Occupy Wall Street Is The Voice of A Generation

[Forest_Dump]

I want to come back to the first sentence but I thought I would first deal with a few smaller issues.

It is also important to keep in mind that what makes the Wallstreet people so powerful is our own greed.

Aside from the Gordon Geko quote of greed being good, which was taken up as a kind of mantra by the neo-cons, I think it is important to remember that we actually have all kinds of laws to protect even the most greedy. Most of what we call illegal cons or scams work because they target the greedy. Whether we are talking about illegal gambling, pyramid schemes, internet investment offers for some African diamond mine or a chunk of some foreign investment account, etc., these can only work by preying on the greedy. I can only trust you don't mean that retired folk who are greedy enough to want to buy a more efficient furnace should be victim to what turns out to be a fraudulent contractor just because they wanted to save a few bucks.

The current protest also lack perspective. It is important to look at the communist economies of Russia, China, and Cuba to see the dangers of the alternatives.

Sorry but this is an old example of a false dichotomy but one that seems to have an odd resonance with Americans in particular. The argument seems to be that the only alternative to completely unregulated capitalism is absolute communism under a dictator. There is actually a lot of room in between. In fact, I have certainly long argued that the supply side economic revolution which includes the opening of free market spheres is not very capitalistic at all. What it has accomplished is forcing the competition down so that workers (and tax payers) are the ones forced to compete through accepting lower wages, benefits, job security, etc., while those at the top (i.e., the corporate owners, etc.) can reap disproportionate benefits. They do this in two ways. First, deregulation in the movement of money has meant they can export wealth to the country where they can receive the benefits of the lowest tax rates. Second, they can form multinational monopolies and cartels ultimately reducing or eliminating competition for their products.

To give an example of the latter, one can point to contrasts between the past and the present in some key economic products. Throughout the 20th century, one of the biggest economic impacts has been the rise of the automobile industry. Because of protectionist policies and government (i.e., tax payer) support, some countries like the US (but also, of course, Japan, Germany, Sweden, for a while England, the Italians at least with their trade mark sports cars, etc.) did very well. Others (and I would include Canada, France and of course Russia) didn't compete as well. Similar differences in countries competitive developments, complete with both winners and losers, can be cited in terms of aircraft, weapons and weapon systems, even clothing styles, household appliances, etc. Now we don't have those same regional differences because the big boys, operating through their multinational platforms (ultimately thanks to what different governments and tax payers have given them in terms of economic and regulatory freedoms, etc.) can quickly and easily squash any regulatory policy of fiscal spending (i.e., government or military, etc., investment) that doesn't favour them. We are, I would argue not seeing much in the way of competition at the top (i.e., witness the government bailouts of the big businesses in a trickle down format in 2008) but only at the bottom in workers wages, etc. Sure we are seeing some reduction in prices of goods and services but these are being marketed to all the people who have had to tighten their belts and thus have had stagnant or reduced spending power for the last 30 years.

Historically the failure of the US economy is going to look pretty week in comparison to the implosion of the Soviet Union.

Truth be told, I have long argued that the US would go the same way as the USSR but it would just take longer because of the deeper pockets built up from before. While I am not convinced the fall is exactly immanent, the combined effects of trickle down economics, which ultimately means only that tax payers/workers (and I certainly include small, medium and even somewhat big businesses) have to shoulder the weight of various kinds of cost cutting by being more "competitive"in terms of salary and wage reduction, benefit reduction, job security (and this is important too because all economists will note that peoples sense of security and optimism about the future has an impact on the domestic economy), etc., and consequently, for the last 30 years, for most people (in this context identified as the "99%") their contribution to the economy has fallen. On the other hand, the rise of more global free trade, has, as I said, reduced competition and allowed large corporations to siphon wealth out of the former economic giants. The US cannot continue this way since they only have increasingly limited fiscal policy that has to be balanced against rising debt to fight even minor fluctuations in the global economy. The fall will happen from within by the increasingly angry majority who have had to accept less and less with each passing decade.

[Forest_Dump]

I hope that none of us mean those people because I'm sure there are a lot of hardworking honest people on Wallstreet.

I wanted to focus on this one because I do think there is room for discussion on who is or perhaps should be represented on the different sides of this issue. However I do think the those people component is well enough identified as that 1% who have disproportionate amounts of wealth and political clout. I will however grant that those people probably do include a lot of hard working, honest and smart people. However, those people also learned to tilt the playing field unambiguously in their own favour.

One way to give this some perspective might be recognising that those people, as an economic niche, have actually been around for a very long time in some ways, and in fact since the beginning of complex society. In the past, those people who were responsible for distributing resources within early states were the bureaucrats who were appointed by and held answerable to the elite, i.e., the aristocracy and the religious authorities. What has changed is that these people now are no longer answerable (at least in any meaningful way) to anyone, given the all the deregulation they have managed to get through lobbying, and have become the elite, literally. And of course they make far far more off their activities than any head of state (well at least any head of state that has to answer to elections, any measure of conflict of interest at least while in office, etc.). Now this reconstructed bureaucracy makes more on Jan 1 than the average tax paying worker makes in a year and gets far more tax breaks plus the increased capacity to use foreign tax shelters.

Now I have to admit that I still have reservations about those on the other side of the fence who are referring to themselves as the 99% and seem to want to argue that they can speak for everyone else. Unfortunately I don't have the time but suffice to say that up to now, those who are saying they represent the other "99%" appear to me to represent an even smaller percentage than the "1%". However, while still a weak movement, the Occupy Wall Street movement does seem to be attracting more center of the road folks, albeit somewhat left in comparison to the two main political parties, including people like organised labour who are certainly among the more liberal of the "99%". Hopefully if and as more people do join the movement, it will sway the Dems to at least some degree and quite possibly some of those who took some interest in the initial Tea Party movement before it was taken over by the extremist radical right. of course, some of the initial movers of the OWS are objecting to the inevitable as that movement grows but it is inevitable that the OWS must move towards the middle if they are to indeed to make any real headway other than just reflecting the views of a radical and doomed tiny ultra left. The US is still a huge, although diminishing, but fragile economy that must be carefully managed. Some of those who will be absolutely necessary to protect and regain the desired economic prospects are among those who work in Wall Street and they can't all be taken away in handcuffs or moved into government employ. But they do need to be regulated for the benefit of the local economy and not just international business interests and taxed at a rate that the domestic economy will have a more equitable and, I would argue ultimately efficient, etc., distribution of wealth, resources and political power.

[Sisyphus]

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/co ... 816001.htm

Ever since Abraham Lincoln instituted the first income tax to help pay for the Civil War, the U.S. tax system has been built around two principles of fairness: The rich have always faced higher tax rates than the poor, and no form of income has been immune from taxation. Wages, dividends, interest, capital gains--all have felt the relentless bite of the tax collector.


Until now. On Jan. 7, President George W. Bush proposed fully exempting dividends from the federal personal income tax, a bold step that even the great tax-cutter himself, Ronald Reagan, never tried. This elimination of the tax on dividends--a far more ambitious move than expected--accounted for over half of Bush's proposed $674 billion economic-stimulus package. Also included in the plan: accelerating income tax cuts scheduled for later in the decade, investment incentives for small businesses, and a modest amount of money for job retraining.

Bush justified his proposals by saying that they would put more people back to work in the short run by pumping tens of billions of fiscal stimulus into the economy in 2003 and 2004. At the same time, he argued that the elimination of the dividend tax would encourage investment and lay the groundwork for growth and prosperity in the long run. Democrats countered with the undeniable fact that the biggest beneficiaries of the tax cuts would be the well-to-do. Estimates from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center suggest that 60% of the benefits in 2003 will go to taxpayers with an adjusted gross income of more than $100,000. That rises to nearly 70% in 2010.

Such an appeal to fairness has often proved powerful in the past. But the political and economic landscape has changed, and in the New Economy, the old rhetoric of class warfare--rich vs. poor, investor vs. worker--may be increasingly obsolete. Dividends, interest, and other capital income are more evenly distributed than they once were. Moreover, America can prosper only if investors are willing to take a chance on innovative new businesses and technologies--and one way to encourage them to do that is to cut the taxes they pay.

Indeed, the 1990s showed that a fast-growth, high-productivity economy can benefit poor and average Americans even as it generates increasing income inequality. During the boom years and the bust that followed, the share of income going to the top 5% of households crept up from 21% in 1993 to 22.4% in 2001. But over the same stretch, the poverty rate slid from 15% to less than 12%, despite the 2001 recession. Just as important, real wages rose significantly for the average American.

Certainly, reducing income inequality is in itself a laudable economic goal. But it's not the only one. If the benefits of widespread and growing prosperity outweigh the negatives of growing inequality, then the Bush plan must be judged in that context. If eliminating the tax on dividends and implementing the other parts of the Bush proposal can stimulate growth and create jobs, that will help hold down poverty and boost wages. In the end, the price of improving performance at the bottom end of the economy may well be outsize gains at the top, but that may be a price worth paying.

The danger, of course, is that the Bush plan doesn't work to boost investment and growth. In the worst-case scenario, the extra money available to high-income taxpayers could be invested abroad or spent on imports--neither of which does anything for the U.S. economy. The result, then, would be higher budget deficits with little or nothing to show for them.

Moreover, whatever the economic merits, it's not clear that the Bush Administration has the votes in Congress to pass such a far-reaching and expensive plan. There will be plenty of changes to the scale and details of the President's proposals--not to mention attempts to rejigger it more toward short-term stimulus. Already, the Democrats have made it clear that they would like to provide more direct funds to state and local governments for such things as spending on Medicaid, homeland security, and infrastructure projects.

No matter what legislation finally passes, simply by proposing to eliminate taxes on dividends, Bush has transformed the economic debate in a way that goes far beyond the magnitude of the proposals themselves. Economists of all political stripes have long agreed that reducing taxes on capital income--of which dividends are one kind--is a good thing to do. In fact, from the economic perspective, such a reduction in capital taxes makes far more sense than simply cutting the marginal tax rate on high-income households, as Reagan did. Lower taxes on capital makes it more profitable to invest while higher rates of investment boost long-term growth and productivity. "I don't know of anything else we can do that has a similar prospect for improving incomes," says Robert Hall, a Stanford economist who also heads the business cycle dating committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Despite the consensus within the economics profession, the difficulty in reducing taxes on capital income, such as dividends and interest, always has been political. Capital income has historically been concentrated among the wealthiest taxpayers, who had big holdings of stocks and bonds. So reducing the taxes on capital income would mainly have helped the richest people--effectively making such a move a political nonstarter. "Intelligent supply-side economics often proposes regressive changes in the tax structure that if enacted would be good for growth," says Alan Blinder, a Princeton University economist and former vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve. "This is probably one of those."

But almost without notice, the concentration of capital income has been steadily decreasing. More and more, the top tax brackets are not mainly populated by wealthy investors who collect dividends and interest payments. Instead, the biggest incomes go to high-end managers and professionals, who get most of their money from salaries and other compensation, such as stock options and bonuses, along with active business owners who draw funds from their own enterprises. As recently as 1981, the top 0.5% of taxpayers got 35% of their taxable income (excluding capital gains) from dividends, interest payments, and rental income. But by the late 1990s, the same top 0.5% of taxpayers got only 16% of their income from such sources, according to a study by Emmanual Saez of University of California at Berkeley and French-based economist Thomas Piketty. That means a reduction in capital taxes no longer disproportionately benefits the top as much as it once did.

Moreover, the nature of the economy has changed over the past two decades, making reducing taxes on capital more appealing. The rise of a global economy, with increased mobility of capital between countries, means that it may backfire if an individual country--even one as large as the U.S.--tries to tax its investors too heavily. "The U.S. is pretty unique in taxing dividends the way we do," says James R. Hines Jr., a tax economist at the University of Michigan. "Almost no other high-income countries have double taxation of dividends."

Perhaps most important, the U.S. has increasingly become an economy dependent on high rates of capital spending and innovation to compete globally. Even though Silicon Valley's image has been tarnished by the tech downturn and dot-com implosion, the best way to encourage risk-taking is still to reward successful companies, entrepreneurs, investors, and workers with big gains. That means that in a high-innovation economy, lowering taxes on capital should always be a top priority, because it encourages investment and rewards success.

What about the impact of the Bush plan on workers, particularly those at the lower end of the income scale? The lesson from the 1990s is clear: Low unemployment, combined with rapid productivity growth, is the best tonic for poverty and low wages. As overall unemployment dropped below 5.5% or so in the mid-1990s, real hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers, which had been falling since the early 1980s, finally turned up. At the same time, the tight labor markets forced businesses to hire and train workers who had previously had a tough time getting jobs. That's why, in part, the unemployment rate for black workers finally dropped below 10% in the late 1990s.

All of this explains why the Bush package is good news for workers, irrespective of what happens to those at the top. In the short term, Goldman Sachs estimates the tax cuts--including bigger tax credits for families with children--would put at least $50 billion to $75 billion into the economy in 2003. Perhaps as much as $150 billion would arrive in 2004. Fiscal stimulus of that level should take at least half a percentage point off the unemployment rate, and perhaps more.

What about in the long run? Historically there's been plenty of disagreement among economists about the best way to bring down unemployment, especially at the low end. One view has been that over the long run, the sustainable unemployment rate is basically determined by demographic factors, such as education and experience. While the Bush plan does include a proposal focused on improving employability--the Personal Re-employment Accounts, which give unemployed Americans a credit to be used for training and other expenses--the amount of money involved is less than $4 billion and wouldn't have much of an effect.

But a recent paper by economists Laurence Ball of Johns Hopkins University and N. Gregory Mankiw of Harvard suggests that higher productivity growth was the key to lower unemployment in the 1990s. If that's true, a policy that encourages investment and productivity should bring growth in jobs and wages that will benefit the poor as well.

What are the downsides? While the numbers in Bush's plan sound impressive--$674 billion over 10 years--they are relatively small compared with the size of the U.S. economy. They represent considerably less than 1% of GDP over the next decade, based on reasonable estimates for growth. And the estimates from Bush's Council of Economic Advisers acknowledge that eliminating the tax on dividends will only boost the nation's stock of plant and equipment by less than 1%. By comparison, during the investment boom of the second half of the 1990s, the nonresidential capital stock grew at almost 4% per year. "The world is made a little better by tax reform, but it is not transformed" says economist Hall of Stanford.

The other big problem could be the rise in the budget deficit as taxes are cut. The Bush Administration is assuming that faster growth can provide enough extra tax revenue to keep the deficit from exploding out of control. But many economists are skeptical. "What I'm most worried about is the attitude that we can keep giving away revenue as if there were no long-run budget constraint," says Blinder. "When you look out to the long run, we're desperately in need of revenue."

That suggests it would be a good idea to combine the reduction of tax rates with a broad attack on corporate tax shelters and loopholes. If dividends are not going to be taxed at the individual level, it should be more difficult for corporations to evade taxes on their profits by tricks such as moving their official headquarters overseas. The Bush plan goes part of the way in that direction, but more needs to be done to convince citizens that corporations are paying their fair share.

President Bush has offered his opening bid in a lengthy legislative process. But at a time when the U.S. is trying to recapture some of that New Economy magic, it's a good place to start.

[wolfhnd]

I can only trust you don't mean that retired folk who are greedy enough to want to buy a more efficient furnace should be victim to what turns out to be a fraudulent contractor just because they wanted to save a few bucks.

No but I do mean the teacher who lost her entire savings in the dot-com fiasco hoping to make unrealistic profits and the people who went out and bought more house than they could afford because it was a good "investment"

Sorry but this is an old example of a false dichotomy but one that seems to have an odd resonance with Americans in particular.

Forest you say this as if it was self-evident that a false dichotomy exists and I hope this is not just an impulse to negatively reply to something the right uses to prop up there positions. I'm certain that the failures of communism in Cuba, Russia, and China are self-evident and require no right wing propaganda to illuminate there failures. My proof is that only one of these countries now have economies that are totally regulated by party politics. The other "communist" experiments on a smaller scale such as Amana Colonies, hippie communes, and a variety of similar experiments express their failure in the fact they no longer exist. I would never argue that the only alternative to capitalism is a communistic dictatorship. I would argue that there is plenty of evidence that central control and regulations will not necessarily succeed. Your statement could also be construed as anti US. I really don't care if the United States is the most powerful nation in the world and can't really see it as a blessing. That said the United States did not invent the international banking system and investment. The idea that everything that is wrong in the world is the United States fault is simply absurd. I would future argue that there is evidence to suggest that the US reluctantly took up the mantle of world power after being forced to take part in two world wars. Of all the inheritors of the Roman Empire the US was the least enthusiastic colonial power among the wester European nations. I really do think that a nation that only reluctantly spends 3 percent of GNP on the military cannot be considered overly aggressive in terms of world domination. The mainstream has always and still is in the United States reluctant to engage in foreign wars unless they feel unavoidably provoked and even then seem to have no stomach for protracted engagements.

In fact, I have certainly long argued that the supply side economic revolution which includes the opening of free market spheres is not very capitalistic at all.

I believe I pointed out that this seemed more fascist than conservative.

Truth be told, I have long argued that the US would go the same way as the USSR

This is of course why we want banking and investment reform to prevent the US from failing. I found the breakup of the Soviet Union extremely frightening and did not cheer its demise as events such as we saw in the Balkans were sure to follow. The critical difference is that the US is in no way as imperial as the Soviet Union. Failure to understand the critical role the US played in stabilizing Europe and the far east after world war two seems to be fashionable these days. All one needs do is look at the countries that came under allied control and those that came under Stalin to see the critical differences between the two cultures. I don't offer this in defense of US foreign policy over the last six decades but to illustrate the contrast. I'm not a nationalist but I'm also not going to jump on the Norm Chomsky band wagon of self-hatred.

I do think the those people component is well enough identified as that 1% who have disproportionate amounts of wealth and political clout.

This one is easy :-) There is simply no evidence that the 99% would be better off is the wealth and political clout was more equitably distributed. While it is easy to look at trickle down economics and see the harm that it has done to the working class and even society as a whole there is no guarantee that alternative political arrangements would have faired any better. Clearly decent paying jobs for all members of society would elevated the civilization considerably but the question is how to get there. There is plenty of historical evidence to suggest that extremes of both capitalism or socialism are not the answer.

Revolutions that come from the bottom tend to not succeed. The Russian Revolution, the French Revolution, and similar cataclysms of the masses lack one critical element and that is order. The first goal of any civilization must be order for that is the basis that makes society functional. Revolutions started by the élite such as the American Aristocracy in the revolutionary war seem to fare better and that has a bearing on this discussion. The United States simply doesn't seem to have the moral fabric to entice the élite into reform.

I find the masses equally lacking as poverty is no proof of morality, we get what we deserve.

[wolfhnd]

Michael J. Mandel in New York, with Rich Miller in Washington in 2003 wrote:

Interesting article that highlights the difficulties in setting economic policy. As it relates to the Wall Street protest I'm not sure but certainly some trial and error process is going to be needed. Small steps and patience would be the order of the day.

[Forest_Dump]

There were a few things here that I wanted to think about for a bit but first my editor/teacher eye was caught by a couple of things:

Forest you say this as if it was self-evident that a false dichotomy exists and I hope this is not just an impulse to negatively reply to something the right uses to prop up there positions. I'm certain that the failures of communism in Cuba, Russia, and China are self-evident and require no right wing propaganda to illuminate there failures.

Since "there" was used twice here in what appears to be a possessive sense, you probably mean "their".

If you believe there really is a dichotomy here then I would say it is a false dichotomy. For one thing (and I think it is a very important thing) I actually admire China for being more willing to loosen the ideological grip and adopting a more capitalistic form of economy. They certainly needed to shift to the "right" and allow more individual initiative and profit generation. This has been adopted by both the "strong repressive" government (which, by the way, is a characterization that is not felt in China based on my many talks with Chinese students) and the people. To me it shows a good flexibility in thinking that is necessary for the changing world we live in. In contrast, I think the US desperately needs some shifting to the "left" (and that it is inevitable one way or another). However, it seems to me that comparatively the US is more ideologically rigid and both the government and the people are less flexible in their thinking to date. Again, I expect this to change with the main question being how smoothly the inevitable and unavoidable change will be.

The other "communist" experiments on a smaller scale such as Amana Colonies, hippie communes, and a variety of similar experiments express their failure in the fact they no longer exist.

Well, there are certainly a lot more variations that could be considered ranging from some of the hippie communes still around to the Israeli kibbutzes, Nicaragua or Sweden. Even some of the earlier US colonies. I would also be cautious about how continuity is balanced against change historically. China certainly has changed over time, for example, and maybe Cuba less so. The US is less capitalistic than it was in the late 19th and early 20th century but more so than it was in the 1960s and 1970s. One could as easily say that either of those "experiments" also failed and no longer exist but I am not sure how solid those kinds of assessments would necessarily be. Could we call the heightened Cold War mentality of the 1950s, McCarthyism or the Nixon era failed experiments? I would call Reganomics a failed experiment but it is still definitely around.

I would argue that there is plenty of evidence that central control and regulations will not necessarily succeed.

My short answer is that this is a matter of degree not a matter of kind. IMHO, there must be (and always has been) some level of central control and regulation (typically now done through monetary policy but with some measure of fiscal policy). However the amount and kind of central control and regulation must be flexible to meet on-going change. My complaint with the US leans more towards my belief that the US is far more ideologically driven with far too little attention paid to the pragmatic realities, particularly over the long term. I do think, for example, economic markers such as the Dow Jones, etc., are important but so is measuring the overall rate of unemployment and poverty, the distribution of wealth, etc. The extremes are the danger and the US economy has been moving steadily towards the extreme with too much unequal distribution of wealth more like what you see in many third world countries. While I don't believe too much flattening or equalizing the distribution of wealth is healthy either, the overall trend in the US is not good either and one symptom of this is the increasing polarization of US politics with both the Tea Party and the OWS movement being examples of this increasing polarization (and neither of the more extreme sides being a positive sign).

Your statement could also be construed as anti US.

I am aware of this kind of sentiment but I certainly don't consider myself to be necessarily anti- or pro-US any more than I consider myself to be necessarily anti- or pro-Cuba, China, England, Sweden, etc. But I suppose of all the foreign countries I know something about, I know more about the US and pay more attention to the US because Canada is so closely linked to the US in so many ways. (And perhaps to illustrate this, as I write this, in the background I am watching dvd's of "The West Wing".) If I were to choose another country to move to, it would most likely be the US but the decision is not as easy as you might think. There are more commonalities in terms of language and culture as well as climate (I don't like too much heat and don't think I could live anywhere that didn't have 3-4 months of solid winter and lots of trees and lakes). But on the other hand, US health care, the crime rates (for example, while I am pro guns I am also pro gun control and the number of people wandering around heavily armed in the US is definitely not good, IMHO, even though when I am out in the bush in bear country I always carry), the xenophobia, etc., are definite concerns.

(As to the latter, I just spent a month spending all my free time helping out in an election campaign for the local Liberals (we won - solidly). The candidate is from the south Asian community (Punjab) and I spent more continuous time with Muslims and Hindus than ever before. And it was a terrific, positive experience with some of the most open, friendly, hospitable people I have ever met. And the food was terrific too, particularly since I have been to so many places in the US where the food was so bland I found it tough to eat.)

[wolfhnd]

Since we are discussing how we see the world I will share some odd thoughts. To illustrate my basic mistrust of movements such as the OWL I want to make some additional comments about US history. My starting premise is that most revolutions have unintended and negative side effects.

As an alternative history suppose the American Revolution had not happened. Slavery may have ended in 1833 without a civil war. Germany may never have started the second world war faced with the combined strength of Britain and the United States. Even if the first world war started it may have ended sooner and the Russian Revolution would have been less catastrophic and democracy may have prevailed. If the second world war had still taken place maybe the Germans would have been stopped in France. The Vietnam war would almost certainly have never happened. The United States would be more liberal and relationships with Canada more mutually beneficial. If I had been alive at the time I would not have supported the American Revolution but of course after it had started anyone living in the colonies would have to make a hard choice. Taxation without representation is a serious matter but so is refusing to pay your fair share of the tax burden for your defense. I have always thought that the American aristocracy harbored a deep resentment at their low status and faced with no way to elevate it were overly sympathetic to separation from England.

Before I start on a journey I like to know where I'm going.

[Marshall]

Here are some videos of the protests... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/2 ... lp00000009

These are the best movies:
people finally try to come to grips with those who corrupt the lawmakers, feudalize society and f**k up the planet.
Good luck young people.

Thanks for posting the videos Sisyphus.

[Marshall]

Anyone who looks at mostly young citizens marching in the street protesting the corruption of Wall Street and the harm it spawns, and decides that what is warranted is mockery and scorn rather than support, is either not seeing things clearly or is motivated by objectives other than the ones being presented.

... These are not the kind of issue that simply raising moral indignation can address because they are inherently more complex...

However there is a time for moral indignation.

I wish I were there. It's about time people got fed up with getting screwed. I loved the sign in the windows at the Chicago Board of Trade, "We are the 1 %." ...We bailed these bozos out not long ago, didn't we? God, were we dumb.

Yes.

[wolfhnd]

Don't construe anything I have said to mean that I'm not happy to see the protest I think it is great. I hope that at least some of the "elite" pick up the mantle and help formulate solutions that provide stability.

It's not clear that anyone involved understands that the "we" that bailed them out is a bit misleading. A hate to harp on this but not only is there problems with the banking and investment sectors of the economy but the creation of real wealth lags far behind money created by derivatives and fractional banking. The affluence that allows people the luxury of protesting the use of a small percentage of their income tax to prop up the banking sector is largely derived by cheap imports, exploited foreign labor, subsidized agriculture, exported pollution, cheap energy, and non union labor. Only a small percentage of the American work force is actually involved in creating tangible wealth. Their are many reasons why the widening gap between the rich and the rest of the population is undesirable but the exploitation of the professional middle class is probably the least important.

It's also clear that there a few temporary benefits to the unequal distribution of "money" the most important being the reduction in consumption, less trade imbalance, and the fact that luxury goods are less resources consumptive than mass production. The rich also tie up large amounts of the fake wealth represented by numbers that have no real counterpart in terms of real wealth which in tern relieves pressure on the already weak currency. Redistribution of wealth that does not actually exist is not going to do anyone any good.

China has been caught on the wrong side of the money creation wizards in international banking and is trying to figure out how to recapture the wealth that it's productivity created without causing the whole house of cards to collapse. To me their moral indignation is more justified than that of most Americans.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125234556777390497.html

http://www.economist.com/node/14365060

[Sisyphus]

Here's another image and quote that's too big for a thumbnail. https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hp ... 9176_n.jpg

Job Destroyers Don't Deserve a Tax Holiday

A coalition of big businesses is waging a campaign for a massive tax holiday on corporate profits stashed overseas. Its lobbyists claim that this windfall would create millions of jobs. If our lawmakers buy that, they've got very short memories.

The Reign of the One Percenters: How Income Inequality Is Destroying Our Culture

The corporate elite have wrecked New York's neighborhoods, driving out artists and intellectuals and stifling the creative culture that made the city so famous.

5 New Rules for an Economy That Works

The 99% is growing stronger and larger. The next step is to move the country. Which requires us to decide where we want to go and how we want to get there.

[Sisyphus]

[Whut]

Gonna chime in with my thoughts, I wonder what you guys make of them,

I think Canady is right, I would not expect any 'revolution' to come from this, or atleast a 'peoples revolution'.

Something worries me about this situation, though. There is no focus, no real common ideal. Rather they have all identified fairly similar problems, but the general tone, as I gather is: 'tear it all down' for a lot of those involved in these movements, if there is any consensus at all, which there isn't.

Why is that worrying? Because there is no way to really appease these protests.

This will either fizzle out till a later date, or end up in mass civil unrest. I don't see this truly fizzling out any time soon. In fact I see this going global before that ever happens. Anyway, time will tell in that respect.

I also don't agree that this is an "unorganized, spontaneous, grassroots" thing either. This has been carefully planned - Just not by those protesting! Ironically, I'd say the '1%' has more to do with these protests happening than the '99%' ever did at a planning level. This may be the voice of a generation, but is it really our voice?

The greatest problem here, IMO, is a whole generation has practically lost faith in their own countries ideals. Young people are loosing faith in the free world and everything it stands for. I read about things like subversion, and one has to ask myself, what is really happening here?

There's a war that the western world has forgotten to fight right. The information war. The propaganda war...

We in the west have troops in the middle east. Yet in London, kids are attacking their very own communities. I don't see why we wont be seeing the same in America soon. More and more, people are turning against, being turned against, the very ideals that made the free world what it is. But it's subtle, very subtle... remember, the worst lie is a half truth.

RT news loves telling us how the big bad USA have done this, and the big bad USA have done that. In fact one finds it hard to even find a story where they don't. A few months ago I would say we need to stop using propaganda, we need to educate. But that's not going to happen, I don't think a civilization in history has yet to operate without a propaganda machine. It is what it is.

I know one thing, I'd take American propaganda over Russian any day of the week :S

I can't believe I ever bought this crap.

Perhaps they should occupy a library, hopefully the history section.



'The voice of a generation, of spoiled kids'.

I should know, I'm one of them. Speak for yourself you might say... well, the masses are speaking...

But, that's enough cynicism from me for one day!

[moranity]

this is my opinion of how propaganda relates to the current situation:
good journalism tells the facts, not an opinion, but the facts, allowing equal humans to develop their own, informed, opinions. Alot of good journalism has revealed alot of facts about the way the U.S.A. government behaves and the way banks and coorporations behave. People have formed their own, informed opinions now and are acting accordingly. Propaganda can only function when the facts can not be had, but now the facts can be had.
so now i have to accept that, in my name, the democratically elected government of the U.K. deported foriegn and british citizens to other countries to be tortured.

[wolfhnd]

Gonna chime in with my thoughts, I wonder what you guys make of them

Whut my reaction is very similiar to yours but there is a crisis in the economic structure that urgently needs to be addressed. The I% seem to always be bent on self destruction and excess if left to their own devises and of course the rest of us suffer for their folly. While the protests may be undirected and hold their own danger of excess at least it raises important issues to a conscious level which is more than the majority of the 99% are doing.

With the senate's rejection of Obama's job program, which is desperately needed, it is becoming clear that congress is not going to address the economic issues we face. You ask where are the values that should be transmitted to the young and I wonder if our elected oficials even know what those values are. Let me take a shot at them. Our western ideals value the individual's human rights above the collective, we believe that an educated population can govern themselves, we believe that hard work is fullfilling and that trade and commerse brings people together, we believe in liberty and equal rights, and finally we believe that limited capitalism regulated by law offers the greatest personal freedom.

[Sisyphus]

5 Conservative Economic Myths Occupy Wall St. Is Helping Bust

For decades the corporate media has force-fed “conventional wisdom” free-market economic nonsense to the American public. We have been told that it’s good to give more and more to the wealthy few, that it’s good to send jobs and money out of the country, and especially that the people who run the big corporations are better and more “efficient” at deciding what’s best for the rest of us. As those decades passed we watched as the wealthy few get wealthier and fewer, while the rest of us – the 99 percent – fall further and further behind. But we have had it explained to us that our lying eyes aren’t seeing what they are seeing, and that the obvious isn’t what it is. We have been seemingly powerless to change this.

[wolfhnd]

Inflation adjusted household income chart.

http://www.davemanuel.com/median-household-income.php

Considering the serious unemployment household income remains amazingly stable.

[Sisyphus]

CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

The problem in a nutshell is this: Inequality in this country has hit a level that has been seen only once in the nation's history, and unemployment has reached a level that has been seen only once since the Great Depression. And, at the same time, corporate profits are at a record high.

In other words, in the never-ending tug-of-war between "labor" and "capital," there has rarely—if ever—been a time when "capital" was so clearly winning.

15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Cliché, sure, but it's more true than at any time since the Gilded Age.

While politicians gloat about our "recovery," our poor are getting poorer, our average wages are still falling behind inflation, and social mobility is at an all-time low.

But, yes, if you're in that top 1%, life in America is grand.

The GOP Continues Its Fine Tradition Of Doing Jack Sh _ t About Unemployment

[wolfhnd]

Never before has the rich had so much imaginary wealth, that is the real story. The widening gulf between the rich and everyone else is a serious problem especially in terms of political clout but the imbalance in the value of directives of all sorts and actual, meaningful capital is an even worse problem. This house of cards was started by the Neo-Cons and Reagan. Reagan was senile and the Neo-Cons just plain stupid. So what do we do? If we don't want to end up looking like a third world country we had better find a way to increase employment but we have to deal with real value to make that meaningful. We have to actually produce some things that have real economic value both intellectual and physical property. Putting the rabbit back in the hat is not going to be that easy however because to create jobs you need capital with a big C to make it happen and that takes time to build. Does any of this mean anything to anyone?

[Forest_Dump]

Never before has the rich had so much imaginary wealth, that is the real story. The widening gulf between the rich and everyone else is a serious problem especially in terms of political clout but the imbalance in the value of directives of all sorts and actual, meaningful capital is an even worse problem. This house of cards was started by the Neo-Cons and Reagan. Reagan was senile and the Neo-Cons just plain stupid. So what do we do? If we don't want to end up looking like a third world country we had better find a way to increase employment but we have to deal with real value to make that meaningful. We have to actually produce some things that have real economic value both intellectual and physical property. Putting the rabbit back in the hat is not going to be that easy however because to create jobs you need capital with a big C to make it happen and that takes time to build. Does any of this mean anything to anyone?

I am not really sure where you are going with this although I suspect I might agree. However, part of the confusion might be in what you might be implying about "real wealth". Just in case this is intended to refer to what might be unrealistic assumptions about how wealth is reckoned, we do now do most of our economic transactions in terms of electronics which certainly includes the use of credit or debit cards, on-line transactions, etc. But that is no more arbitrary than using cheques, or even printed paper or minted coin money. Even the value of gold us just as symbolic (you can't eat it) and ultimately based on supply and demand (gold and diamonds will have no value if enough people simply decide it has no real value beyond display purposes as a symbol of wealth). Almost nothing has value unless people believe it has value. And ultimately, there are real reasons why potatoes are not used as currency.

[wolfhnd]

Almost nothing has value unless people believe it has value.

There is an unavoidable truth here but the other side is that some things have intrinsic survival value. In Japan rice was once the medium of exchange http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Djima_Rice_Exchange because it represented real political power. Often rarity increases value but that is not always the case as seen in the above example. Most traditional moneys were things that could not be arbitrarily created or destroyed in the hope of creating a stable medium of exchange. The stock market is the exact opposite where "value" is determined entirely by demand. The call to recreate a gold standard to restore stability to currency recognizes that their is a danger in a system where capital represented in currency is totally arbitrary. A gold standard fails however to recognize the dynamic nature of economies. We are looking for a balance between those things that are desired and those that are necessary in establishing value. Derivatives however do not address either of these conditions and moneys are often just created at will by institutions directly connected to no governing body. It is estimated that derivatives now equal 200 times the value of all real property. I don't think there is a need to eliminate derivatives or create a gold standard but stability must be restored. While all monetary systems operate on faith in the system that faith must be supported by material wealth in the form of labor, resources, intellect, and physical property to some reasonable extent.

[Forest_Dump]

Just on the side, by "directives" do you actually mean "derivatives" here?

[CanadysPeak]

Never before has the rich had so much imaginary wealth, that is the real story. The widening gulf between the rich and everyone else is a serious problem especially in terms of political clout but the imbalance in the value of directives of all sorts and actual, meaningful capital is an even worse problem. This house of cards was started by the Neo-Cons and Reagan. Reagan was senile and the Neo-Cons just plain stupid. So what do we do? If we don't want to end up looking like a third world country we had better find a way to increase employment but we have to deal with real value to make that meaningful. We have to actually produce some things that have real economic value both intellectual and physical property. Putting the rabbit back in the hat is not going to be that easy however because to create jobs you need capital with a big C to make it happen and that takes time to build. Does any of this mean anything to anyone?

I wish I could agree with you. God, I wish I could agree with you. It's a bit dated, but there was (for me) a scary story in Forbes back in August,

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedennin ... n-the-usa/

I have spent time for several months trying to buy a few capacitors (The problem is that I don't want 100 000 of them). There are none made in the US, none, so I can't call the factory to see what they have on hand that they might sample me with.

Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum have a new book out, That Used to Be Us about our loss in manufacturing and intellectual leadership to the PacRim. Without manufacturing, we failed to maintain process engineering. Without process engineering expertise, we can't make products that compete. Without making products that compete, our workers will earn less than industrial (or IP) workers in the PacRim.

So, yeah, I wish to God I could agree with you about producing some things here, but I really fear that all we can make anymore are weapons systems and fattening food.

[wolfhnd]

It's not really necessary that we produce manufactured goods to be competitive in the short run. Intellectual properties, banking services etc. can substitute for manufactured goods as long as a reasonable balance of trade is maintained. I don't think Canada and the United States have fully capitalized on agricultural exports. Agricultural exports should help balance trade if we can get oil imports under control. Imports from China also need to be controlled but due to the political implications of reducing trade with China I think that can wait. If we can survive for a few more decades we should see a continuation of the trend where rising standards of living in current exporting countries should be helpful in competing. The trend in rising living standards is reflected in historical terms by the migration of low wages from Japan to Korea and then on to Indonesia and some balance in living standards is essential to the world economy. Some lowering of standard of living in the United States is likely to be unavoidable while infrastructure is brought up to date in the manufacturing arena but competing there is not out of the question. To much of our productive capital is being spent on luxury homes, automobiles, and other luxuries. To little is being spent on transportation, R&D, and energy independence. The revolution that is needed is a recognition that that standard of living should not be measure in consumption alone but it is also important what kind of community, state, and country we live in.

P.S. Thanks Forest I will try and pay more attention to my typing.

[Sisyphus]

lol

Nearly 100,000 millionaires pay lower tax rates than middle class

As I noted below, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has released a new report documenting that the analogy used by Obama and Democrats — there are many Warren Buffetts out there who pay lower tax rates than their secretaries — is entirely accurate.

But there’s one key finding buried the report that deserves wider play: It finds that there are nearly 100,000 people in this category.

New polls show Americans support Occupy Wall Street, can't stand Tea Party

The Occupy Wall Street movement has exploded all over the country as Americans have gathered together to voice their anger at the top 1% who have continued to rob America. According to new NBC/Wall Street journal and TIME magazine polls, the Occupy Wall Street movement has become more popular than the destructive Tea Party. The polls show an average support of 46% for the Occupy Wall Street movement, while showing only 27% support for the Tea Party. In addition, only 20% of all Americans oppose the Occupy Wall Street movement at the same time nearly double, at 38%, feel negatively about the Tea Party.

[Sisyphus]

How Christian Fundamentalism Helped Empower the Top 1% to Exploit the 99%

As the Occupy Wall street movement spreads across the country and the world, we must bring attention to the enablers of the top 1 percent exploiting the 99. Fundamentalist religion made this exploitation possible.

Evangelical fundamentalism helped empower the top 1 percent. Note I didn't say religion per se, but religious fundamentalism.

Why? Because without the fundamentalists and their "values" issues, many in the lower 99 percent could not have been convinced to vote against their (our) economic self-interest; in other words, vote for Republicans who only serve billionaires.

[Sisyphus]

A Movement Too Big to Fail

There is no danger that the protesters who have occupied squares, parks and plazas across the nation in defiance of the corporate state will be co-opted by the Democratic Party or groups like MoveOn. The faux liberal reformers, whose abject failure to stand up for the rights of the poor and the working class, have signed on to this movement because they fear becoming irrelevant. Union leaders, who pull down salaries five times that of the rank and file as they bargain away rights and benefits, know the foundations are shaking. So do Democratic politicians from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi. So do the array of “liberal” groups and institutions, including the press, that have worked to funnel discontented voters back into the swamp of electoral politics and mocked those who called for profound structural reform.

[Sisyphus]

Everything The Media Told You About Occupy Wall Street Is Wrong

After 10 days out of town, I finally made it to Occupy Wall Street on Tuesday and had a chance to see for myself what's going on. My conclusion: almost everything the media told me about the protest is wrong.

Inequality Is More Popular Than Ever

Here's the type of blatantly contradictory and self-harming political belief that Americans are famous for: during this recession, support for redistribution of wealth has actually gone down. (This is why every American political economist is for shit, historically.) Researchers publishing in Scientific American suggest the problem is that we are willing to throw the poorest members of society to the economic wolves in order to ensure that we always have someone to look down on:

How does last-place aversion play out with regard to redistribution? In our surveys, we asked Americans whether they supported an increase to the minimum wage, currently $7.25 per hour. Those making $7.25 or below were very likely to support the increase – after all, they would be immediate beneficiaries. In addition, people making substantially more than $7.25 were also fairly positive towards the increase. Which group was the most opposed? Those making just above the minimum wage, between $7.26 and $8.25.

[Sisyphus]

The Shocking, Graphic Data That Shows Exactly What Motivates the Occupy Movement

What are the Occupy Wall Street protesters angry about? The same things we’re all angry about. The only difference is the protestors turned their anger into public action. Occupy Wall Street lit the embers and the sparks are flying. Whether it turns into a genuine populist prairie fire depends on all of us.

[Sisyphus]

Alan Grayson's defense of Occupy Wall Street is impassioned, but is it accurate?

Grayson's defense of the Occupy Wall Street movement earned him praise from the left-wing blosophere and pundits for its pith. No pundit or official in the movement's first month had quite articulated the protesters' qualms -- high unemployment, expensive health care, poverty and underwater mortgage payments -- as Grayson did in 20 seconds on Maher's show. We examined each of his economic claims and found them accurate, point for point. We rate his claim True.