Occupy Wall Street

Post Reply New Topic

it takes no moral courage to do what they do, it is a more spiritual time pass for the individual then say going to the theater or attending the local farmers market.

a good thing that christian non-secularized mexicans and evangelicals are the only groups reproducing at replacement rates in America. Hopefully when my generation passes off America to them, it will not be too unfixable of an America.

I think the current proposal is to raise taxes on individuals making over $1 million/year, so that does not include most accountants, lawyers, doctors, etc. The only people making that kinda change are corporate execs and celebrities.

And you can't raise taxes on the poor just as you can't squeeze blood from a stone. You can take from abundance, not from supply. It solves nothing to raise taxes on person or family who can barely able afford the rent.

QFT

The partisan bullsh*t is a sideshow. I think the tea party started off in the right direction (government waste = bad), but then fell into the partisan trap, pulling in family values and other issues into the mix. There are similarities with this movement, but I'm afraid it'll fall into the same partisan trap.

Campaign finance reform is essential. Without it, real change will continue to be elusive.

Actually the tea party is right to focus entirely on DC.

A CEO recently told Congress about how he was fined for hiring too many people: “I incurred more than $500,000 in legal bills to mitigate a more severe regulatory outcome as a result of hiring too many workers. I have also been prohibited from opening up additional offices. I had a major expansion plan that would have resulted in my creating hundreds of additional jobs. Regulations have forced me to put those jobs on hold.” The testimony from the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital illustrates that “job-killing” regulations are a reality, not just a conservative talking point.

Continue reading on Examiner.com Feds Fine CEO for Creating Jobs - Washington DC SCOTUS | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/scotus-in-washi ... z1ZkO5wmva

This is just plain sad, topics on forum that the same article is relevant to.

Not a credible source. All opinion, no explanation.

They even changed his original quote to exclude the term "brokers," (shown in bold) which is who Peter Schiff was looking to hire. I, for one, am not concerned at all about any shortage of brokers in this country.

Also, no one is being specific enough here. Which regulations and why should they be deemed unimportant? Do we have too many regulations? Probably, but it's not a numbers game. We certainly don't have the right regulations in place or the collapse wouldn't have happened in the first place. We probably do have a bunch of useless ones that warrant examination, but no one seems to be up for an in-depth look at it.

No one is right to focus entirely on one aspect of a problem.

Corporate interests have disproportionate access to political decision makers, and a disproportionate influence over policy making. I have no objection to individuals claiming that a policy is "bad for business." I have a very great objection to businesses buying $100,000 tables at a funraiser and stacking them with shills who will continue to pound that message. I have no objection to individuals claiming that climate science is a fraud and greenhouse gas emission regulations a retrograde step. I have a very great objection to industry paying hundreds of millions of dollars to lobbyists to prevent emerging technology from reaching the marketplace.

Corporations are the engine that keeps the economy moving. They are an essential component of any capitalist economy. But corporate leaders are accountable to no one but their shareholders (and given the modern use of proxies, rarely even to them). Given that the vast majority of publicly traded securities are in the hands of pension funds, mutual funds and insurance companies, the beneficial owners of investments are even more thoroughly removed from the activities that they have financed.

And yet you have created a political environment in which policy making can be sold to the highest bidder (or, more accurately, the largest PAC), and those bidders answer to no one but themselves.

There is much to be fixed in government, to be sure. But that should not lead anyone to the misapprehension that all is well in the corporate world.

Because repeating talking points and memes is so much easier. Peter Schiff's idea of "useless" regulations are things like minimum wages, overtime compensation, employee anti-discrimination law, etc...

indeed, peter schiff is the sort of unamerican wannabe robber baron that not only deserves no forum, but does not even deserve to be told the time of day. He is the poster child for ideas that have no place in civilized society, and I hope to meet him some day so that I can personally spit on him.

I hope you do get to meet Peter Schiff, maybe then he could pound some sense into you(only metaphorically of course ) and explain the actual consequences of certain well intention rules, subsidation, and regulations. I suppose to actual result isn't that important to people of your ilk so much as the warm fuzzy feeling that comes from "trying", meanwhile the Walmarts of the world take advantage and drive even more competition out of the market. What's the solution? More rules, more regulations, more subsidies!

We've already been to a world with the lack of regulation he's asking for. The real result was widespread poverty.

Maybe he can explain it to me but it's obvious that you can't because you're just a cheerleader.

Most of these people are "useful idiots."

They likely have no idea that they are doing the very thing the power brokers want them to do.

Protests lead to riots.

Riots produce a crisis.

Crisis gives power brokers an opportunity to do what they had planned all along.

I'd say this is an interesting development. Likely it will have its annoying angles with pacifist takeovers of structures and locking people out of public areas, the police needing to take them out and the news media saying "Look at what the police are doing to these poor people".

Regardless though I welcome it. I likely won't agree with most of the sentiments expressed but, if the belief is that the tea party is too single issue and that they're missing corporate chroniism, great. I just hope that this party does chellate into something coherent and I hope the result is honest and thought out - such as better regulation and oversight, or if its partially about poverty in the US that it gets a national dialog going of what ways capitalism can take shape and direct the process.

My big concern with wallstreet is that too many big businesses stay on there (S&P, NYSE, NASDAQ) indefinitely, end up having too much of their equity rise and fall based on investors - and now computers - nervous habits. I'd actually encourage more self-ownerhship for companies who want to remain longsighted and don't want their equity chewed up by decisions that don't cause the same upward quarterly trend.

And crises will lead to even more government intervention in our lives.

Government ought to be the defender of liberty and life. But more often than it should it is the enemy of liberty and life.

ruveyn

I just read a tremendously scathing investigative report on Koch Industries. It's one of the better pieces of journalism that I've seen in quite a while. It's long, but it's really a vital read for those who still don't understand how the machine works. Bribery, theft, deals with Iran, anti-trust conspiracies, falsification of records, illegal dumping of toxic waste (and refuses to pay court-ordered fines), and overall negligent and unsafe practices that have led to deaths for some.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-0 ... sales.html

These are the people at the front lines fighting against regulations. These are the people who intercepted the Tea Party movement to make it their own. There is nothing in their business model that serves the people - nothing.

People like this pretty much anyone - conservative, liberal, democrat, republican, can agree on.