Archive Wall Street Freedom Fighters Release Their Demands

HitsRus

Posts: 9,206

Oct 12, 2011 12:08am

First: I love how you use a gigantic brush to paint everyone of these people as the same and make character assessments of them.

The sword cuts both ways...I suggested early in this thread that thr OWS protesters were painting Wall Street with a very broad brush...as if all of wall street is to blame for the sins of a few.

Meanwhile these citizens don't know when to quit. Their little tanrum is costing a cash strapped city big bucks... $2million to date and counting. Nothing like responsible citizenship.

I

I Wear Pants

Posts: 16,223

Oct 12, 2011 12:11am

HitsRus;930931 wrote:The sword cuts both ways...I suggested early in this thread that thr OWS protesters were painting Wall Street with a very broad brush...as if all of wall street is to blame for the sins of a few.

Meanwhile these citizens don't know when to quit. Their little tanrum is costing a cash strapped city big bucks... $2million to date and counting. Nothing like responsible citizenship.

I'd be okay if the few were held accountable.

Cleveland Buck

Posts: 5,126

Oct 12, 2011 12:15am

Everyone who screwed up should suffer the consequences. The people who bought more house than they could afford should lose the house. Banks that made too many bad loans should go bankrupt. Wall Street investment banks that are holding trillions of dollars in toxic derivatives should also go bankrupt. That holds everyone involved accountable.

HitsRus

Posts: 9,206

Oct 12, 2011 12:15am

I think people on both sides of the aisle would be okay with that. But lets hold the Washington perps accountable too.

I

I Wear Pants

Posts: 16,223

Oct 12, 2011 12:17am

This seems like a decent place to discuss it but I watched the Colbert Report tonight and is what they showed about Super PACs and their secret little other corporations true? Because if it is that shit needs to be ended right away. Who thought it was a good idea to allow an entity to be setup that can take anonymous donations of unlimited amounts and use it towards political campaigning?

G

gut

Posts: 15,058

Oct 12, 2011 1:31am

Cleveland Buck;930942 wrote:The people who bought more house than they could afford should lose the house.

Tough one. The lack of a housing recovery is certainly dragging on the economy. I don't like bailouts, either, but letting all those people default on their home just creates more excess supply and further drags down the prices and equity savings on all the other housing. I know if I owned a home that was $200k underwater I'd probably just walk away and either pay a higher interest rate or find another way to buy a home, or just rent for a few years. I see and deal with bankruptcy in the business world all the time, so I attach no stigma to it. All else equal, if I can wipe out a non-recourse $200k loss it only seems prudent financially to do so.

I don't know what the solution is, and I'm not 100% up-to-speed on what's been done to "encourage" and facilitate refinancing mortgages. Seems like people should be able to refinance to market value, pay above market rates for the privilege, and then that new debt should be with full recourse and non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Not sure what the solution is. Maybe it would be an interesting thing to look at with, instead of handouts, govt welfare take the form of loans that be required to be paid back. After so long if you can't make the payments the tit runs dry. That would provide a safety net while also limiting the disincentive people have to just try and live off the govt.

G

gut

Posts: 15,058

Oct 12, 2011 1:37am

O-Trap;930697 wrote:Maybe not 1%, but the dude is LOADED! Internet porn icon. Makes bank doing Internet marketing in the adult niche.

Don't know, I always heard the guys don't make anything close to what the ladies do - it's not like you'd have to pay many guys much money to do that. Certainly he's done like a billion films, and while he probably does much better than other guys, probably 1/10th what the top women make (which is, also, surprisingly not as much as you might think - I've seen top contracts of like $50k a film, most of their money comes from appearance fees and performing at strip clubs as they might only do 6 films a year, and probably high-priced prostitution on the side).

G

gut

Posts: 15,058

Oct 12, 2011 1:38am

Writerbuckeye;930688 wrote: The MSM loves a good victim story and has helped perpetuate the victimization of America...where nobody is responsible for anything THEY do; it's always the fault of someone (or some thing) else.

Lady I used to work with once said "that's what you get with Democrats...they don't think anyone should be responsible for anything". So funny, and so true (to be fair, the Democrats would like to hold the wealthy responsible and accountable for everyone else).

O-Trap

Posts: 14,994

Oct 12, 2011 7:36am

gut;930995 wrote:Don't know, I always heard the guys don't make anything close to what the ladies do - it's not like you'd have to pay many guys much money to do that. Certainly he's done like a billion films, and while he probably does much better than other guys, probably 1/10th what the top women make (which is, also, surprisingly not as much as you might think - I've seen top contracts of like $50k a film, most of their money comes from appearance fees and performing at strip clubs as they might only do 6 films a year, and probably high-priced prostitution on the side).

He actually does more than just the videos. He has his own marketing company, and it (like him) is rather large.

HitsRus

Posts: 9,206

Oct 12, 2011 7:55am

I Wear Pants;930947 wrote:This seems like a decent place to discuss it but I watched the Colbert Report tonight and is what they showed about Super PACs and their secret little other corporations true? Because if it is that **** needs to be ended right away. Who thought it was a good idea to allow an entity to be setup that can take anonymous donations of unlimited amounts and use it towards political campaigning?

I always thought that was what "Moveon" was.

OneBuckeye

Posts: 5,888

Oct 12, 2011 1:44pm

Not sure if this was posted, but a good read.... http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/30/dear-occupy-wall-street-are-you-sure-youre-in-the-right-place/

I get it – people are angry. Very, very angry. I’m angry too. And Wall Street sure makes a great scapegoat, hence the Occupy Wall Street protest. Wall Street is a symbol of the “greed and corruption” that took over America and caused this whole mess.
But let’s take a minute to examine the facts and see if we can’t find some better scapegoats:

In 1997 Andrew Cuomo, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Bill Clinton, allowed Fannie Mae to reduce the standards by which they would secure loans. This helped create the entire subprime category. Was this a bad thing? Of course not – it allowed more people to leave the ghetto, move to the suburbs, and achieve the American Dream of owning a home. Who knew that “Dream” would turn into a nightmare in a mere decade. Cuomo is not Nostradamus. We can blame him of course, but he had good intentions despite the negative results.

We can blame the Federal Reserve of course. They lowered interest rates after the dot-com bust so much that there was no way for anybody to achieve safe, steady returns using conservative investments like bonds. Everyone — you, me, retirees — wanted higher returns for their 401(k) and pension plan. So we went to the banks and said, What can we do? And the banks said, Well, you’re the ones asking for higher yields, so here it is. And they bundled together all the newly made subprime mortgages into mortgage-backed securities (MBS) so that the average guy could finally get some yield since the Federal Reserve was blocking all other alternatives. So if you want to occupy the Federal Reserve, go to Washington, D.C. Of course, they had good intentions too. They wanted people to stop buying bonds and start buying stocks. And it worked! Until it didn’t.

And what about the banks who bundled together these mortgage-backed securities? I don’t know, you and I asked for those securities through our 401(k) plans. So they were just responding to demand, right?
Fine, so what about the hedge funds. Suddenly they saw these mortgage-backed securities yielding 10% and immediately bought them up. They were greedy! But weren’t they just trying to find safe returns for their investors? Either way, the hedge funds aren’t on Wall Street. Go occupy Greenwich, or Park Avenue — but not Wall Street.
But then investment banks like Lehman saw what the hedge funds were doing, and they started doing it too: scooping up as much yield as they could, risk be damned! Greed! Again though, this was a handful of CEOs, many of whom have been fired from their jobs. I’m not trying to apologize for them. But let’s make sure our anger is pointed in the right direction.

Which now brings me to the biggest culprits yet: the accountants! Right in the middle of all of this mess, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) changed GAAP accounting rules so that you could no longer mark a mortgage-backed security according to your own statistical analysis. You had to start marking it down as soon as there were the slightest defaults and the paper started trading at lower values (this is called mark-to-market). Which meant that hedge funds trading in these illiquid securities could make just a few trades involving a hundred thousand dollars or so, and suddenly trillions of dollars would be wiped out of the value of the banks. Hedge funds gleefully took advantage of this accounting rule change, and tons of bank equity was wiped out. Once FASB changed the rule back (April, 2009) the banks (and all stocks) went straight up.

But how about this: You’re to blame too. That’s right, you. Why? Because you’re not investing in America! You’re irrationally scared. Why have there been 25 months in a row of redemptions from mutual funds? Why are P/E ratios relative to yields at their lowest levels ever? The stock market right now is irrationally low. Bond yields are at 1% (give or take) and the S&P 500 is yielding 2.3%. That wide a spread has never happened before. So please, get your money out from under the mattress, and stop un-investing in America.
And finally, people are saying the problem in the euro zone is a “repeat” of Lehman. On CNBC this week, I had to explain that Greece is a country, and that Lehman Brothers was a bank. You can’t liquidate a country, not very easily at least. The euro zone has problems but let’s put them in perspective:

In 1981-2 a huge portion of South America defaulted. Our 8 largest banks were 263% exposed to South America. What happened? A big bailout. Then the biggest stock market boom in history that lasted almost 20 years.

Today, our 8 largest banks are about 8% exposed to the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain). They can all default and pay zero cents on the dollar. Our total exposure (in the 5 largest banks) is $54 billion. That’s not chump change, but that’s not Lehman and AIG either.

So, I’m confused, whose fault is it? And where do I go “occupy” if I want to vent my anger? The choices: FASB, Governor Cuomo’s office, the Federal Reserve, hedge funds, and mortgage lenders (who were thrilled with the new Fannie Mae lending standards so they loaned out as much as possible).
What about Germany? What about Greece? What about the White House? President Obama has so confused the healthcare system, and created such confusion around mandatory payments from corporations that everyone is now afraid to hire. Two trillion dollars in stimulus and we’ve lost millions of jobs. How can that be? Guess what: there’s also $2 trillion in cash sitting in reserves at the banks. It never hit the money supply!
There are millions of private businesses out there that aren’t hiring because banks aren’t lending. Why aren’t they lending? Because they’re afraid of political uncertainty. If a bank is going to be politically targeted it needs all the money it can get. Plus, the Federal Reserve is paying banks to hold money. Why? Because we asked for it! We wanted the banks to stop being so greedy so we decided to encourage them to hold onto more money and not lose it all. The Fed does that by paying them.
Deep breath. There’s no scapegoat here. We’re all in this together, and we’re all (somewhat) at fault. So rather than planning an occupation, let’s focus on solutions:

The Federal Reserve should stay out of it: stop paying the banks to hold our money instead of lending it out. Heck, let’s even charge the banks, and unleash that $2 trillion that never escaped Quantitative Easing.

Let’s bring back the uptick rule, and make it harder to short the market. What does this do? It makes stocks go up so companies can raise more money to hire people.

None of the stimulus from Obama or the Fed has helped the franchise business. There are about one million franchises in the U.S. employing over 10 million people. How about we give those franchises a tax break so they can hire more people. Or set up a lending program to lend directly to them so they can start more franchises and hire more people. This would definitely help unemployment.

Meanwhile, please stop being so angry. Stop “occupying” places. Let’s be friendly and focus on solutions. Let’s be creative and focus on how we can use that energy for invention, innovation, and ultimately jobs.

G

gut

Posts: 15,058

Oct 12, 2011 2:05pm

OneBuckeye;931381 wrote:...You had to start marking it down as soon as there were the slightest defaults and the paper started trading at lower values (this is called mark-to-market).

That's a point I alluded to earlier. The banks weren't truly insolvent, the mark-to-market issue triggered a technical default with respect to liabilities vs. assets, a paper losses (and not of the cash kind). This is why the bailout was needed, to prevent a liquidity death spiral, and why when things stabliized the banks were able to quickly repay the loans. It wasn't the case of the banks needing money to pay liabilities, it was simply shoring up the balance sheet, and in many cases the cash just sat there on the balance sheet until it could be returned. And some of them supplemented (and/or ultimately replaced) that by raising cash in the capital markets, of course the ability to do so was limited in a liquidity crunch.

The only bone I'd pick with that article is hedge funds manipulating the MBS market. I don't think this was a deliberate play, but the illiquid nature of the instruments has normal selling to reduce/avoid losses that has significant impact on the price. And that's not an uncommon issue for hedge funds with concentrated or illiquid investments - often reducing exposure only makes the position worse as the selling pressure further depresses price. And that's why they will often answer market calls by selling the liquid stuff. Hedge funds got screwed just like the banks when liquidity got sucked out of global markets and all their hedges suddenly became correlated and they got a magnification, rather than a reduction, in risk. That's the pitfalls of leverage.

G

gut

Posts: 15,058

Oct 12, 2011 2:44pm

Another good article:

"The narrative that came out of these events—largely propagated by government officials and accepted by a credulous media—was that the private sector's greed and risk-taking caused the financial crisis and the government's policies were not responsible. This narrative stimulated the punitive Dodd-Frank Act—fittingly named after Congress's two key supporters of the government's destructive housing policies. It also gave us the occupiers of Wall Street. "

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203633104576623083437396142.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

BGFalcons82

Posts: 2,173

Oct 12, 2011 3:16pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wrPGoPFRUdc

All together now:

I want free education
I want free cars
I want free gas
I want free healthcare
I want free food
I want free shelter
And I want the evil scum rotten rich turds to pay for everything, cuz I'm in the 99% majority and they all suck. Where's their home, I wanna get a piece of 'em...

OneBuckeye

Posts: 5,888

Oct 12, 2011 4:09pm

BGFalcons82;931448 wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wrPGoPFRUdc

All together now:

I want free education
I want free cars
I want free gas
I want free healthcare
I want free food
I want free shelter
And I want the evil scum rotten rich turds to pay for everything, cuz I'm in the 99% majority and they all suck. Where's their home, I wanna get a piece of 'em...

lol classic.

I

I Wear Pants

Posts: 16,223

Oct 12, 2011 4:14pm

That dude being a moron doesn't make everyone there a moron. Nor does it make everyone who thinks there are problems with Wall Street a moron.

OneBuckeye

Posts: 5,888

Oct 12, 2011 4:21pm

I Wear Pants;931486 wrote:That dude being a moron doesn't make everyone there a moron. Nor does it make everyone who thinks there are problems with Wall Street a moron.

Tell that to any political pundit.

Writerbuckeye

Posts: 4,745

Oct 12, 2011 6:48pm

I Wear Pants;931486 wrote:That dude being a moron doesn't make everyone there a moron. Nor does it make everyone who thinks there are problems with Wall Street a moron.

Maybe not everyone, but probably a majority -- totally uneducated and misinformed about a lot of what really happened during the economic meltdown; but looking to point fingers and blame, regardless.

I have no problem with protesting and being angry, but when common sense leaves the room -- I don't take what you're doing seriously.

F

Footwedge

Posts: 9,265

Oct 12, 2011 8:21pm

gut;930466 wrote: If you want to revolt against financial services firms, then you have a point, but of course the target is "Wall Street" - Countrywide was a CA-based firm, FNMA and FMAC are hq'd in D.C. But why would the masses bother understanding that when they understand so little else about the crisis? They need a symbol, an entity to lash out against no matter how misplaced and misguided.

Maybe collectively they have read the numbers....and the numbers do not lie. Over the past 20 years or so, the purchasing power of the daily nine to fiver grunts has not even come close to keeping up with inflation. They also read the numbers that the CEO's of previously bailed out companies are making bank at all time record 8 figures, no?

Of course, the sloppy use of Wall Street and making it the target is to put a "face" on the boogeyman, the evil, greedy crook and what better symbol/association in the class warfare game than the mecca of capitalism? These people hate capitalism and wealth. I get it. Screw them, go live in China where the fat cats are all bureaucrats and and the poor make $200 a month.

I doubt if even a third of them "hate capitalism". Read the articles that I posted above. Nobody is crying "I hate capitalism." What they decry is the cronyism and bedbuddy arrangement with the government....that free market capitalism has ceased to exist, and that the tens of thousands of lobbyists are buying unfair advantages for their specific industry. As another poster succinctly stated, (paraphrased), "why do we need any lobbyists in a free market, laissez faire system"? Why indeed? Can't industries compete on their own...the way it was designed to do? Why did the pharmaceutical industry "invest" 800 million (lobby money] in order to pass medicaid Part D? Why have the military contractors ponied up 100 million or so per annum to keep the munitions factories humming? I could go on and on and on. Your misconceived notion that those on Wall Street are hippy smoking lazy loads just proves to me that you have no arbitration skills, pragmatism skills, or the ability to reason on your own. Or perhaps you should consider researching the subject a little more deeply before you spew the "daily talking points" from your favorite AM dial pundit.

In all seriousness, the demonization of Wall Street is pretty ignorant and absurd. It's like - no it IS - the buyer and seller blaming the middle man for bringing them together to screw each other.

Anyone that can't admit a systemic problem with how neocapitalism operates today suffers from a truly debilitating case of myopicitis.

F

Footwedge

Posts: 9,265

Oct 12, 2011 8:29pm

gut;931422 wrote:Another good article:

"The narrative that came out of these events—largely propagated by government officials and accepted by a credulous media—was that the private sector's greed and risk-taking caused the financial crisis and the government's policies were not responsible. This narrative stimulated the punitive Dodd-Frank Act—fittingly named after Congress's two key supporters of the government's destructive housing policies. It also gave us the occupiers of Wall Street. "

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203633104576623083437396142.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

LOL. The War Street Journal opining that Dodd and Frank are to blame. Yawn. Good God people...anyone that doesn't understand Freddie and Fannie weren't the only culprits in the economic implosion need to pop their head out the sand. Even most conservatives understand this.

dwccrew

Posts: 7,817

Oct 12, 2011 8:36pm

BGFalcons82;931448 wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wrPGoPFRUdc

All together now:

I want free education
I want free cars
I want free gas
I want free healthcare
I want free food
I want free shelter
And I want the evil scum rotten rich turds to pay for everything, cuz I'm in the 99% majority and they all suck. Where's their home, I wanna get a piece of 'em...

LOL, I realize that not all the people protesting are idiots, but I feel that the majority of them are, like the guy in the video. He didn't even know what he was talking about.

All these protests are is mob mentality. People that didn't have anything else to do (i.e. unemployed, student, etc.) decided to be followers and follow the lead of other idiots.

G

gut

Posts: 15,058

Oct 13, 2011 12:45am

Footwedge;931745 wrote:LOL. The War Street Journal opining that Dodd and Frank are to blame. Yawn. Good God people...anyone that doesn't understand Freddie and Fannie weren't the only culprits in the economic implosion need to pop their head out the sand. Even most conservatives understand this.

They weren't the only culprits, but they were the fuel to the fire. There were some unscrupulous and unethical people at all levels (including home owners lying about income), but generally there was not some massive conspiracy to commit fraud. A more accurate description would be a lot of incompetence and gross negligence, but nothing remotely close to the scale of criminality and "greed" that people want to believe. WTF is "greed", anyway? It's wrong to charge what people are willing to pay, and what is dictated by supply and demand? Sounds like hate for capitalism to me.

It's funny how I actually know what I'm talking about, and two articles days after I explained the financial crisis in a bit more detail are almost word for word what I've been saying. Of course, the people with a need for scapegoats and blame NEVER acknowledge actual facts when it doesn't support what they want, in some cases need, to believe.

Footwedge;931745 wrote:Over the past 20 years or so, the purchasing power of the daily nine to fiver grunts has not even come close to keeping up with inflation.

It will surprise few, if any, on this board that this is also wrong. You need to look at TOTAL compensation, which when including healthcare and other benefits in fact has been very close to keeping up, if not slightly outpacing inflation.
http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/Wages+and+Benefits:+Real+Wages+(1964-2004)
Real wages & benefits in 1981: $277.35
Real wages & benefits in 1991: $258.34
Real wages & benefits in 2011: $277.57

I

I Wear Pants

Posts: 16,223

Oct 13, 2011 1:10am

gut;932054 wrote:They weren't the only culprits, but they were the fuel to the fire. There were some unscrupulous and unethical people at all levels (including home owners lying about income), but generally there was not some massive conspiracy to commit fraud. A more accurate description would be a lot of incompetence and gross negligence, but nothing remotely close to the scale of criminality and "greed" that people want to believe. WTF is "greed", anyway? It's wrong to charge what people are willing to pay, and what is dictated by supply and demand? Sounds like hate for capitalism to me.

It's funny how I actually know what I'm talking about, and two articles days after I explained the financial crisis in a bit more detail are almost word for word what I've been saying. Of course, the people with a need for scapegoats and blame NEVER acknowledge actual facts when it doesn't support what they want, in some cases need, to believe.

It will surprise few, if any, on this board that this is also wrong. You need to look at TOTAL compensation, which when including healthcare and other benefits in fact has been very close to keeping up, if not slightly outpacing inflation.
http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/Wages+and+Benefits:+Real+Wages+(1964-2004)
Real wages & benefits in 1981: $277.35
Real wages & benefits in 1991: $258.34
Real wages & benefits in 2011: $277.57

You and me can go to jail for that.

And you seriously don't understand what greed is? It isn't making a profit and it isn't being rich. It's being unethical in those pursuits.

You sound like Gordon Gekko.

And you cheated with that list. The last year should be 2004 not 2011.

G

gut

Posts: 15,058

Oct 13, 2011 3:43am

I Wear Pants;932068 wrote:You and me can go to jail for that.

And you seriously don't understand what greed is? It isn't making a profit and it isn't being rich. It's being unethical in those pursuits.

You sound like Gordon Gekko.

And you cheated with that list. The last year should be 2004 not 2011.

Really? I know incompetent and negligent people who don't get fired from their jobs (and not just union members!), much less go to jail - incompetent and negligent doesn't imply or even equate to fraud, people make mistakes or simply aren't good at their job. You can be sued over incompetence and negligence, but you need to commit actual fraud to go to jail. But, I'm sorry, there wasn't this massive fraud and "greed" as you call it. You really think these protesters believe all or most of Wall Street is unethical - is that what you believe, too - or do you think maybe they are just simply associating greed with wealth?

The vast majority of people are not unethical in amassing their fortune, yet that's not what the media and the mobs lead us to believe, is it? That's why I asked what greed is, because the apparent application of the definition is grossly out of touch with reality. My suspicion is ignorant socialists/liberals mistake capitalism/pursuit of profits with "unethical" and "greedy" because they have no concept of value-added or pay for performance, much less basic laws of supply & demand as it applies to wages. It's a demand for "fairness" completely absent consideration of the market value of the contribution.

I didn't cheat on my list (gee, a claim like that no wonder you can throw around terms like greed so loosely) - that's a simple error that doesn't change the inference and implications. Strawman argument - 2004 doesn't really change the fact that what Footwedge said was grossly inaccurate, does it? It's been mostly flat for 24 years or so. A far cry from "not even close to keeping up with inflation".

Writerbuckeye

Posts: 4,745

Oct 13, 2011 11:20am

These protests are the epitome of class warfare. They can try and couch what they say as IWP has done, but it boils down to the same thing. It's not accurate (for the most part), unfair to those being targeted (for the most part) and off base -- and like a lot of liberal actions based almost solely on emotion and not facts or logic.