaucratic monstrosity it is now. So excuse us if we view protests with distaste, we have seen the results and they are not good.
Have one in the spam filter 🙁
[Sorry, nothing in the Spam folder. Can you re-post? ~dbs, mod.]
Sun Spot says:
October 9, 2011 at 5:02 pm
1% of Americans control 90% of the wealth.
1% of Americans pay 40% of the income taxes on 20% of the income. So how’s that $14.5 trillion, and escalating at $1.5 trillion/yr., National debt working out for you so far, and how much of it do you now owe back? Or is that someone else’s problem, the 1% and future generations.
In other words, why do you think that letting the Gov’t own and redistribute all “wealth” via a ‘real democracy’ is going to work out well for anyone except the Redistributors? What do you mean by “equal” and how would you keep everyone “equal”, except for the usual eventuation of Communism’s equal impoverishment and slavery?
If I spend $5000 of my income on partying and you build a garage with your $5000, do you owe me $5000 so that we’re back to being “equal” as to what we both started with? Hey, I’m really going to have some fun!
But where did you get that rediculous meme from in the first place, and what do you mean by “wealth”? Did someone forget about the Gov’t, its taxing and spending power, its power to make all manner of laws, and its Public Lands and its services, most importantly including Military Defense, its facilities, etc.. Btw, do you really think the “wealth” expended or constituting the defense of America could be “better spent” elsewhere, and what value do you place on your own freedom and life? Would you really rather see a Nuclear War as America’s only defense?
Listen, within our system of Constitutional Capitalism, I own some land that I wouldn’t sell for any amount, so does that make me infinitely “wealthy”? But if I sold it for $10 billion, I presume I would then be one of that evil 1%, and you’d be complaining about my “unfair” share, too?
Special hint: once you start forced redistribution for Social Justice’s democracy, “wealth” ceases to mean anything the recipients because it’s never yours! It’s “owned” by the redistributors, i.e., the Central Party! So 1] less of whatever it is, including the very basic necessities, is produced simply because no one has any incentive to work; and 2] there’s essentially no way to put a monetary value on anything because there’s no market like the previous one you started with, to value it with. It then comes down to “dog eat dog” as “wealth”. Or else, see North Korea, especially as compared to South Korea.
The only rich people in your implied Utopia are the less than 1% Redistributors. So get ready to beg, obey orders, sell your body, and tow the line as to your thought and speech, that is, if you want to eat – and also get some of that Obamacare, where the brilliant cost/benefit redistributors determine your complete “complete life” value, a metric which, of course, is never applied to them, while they haven’t produced anything that they are redistributing to the rest of us.
It’s those evil big banking corporations that got us into this mess.
You know, those ones we invented Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac for to tell them that it was ok to lend to poor people, since we would cover it if the loan fell through (we didn’t).
Those ones we sent Janet Reno to tell them that if they didn’t make those loans, we would charge them with discrimination.
So there was no risk to the loans, and we would punish them if they did not make them, so of course those who made loans were encouraged, and those who would not were fired.
Result, lots more loans, result, lots of money aimed at houses, result, housing priced doubled (not exactly the result we were looking for when we started all this to allow poor people to all own a home).
Note that houses are now costing twice what they did before, question, are they actually worth twice what they were before?
Government encouraged this since it resulted in higher property value, which meant higher property tax revenues on the now inflated value of the homes, plus greater economic revenue, which could be, taxed from building and selling homes and the general economic activity off of that.
We also allowed and even encouraged taking out big loans on the now inflated value of our homes for such important things as blowing it all on a vacation, result, even more economic activity which could be taxed.
This could continue as long as housing prices went up fast, which they could not do forever, this is known as a bubble.
This ran up against the economic law “if something cannot go on forever, it will stop”.
So now people are stuck with big loans on houses (some of which they blew on that vacation) which now cost half of what they paid for them, or about what they are actually worth.
Government, having went on a sending spree with all this bubble money, now refuses to cut back the pensions, number of government employees, pensions, government giveouts, pensions, salaries and benefits, pensions, and just general “waste” (best described as graft and corruption), oh, and did I mention pensions? Pensions, that’s where we pay them to do nothing. I believe forcing some people to work for other people who do not work is known as “slavery”.
So now the people were given money they did not earn for a big fancy house, which they got to enjoy for a while, how were they hurt, they are the ones after all who got free money from the bank for a while, the ones who voted for all thus pressure to make all these loans?
So now the bank is stuck with a house that cost the bank twice what it will actually sell for now that the price has dropped down to (or for a while below) it’s actual value, and they don’t get paid back their loan money since we reneged on the promise of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, so, how does the bank win here, how are they the ones being blamed?
And the bank paid all that money for inflated houses to whom exactly (when we figure out this, maybe we will discover who is the reel greedy, evil one here)?
Of course, if it is construction unions, who pay big bribes to the government (as it must be at least in part), we will not hear of it from the left dominated pro big government press and the government itself, who, after all, don’t want to pay it themselves, but are all for the idea of extracting if from those evil big banks and corporations (I believe the proper phrase is “deep pockets”).
And we are now stuck with a government that insists on being paid the inflated prices from this bubble that allowed them to grow to such huge size and costs, and further insist that the cure is even more big government.
So, we told those evil big corporations to give us the free money, told them we would hurt them if they did not, are now staging protests, essentially resorting to violence to extract it, why, it’s simple WE WANT THE MONEY. So who exactly are the greedy ones here?
And how did this all happen? Well, these kinds grew up without ever being spanked (Dr Spock told them it was ok, later he changed his mind and nobody listened). From this they never leaned an essential lesson “actions have consequences”, thus they never even think how their actions today will effect tomorrow. From that they also never learned another essential lesson, “delayed gratification”, thus they never learned to control their emotions (they do not understand reason, it is foreign to them), if they want it now (“now now NOW!”), why, they must have it now! From this they learned that you can get anything you want if you just scream loud enough (these protests are nothing more than mass temper tantrums). Why do some dress up in odd costumes, simple, they are still in kindergarten, and this is a kindergarten play to them, fun, exiting, gives them a feeling of power.
In short, they need to do something they have never done and cannot even understand, GROW UP.
Note that such people will NEVER understand the truth about “Climate Change”. They will not respond to reason, reason is a concept foreign to them. “Saving the planet” feels, good, “feels good” is all they understand. If the cure has consequences, this is something they can’t understand, they can’t even spell consequences.
This has all happened before. They blamed the fall of Rome on children who were no longer allowed, by law, to be punished. Those children wanted cheap grain (“now now NOW”), so the government required those “evil big corporations” to sell it to them so cheap that they went out of business. But they discovered a solution, go to other people’s countries and enslave them, make THEM grow the grain. We have a choice if we want to continue with the free stuff, go to other countries and enslave them for the stuff, or we can enslave most of our own people under the leadership of “The Great Leader” who will promise to fix all this.
And when you see the protesters, just think “mass temper tantrum” and it will all become clear.
Smokey says:
October 9, 2011 at 7:01 pm
The rent-a-mob has no interest in trying to “fix what’s broken.” Coveting the property of others is their motivation.
=======================
I feel your sentiment Smokey, but isn’t that too broad a brush? There are plenty of people in this protest who are just fed up. College-educated. Can’t get a job.
The rent-a-mob elements are the hijackers, the ones who are trucked in by organized labor, those scary anarchist loser-types that like to show up wearing black and masks, and just the dead-beat drum-beaters who have smoked waaaay too much weed.
All of that aside, I can not help but agree with the sentiment of the saner ones in the crowd.
But they need to shift their focus to the GOVERNMENT which acts with the unwarranted, unattained, and UNEARNED “arrogance” of a private corporation, but with the PUBLIC’s money…and with the unwieldy power of any statist regime.
They would get more sentiment from a broader necessary audience if they dropped the “corporate greed” moniker and shifted it to “government greed.”
But, unfortunately, they will not do that, because their labor organizers…are funded by public money.
They would rather attack the easy targets (the private sector), rather than go after the very racket that is helping sink this country: organized labor…..and their current politically funded mouthpiece…this present administration.
HA! Herman Cain just said it on TV. Just now. Right on!!
“The protesters don’t need to be protesting Wall Street”, said Cain. “Wall Street didn’t just spend $1 Trillion of their money.”
Can I have an AMEN??
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
It is becoming painfully obvious that people are disconnected from reality everywhere. When the baby boomers start cashing in those 401s it will eventually lead to blood on the streets. I am beginning to suspect that the AGW thing will be over well before it gets too much of a hold on global financial policy. I envisage that the next twenty years in the US are going to end up extremely messy and bloody. The writing is on the wall. The wall you used to own.
While I am not a fan of the big banks, I wonder if those who claim that the taxpayers are on the hook realize that most if not all the big wall street banks paid back the TARP “loans” and that some of the banks were forced to take the loans they did not want , while some others were virtually forced to take weaker banks into their ” fold” to avoid their failure. Many banks have also made interest payments to the US Treasury.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/242731/did-tarp-money-really-get-paid-back-kevin-d-williamson?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
It is extremely difficult to get a clear picture of who paid and who still owes but it is clear that many banks did return the loans with interest.
Unfortunately as payments were made, the treasury used this as a slush fund in violation of the original TARP plan to bail out GM and other companies. The huge financial liability that the taxpayers have is from Fanny and Fredie Mac who were the real villians who backed up all the foolish loans.
The folks are demonstrating at the wrong location,
Also at least one smaller bank apparently got a risky bail out because a Congresswomen pushed for a bailout for a bank in which her husband has financaial Interest.
It’s just so amazing. These kids have the motivation to protest and march but apparently not enough to study any history or economics and understand what, how, who and why. The answers are readily available and easy to grasp. There are no “evil” corporations. Corporations are merely legal entities controlled by shareholders who are people through directors and officers who are also people. More than 99% of everyone in this country is a shareholder in multiple corporations either directly, through a mutual fund, an IRA account, or a pension plan or indirectly through any bank account, social security withholding or credit card (all use equity markets).
The corporations work for us – both as their customers and as their owners. Sometimes some of the people we hire as directors and officers might break the law and when they do, the ones that get caught get punished. Most of them get caught. If not the first time, then pretty quickly. These days the penalties are severe. If Martha Stewart with all her connections and the best lawyers can go to real jail for trading a relatively small amount of stock allegedly based on third-hand insider info (there was never any direct evidence), then I’d say that the rich and powerful break the law at their peril.
Some don’t break the law but they do other things that are unwise, imprudent or even idiotic. They get fired by us shareholders or those we select to manage them. If there are greedy, evil directors, officers or executives getting away with stealing, fraud or unjust enrichment, then we should protest to insist that our government enforce the laws. We don’t need any more laws to handle this because *any* kind of stealing, fraud and lying (now, even by omission) by an officer of a public corporation is already against the law.
Most of the folks that run most of our corporations are ethical and honorable people, just like most of the people walking down most streets are ethical and honorable. However, there will always be a few that break the rules just like there will always be a few street criminals that try to rob convenience stores. In both cases it is stupid and if they keep doing it, they get caught.
So what exactly are the protesters after? If it’s new or different laws they want, then there is a well-understood process for changing the laws. If they want to punish some business people even though they didn’t break the law, that’s mob rule and totalitarian government and I’m pretty sure everyone’s in agreement that would be bad. Because once the mob rules, the next person they decide to arbitrarily punish could be any of us.
So I sit here and watch people protest against themselves, seeking a halt to the success of the corporations they themselves own, which make the products and services the protesters support with their dollars and demanding the government outlaw things which are already against several laws. To me, this is clear evidence that the education system has only half educated these kids. Maybe that’s what they should be protesting instead.
Quick primer on the financial system at its root:
97 percent of the money in the US and Canada has been created, out of nothing, by private banks, as loans, mortgages, and other forms of credit. This 97% must be paid back to the private banks and at that time de-created. The 97% of all currency carries an interest charge of roughly 5% to 400% of the principal amount, depending on the interest rate and length of term. The 5% to 400% interest is not created at any time. There has been no currency created to cover the expected interest, the only way that someone can pay their loan, mortgage, or credit card debt back with interest is to use someone else’s borrowed principal – thereby making it impossible for someone else to repay their loan, mortgage, or credit card debt.
Read Thomas Greco’s “The End of Money and the Future of Civilization” for a good historical view and some thoughtful ways to solve the long standing problem with private bankers creating our currencies around the globe.
If you’ve ever played musical chairs as a child, you will be able to understand our monetary systems. Now imagine playing musical chairs armed with guns and bricks, where ending up with a chair is a matter of life and death. Now you’ll really understand our current monetary system.
The bankers at the top of all major banks know that it is impossible to sustain the system, they know that a certain number of loan defaults will occur, even if they can’t pinpoint which ones. They don’t know exactly who will fall ill, or lose their job, or not be ruthless enough to get to the limited money supply first, but they do know a rough percentage of how many people will default or lose in this game – and it is a game to the bankers. But you see, it’s not a problem for the bankers, as they get to wipe out defaulted loans, and many of the defaults end up in a transfer of real assets that were held as collateral.
As I say, it’s time for all of us to grow up and solve the problem at its root. We’ll still have the symptomatic problems to deal with, but at least if we can put more money in the hands of the 99%ers (which includes me), then we will get to vote with our purchases as well as on the ballot.
TomRude says:
The Seattle video is simply frightening: these people repeating after the microphone holder… Is it Kindergarten of what?
=============
Mariss says:
I saw all I needed to see when I watched the John Lewis video. The mindless repetition of whatever the cult leader said was chilling.
===========
TrueNorthist says:
The same monotonous voices all speaking in unison. You will be assimilated.
=============
Bob Diaz says:
I’ve been to a number of protests and seen other protests on YouTube, but the mindless chanting is unique.
=========
You guys are repeating the same baseless complaint over and over again — like members of a cult.
The repetition of the speaker’s message is a strategy designed to overcome the banning of megaphones and public address systems enforced by state goons funded in part by J.P. Morgan..
Here’s another “cult leader” exploiting the broadcasting technique to overcome the ban.:
Smokey – contrary to your claim, there are many hungry and homeless people in America:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/11/economic-woes-lead-to-proliferation-tent-cities-nationwide/
Obesity is also increasing in our once “egalitarian” Australia amongst the poor, probably due to the increasing wealth disparity engineered for us by both “conservative” and “progressive” governments on behalf of their corporate paymasters, and partly due to the fact that a heaping of fat and sugar mixed with wood pulp is now more affordable than buying and cooking real food.
from A Note of Appreciation for the Rich:
========================
Always remember that if everyone like you were economically secure and socially privileged like us, there would be no one left to fill all those boring, dangerous, low-paid jobs in our economy. And no one to fight our wars for us, or blindly follow orders in our totalitarian corporate institutions. And certainly no one to meekly go to their grave without having lived a full and creative life. So please, keep up the good work!
http://www.namebase.org/richnote.html
==========================
The idea that the protesters are there to ask for “more government” or to support Obama is either fiction built on ignorance, or deliberate disinformation.
Wall Street protesters fed up with both parties
By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press – 3 days ago
and listening, to those wiser than you, like Bateman.
And by the way, people ARE getting wise to the game. It is as Bateman said:
“People are angry, R. Gates, just plain ordinary people who have been abandoned by thier leaders..”
___
Bateman wiser? At least I know how to spell “their”. The composition of the “occupy” group and the “tea party”…both fairly homogenous in their own predicable way, indicates quite clearly which fiddle player is playing them…and ultimately, and most ironically, is the fact that it’s the same one, simply wearing a different mask to be more palatable to group they wish to play.
You really want to change American Plutocracy? Focus the energy of the “occupy” and “tea party” groups to the same goal, which will not make the fiddle player happy:
1) Campaign finance reform
2) Term limits
3) Constitutional mandate of a balanced budget
Kick the big money out of Washington and return it to “We the People”.
_Jim says:
October 9, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Absolutely it was organized. Thanks for the additional info. All I had in my notes were from mid-August, where I read a report that a protest was to start 17 Sep, patterned after rioting in the UK, organized by SEIU & ACORN members. The web site was USDayofRage.org but since then all I’ve heard is the occupy mantra. I’ve no doubt that there was plenty of behind the scenes coordinating going on. The good news, so far, is that there’ve been no violent, widespread riots … but they’ve only been at it for three weeks … they might get the hang of it yet.
For all of you who fear that the protests are just a planned assault by Obama supporters, or some other group – if you fear this, then don’t let it happen. In whatever way you can, grab onto it, either by showing up in person or by any other method you can, make it your movement as well. Surely you’ve felt at some time or another that something isn’t working the way it should. Take that, and show up. Put it on the list for one of the first priorities, or to be dealt with at some time.
What do you think the protesters should be doing? Elections haven’t worked. Obama promised, saying that US citizens could “take it to the bank”, that he would bring your troops home. He made many promises that he has not kept – and yet he may still be the best you’ll get if you can’t look past the star maker machinery and elect someone like Dennis Kucinich, who seems to be one of the more fair and outspoken people working for peace and the interests of the common citizen. So, I ask, what do you think they should do at Occupy Wall Street and all the other occupations that are beginning? Go home, like you are? What are you doing to make the world a better place? Publish what you’re doing, make some suggestions that will stand a better chance at success. Don’t come up with repeating the lame dream we were peddled in the sixties and seventies – work hard, get an education, nose to the grindstone – that one didn’t pan out for far too many of your/our peers. They worked hard, got an education, and continue to be somewhat hopeful – but they carry their own personal debt and the debt of their government. They carry the debt of war, while the corporations that equip the war with bullets and bombs and other machinery to kill with enjoy massive profits and freedom to go wherever they want, whenever they want.
Can you not see a problem here? One final comment here. There is no reason why the generation following yours, regardless of which generation you represent, should have to inherit the results of your decisions, They need not inherit your method of elections, your methods of governing, nor your beliefs about what the world should be like. The sooner they understand this and say “Piss off, I’m not going along with this failed paradigm”, the sooner they’ll be able to change the world for the better. And if you’re still a member of the breathing, you’ll most likely be happy they did.
“The protesters don’t need to be protesting Wall Street”, said Cain. “Wall Street didn’t just spend $1 Trillion of their money.”
____
Wall street didn’t need to spend $1 Trillion of the taxpayer money…their cronies in Washington just handed it to them. “We’re too big to fail…bail us out!” cried Goldman Sachs…and the tax money came flowing to them.
I was looking around my house, and I’ll be darned if I can find much of anything that wasn’t made by an evil corporation. My canning jars, lights, TVs, computers, dishes, flatware, towels, clothes, shoes, are all made by evil corporations. Because even if a company is owned by one person, it is still a corporation.
And I looked at what my retirement money is invested in, and I’ll be darned if I can find any money going to anything other than an evil corporation. All that money, invested in evil.
Who owns evil corporations? Well, the last time I looked at such things, it was a lot of ordinary people that owned the evil corporations, mostly through owning stocks, or having investment funds that are placed into stocks. Who owns banks (which are also corporations)? Well, I guess those are actually owned by ordinary people, too. Who controls banks? Well, they are somewhat controlled by their investors, but banks are one of the most regulated businesses in the world. They have to employ a lot of people just to keep up with all the regulations. The regulations are in place so that banks wouldn’t have problems, or cause problems. Guess that didn’t turn out as well as was intended.
But I guess if we didn’t have these evil corporations and banks stealing money from good honest people, the whole world would be a better place. I’m just a little fuzzy on one part of this, though. How are these evil corporations stealing money? Nobody is forced to buy their goods, unless they really want or need them. There are a lot of different corporations selling things, so it would seem that people could just choose “good” corporations (like Apple) that aren’t really stealing their money. Which of these evil corporations am I required to buy things from? Which bank am I required to keep my money in?
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 8:31 pm
and listening, to those wiser than you, like Bateman.
=========================
Hey….don’t steal my one-liners lol.
Interestingly…(and tragically)….but hopefully….we may have some common ground.
I AGREE with your sentiments on returning it to “we the people.”
And that is exactly what your wiser elder was saying in his comment!
Cheers
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
But they [the protesters] need to shift their focus to the GOVERNMENT which acts with the unwarranted, unattained, and UNEARNED “arrogance” of a private corporation, but with the PUBLIC’s money…and with the unwieldy power of any statist regime.
They would get more sentiment from a broader necessary audience if they dropped the “corporate greed” moniker and shifted it to “government greed.”
But, unfortunately, they will not do that, because their labor organizers…are funded by public money.
They would rather attack the easy targets (the private sector), rather than go after the very racket that is helping sink this country: organized labor…..and their current politically funded mouthpiece…this present administration.
HA! Herman Cain just said it on TV. Just now. Right on!!
“The protesters don’t need to be protesting Wall Street”, said Cain. “Wall Street didn’t just spend $1 Trillion of their money.”
Can I have an AMEN??
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Mark says:
October 9, 2011 at 8:03 pm
It’s just so amazing. These kids have the motivation to protest and march but apparently not enough to study any history or economics and understand what, how, who and why. The answers are readily available and easy to grasp. There are no “evil” corporations. Corporations are merely legal entities controlled by shareholders who are people through directors and officers who are also people.
_____
For-profit Corporations exist for one reason…to make money, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. There have been, and continue to be corporations run by very evil people, so as an entity, they are only as honest as their boards of directors, CEOs, and Executive Staff. So some Corporations, from time to time, are “evil”, in that the respective parties just listed make decisions which break laws, put profit before people’s health, etc. But to make a blanket statement that there are no “evil” corporations assumes that their controlling bodies (i.e. boards, directors, etc.) are always honest…and of course, that is surely not the case. As far as shareholders are concerned, this group (except perhaps for certain limited classes) is too diverse and far too removed from the daily operational decision making to make any difference at all about whether or not a corporation is “evil” or not.
OWS is the kind of spontaneous eruption of dissent which occurs when large numbers of people find themselves economically completely cornered. Spontaneous movements like this one do not arise from a reasoned intellectual argument. They are an incoherent expression of anger and frustration by people who may not all agree on what is wrong or what should be done to fix it, but are united in a deep sense of anger and frustration at the status quo. People who see no future have nothing to lose by trying to change things. When spontaneous movements like this one arise, it is common to see people with a cause to sell trying to run in front of the mob and target its anger. I don’t think this attempt to point this mob at an environmental target will succeed. It seems to me that their anger is mostly economic in focus.
The US is now a grossly unfair and unequal society in dire economic straights. Many in the middle class are now saddled with crippling debt and high unemployment. They have expensive loans and qualifications but cannot get jobs. Meanwhile they see a financial corporate and political system dominated by greed and corruption which has been completely ineffective in addressing the problem, and which is hostage to vested interests and paralysed. Pressure is building. So long as the right wing in the US foolishly insist that the cork is kept firmly planted in the bottle it will continue to build.
I predict an explosion sooner or later.
“The protesters don’t need to be protesting Wall Street”, said Cain. “Wall Street didn’t just spend $1 Trillion of their money.”
Can I have an AMEN??
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
=============================================
Amen!……..It was the government that bailed out the banks, insurance companies and large corporations. It was the government that wasted another trillion on a stimulus package that had no chance of working. It is the government now that wants to waste another 1/2 trillion on cronyism.
The protest, btw, has spread to D.C. Here’s a telling couple of interviews……
http://www.wearechange.org/?p=9849
It starts a bit strange, but its worth the watch to the end.
James
James Sexton says:
“It was the government that bailed out the banks, insurance companies and large corporations. It was the government that wasted another trillion on a stimulus package that had no chance of working. It is the government now that wants to waste another 1/2 trillion on cronyism.”
____
You do understand that Big Business and Big Government are one and the same Janus-faced creature, yes? In a Plutocracy such as we now have, when the poor Goldman Sachs cries, “Bail us out!” the Janus-face Big Government/Big Business creature simply transfers money from one hand to the other…and the joke is on “We the People”, as that money all came from us. who will suffer for it, or China, who will profit from it along with the Janus-faced creature. This is my point about the Tea-Party and the Occupy group actually having the same enemy, but that enemy would not want them to realize that.
savethesharks [October 9, 2011 at 7:47 pm]: “AMEN.”☺
•••
Khwarizmi says: “Smokey – contrary to your claim, there are many hungry and homeless people in America”
Did you miss the part where I said that bad personal choices like drug abuse, etc., are the reason for the vast majority of what you describe? There are ample safety nets for everyone. If someone wants to spend their dole on dope, of course they’re likely to end up hungry and homeless.
But that doesn’t mean society has an obligation to give them even more money, just so they can continue with their bad choices. They do have an obligation to society to change. If they don’t, then it’s their problem at that point.
It’s not fair to those who have problems not of their own making, to give those who make bad choices more more than the others get. And from the link I posted above, it’s pretty clear that the ‘poor’ are not really poor, they simply have less assets than others so their standard of living is lower. But they still have their color TVs, their cell phones, their medical care, their cars, their A/C, their subsidized housing, their food stamps, etc., etc.
Anyone who feels guilty should provide a room in their house or apartment for someone less fortunate. Because the government has displaced community charitable organizations, in large part so politicians can get a voting block, and bureaucrats can have jobs handing out housing vouchers, food stamps, etc. The problem is government, and I feel no guilt, because I walk the walk. Over the past fifteen years I’ve given to my charity of choice, City Team Ministries – who help mostly African-American indigents – more that ten thousand dollars. And I have the receipts to prove it.
To follow up on this comment just a bit, where I said:
“This is my point about the Tea-Party and the Occupy group actually having the same enemy, but that enemy would not want them to realize that.”
I would venture to guess there are more than a few families where the grandparents are part of the Tea-Party, and the grandchildren are taking part in the OWS demonstrations. They both might believe they are fighting for, and angry about different things, but in fact, the root cause is the same, a too big of Government that has gotten too cozy and controlled by big money. In fact, the fix of this, which would be vehemently opposed by the current power interests, (i.e both current parties) is fairly straight forward, but must come from both sides (the Tea-Party and the OWS), which truly represent “We the People”. Three things are needed:
1) Campaign finance reform (to insure the best minds and best leaders make it to Washington and not just the best financed)
2) Term limitations (2 term maximum, so that we don’t get “career” politicians)
3) Balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution
When the Tea-Party and OWS groups realize they have the same enemy and unite, we might have a fighting chance to get our democracy back!
Kwarizmi, thank you for the education about protesting without a megaphone.
thank you for the education about protesting without a megaphone
thank you for the education about protesting without a megaphone
thank you for the education about protesting without a megaphone
thank you for the education about protesting without a megaphone
thank you for the education about protesting without a megaphone
Georg Soros
DTarris says:
October 9, 2011 at 8:35 pm
There is no reason why the generation following yours, regardless of which generation you represent, should have to inherit the results of your decisions, They need not inherit your method of elections, your methods of governing, nor your beliefs about what the world should be like. The sooner they understand this and say “Piss off, I’m not going along with this failed paradigm”, the sooner they’ll be able to change the world for the better. And if you’re still a member of the breathing, you’ll most likely be happy they did.
=======================================================
You whining, sniveling,…….. . Failed paradigm? Where in the hell are you speaking about? You’re talking about failed this and wrong that? While you typing into your PC with your internet connection? Poor you? Poor us? As bad as things are here, they are infinitely better than most places on earth. And you want to “piss off” a socioeconomic-political system that has worked for over 200 years? Why? Because we elect people that sell themselves to the highest bidder? Or is it because you don’t like the reality that not everyone can own a home?
Does this nation have problems? Yes. Can it be better? Yes, and it will. But while you’re whining about our methods of elections and inheriting the results of decisions, and better methods of governing, you should get on your knees and thank God you did inherit the decisions of the prior generation. You should thank God you inherited the greatest legacy known in the history of this world.
Speaking of “Occupied” wonder where the protesters go potty? Find out! http://watch.ctv.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/latest-episodes/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-ep-17004-october-6-2011/#clip545823 Try not to laugh too much at 3:25.
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 9:14 pm
To follow up on this comment just a bit, where I said:
===============================
Oh god must you regurgitate again?? We get your point.
But what you are saying has been said many moments ago…so there is nothing to be said.
Best to be silent, R Gates, but you don’t know how to do that.
Stop plastering the blogosphere with your cojoneless rants. It gets old.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
James Sexton says:
October 9, 2011 at 8:51 pm
The protest, btw, has spread to D.C. Here’s a telling couple of interviews……
http://www.wearechange.org/?p=9849
It starts a bit strange, but its worth the watch to the end.
James
====================
Just signed up for this Adam Kokesh dude. He is the real deal. Thanks for the link.
I love to see people who are very ALIVE (and who have proved themselves on the battlefield, like Kokesh). I will listen to them any day…over some spineless, nameless cowards who hide and lurk in the blogosphere.
GO ADAM. Give ’em hell!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
For some of you who’d like a true scholarly and scientific analysis (as opposed to political) on the network of the top 50 companies that truly do control the flow of money and call the shots around the world, with many strong and multiple ties to leaders in Washington (and other Capitols around the world), see this article:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.5728v2.pdf
For those who’d just like to see the list, here it is:
1 BARCLAYS PLC GB
2 CAPITAL GROUP COMPANIES INC,
3 FMR CORP
4 AXA FR 6712
5 STATE STREET CORPORATION
6 JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
7 LEGAL & GENERAL GROUP PLC
8 VANGUARD GROUP, INC.,
9 UBS AG
10 MERRILL LYNCH & CO., INC.
11 WELLINGTON MANAGEMENT CO. L.L.P.
12 DEUTSCHE BANK AG
13 FRANKLIN RESOURCES, INC.
14 CREDIT SUISSE GROUP
15 WALTON ENTERPRISES LLC
16 BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON CORP.
17 NATIXIS
18 GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP, INC.,
19 T. ROWE PRICE GROUP, INC.
20 LEGG MASON, INC.
21 MORGAN STANLEY
22 MITSUBISHI UFJ FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.
23 NORTHERN TRUST CORPORATION
24 SOCIÉTÉ GÉNÉRALE
25 BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION
26 LLOYDS TSB GROUP PLC
27 INVESCO PLC
28 ALLIANZ SE
29 TIAA
30 OLD MUTUAL PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY
31 AVIVA PLC
32 SCHRODERS PLC
33 DODGE & COX
34 LEHMAN BROTHERS HOLDINGS, INC.
35 SUN LIFE FINANCIAL, INC.
36 STANDARD LIFE PLC
37 CNCE
38 NOMURA HOLDINGS, INC.
39 THE DEPOSITORY TRUST COMPANY
40 MASSACHUSETTS MUTUAL LIFE INSUR.
41 ING GROEP N.V.
42 BRANDES INVESTMENT PARTNERS, L.P.
43 UNICREDITO ITALIANO SPA
44 DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION OF JP
45 VERENIGING AEGON
46 BNP PARIBAS
47 AFFILIATED MANAGERS GROUP, INC.
48 RESONA HOLDINGS, INC.
49 CAPITAL GROUP INTERNATIONAL, INC.
50 CHINA PETROCHEMICAL GROUP CO.
Thank you harrywr2, I’ll study up on it. We don’t see that much of it here in Spokane.
Ian H says:
October 9, 2011 at 8:50 pm
The US is now a grossly unfair and unequal society in dire economic straights.
Compared to what? The equal enslavement and poverty Communism/Socialism always produces, which is now being offered again by the latte’ Commie, Obama, right here in America. Why is he doubling down on what hasn’t worked? Except, of course, for his successful looting of America for the benefit of his cronies and “pay to players”. That’s his plan for you, too, Ian. Because what eventually happens under Obama’s obvious Communist mentality is that you will also have some “wealth” the Gov’t wants to redistribute, to itself.
Question, what demographic age group does the whine, “It’s not fair”, characterize? That’s right, the whine is infantile.
Well, I for one hope this site doesn’t become a polarized site looking at the inanities of the left, no matter how stupid. I would much prefer this site to remain focused on AGW. There is enough to talk about without looking at the inanities of leftists trying to make a broader reality out of it (except for good ole Al. That man deserves every tawdry exposure possible).
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 9:02 pm
“This is my point about the Tea-Party and the Occupy group actually having the same enemy, but that enemy would not want them to realize that.”
You should note, the TEA party is already cogent who the enemy is. Witness where and who they protested. The various corporations are simply doing what corporations do. It is up to the people to determine if we’re going to work for them or if they are going to work for us.
To put it another way, it isn’t corporate America that’s the problem. It is how we allow them to act. The fact is, if this country is going to start moving in the direction we need, we need a healthy corporate America.
Gates, later you wrote, “…..a too big of Government that has gotten too cozy and controlled by big money.”……..
Yes, the TEA party is fully aware of this. I’m a bit shocked that you didn’t know the position the TEA party has taken on this and the chilly reception the Republican party has given them. To catch you up to date. The TEA party turned to the Republican party because it was suppose to be the “conservative” party. There is a fear of the TEA party by the Republican party, and an abject disdain for them in the blue blood power structure of the north east. The only reason they give them any deference is because they know they can’t win without them.
If these OWS people are serious about reform, the first thing they should do, is disavow that we should be an entitlement country and then join with the TEA party. The TEA party would then show them how to actually rally and protest. And, perhaps, we could have a powerful 3rd party. But, they would first have to disavow wanting this nation to become an entitlement nation.
James
edbarbar says:
October 9, 2011 at 10:18 pm
Well, I for one hope this site doesn’t become a polarized site looking at the inanities of the left, no matter how stupid.
=========================================
Ed, I wish it were possible. But, it isn’t. Look at the subject of this post. The CAGW question is political. Look at the implications of this issue. Food, energy, fuel, water, markets……. it isn’t cooling that they want, it is power.
Has the climate movement really been ‘occupied’? I’m not sure what that means. Here’s a complementary perspective.
The leaders of CAGW organizations are well aware that ‘climate fatigue’ is setting in rapidly. In addition to ‘saving the planet’, they’d like to maintain a constant revenue stream. Now they’re branching out, and competing for the smaller pieces of the environmental pie.
Many years ago, the Sierra Club used to be about National Parks and wilderness areas. Since then, they’ve enhanced their position (and revenue), by embracing most of the popular environmental issues, and so lesser-known ones too.
Several years ago, there was a local ballot measure about widening I-50 in the Easternmost part of Sacramento County. The primary beneficiaries were yuppie commuters, living just across the county line, in El Dorado Hills. The Mother Lode chapter of the SC pointed this out, and even though the ballot measure passed, our local environmentalists performed a public service.
I see diversification on the part of 350.org and similar organizations as a good thing.
Not long ago, CAGW had eclipsed all of the legitimate environmental issues. I’m cautiously optimistic that more of these will be coming to the fore. Example: Jennifer Marohasy may be getting more traction on evidence-based water policies in Australia.
James Sexton says:
October 9, 2011 at 10:30 pm
“To put it another way, it isn’t corporate America that’s the problem. It is how we allow them to act. The fact is, if this country is going to start moving in the direction we need, we need a healthy corporate America”
____
I don’t disagree with any of what you said. Corporations are ways we can collectively provide goods and services and thereby earn a livelihood, that we couldn’t otherwise do on our own. And “how we allow” Corporations to act is up to our collective choice to make, and that collective choice would be reflected in the laws that are made in Washington. To be the will of “We the People”, those laws must be written by the people, and for the people, and not by the Corporations. And guess what, no matter what that inflated body of overly self-important and corporately controlled individuals says (aka The Supreme Court), Corporations are not people.
James Sexton,
“Whining, sniveling…”
I fail to see where that tone can be read in anything I’ve said, which leaves me only with your state of mind. You’re angry with anyone who wants to rock your boat. I can understand that – don’t really look at it as a point of confidence, but you’re welcome to it.
Personally, I aspire to the concept of “reach for the stars” when it comes to human evolution and a goal for the species. Unfortunately, you appear to be reaching for – the table top or the shelf just above the one you can reach easily from where you are right now.
I don’t know you, I don’t know what you’ve done with your life or what you’ve done for the species as a whole. And yet I can see you, feel your presence. It’s everything I find uncomfortable and upsetting about the middle class who have, more by luck and timing, settled into a bizarre view of the world as a vast shopping mall put there just for you to play in. You seem to totally miss that all humans do not have to be peaceful to get what they want, and by virtue that they have, you have been allowed to live the life that you seem to be thankful for. You’re lucky. But everyone else doesn’t have to look at McDonalds and other corporations as saviours of the human race, they don’t have to kneel down and thank (god) for what they’ve inherited. If they wanted to instead follow a Darwinian path, they would do as the military industrial complex has – they’d equip themselves with weapons and take the world as their own. But, again, you’re lucky that they actually don’t believe in just taking from others (please withstand the desire to spout of some other mindless tripe here), they don’t believe that they should have to kill others to get the world they want. In the end, they actually want to live in coexistence, in peace, even with you.
They do have to define their target, not take out their frustrations on the small businesses that have to survive in the areas of the occupations. I do hope that they will not alienate the private businesses in the same way that the NYPD have been alienating the very people who, amongst other concerns, are actually concerned for the well-being of the officers and their families.
What can you offer, to be constructive? We have a political system in Canada wherein an election can result in 24% of the population determining a “majority” government. I don’t know about you, but even before I was in a grade high enough to be called math, it took over 50% to be considered a majority. You’re a little better off in the US with only two names to the parties, it’s just unfortunate that they actually represent the same interests – not much of a choice.
while many may try to co-opt the OWS movement, the public in Iceland, Ireland, Greece etc – and now the US – are basically saying they don’t want their taxes bailing out what is called the “too big to fail” banks. what on earth is wrong with that?
loonies and hypocrites are not partisan:
6 Oct: WaPo: Westboro Baptist Church uses iPhone to announce protest at Steve Jobs’s funeral
“Westboro will picket his funeral.He had a huge platform; gave God no glory & taught sin,” Margie tweeted Wednesday night on her iPhone.
The Topeka, Kan. based church is mostly made up of Phelps family members but has risen to international infamy because of their funeral protests of celebrities and American soldiers. The church’s members believe that God punishes America for its tolerance of sin, including acceptance of homosexuality.
The iPhone-wielding Westboro members seemed unable to find any irony in their embrace of the technology of a man they condemn. One church member even suggested that God was using Jobs to help advance the message of Westboro Baptist Church: “God used Steve Jobs to create amazing STUFF for WBC to preach,” wrote Shirley Phelps-Roper…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/under-god/post/westboro-baptist-church-uses-iphone-to-announce-steve-jobs-funeral-protest/2011/10/06/gIQAJqBjPL_blog.html
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 11:09 pm
James Sexton says:
October 9, 2011 at 10:30 pm
And guess what, no matter what that inflated body of overly self-important and corporately controlled individuals says (aka The Supreme Court), Corporations are not people.
=======================================
Agreed
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 9:56 pm
For some of you who’d like a true scholarly and scientific analysis (as opposed to political) on the network of the top 50 companies that truly do control the flow of money and call the shots around the world,
I don’t think much of the ” true scholarly and scientific analysis” which in Sept 2011 lists as one of the “top 50 companies that truly do control the flow of money and call the shots around the world” 34 LEHMAN BROTHERS HOLDINGS, INC. They don’t appear to have been paying much attention.
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 9:56 pm
For some of you who’d like a true scholarly and scientific analysis (as opposed to political) on the network of the top 50 companies that truly do control the flow of money and call the shots around the world, with many strong and multiple ties to leaders in Washington (and other Capitols around the world), see this article:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.5728v2.pdf
For those who’d just like to see the list, here it is:
1 BARCLAYS PLC GB etc etc etc and many many others.
=======================================================================
Thanks R.Gates, it’s great to see someone posting information on the reality of the situation and not letting political bias from the left or right try to hide the catastrophe these financiers have brought upon ordinary hard working people and how much influence they still wield. Your list may well be a genuine inconvenient truth.
DTarris says:
October 9, 2011 at 11:10 pm
James Sexton,
“Whining, sniveling…”
Sorry, when you stated,
It seemed like you were calling for a complete destruction of the socio-economic-political system we have in this country. That thing which was founded by the words of our Constitution. If that wasn’t what you were calling for….. sorry, you should be more clear and not leave things to be inferred.
You’re right. You don’t know me. I live in a state where our motto is, ad astra per aspera . If you had bothered reading any of my prior comments, you’d see that I’m no fan of corporate anything.
I don’t know you, but when you state, “You seem to totally miss that all humans do not have to be peaceful to get what they want, and by virtue that they have, you have been allowed to live the life that you seem to be thankful for.” You tell me all I care to know.
But, before I get to anything else. I’d like to point out, that you are Canadian. I’m well aware that you have your own problems up north. Be a good neighbor and don’t try to impose them on us to the south. You assistance is neither required nor desired.
About me…….. yeh, I was born to a middle class family. And, I am one of the luckiest persons alive. Through choices made by none other than myself, I found myself in some very dire situations. I was even to the point of homelessness for a time. Homeless, broke, no job, no vehicle, nothing but the clothes on my back, a duffel bag of shirts and a pair of jeans, a folded flag, a rifle, and a Bible. My first wife had my children and I couldn’t even provide help for them. Through the Grace of God, I was able to get work, after several months, as a laborer for a bridge construction company. I met a wonderful woman, reconciled with my children. I found a less transient job at a factory. Through correspondence and night classes I was able to finish my education. …….. there’s much more to say, but you don’t need to hear the rest. Corporations didn’t do that for me. I don’t owe them anything and neither am I envious of what they have. I’ve little patience for whiners.
You ask, “What can you offer, to be constructive?” Plenty. Just click on the link my name provides. Among other things, I offer some primers on economics, energy, and what it takes for a nation to become productive and its populace wealthy. You are more than welcome to read and comment. I’ve never deleted a comment, save for the spam, nor will I unless it is profane. Do pop by. The first comment is moderated, but after that your comments will go straight through.
Now, I have a question for you. You say there is a target. Ok, what is the intention? And after whatever these people are trying to accomplish, then what? If these aren’t clear in your mind, it is foolish to embark on such a venture.
As to your laughable statement about people don’t have to peacefully exist…… I’m very familiar with people that haven’t. Turns out, most of us have already learned that lesson and have taken necessary steps to ensure our existence….. ideally in peace…. Lunatic whinebags don’t inspire fear. They inspire mockery.
DT, I wish you well, and I wish you clarity.
James
DTarris says:
October 9, 2011 at 6:39 pm
I’m guessing a large number of the posters on this thread are perfectly happy with how things have gone – some have managed to buy up foreclosed properties, had good returns from investments in third world countries where people are forced or coerced into working for far less than the equivalent job in North America…
Right, every time a poor person is born in Africa, I get richer. And as I’ve said to no end and little credit, it appears, I do loves me some latte’ Commie Communism coming to America! At least in your own troubled dreams…..
But it’s time for you to wake up, little one. People take the exported jobs in third world countries obviously because those are the best jobs available, and you dare to complain about it? I guess you’d feel better if the jobs and investments didn’t go there? And why do you want the pay for work to be higher than the local going rate, when it would just be undercut by other potential workers available right back down toward the going rate anyway. Or should only certain people get “rich” in those countries, and thus possibly drive up the local prices for a lot of goods for everyone else? Just so you can feel good? And even though you are against the 1%?
And you don’t want forclosed properties to be bought? What, just let them sit there and rot, somewhat like the usual process employed in creating those Demokkkrat run black Inner City Ghettos in the U.S.?
Quite simply, DTarris, you are living in a Fantasyland populated by delusional “perception is reality” Stereotypes which feed and gratify your own false sense of righteousness and omniscience. So you are reduced to just making things up, and you should therefore worry more about the workings of your own mind against reality:
“I guess it would seem more authentic to the majority of posters who feel that the occupations are a joke if the protesters showed up naked, used smoke signals to communicate…”
What, you mean PETA hasn’t shown up yet? But I thought there already was nudity there as well as an authentic demonstration of the process of “elimination” to boot! That should win some converts to your cause, DT. Mob rule forever!
“if you can’t look past the star maker machinery [ed. – Joni Mitchell] and elect someone like Dennis Kucinich”
You mean the same benefit-rich Congressman who sued the Congressional co-op because he injured a tooth while eating free food there? Right on!
QED
Apparently some people seem to be easily distracted, which is the real purpose of the Wall Street Socialist protesters. The goal is to get the unthinking fence-sitters to believe that some tweaking to the banking system and tax rates will plug up the thousand holes sinking the ship. Yeah right. It’s kinda like how some people insist that AGW is purely a scientific argument. No amount of tweaking and most definitely no amount of increased Socialism can solve this …
Wikipedia: 2010 United States Federal Budget
Wikipedia: 2011 United States Federal Budget
Brilliantly played my friend! Although the humor challenged may require the SARC tag to decipher it.
You do not understand this at all. Keep reading and learn something from the schooling of R.Gates coming up …
Bingo! These losers are complaining a little early. Just wait until the welfare spigots are turned off and they really have a problem.
Yeah right, except for the fact that they are opposite. Like taxpayers and welfare recipients. Like Black ink and Red ink. TEA Party is black ink. Socialist malcontents are red ink. Not surprising that you would mess this up, it is similar to saying that increasing snow is a sign of global warming. Tea Party (actually TEA Party), Taxed Enough Already, are all about fiscal responsibility, limited government and Constitutionalism. This is as pro-American as you can possibly get.
The Wall Street socialists are for everything the TEA movement and traditional America is against. They want even more regulation than we already have, they want more taxes, and would shred the Constitution and torch American flags whenever the opportunity presents itself. They become apoplectic at the mere though of downsizing government in the slightest (unless it is the military of course). Lumping these socialists together with the TEA party folks can only result from the scattered anti-logical thought process of an AGW cultist.
Although we have a Constitutional Republic, you say: “get our democracy back”! Well, your democracy didn’t go anywhere R.Gates. It is there on display right in front of your face in lower Manhattan. It was on display in the UK some weeks ago also. Mob rule, I suggest you get used to it. These malcontents, as incompetent as they are in life, can sense what is coming. The inevitable collapse of the welfare state where a small fraction of black ink supports the vast majority of red ink parasites. Even you R.Gates will be considered their enemy. That’s how they roll.
Finally … Compare the TEA Party with OWS.
Mindless droning, perhaps, but the reason the crowd is repeating the words of the speaker is that the police have banned the use of PA systems and the repetition is done so everyone can hear his words.
Gareth states: “Thanks R.Gates, it’s great to see someone posting information on the reality of the situation and not letting political bias from the left or right try to hide the catastrophe these financiers have brought upon ordinary hard working people and how much influence they still wield. Your list may well be a genuine inconvenient truth.”
This is fabulous. Go through the list, ensure that the specific corporations actually still exist and point it in the direction of the protesters. Make it possible for them to narrow their aim to specifics and not continue to appear as casting an all encompassing net that catches all incorporated businesses. I would hope that as the objectives of the protesters are refined, so will the message. Lend your warnings regarding organizations of narrow focus who will attempt to take hold of the attention and make this movement about their specific cause. The closer the protesters get to identifying the real culprits, the more likely they are to succeed.
This blog recognizes a polarized left and right within the political arena, and yet I believe the majority of people in the US and Canada would be a varied mix of the elements that make up those extremes, within each person. I hold the belief that the majority of people want the same out of life for themselves, their families and friends. This includes the protesters. Some “journalists” have focused on very small samples of participants and through this narrow focus, painted a picture of a less than ragtag group of kids suffering from ignorance – to which some viewers have decided defines the entire group of protesters. This is unfair and serves no useful purpose. It is also equally as naive as those young protesters.
As J Svj states: “Mindless droning, perhaps, but the reason the crowd is repeating the words of the speaker is that the police have banned the use of PA systems and the repetition is done so everyone can hear his words.”
It also has the added benefit of repeating the messages for the NYPD – perhaps some of the message will eventually get through to them. At the very least, perhaps they’ll lift the ban on megaphones and other forms of amplification… even if only to get rest for their ears.
James, to your comment “You are more than welcome to read and comment. I’ve never deleted a comment, save for the spam, nor will I unless it is profane. Do pop by. The first comment is moderated, but after that your comments will go straight through.”
Thank you, I will definitely visit your links. I apologize for the reaction to “whining, sniveling…”, I do usually try to find out more about someone before I choose to respond to… undiplomatic name calling.
Yes, we do have big problems in Canada, even though we’re not saddled with a privately owned central bank – we just have privately owned political parties.
I’ve had my own companies since the mid seventies, so have hired far more people than the number of companies I’ve worked for before that. That said, my own businesses would all fall into the category of small business, sometimes incorporated, sometimes not. Some of my clients included large national corporations, who were usually the hardest to deal with – separate accounts receivable and accounts payable with suitably polarized job descriptions. I’m happy to say that my work for those firms has been completed and I can now focus on dealing with clients I enjoy dealing with. The economy has been very hard on my new startup manufacturing business though, I see many of my potential customer base being put out of work or at the very least, their own work cut back to the point where they can’t afford my products. Most of them are running their own small businesses, working hard to keep going.
We will all gain more clarity over the coming months, whether we like it or not. I’m hoping we all come through intact. Cheers!
Allencic says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:19 pm
“What do you expect from people who have wasted a $100K or so on a worthless college education by avoiding all math, science, economics, etc. possible and majoring in subjects that no company with any functioning brain cells would possibly consider hiring. I wonder how many of the protesters have majoried in Victorian Female Authors or Organic Composting or Transgender Studies or Sustainability Studies? You imbeciles don’t have good paying jobs because you don’t know anything that is of even minimal value to any employer.”
Actually teh university system is one huge racket in and of itself. If imparting knowledge and skills were the real goal, whether it be engineering or sustainability studies, then self-education would be allowed and individuals would be allowed to simply take standardized tests at some small nominal fee to demonstrate (or not) their mastery of the subject and be awarded degrees thereby.
The real goal however is perpetuating the employment of college faculty and administrators. The university system is a multi-billion dollar industry that employs a great many people. Self-interest is the driving force not altruism. Follow the money…
No one should overlook the fact that most of these people have an evenly balanced view on life:
A chip on each shoulder.
One of spite and one of envy.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVygqjyS4CA?rel=0&w=420&h=315%5D
Say’s a lot about modern greenery that I would rather support the thieving, swindling banksters.
Poverty explained [sorry about the buffering].
Want a waste free and more efficient government? Join the rest of us by signing the petition to get President Obama to work with Congress in Implementing Lean and Six Sigma from the top down across the government. Sign here:
http://www.wh.gov/4b7
if you need more info you can go to http://www.thecommonsensei.com
The kernel of truth in McKibben’s quote is that corporations are “occupying the offices of our government, and the cloakrooms of our legislators” and are rewarded with “more loophole and tax breaks and subsidies and contracts”.
This is substantially true, but is surely the effect of too much government action, not too little.
The more a government regulates business, and the more public money it disburses, the more energy and resources large corporations will invest into lobbying, and the more wealth will flow to those with an inside track to those in power.
The whole CAGW ramp is contructed out of such regulations, subsidies and contracts.
The OWS crowd should rather be campaigning for smaller government.
This is why scientists should stick with science and not creating public policy.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/08/somebody-had-to-say-it/
I would have somewhat less contempt for you if you guys didn’t claim to be representing the majority of Americans. Do you really believe you represent 99% of us? If you do, you need to expand your social circle.
It’s an effect of our insane corporate tax laws. One quick test to see how well people understand the economy ask – Do corporations (any business, really) really pay taxes? Or do they merely collect taxes from their customers?
The only reason GE paid no taxes last year was because they carried forward a huge loss from the year before.
Income averaging, something that many people with highly variable incomes do as well.
Torgeir Hansson says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:58 pm
—
So the solution to the problem of politics, is to make sure that only people you agree with are allowed to be heard?
As long as corporations have to pay federal taxes and abide by federal regulations, they have as much right to try and influence the political process as does anyone else.
The problem is not that the wrong people have influence, it’s that the govt tries to do too much.
As PJ O’Rouke once wrote, “When govt controls buying and selling, the first thing bought and sold will be politicians.”
I think many folks in the US are suffering from Protest Envy Syndrome. They’re protesting in Egypt, protesting in Libya, protesting in Syria, protesting in Greece, etc. etc. “Why are we protesting? Because we can’t allow a Protest Gap.” /sarc
3×2 says:
October 10, 2011 at 3:13 am
Say’s a lot about modern greenery that I would rather support the thieving, swindling banksters.
___________________________________
But the greens are just puppets of the ” thieving, swindling banksters.”
Did you forget the “Danish text” at Hopenhagen, a draft that hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank? (When the draft was leaked it trashed the meeting.)
Or that more than 22,000 people in Uganda were evicted, and one boy burned to death, to make way for New Forests Company’s carbon offset eucalyptus plantations. A company where Al Gore is president and the World Bank, and Shanghai Banking Corporation, HSBC are investors?
Or that UK’s Ex Prime Minister Tony Blair is now a “Consultant” to JP Morgan?
This may be the crux of it (addressing the Occupados and a cadre of persistent ‘NWO conspiracy believers’); a critical lack of education on matters financial and political …
.
Blade says on October 10, 2011 at 12:51 am …
Well laid out, Blade; sharp, cutting, through to the bone. I see now why they call you Blade.
.
David says:
October 9, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Corporations are people. If you want to complain about the collusion of govt and corporations, go ahead. But recognize that the nexus of this cooperation is the fact that govt controls everything in this country. The result of this is that corporations, out of self defense have to spend money to influence govt. If you want to get rid of this problem, the only method that will work is to reduce the power of govt to the point where govt influence is no longer worth buying. If you think that locking everyone who you disagree with out of the political process will solve the problem, you are wrong. That will only make the problem worlse.
Mods, permit perhaps one last post by me on this note and I will then desist further …
There is something I have always wanted to ask the conspiratorial-inclined, out in public and before all the world to see. The question goes like this:
Who ‘approved’ of the Matt Drudges, the Bill Gates, the Steve Jobs (RIP), the Michael Dells, the Bill Hewlett and Dave Packards, the Warren Buffets (and even the Rockefellers who moved to North America in 1723) of the world to gain wealth and using your logos, ‘control of our government’ (as they are, by def ‘rich and powerful’)?
And please, no mindless populist pablum about ‘the Rockefellers this …’ ad nauseum.
Follow up question: If they could do it, why can’t you? You ‘seem’ possibly what might be termed ‘bright’, not entirely uninformed, yet, perhaps ‘poor as a church-mouse’ and sore about it judging from the grousing …
.
Sean Hill says:
October 9, 2011 at 5:01 pm
—
If there are 6 independant news media, plus thousands of radio stations, plus tens of thousands of independant blogs, the collusion on the part of the media is impossible.
Does all corruption come from govt? Of course not. The problem is that govt is the only agency that can prevent it’s customers from patronizing another server. If I get po’d at CNN, I can watch Fox, or vice versa. If I get po’d at D.C, can I patronize another govt? Not without getting charged with treason.
Sun Spot says:
October 9, 2011 at 5:02 pm
1% does not control 90% of the wealth, nowhere close. It’s closer to 20%. Even if it did. So what? As long as they don’t use force or fraud to accumulate their wealth, how much money they have is nobody’s business.
“The beef is with companies who work the system to their favor through lobbying efforts, government subsidies and handouts, manipulation of the legal (especially patent) system.”
Why not blame govt for handing out other people’s money or for passing regulations that benefit one company to the exclusion of others?
Why is it always the fault of the corporations, and them alone?
The problem is that we allowed govt to have to much power, and those in govt office then sell that power to make themselves rich.
“No, my solution is to strengthen and enforce rules that have been in place and make licensing more accessible.”
Why is it, that for so many on the left, the answer to every problem, is to give more power to govt?
As you admit, the rules we have don’t work. What makes you believe that adding another layer of rules, on top of the rules that failed, this time, will finally work?
As Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, expecting different results.”
“Time to grow up, there’s more to life than money and a job.”
In my experience, most of the people who say things like this, have neither.
“partly due to the fact that a heaping of fat and sugar mixed with wood pulp is now more affordable than buying and cooking real food.”
Like most everything else that you believe, this too is a lie.
The truth is that processed foods cost a lot more than do unprocessed or raw foods.
Haven’t the time to get through this fascinating thread at the moment, but a word on Apple:
I’ve been a steadfast Mac user since 1987. We had an IBM PC-XT in the office where I worked; I could not for the life of me fathom what was going on in the thing, which had to be accessed with arcane white-letter commands on a green screen.
Then in 1987 a new employee insisted on a Macintosh SE. She knew a ‘Mac designer’ who could do layouts and typography on the screen, without pasteboards and Linotronic typesetters. Even a used SE at that time was quite expensive, but we got one, with a 20 MB hard drive. It was a revelation to me; the Graphical User Interface opened the door to the computer with the GUI’s desktop metaphor, on which one could see the various drives and their hierarchical contents. I never looked back.
Yes Apple has always built in high profit margins to their products, and yes you have been able to do pretty much the same things on PCs since Windows 95 (a direct steal of the Mac’s System 7). But to me, as to many others, the high production standards that the late, lamented Steve Jobs insisted on, the uncompromising unity of form and function, made the Macintosh my first choice.
I agree with Anthony that the anti-business, inchoate Marxists of the current demonstrations are laughably hypocritical as they parade with their Macs, iPhones, iPads, and similar devices made by Samsung, Motorola, Toshiba, etc., etc. Do they imagine that the Soviet-like state they would get if we abolished capitalism would bother providing them with such toys? Methinks none of them have thought even that far ahead, if any are even capable of thought. ‘Useful idiots’ always leave the thinking to others.
/Mr Lynn
James Sexton says:
October 9, 2011 at 11:30 pm
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 11:09 pm
James Sexton says:
October 9, 2011 at 10:30 pm
And guess what, no matter what that inflated body of overly self-important and corporately controlled individuals says (aka The Supreme Court), Corporations are not people.
=======================================
Agreed
—————————————————————–
James,
“Corporations are not people” is potentially very misleading.
Of the 27.5 million corporations in America, just over 6 million have a payroll. The rest are “people” who are using the “corporation” as a legal entity – partially for tax reasons (dividends and capital gains are taxed at lower rates than income) and partially for legal reasons (limited personal liability). Many of the self-employed are in fact corporations.
Further, of the 6 million employer firms (corporations running a payroll), 4.6 million of them employ fewer than 10 people. The vast majority of these corporations have less than $500,000 in annual revenue. So in many respects corporations are in fact people.
Take this into consideration when you are asking for changes to corporate tax rates, for example. A move to a flat tax and away from lower taxes through dividend and capital gains will hurt many more people than just the fat cats R. Gates is singling out.
In Canada we give preferential tax treatment to small companies based on their taxable income. I believe the limit is $450,000 in taxable income before the rate increases (I think from 16% to 18% and it increases a few more times as taxable income goes up to a maximum 22%, although thanks to Stephen Harper the rate is dropping every year).
Many of these small corporations are start-up ventures or family operations trying to grow a business.
Isn’t there a parable about the brain being jealous of the heart so it commands the lungs to stop sending the heart oxygen? Try taking the money supply out of America and see what happens.
“Useful idiots” – Lenin used that for people who actually seemed to pave the way in the West for a Bolshevik takeover. These seem to be rather useless idiots.
BTW: The “Occupy Wall St.” farce is slowly becoming a story in the media here in Germany. However, if you were to compare the OCW to the Tea Party over here, you would cause a hissy fit across the board – because according to the German MSM, OCW represents all that is noble, fine, etc. about America (civil rights, Woodstock, etc., ad nauseam), while the Tea Party is painted in the blackest colors possible – rednecks, idiots, “white trash” (they have actually used that expression on occasion). And unfortunately Germans have a tendency to believe EVERYTHING the MSM feed them.
(P.S. I’m rather of a mind to quote Blade at 12:51 at length in the office. I love to give them hissy fits.)
Dave Springer writes, “Reasonable intelligent people don’t have a history of serious drug abuse, incarceration, and institutionalization for mental problems. Those are things that reasonable intelligent people manage to avoid.”
Consider the likes of Jim Hansen,
oh wait…
There’s a name for people like this: useful idiots.
No, you should have written it thusly:
There’s a name for people like this: idiots.
I’m not seeing much of anything useful about them.
The 2008 financial crisis and the Bush/Obama recession are both direct results of government. The Clinton Justice Department threatened to sue lenders who didn’t give mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them. Fannie and Freddie told the banks not to worry, so the loans would be guaranteed by the federal government. The Federal Reserve made it easy and cheap to borrow money. All this was done with Congressional oversight.
The 2008 banking crisis would not have happened without these policies.
R. Gates: Holy Cow! I can not believe I actual agree with one of your posts. Very insightful. Green Vampire indeed!
When talking with my wife’s younger siblings and cousins (20ish years old) these attitudes are the norm. They have no concept of reality (working to earn money to buy what they want), but rage about how unfair everything is. After complaining about how Royal Dutch Shell is giving everyone in Kenya cancer, they say how they don’t want a used car, they want a nice shiny new fast car. HELLO! Do these people even listen to themselves? I do not think they are self aware. I would like to know what these people’s parents all did to make them so messed up so that I can avoid that with my kids.
DTarris says:
I would hope that as the objectives of the protesters are refined, so will the message.
Then doesn’t it bother you a little, DT, that they’re obviously still stuck on working to repeat dumb ass slogans, such as “We are the 99” and learning to say “Yes” and “No” according to prompt?
Get over it DT, it’s a mob, and you know it. That’s its “message”: beware, “I am Legion”, “the incohate 99%”, the wilding Id’s destructor of itself and all in its path.
Your mob is the pre-Enlightenment Evolutionary Throwback or Dead End, Communism’s all purpose tool as well as the manifestation of its own empty, greedy, parasitic soul.
Here’s a simple message which you and your mob not only will never learn, but to which you will continue to automatically react as though Vampires to Holy Water: Communism never works!
Is it really any surprise by now, DT, that Communism produces the same State of Affairs it claims to oppose, The Master-Slave Society?
Indeed, just how did Communism ever expect to escape its own “History is Class Warfare” physical mechanism or law, especially when it and your mob are only talking about themselves to themselves via their completely internally confabulated self-serving Stereotypes!
DT, you only hope that Joni Michell’s “star maker machinery” shows up to save your mob’s “face”. But it’s too late and not possible for that to happen anyway. Susan Sarandon tried, and the mob rejected her. The arch Capitalist Michael Moore, the “1%”, will again only make money off you and try to parasatise what’s left of your self for his own self’s aggrandizement. The Democrats will only make you useful idiots or set you up in their perfected Inner City Ghettos.
Short story, DT, instead of blaming everyone else, you need to save your own damn soul.
It’s the Double Latte’ party!
‘Mega Fail’
-Total classic!
sok-bournemouth, UK
So who are those greedy 1%-ers? Here are a few: Tina Fey, Bill Mahrer, Warren Buffett, George Soros, Steve Jobs (heirs), John Kerry, John McCain, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, the Kochs, JK Rowling, A-Rod, Derek Jeter, Peyton Manning, Susan Saradon, Tom Cruise, Paul Krugman, Larry Fink, Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, Larry Ellison, Nancy Pelosi, Mitt Romney, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag, and Meg Whitman.
Well, they put the fear of God in me. Particularly Tina Fey. It’s a hard woman behind all those jokes.
For all of you who keep saying “Keep to the climate change issue”, you obviously have not been around here for very long. This is not a climate change blog. Read the caption at the top of your screen
“Commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts”
This blog has lots of climate change stuff, but other stuff as well. The first post I read on here was complaining about a Windows feature (dont’ remember what it was). I found this blog by google-ing a Windows issue…
Ah, and I forgot Brad Pitt, Angela Jolie, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, anybody working for Renaissance Capital (except the secretary, who is burdened by high taxes), David Letterman, Jay Leno, that Fallon guy, the late-night-seems-like-he’s-always-drunk-Irish guy. (Is he Irish?).
Well, I don’t know what to say, other than that comedy is clearly a lucrative profession.
In fact, I do know what to say. I hereby challenge Jon Stewart to a “Greedy-Off”. Each of us will give a name of a Greedy 1%-er from the other side of the political divide, one following another, to see who runs out of greedy people first. I will bet the conservatives in fact have fewer greedy people, and I’m willing to duke it out with Jon blow for blow, greedy person for greedy person, until I prove–without a shadow of a doubt–that there are more greedy left wing people than greedy right wing people. Yes, that is my challenge.
Instead of separation of corporations and government (fascism), or separation of church and government, most countries seem to have a separation of the people and government.
It seems to be popular thought on this blog that it’s the fault of the people if they aren’t able to be successful. I would say that it’s a fault of the people that our governments, which are supposed to be representative of the people, have been ignoring the wishes of their employers (the people).
Even in Canada, “we the people” should still prevail, yet it doesn’t. It would seem that government needs to be taken back under the control of the people (yes, if indeed it ever has been), but it needs to be a people who actually know what it takes to run a government. At that point, we can stop blaming the “government” for all the problems, or at least realize that we’re blaming ourselves…
I like to deal with the facts, as some others on this blog claim. The fact is, according to everything that I’ve researched, there is not enough money created when loans occur to pay back both principal and interest – case closed. There’s no amount of hard work that can overcome that basic fact. I do not dispute that creating things, manufacturing, etc is required, real wealth other than just pulling resources from the earth must be created.
How many on this blog have read “The End of Money and the Future of Civilization”? It’s one of many books published that cover the topic of money creation.
If government is to blame, solely according to some, then what is the answer. I’m seeing much complaining here, but I’m missing the solutions being proposed. Please enlighten me, but with facts. I believe the ship is going down, at least for everyone below the bridge, so we need to be getting to at least some attempts to solve whatever problems are perceived…
Or maybe this is just a place to bitch.?
People will always gravitate to where the money is be it Wall St. or the Californian Gold fields. It simply struck me that faced with a choice between Wall St. swindlers and the green movement the swindlers get my vote. An epic failure for “green” if you ask me.
Divide et impera.
Sean Hill says: @ October 9, 2011 at 5:13 pm
…..There are some corporations which play fairly, don’t partake in anti-competitive practices,…..”
__________________________________
I agree.
According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses in the USA (under 500 employees) Employ over half of the labor, created more than half of the GNP, generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years. Produce 13 times more patents per employee and are twice as likely to be among the one percent most cited. http://www.sba.gov/advocacy/7495/8420
Yet despite anti-monopoly laws, we have seen in recent years a major drive towards monopoly and vertical integration. Also thanks to the corporate raiders leveraged buyouts in the 1980’s we saw many well run, wealthy corporations with no outstanding debt ripped apart and sold because the “Physical Assets” were worth more than the company as a whole. Even if the company did survive it ended up with the wealth of the company transfered to the raider and the corporation left with a staggering financial burden due to the “leveraging”
It is interesting to note that this was also the time when when mutual fund investment hit record highs and investors saw incredible returns.( No doubt thanks to all that corporate raiding) The catch in mutual funds is that the fund directors, and not the owners of the stock do the actual voting of the stock. Section 401(k) of the tax code was also enacted in 1981 and the money is usually placed in a mutual fund.
On January 29, 1989 the New York Times published this. It would seem they got this perdiction correct.
” The 1980’s also saw a wave of giant leveraged buyouts. Mergers, acquisitions and L.B.O.’s, which had accounted for less than 5 percent of the profits of Wall Street brokerage houses in 1978, ballooned into an estimated 50 percent of profits by 1988… THROUGH ALL THIS, THE HISTORIC RELATIONSHIP between product and paper has been turned upside down. Investment bankers no longer think of themselves as working for the corporations with which they do business. These days, corporations seem to exist for the investment bankers…. In fact, investment banks are replacing the publicly held industrial corporations as the largest and most powerful economic institutions in America…. THERE ARE SIGNS THAT A VICIOUS spiral has begun, as each corporate player seeks to improve its standard of living at the expense of another’s.
Corporate raiders transfer to themselves, and other shareholders, part of the income of employees by forcing the latter to agree to lower wages.” http://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/29/magazine/leveraged-buyouts-american-pays-the-price.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
Eating the Seed Corn comes to mind. It is why I focus more on the bankers and their lending of fiat currency instead of real wealth although I despise the predatory multi-nationals too.
Blade says:
“Tea Party (actually TEA Party), Taxed Enough Already, are all about fiscal responsibility, limited government and Constitutionalism. This is as pro-American as you can possibly get.”
_____
Sounds nice on paper, but far from the reality of what goes on in Washington D.C., and in most of the State governments as well. It takes millions to get elected, and that money doesn’t come without strings attached. As the TEA party prattles on about “limited Government”, the Corporations who call the shots only smile knowing that means even less money they’ll have to spend either fighting, writing, or avoiding laws when necessary (they call it finding loopholes). It takes a lot of money to get their men and women elected to office, and even more to pay the lobbyists to write the laws. Limited Government will only reduce these overhead expenditures for the corporations who run our government. Why doesn’t the TEA party loudly endorse campaign finance reform or term limitations? Until the umbical cord between big money and our nations lawmakers is severed, the call for Constitutionalism is just an empty platitude as we continue on living in a Plutocracy.
Abraham Linclon summed it up nicely, as even back then he saw it coming. He wrote:
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
— U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
So yes Blade, the basic notions of the TEA Party are wonderful, but until they recognize that Big Government and Big Business are now one and the same, the TEA Party ideals are simply empty platitudes.
If anyone doubted the variety of political opinions of the people who read this blog, I think they have ample proof. And thru that the fact that skepticism lives exclusively in no political box, no matter what either side would like to proclaim to reassure themselves of their own superiority.
What part of limited government do you not understand? You can’t have corporatism with limited government. Only government can force mandates upon the public, require you to buy something or limit competition through regulation.
Starbucks can’t make you buy it’s coffee, GE can’t force us to subsidize windmills, ADM can’t pass ethanol subsidies and put tariffs on ethanol imports. Only government can do those things.
Gates, you make it too easy.
The Tea Party [which I am not affiliated with in any way] was founded as a reaction against profligate, wasted, unnecessary spending. I’m with them on that. Where are those ‘shovel ready’ jobs? Where are the new bridges, the military purchases, the filled city potholes? $Trillions wasted and almost nothing to show for it. And now we have to pay it back.
And your Lincoln quote shows that Abe’s worries were groundless after a century and a half. Public employee unions are a MUCH greater threat to the country than profit making companies. And you know what? Companies are not breaking the law [with very few exceptions], or they would be sued and their officers jailed.
If you believe companies are profiting too much, why don’t you just buy their shares? That makes you an owner. Then you can be one of the fat cats, too.
[snip – we aren’t going to discuss that ugly off topic issue, even with /sarc – Anthony]
Part and parcel Anthony, Part and parcel, and directly relevant to Smokey’s contention that they couldn’t have done anything wrong or they would be in jail!
I was in Beijing 15 years ago and I recall the valedictorian of a large Beijing high school discussing the Cultural Revolution’s impact on her parents- a physicist and a mathematics teacher. Her parents lived though the reeducation camps and hard labor in the countryside.
http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=68&catid=2&subcatid=6
“Cost of the Cultural Revolution
“The Cultural Revolution was a horrible period in Chinese history. Intellectuals were paraded through streets with dunce caps; Muslims were forced to slaughter pigs; and Tibetan monks were taken from their monasteries and put to work in labor camps. Confucius statues that stood for centuries were labeled as decadent and torn down; priceless Ming vases were shattered; and thousand-year-old Buddhist murals were vandalized beyond repair. At the height of the Cultural Revolution, the People’s Daily ran the headline: “There is Chaos Under Heaven—the Situation Is Excellent.” ”
Schools were closed; houses were invaded; work places became battlegrounds; mini-civil wars broke out throughout the country; and people were turned into the police by their friends, and tortured and killed for reading books in English. Entire families were massacred for being from “bad class” backgrounds.
The violence and chaos drove neighbor against neighbor, destroyed the economy, drove the country to the brink of famine and forced a generation of intellectual to work in the countryside. Nearly every Chinese city dweller today who was alive then knows of a friend or relative that have was beaten, harassed or driven to suicide during the Cultural Revolution. In Cambodia, the Cultural Revolution inspired the Khmer Rouge.
No one knows exactly how many died, but estimates range from hundreds of thousands to 20 million. Hu Yaobang, a former Communist Party chief, was quoting as saying that 1 million people died, but his figure apparently excluded deaths that resulted from fighting between Red Guard factions, which most scholars believed resulted in an additional one million deaths. Most of those who died during the Cultural Revolution died from fighting among Red Guard factions and violence caused by the collapse of government and the absence of police authority.”
Here in the USA our form of government doesn’t lend itself to the type of behavior noted above. It does seem to be a good time to reflect on the rights that our constitution and bill of rights provide us from tyranny.
RE: R. Gates says: (October 9, 2011 at 9:14 pm)
“2) Term limitations (2 term maximum, so that we don’t get “career” politicians)”
Imagine how things would be if the politicians decided, as long as this applies to them, why not make it a general rule: Require that everyone has to get a new job and a new employer every eight years. There would be similar pros and cons. Of course, this would not be constitutional at this time, but with a careful, complicated choice of words in the term-limit amendment . . .
Smokey says:
October 10, 2011 at 11:59 am
….Public employee unions are a MUCH greater threat to the country than profit making companies. And you know what? Companies are not breaking the law [with very few exceptions], or they would be sued and their officers jailed…..
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I agree that the Public employee unions are a major problem. But Companies ARE breaking the law and the US government is HELPING them in an effort to set up the “Problem, Reaction, Solution” scenario.
For example, HACCP was introduced in 1996 removing government food inspectors from the plant floor and allowed food-borne illness to over double in the USA. (Many government testing labs were closed and sample reduced by 90%)
I spent the last few years uncovering and tracking this info and someone was nice enough to put it in a pdf called Shielding the Giant. http://www.whistleblower.org/storage/documents/Shielding_the_Giant_Final_PDF.pdf
The worst part is the media covered the real source of the problem (HACCP) up too and help deflect the blame onto farmers. Now we have a new law that is guaranteed to wipe out a lot of independent farmers AND transfer the liability for contaminated food from the corporate giants to the farmer of their choice. The USDA set up the computers for tracking in Canada and therefore immune to FOI or subpoena.
Wisconsin is the first state to make Animal ID mandatory.
Paul-Martin:Griepentrog on September 3, 2008 reported that the transfer of liability was indeed the case. He attended “quality assurance training required for Badger Vac 45.” And reported “You [the farmer] will be required to cover ALL expenses in the event of contamination…The bottom line is that after 10 years [note the date] of below normal prices here in Wis. because the state allowed Equity Livestock Coop to create a monopoly, our savior has now arrived to burden us with contracts shifting all liability to feeder cattle producers if they can’t prove they are innocent. “ http://nonais.org/2008/09/01/bulletin-board-200809/#comment-1395096
There was even a conference scheduled in 2009 addressing how to pass the blame.
Conference to address food-borne illness litigation
“The conference will cover topics such as aligning damage assessments/expectations with the outcomes from recent resolved litigation; managing an outbreak effectively to minimize shareholder and reputational risk afterwards as quickly as possible; and how to measure and prove actual control of various players in the movement of contaminated food to accurately assess apportionment of liability.
This is a classic example of the Corporate-Government collusion to drive out competitors and set up a oligopoly. Farmers already face a monopsony (one buyer)
Corporations are fine as long as we have competition and not Corporate-Government collusion.
More Soylent Green! says:
October 10, 2011 at 11:49 am
R. Gates says:
October 10, 2011 at 11:28 am
… So yes Blade, the basic notions of the TEA Party are wonderful, but until they recognize that Big Government and Big Business are now one and the same, the TEA Party ideals are simply empty platitudes.
What part of limited government do you not understand? You can’t have corporatism with limited government. Only government can force mandates upon the public, require you to buy something or limit competition through regulation.
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As long as we have the fox watching the hen house (because the fox bought and paid for those hens), the it doesn’t matter the size of that hen house, it won’t be of the people, by the people, and for the people. A small government in many ways will simply make it easier for corporations to have even greater influence as it will take them less resources to influence laws, etc. We must find a way to sever the ties between big money and our government. Campaign finance reform and term limits are a good start.
Alright then, start naming names. Who has been corrupted – specifically? Who is doing the corrupting – specifically? Who changed their vote for money?
We have campaign finance reform. How’s it working for you so far? Did it end the corruption and influence peddling, or was it just another way to limit free speech?
And tell me, if government can’t sell favors to anybody – how is that going to empower corporations?
BTW: Why do you care so much about corporations but so little about the influence of unions?
About my last post, some numbers:
http://pajamasmedia.com/spengler/2011/10/06/wall-street-protesters-have-met-the-enemy-and-it-is-they/?singlepage=true
Household real astate assets rose two and a half times from 1998 to the peak of the bubble in 2006, meanwhile, those evil bankers stocks rose only a bit less than 50%. After the bubble burst, household asset value is still worth 70% more than it was worth in 1998, evil big banker stock declined to half of what they were worth in 1998.
Clearly, the reason these protesters are protesting the banks, and calling for a boycott of them, has nothing to do with how evil these big banks are and how they took our money. Clearly, via the mechanism of loans, plus the government and quasi-government aganecies we used to “allow everyone to own a home”, we took THEIR money. They are protesting the banks for the same reason Bonny and Clyde robbed them, “because that’s where the money is”. In other words, they want that money.
Has anyone started a pool on how long this nonsense will be permitted to continue? I’m picking Nov 2, 2011.
Whatever happened to anti-trust enforcement?
Think execs are diluting your stock…sell the stock.
Think companies are robbing you…..don’t purchase their product.
Think politicians are crooked…..show them the door on election day.
Hollering on the street corner is for kids.
Mark Wilson says:
October 10, 2011 at 8:07 am
Like most everything else that you believe, this too is a lie.
Thanks for your insulting words. Insults always help foster constructive communications.
Don’t you agree?
1) I believe nothing – a trick of semantics that everyone should learn for the sake of clarity and precision::
http://nobeliefs.com/problemswithbeliefs.htm
2) the rising price of fresh food in Australia is well documented:
http://www.news.com.au/money/money-matters/australia-has-fastest-rising-food-prices-of-any-major-developed-nation/story-e6frfmd9-1225795572738
Fat and sugar mixed with wood pulp has not risen 41 percent in real terms over the last decade, unlike fresh food. This makes fat and sugar mixed with wood pulp a more affordable “choice” for the increasing numbers of poor we have in our country.
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Australia becomes fast food nation …
All are contributing to our weighty problem through a combination of the growing number of outlets, increased marketing budgets and affordability for cash-strapped families, Ms Martin said.
[…]
“The price of fresh food is going up faster than processed food,” she said. “Meal deals where you can feed four people for $20 make feeding a family relatively cheap, and people are very price sensitive.
http://www.news.com.au/national/obesity-levels-show-australia-is-the-chubby-country/story-e6frfkvr-1226064083008
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Thus I was right, while you were wrong, Mark.
I referenced evidence in support of my claims too,m unlike the ipse dixit opinionated believer that is you.
If everybody spent half as much time creating wealth instead of whining about how much the other guy has we would have a lot more wealth and twice as much time.
Furthermore I believe that these left/liberal folk are indulging in displacement behavior. Their choice of administration has totally failed them but that can’t be true so the blame instead, corporate America.
It’s a disgrace really.
“Furthermore I believe that these left/liberal folk are indulging in displacement behavior. Their choice of administration has totally failed them but that can’t be true so the blame instead, corporate America.”
The ever whining “intelligencia” will never admit they were wrong. They just move on to another location for their drive-by attacks. I expect that they will pick some large company to use as an example. Hope it’s one in my portfolio and that the whiners get what’s coming to them. I expect a market recovery soon, now that the linens are being aired.
I love how the left calls the TEA party, teabaggers…..if they only knew what teabagging meant. Are they really “useful idiots”? or are they useless idiots? HMMMM…that’s something to ponder.
These people don’t understand wealth creation. Like Marx, they only believe in redistribution. It’s the ghost of Malthus — there is only so much wealth to go around, so if somebody has more than their ‘fair share,’ it means somebody else must have less.
These people also don’t understand that they are asking to make things worse. Nothing they are asking for will create jobs. Sucking billions out of the economy won’t create job. Raising the cost of doing business will accelerate the loss of jobs (just look at the Obama record) and accelerate the loss of capital from the USA. It’s a downward spiral.