Occupy Wall Street protest

[Peter McKillop]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

Even the communists aren't communists anymore. They're "entrepreneurs" and mobsters and heads of FIDE.

Just watch out for an Atlas Shrugged scenario.

Not sure how you mean watch out for an Atlas Shrugged scenario. It's been a long time since I read AS (45 yr) but didn't it deal with people who believed that life, including one's work, should be lived with integrity? If a job is worth doing it's worth doing well, sort of thing? When the AS 'elite' set up their own little world it included everyone who believed and acted in accordance with these principles, didn't it? e.g. train conductors, carpenters, etc., and not just business exex's and bond traders, etc.

[Kerry Liles]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

...

Vastly overpaid Hollywood actors and pro athletes have not drawn one word of criticism even though their activities add nothing of real value to our economy.

I think there is a lot of economic activity directly related to films and sporting events... whether the high salaries are justified is purely a decision of the owners of the product. Presumably they must be if they are making money and supporting a lot of support jobs and enterprises?

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

I think there is a lot of economic activity directly related to films and sporting events... whether the high salaries are justified is purely a decision of the owners of the product. Presumably they must be if they are making money and supporting a lot of support jobs and enterprises?

The same could be said of any CEO of any corporation. Their salaries are purely the decision of the shareholders of the corporation and presumably if they are satisfied with it then it is justified based on the economic activity linked to an Apple or a Microsoft or a bank and the return on investment those shareholders are getting. Major pension funds like Teachers and other shareholder activists are not shy about pointing out when this is not the case.

You still have a long way to go to convince me that Charlie Sheen deserves a million dollars an episode or that the voices of The Simpsons deserve their huge salaries. If Charlie Sheen and his propensity to surround himself with porn actors by buying them sports cars and the like is not what OWS should be concerned about then I don't know what is.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

With films the box office figures dictate the value of the film and cast.

With TV, I suppose it's the ratings and the amount sponsors are willing to pay.

I rarely watch films where I've never heard of the main cast.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

I hope you are not suggesting Occupy Wall Street is a communist movement! Is it not.

I would characterize the movement more of a "how do we improve our current capitalist/socialist hybrid economic system" so that it better serves all of us.

Once again, if they aren't communists and they aren't capitalists then what are they? Why the hell should someone elses assets be used to serve all of you better?

[Kerry Liles]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

The same could be said of any CEO of any corporation. Their salaries are purely the decision of the shareholders of the corporation and presumably if they are satisfied with it then it is justified based on the economic activity linked to an Apple or a Microsoft or a bank and the return on investment those shareholders are getting. Major pension funds like Teachers and other shareholder activists are not shy about pointing out when this is not the case.

You still have a long way to go to convince me that Charlie Sheen deserves a million dollars an episode or that the voices of The Simpsons deserve their huge salaries. If Charlie Sheen and his propensity to surround himself with porn actors by buying them sports cars and the like is not what OWS should be concerned about then I don't know what is.

I am not sure what the real definition of "deserves" might be - it seems to be most often taken in a subjective sense. In a free market, all the major component values are in a constant state of flux.

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

I am not sure what the real definition of "deserves" might be - it seems to be most often taken in a subjective sense. In a free market, all the major component values are in a constant state of flux.

From what I understand of OWS their view is that no one deserves such a high salary because the average person gets nowhere near that much. But of course if they say that they risk alienating a lot of fans of celebrity actors and musicians and sports fans. Whereas when's the last time a banker put on a skimpy outfit, sang and gyrated and entertained the masses?

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

From what I understand of OWS their view is that no one deserves such a high salary because the average person gets nowhere near that much. But of course if they say that they risk alienating a lot of fans of celebrity actors and musicians and sports fans. Whereas when's the last time a banker put on a skimpy outfit, sang and gyrated and entertained the masses?

I thought union pension funds invest in some of those companies which pay large salaries.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

However, OWS does not seem to care about the $1 a day developing world worker who won't make in their lifetime what an average American makes in a couple of months at most. OWS also does not seem to have anything to say about why someone like Charlie Sheen makes as much or more than some CEOs. Vastly overpaid Hollywood actors and pro athletes have not drawn one word of criticism even though their activities add nothing of real value to our economy.

Good points, Zeljko. This kind of thing is exactly why I wrote the other day that the protestors would be better off directly confronting not Wall Street or the rich in general, but the people they are demonstrating for. That's because the 1% are just the beneficiaries of the behaviour and spinelessness of the 99%. You need to radically alter the behaviour of the 99%.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that there's isn't really a crisis in the U.S. until you see reports of NFL teams going out of business because fan support has gotten so low they can't make money any more.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

I am not sure what the real definition of "deserves" might be - it seems to be most often taken in a subjective sense. In a free market, all the major component values are in a constant state of flux.

Maybe it can be put into perspective: let's say that Obama's jobs plan, instead of putting people to work repairing bridges and highways and schools, was to put people to work during the day digging holes along the sides of the U.S. interstates, and then another group of people working the night shift filling the holes back in. Since most of the interstates are out in rural areas, there would be all kinds of "support" jobs created where the people are digging / filling: food stands, camp sites, and yes, even hookers.

Now let's go even further and suppose that the money to pay the diggers / fillers was going to be collected at various toll booths set up along the interstates (more jobs running the toll booths!), and that the whole plan was viable according to studies that found people willing to pay the tolls because watching other people work during their summer vacation drive along the interstates was "entertaining".

So there we have a whole new industry created to provide interstate travellers entertainment that they are willing to pay for. In fact it becomes so wildly successful...

(the interstates become jam-packed from April to September with fans of digger / filler workers, and a secondary industry pops up also: creating and trading of "digger / filler worker cards" sold at confectionary stores nationwide)...

... so wildly successful that the digger / filler workers can be paid huge salaries and bonuses, and they become celebrity names on TV shows like Access Interstate.

A whole lot of economic activity, all willingly paid for by the 99%.

Is it contributing anything to the growth of the United States?

Maybe for a little while.... maybe the federal government even goes into a budget surplus because of overwhelming tax receipts, and the U. S. stock market soars....

Meanwhile, Chinese scientists that are supported by THEIR government (unlike scientists in the United States) invent some new hydrogen fuel cell that can be put in cars and obsolete gasoline. The new cars run for hundreds of miles for the equivelent of one U.S. dollar. China decides not to open up the technology, and to forbid export of it except to North Korea. No fuel cell cars for anyone else but the Chinese and North Koreans. In the rest of the world, oil starts running out, gasoline goes to $50 a gallon, the U.S. economy collapses as does every other non-Chinese / North Korean economy, and in some future day, there are nothing but Chinese and North Korean families driving along U.S. interstates in their fuel cell cars, marvelling at the thousands of holes along the sides of the interstates that were dug and.... never filled.

People who think the market solves everything don't think beyond today. The collapse of the Roman Empire was also once considered a laughable concept... a concept to laugh about on the way to the forum. In fact, I think there was a movie made with a name something like that....

[Bob Gillanders]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

What I do understand is that banks can fail and have risk the same as any other enterprise and are hardly all powerful. What I will never 'understand' is attempting to turn banks into corporate bogeymen just because they act as financial intermediaries for our economy.

Zeljko - I found this passage on another website. I hope it helps you to understand why there is such anger at the banks.....

"Defenders of the banks like to talk a lot about how we shouldn't feel sorry for people who've been foreclosed upon, because it's their own fault for borrowing more than they can pay back, buying more house than they can afford, etc. And critics of OWS have assailed protesters for complaining about things like foreclosure by claiming these folks want “something for nothing.”

This is ironic because, as one of the Rolling Stone editors put it last week, “something for nothing is Wall Street’s official policy." In fact, getting bailed out for bad investment decisions has been de rigeur on Wall Street not just since 2008, but for decades.

Time after time, when big banks screw up and make irresponsible bets that blow up in their faces, they've scored bailouts. It doesn't matter whether it was the Mexican currency bailout of 1994 (when the state bailed out speculators who gambled on the peso) or the IMF/World Bank bailout of Russia in 1998 (a bailout of speculators in the "emerging markets") or the Long-Term Capital Management Bailout of the same year (in which the rescue of investors in a harebrained hedge-fund trading scheme was deemed a matter of international urgency by the Federal Reserve), Wall Street has long grown accustomed to getting bailed out for its mistakes.

The 2008 crash, of course, birthed a whole generation of new bailout schemes. Banks placed billions in bets with AIG and should have lost their shirts when the firm went under -- AIG went under, after all, in large part because of all the huge mortgage bets the banks laid with the firm -- but instead got the state to pony up $180 billion or so to rescue the banks from their own bad decisions.

This sort of thing seems to happen every time the banks do something dumb with their money. Just recently, the French and Belgian authorities cooked up a massive bailout of the French bank Dexia, whose biggest trading partners included, surprise, surprise, Goldman, Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Here's how the New York Times explained the bailout:

To limit damage from Dexia’s collapse, the bailout fashioned by the French and Belgian governments may make these banks and other creditors whole — that is, paid in full for potentially tens of billions of euros they are owed. This would enable Dexia’s creditors and trading partners to avoid losses they might otherwise suffer...
When was the last time the government stepped into help you "avoid losses you might otherwise suffer?" But that's the reality we live in. When Joe Homeowner bought too much house, essentially betting that home prices would go up, and losing his bet when they dropped, he was an irresponsible putz who shouldn’t whine about being put on the street.

But when banks bet billions on a firm like AIG that was heavily invested in mortgages, they were making the same bet that Joe Homeowner made, leaving themselves hugely exposed to a sudden drop in home prices. But instead of being asked to "suck it in and cope" when that bet failed, the banks instead went straight to Washington for a bailout -- and got it."

[Mikhail Egorov]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

Only Bob Gillanders can fulfill both roles as our next leader of Robin Hood party with diligence, hard work and egalitarian values!

Just like he did with CFC, when he fulfilled more roles there. :D

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

The communists never were communist, the trouble was they always lined their pockets first and protected their own priveleges. That is when they weren't busy mass murdering people.

Too true.

There is a Windsor Occupy Wall Street branch protest. They are camped out at City Hall in tents on wooden pallets. It is not the best area especially at night. I used to work across the street from there.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

But when banks bet billions on a firm like AIG that was heavily invested in mortgages, they were making the same bet that Joe Homeowner made, leaving themselves hugely exposed to a sudden drop in home prices. But instead of being asked to "suck it in and cope" when that bet failed, the banks instead went straight to Washington for a bailout -- and got it."

This is a problem. Make big money and the money is theirs. Lose big money and their losses are protected. This is a consequence of campaign finance laws that see small donations to political parties rewarded with huge payoffs down the road.

I have been seeing comments on CNN and Fox that the bailouts of the banks didn't actually wind up costing U.S. taxpayers any money and in fact they made a profit on it. I also suspect that those claims are glossing over parts of the bailouts and focusing on the ones that didn't wind up costing taxpayers money.

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Occupy Wall Street protest

Zeljko - I found this passage on another website. I hope it helps you to understand why there is such anger at the banks.....

"Defenders of the banks like to talk a lot about how we shouldn't feel sorry for people who've been foreclosed upon, because it's their own fault for borrowing more than they can pay back, buying more house than they can afford, etc. And critics of OWS have assailed protesters for complaining about things like foreclosure by claiming these folks want “something for nothing.”

This is ironic because, as one of the Rolling Stone editors put it last week, “something for nothing is Wall Street’s official policy." In fact, getting bailed out for bad investment decisions has been de rigeur on Wall Street not just since 2008, but for decades.

Time after time, when big banks screw up and make irresponsible bets that blow up in their faces, they've scored bailouts. It doesn't matter whether it was the Mexican currency bailout of 1994 (when the state bailed out speculators who gambled on the peso) or the IMF/World Bank bailout of Russia in 1998 (a bailout of speculators in the "emerging markets") or the Long-Term Capital Management Bailout of the same year (in which the rescue of investors in a harebrained hedge-fund trading scheme was deemed a matter of international urgency by the Federal Reserve), Wall Street has long grown accustomed to getting bailed out for its mistakes.

The 2008 crash, of course, birthed a whole generation of new bailout schemes. Banks placed billions in bets with AIG and should have lost their shirts when the firm went under -- AIG went under, after all, in large part because of all the huge mortgage bets the banks laid with the firm -- but instead got the state to pony up $180 billion or so to rescue the banks from their own bad decisions.

This sort of thing seems to happen every time the banks do something dumb with their money. Just recently, the French and Belgian authorities cooked up a massive bailout of the French bank Dexia, whose biggest trading partners included, surprise, surprise, Goldman, Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Here's how the New York Times explained the bailout:

To limit damage from Dexia’s collapse, the bailout fashioned by the French and Belgian governments may make these banks and other creditors whole — that is, paid in full for potentially tens of billions of euros they are owed. This would enable Dexia’s creditors and trading partners to avoid losses they might otherwise suffer...
When was the last time the government stepped into help you "avoid losses you might otherwise suffer?" But that's the reality we live in. When Joe Homeowner bought too much house, essentially betting that home prices would go up, and losing his bet when they dropped, he was an irresponsible putz who shouldn’t whine about being put on the street.

But when banks bet billions on a firm like AIG that was heavily invested in mortgages, they were making the same bet that Joe Homeowner made, leaving themselves hugely exposed to a sudden drop in home prices. But instead of being asked to "suck it in and cope" when that bet failed, the banks instead went straight to Washington for a bailout -- and got it."

I agree, some people are very poor candidates for home ownership or loans. Banks need to get better at screening those people out. I don't think they are going to make that mistake again. As to the rest you will generally find that if you are involved with anything to do with deciding whether someone is given access to money you are subject to a lot of criticism. That was my experience as an Ontario Works caseworker.

I don't support what happened in 2008 but I do wonder why Canadian banks, none of which needed or receive bailouts, are now the target of these protests. It's almost as if the protestors can't differentitate a well run bank and a not well run bank.

In the meantime firms that prey upon the poor by charging a high per cent of a cheque just to cash it and offering pay day loans at awful rates, such as MoneyMart, or rent to own operations that also charge awful rates go about their business just fine thank you vey much. Actually in Toronto I think the protestors are passing by such places with nary a critical word or look. Of course anger is not always rational, just look at the Tea Party if you doubt that. The great thing about anger is that there is no need to justify it.