PDA

View Full Version : The Tea Party vs. Occupy Wall Street



JohnnyMack
10/10/2011, 04:39 PM
So the Tea Party was founded by some good folks who disagreed with the Washington was working and tried to rally people to their cause. It was quickly taken under the wing of some powerful right wing entities such as the Koch Bros., who increased the funding of Tea Party groups dramatically. The Tea Party was also folded back into the the traditional right wing as we saw words like "teavangelical" created.

I guess my question is, do you see the Occupy Wall Street folks as a counter to The Tea Party, a parallel to them or what?

They don't seem to have much organization as we speak, but at this same point and time, neither did the Tea Party. Can OWS emerge as a legitimate power in the political world?

KantoSooner
10/10/2011, 05:13 PM
I don't see OWS as enjoying the same organizational success as the TP because they represent a skein of ideas/causes that are already represented by more mainstream, but non-Dem Party orgs. The TP, while firmly rooted in long standing Rep Party thought, occupied territory that really wasn't already 'owned' by anybody. Thus, they had space to stake out as 'theirs'.
They will have resonance in the society until such time as our government cuts the crap of bailing out multi-billionaire losers. That anyone employed on Wall Street in 2007 still has a job in the investment world is a travesty. I'm a hard core capitalist: these clowns lost, they should lose their money, their houses, their airhead trophy wives and their cars. They should be living under a bridge sleeping in a cardboard box as their children sell their bodies for food.
When we start letting that happen, we'll have bankers who go back to being surly, snarling, penny penching miserly curmudgeons. Which is what bankers are supposed to be.

MR2-Sooner86
10/10/2011, 05:26 PM
Whether you agree with it or not, the Tea Party had a message. OWS has had about a million messages coming from here, there, and everywhere.

There were some of them saying they're protesting for $20 minimum wage, a ban of all fossil fuels, and free college education for all.

If they simply said, "We're against Big Government getting in bed with Wall Street and bailing them out. We're against Corporations and Big Government rigging the game for everybody else. We're against the Federal Reserve."

I don't see that. I see the same marxist wannabes in Che Guevara shirts I saw in college who tried to convince me Bush and the Republicans were behind 9/11, Mother Earth is in pain, and "guns are evil m'kay."

I'm glad to see my generation getting involved but many of these people don't know what they're protesting. They seem to have all of this energy but no place to aim or direct it.

I hope they can do better on their PR, get their message nice and clear, and really shake up the establishment.

badger
10/10/2011, 05:34 PM
I've heard people calling them the "Flea Party." I'm not sure that nickname will catch on though, because it's kind of demeaning. So, my guess is naysayers will call them that (while naysayers of the Tea Party will call them "Reich Wing" and "Teabaggers") while the mainstream media will come up with another name... or just stick with Occupy XXXX

TUSooner
10/10/2011, 06:39 PM
Whether you agree with it or not, the Tea Party had a message. OWS has had about a million messages coming from here, there, and everywhere.
* * *

If they simply said, "We're against Big Government getting in bed with Wall Street and bailing them out. We're against Corporations and Big Government rigging the game for everybody else....." [They might have get somewhere]


In some ways, both have a populist, anti-establishment vein, and both seem to sense that "the game" is somehow rigged against them. But the most of the Tea Party folks have jobs.

TP folk also have a fair (albeit selective) skepticism of Big Gubment, but too much reverence for MegaCorp, Inc. as a false proxy for "free enterprise." They are thus dupes of the RW. The OWS folks have a decent skepticism of of MegaCorp. Inc, but pathetically little knowledge of the facts of free-market life and too much trust in the ability of the Government to legislate over market forces. In that sense, they are the dupes of the LW.

SouthCarolinaSooner
10/10/2011, 06:46 PM
TP folk also have a fair (albeit selective) skepticism of Big Gubment, but too much reverence for MegaCorp, Inc. as a false proxy for "free enterprise." They are thus dupes of the RW. The OWS folks have a decent skepticism of of MegaCorp. Inc, but pathetically little knowledge of the facts of free-market life and too much trust in the ability of the Government to legislate over market forces. In that sense, they are the dupes of the LW.
Well said

TUSooner
10/10/2011, 07:02 PM
I don't see OWS as enjoying the same organizational success as the TP because they represent a skein of ideas/causes that are already represented by more mainstream, but non-Dem Party orgs. The TP, while firmly rooted in long standing Rep Party thought, occupied territory that really wasn't already 'owned' by anybody. Thus, they had space to stake out as 'theirs'.
They will have resonance in the society until such time as our government cuts the crap of bailing out multi-billionaire losers. That anyone employed on Wall Street in 2007 still has a job in the investment world is a travesty. I'm a hard core capitalist: these clowns lost, they should lose their money, their houses, their airhead trophy wives and their cars. They should be living under a bridge sleeping in a cardboard box as their children sell their bodies for food.
When we start letting that happen, we'll have bankers who go back to being surly, snarling, penny penching miserly curmudgeons. Which is what bankers are supposed to be.

However did I miss that gem?! You go, baby!

Veritas
10/10/2011, 08:20 PM
Protestors, the sign carrying marching kind, are ****ing retards. Don't much care if they're Tea Party or Occupy.

soonercruiser
10/10/2011, 08:41 PM
So Kanto,
You have any problem with Eric Holder still holding his job after The Philadelphia Black Panther voter intimidation case, and him lying to Congress about prior knowledge of the gun running to Mexican Drug Cartels?
Prolly not!
No problem - just some good American citizens, and law enforcement officers paid with their lives.

soonercruiser
10/10/2011, 08:44 PM
I agree with Mark Levin...

"Parasites on Parade"

JohnnyMack
10/10/2011, 08:55 PM
So Kanto,
You have any problem with Eric Holder still holding his job after The Philadelphia Black Panther voter intimidation case, and him lying to Congress about prior knowledge of the gun running to Mexican Drug Cartels?
Prolly not!
No problem - just some good American citizens, and law enforcement officers paid with their lives.

Try and stay on topic, buttplug.

Midtowner
10/10/2011, 09:12 PM
I agree with Mark Levin...

"Parasites on Parade"

Who is the bigger parasite, Wall Street or the protesters?

soonercruiser
10/10/2011, 10:49 PM
Who is the bigger parasite, Wall Street or the protesters?

Are you by an chance trying to incite Wall Streeters to organize a protest against the protesters!

I am in no way defending Wall Street.
But, why are the Wall Streeters invited to the White House so much?
Why are so many of the past Wall Street executives working in the Obama administration?
And why does Obama take sooooo much of their campaign money?
Hummmmm....
:stupid:

Midtowner
10/11/2011, 12:18 AM
Are you by an chance trying to incite Wall Streeters to organize a protest against the protesters!

I am in no way defending Wall Street.
But, why are the Wall Streeters invited to the White House so much?
Why are so many of the past Wall Street executives working in the Obama administration?
And why does Obama take sooooo much of their campaign money?
Hummmmm....
:stupid:

Both sides take their campaign money, n'est pas?

And which side is campaigning for more Wall Street deregulation when it's historical fact that the repeal of Glass Steagall was at the root of the housing meltdown?

TUSooner
10/11/2011, 07:35 AM
The TP message is generally clearer. I still don't really know what action OWS expects. The only list of "demands" I saw looked like a letter to Santa Claus.

I fear that since the SCotUS ruled that corporations had the human civil right to dump more cash into the political process, the gubment really is for sale, and nothing the TP or OWS can do will have much effect, unless they have the backing of big money. The TP will likely get that backing but will eventually be betrayed by their sponsors. I fear the end result will, be less "public/govt" control of Megabiz,Inc. but no less govt meddling in the everyday lives of the people, both here and abroad.

dwarthog
10/11/2011, 08:09 AM
It would appear there is money to pay the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters....

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/gov/2618821815.html


FIGHT TO HOLD WALLSTREET ACCOUNTABLE NOW! MAKE A DIFFERNENCE GET PAID!

The Working Families Party (WFP) (www.workingfamiliesparty.org) is New York's most energetic, independent and progressive political party. Formed in 1998 by a grassroots coalition of community organizations, neighborhood activists, and labor unions, we came together to build a society that works for all of us, not just Wall Street CEOs and the well-connected. WFP is independent from corporate and government funding and in-addition we are community based; community funded and equally uninfluenced by both major parties. Our agenda focuses on economic and social justice, corporate accountability, job creation, environmental protection, and investment in education and healthcare.

Mississippi Sooner
10/11/2011, 09:06 AM
The TP message is generally clearer. I still don't really know what action OWS expects. The only list of "demands" I saw looked like a letter to Santa Claus.

I fear that since the SCotUS ruled that corporations had the human civil right to dump more cash into the political process, the gubment really is for sale, and nothing the TP or OWS can do will have much effect, unless they have the backing of big money. The TP will likely get that backing but will eventually be betrayed by their sponsors. I fear the end result will, be less "public/govt" control of Megabiz,Inc. but no less govt meddling in the everyday lives of the people, both here and abroad.

We have a winner!

JohnnyMack
10/11/2011, 09:27 AM
It would appear there is money to pay the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters....

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/gov/2618821815.html


Yes it does look like this Working Families Party has been helping. Interesting to note their financials from 2009 here:

http://www.registeredindie.com/media/AA/AI/registeredindie-com/downloads/69741/Working_Families_Party_-_112309.pdf

Doesn't look too powerful to me. Hell the Koch Bros. spend that on breakfast.

TUSooner
10/11/2011, 09:32 AM
5 OWS Myths (Not from Cracked.com)

If you want it easier to read, got to:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-myths-of-occupy-wall-street-2011-10-11?pagenumber=1


David Weidner's Writing on the Wall
David Weidner

Oct. 11, 2011, 12:00 a.m. EDT
5 myths of Occupy Wall Street
Commentary: Why big financial interests are getting worried

By David Weidner, MarketWatch

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Occupy Wall Street, the month-long protest centered near the New York Stock Exchange, has the establishment scared.

What once was seen as a traffic problem in Lower Manhattan has elevated into a debate about economic inequality in America, with bulls-eyes trained on the backs of bankers.

Reuters
A protester carries a picture of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein on a pole during an "Occupy Wall Street" rally in New York's Washington Square.

How else can one explain the sudden explosion of media coverage at Zuccotti Park, the discussion of the protests by the Republican field of presidential hopefuls and a shout-out by President Barack Obama last week?

Still, the media still doesn’t know what to make of this growing movement. Is it a liberal tea party? Is it Marxism run amok? Is it an Arab Spring on Wall Street? Is is a hippie gathering? Will Radiohead show up?

Having covered the protests for nearly the month they’ve been camped out downtown, I want to clear the air on some of the myths surrounding this movement in American society and politics.
Myth: The protesters are pushing for anarchy, support violence and communism.

Myth-makers: Ann Coulter, The Washington Times, bloggers, New Hampshire Tea Party, Ron Paul.

Fact: Many of the protesters are seeking jobs, are students or are underemployed. Not one of dozens of Occupy Wall Street protesters I spoke to want hand outs, or to overthrow democracy. Rather, they want a return to a democratic process free of corporate and special-interest money. The protests are a month old and have been mostly peaceful.
Myth: Most Occupy Wall Street protesters don’t know what they’re protesting.

Myth-makers: Author William Cohan, Donald Trump, Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times.

Fact: It’s true Occupy Wall Street has become a melting pot of causes: environmentalism, anti-war peace protest and workers rights to name a few. But the protesters are uniformly opposed to a system that favors what they call the 1%: the super rich who have consolidated nearly 40% of the nation’s wealth. It’s no accident that they’ve picked Wall Street as their base. Big banks are responsible for creating the bubble that led to our recession and high unemployment.

Moreover, bank executives who have failed nevertheless continue to get eye-popping rewards: for instance Sallie Krawcheck and Joe Price were ousted from Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) a few weeks ago. Their exit packages totaled $11 million. The bank lost $14 billion during the last year, announced it will charge debit-card holders $5 a month and is foreclosing on thousands of mortgages.

The bottom line: you don’t have to be an expert on the machinations of global finance to know something is wrong here.
Myth: The protest is simply a liberal tea party.

Myth-makers: Me, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Jon Stewart

Reuters
Pumpkins decorated with the faces of bankers are displayed at the Occupy LA protest camp in Los Angeles.

Fact: Like the tea party, Occupy Wall Street is concerned about the deficit, the Federal Reserve and mounting U.S. debt. But they don’t lay the blame on a government (they don’t absolve it either). Consider that banking and corporate profits created a bubble during the last decade at the U.S. Treasury through tax revenue. When the bubble popped, it bankrupted the government and thrust us into unsustainable long-term debt and annual deficits that this generation of mostly young protesters will have to pay off.

That sounds an awful lot like the tea party with one exception: they have a more sophisticated view of how the U.S. got into this debt quandary.
Myth: Occupy Wall Street is a paid group aimed at re-electing Obama.

Myth-makers: Herman Cain, The Daily Caller blog, Sean Hannity.

Fact: No one is getting paid to protest. In fact, many protesters have sacrificed income to march. Moreover, almost every protester I’ve spoken with has complained about Obama and how he’s pandered to Wall Street interests.
Myth: The protesters are hypocrites. They say they hate the banks, but they bank. They buy from big corporations. They’ve been spotted at McDonalds.

Myth-makers: Ginia Bellafante and Sorkin of the New York Times; Human Events, InfoWars blogs; Bernd Debusmann of Reuters.

Fact: It’s actually true. Occupy Wall Street protesters do buy products and services from corporate America. But does that make them hypocrites? Consider that most of these protesters are NOT against banks. They are against improper actions of banks: foreclosures, inequitable compensation. Nor are they against the bailouts. They just want the same opportunity for homeowners. Would they be less hypocrites if they grew their own zucchini at Zuccotti Park, made their own clothes and all banked at a credit union? The funny thing about credit unions: usually you need a job to join.

And from this example you can see why Occupy Wall Street is confusing to many Americans and threatening to powerful financial interests. In more ways than most Americans know, they are like them. They’re at the mercy of banks and big corporations.

With the 2012 election just a year away, Occupy Wall Street has some tough decisions to make. Will they allow themselves to be co-opted by union interests and political candidates who want to turn their numbers into votes? Or will they remain fiercely independent, challenging the status quo?

Wherever the movement goes, one thing is certain. Wall Street and Washington are paying attention. And they recognize Occupy Wall Street is a dangerous threat to the system. You can bet that 1% knows that part isn’t a myth.


Copyright © 2011 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved.

jk the sooner fan
10/11/2011, 09:37 AM
So the Tea Party was founded by some good folks who disagreed with the Washington was working and tried to rally people to their cause. It was quickly taken under the wing of some powerful right wing entities such as the Koch Bros., who increased the funding of Tea Party groups dramatically. The Tea Party was also folded back into the the traditional right wing as we saw words like "teavangelical" created.

I guess my question is, do you see the Occupy Wall Street folks as a counter to The Tea Party, a parallel to them or what?

They don't seem to have much organization as we speak, but at this same point and time, neither did the Tea Party. Can OWS emerge as a legitimate power in the political world?

there are a group of them in a tent city across the street from the federal building where I work in downtown Dallas....from what I've seen of them, they seem to be passionate, but i'm not sure they can articulate exactly what it is they are protesting or what their demands are......they all look like jobless dope smoking hippies transplanted out of a bad 70's movie

CrimsonCream
10/11/2011, 09:52 AM
You have any problem with Eric Holder still holding his job after The Philadelphia Black Panther voter intimidation case, and him lying to Congress about prior knowledge of the gun running to Mexican Drug Cartels?

The whole Administration starting with Sleaze is corrupt. Deny, deny, deny and then blame it on somebody or something else.

Why does Obama want another $457 billion for jobs when he p!ssed away a prior $850 billion for jobs? The MF has no shame.

JohnnyMack
10/11/2011, 09:53 AM
there are a group of them in a tent city across the street from the federal building where I work in downtown Dallas....from what I've seen of them, they seem to be passionate, but i'm not sure they can articulate exactly what it is they are protesting or what their demands are......they all look like jobless dope smoking hippies transplanted out of a bad 70's movie

Oh I agree. As of right now they're certainly not too organized. But neither was the Tea Party at this point in its existence. The question is simply whether or not some real money is going to get behind this organization and give it legs, all at the same time bastardizing its message, like the Tea Party.

sappstuf
10/11/2011, 09:57 AM
The whole Administration starting with Sleaze is corrupt. Deny, deny, deny and then blame it on somebody or somebody else.

Why does Obama want another $457 billion for jobs when he p!ssed away a prior $850 billion for jobs? The MF has no shame.

http://pl-mgroup-akamai.powerlineblog.com/admin/ed-assets/2011/10/mrz-fnl_100911_color.jpg.cms_.jpeg

jk the sooner fan
10/11/2011, 10:16 AM
Oh I agree. As of right now they're certainly not too organized. But neither was the Tea Party at this point in its existence. The question is simply whether or not some real money is going to get behind this organization and give it legs, all at the same time bastardizing its message, like the Tea Party.

:rolleyes:

JohnnyMack
10/11/2011, 11:00 AM
:rolleyes:

Oh. Sorry. I mean the Tea Party is the bastion of purity across this corrupt political landscape.

And the new "roll eyes" smilie sucks.

KantoSooner
10/11/2011, 11:06 AM
So Kanto,
You have any problem with Eric Holder still holding his job after The Philadelphia Black Panther voter intimidation case, and him lying to Congress about prior knowledge of the gun running to Mexican Drug Cartels?
Prolly not!
No problem - just some good American citizens, and law enforcement officers paid with their lives.
Wrong again, Skippy! I'm an equal opportunity *******: Holder should lose his job and his law license. At the very least he wasn't aware of pretty damn major things taking place in his organization.
Happier?

TUSooner
10/11/2011, 11:08 AM
* * *
And the new "roll eyes" smilie sucks.

THIS ^^^^^^^!!!!

dwarthog
10/11/2011, 11:51 AM
Yes it does look like this Working Families Party has been helping. Interesting to note their financials from 2009 here:

http://www.registeredindie.com/media/AA/AI/registeredindie-com/downloads/69741/Working_Families_Party_-_112309.pdf

Doesn't look too powerful to me. Hell the Koch Bros. spend that on breakfast.

Or George Soros.

Ike
10/11/2011, 12:25 PM
http://wac.0873.edgecastcdn.net/800873/blog/wp-content/uploads/OWSvsTP.jpg

jk the sooner fan
10/11/2011, 12:26 PM
Oh. Sorry. I mean the Tea Party is the bastion of purity across this corrupt political landscape.

And the new "roll eyes" smilie sucks.

i didnt say that......your ability to discuss anything without extreme exaggeration is notable...

TUSooner
10/11/2011, 12:32 PM
http://wac.0873.edgecastcdn.net/800873/blog/wp-content/uploads/OWSvsTP.jpg
Simplistic, perhaps, but generally accurate, I think. Where'd you get that?

JohnnyMack
10/11/2011, 12:33 PM
i didnt say that......your ability to discuss anything without extreme exaggeration is notable...

Probably only outdone by your want to accept something labeled as "conservative" at face value.

JohnnyMack
10/11/2011, 12:34 PM
Or George Soros.

Possibly. Now we're getting somewhere. Will the OWS movement become a puppet for the wealthy liberal elites much as (in my opinion) the Tea Party has become a puppet of the wealthy conservative elite?

jk the sooner fan
10/11/2011, 12:35 PM
have you ever been to a tea party - or do you just get all your opinions from the Daily Show on Comedy Central, with an occasional dose of Rachel Maddow?

JohnnyMack
10/11/2011, 12:38 PM
have you ever been to a tea party - or do you just get all your opinions from the Daily Show on Comedy Central, with an occasional dose of Rachel Maddow?

I don't watch Rachel Maddow, her show is worthless.

About once a month I watch Jon Stewart if I happen to be in front of a TV and I remember its on.

You don't know me like you think you do. I'm not so easily pigeonholed.

badger
10/11/2011, 12:41 PM
I think the Tea Party and Occupiers do have common ground: People need jobs. They need good jobs. They want to be able to take care of themselves and their families but cannot because there aren't jobs and there aren't good jobs.

Give the people good jobs and the Tea Party and Occupiers will be happy.

Or... as Homer Simpson reasoned:

Burns : You mean you're willing to give up a good job and a raise, just for your principles?

Homer : Hmmmm, you put it that way it does sound a little far-fetched, but that's the lug your looking at ... and I vow to continue spending every free minute I have crusading for safety. Of course, I'd have a lot less of those free minutes if you gave me the job.

Ike
10/11/2011, 12:42 PM
It was linked to by one of the people I follow on the twitter.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/tea-party-meet-occupy-wall-street-ows-tea-party/

Ike
10/11/2011, 12:45 PM
have you ever been to a tea party?

All the ones I've been to wound up like this....
Xe1a1wHxTyo

TUSooner
10/11/2011, 12:51 PM
It was linked to by one of the people I follow on the twitter.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/tea-party-meet-occupy-wall-street-ows-tea-party/

Said the article: "There’s something wrong in the country, and this image suggests that there might be consensus on the framing of what’s wrong: the unity of government and corporate power against people’s freedom and prosperity."

KantoSooner
10/11/2011, 02:15 PM
Here's a thought: so much of this debate rolls back into concern for jobs and thus into the 'globalization' debate.

I've recently been looking at numbers and, guess what? Jobs are beginning to flow back to the US. Even such things as call centers. Rising wages and falling quality in China (and their decreasing desire to deal wiith demanding customers such as WalMart when they can more easily export to Sub-Saharan Africa, SE Asia, etc), a burgeoning domestic market in India and rising labor costs in Brazil, Indonesia and SE Asia are beginning to make US basic manufacturing competitive again.
It's not here yet, but our arguments on this topic could be moot in a few years.

Ton Loc
10/11/2011, 04:25 PM
Said the article: "There’s something wrong in the country, and this image suggests that there might be consensus on the framing of what’s wrong: the unity of government and corporate power against people’s freedom and prosperity."

This seems like something everyone has always known and we were ok with it until we started losing our asses.

NormanPride
10/11/2011, 04:28 PM
Well before then it felt like something we could handle by working harder or voting for "the other guy".

marfacowboy
10/11/2011, 04:35 PM
In some ways, both have a populist, anti-establishment vein, and both seem to sense that "the game" is somehow rigged against them. But the most of the Tea Party folks have jobs.

TP folk also have a fair (albeit selective) skepticism of Big Gubment, but too much reverence for MegaCorp, Inc. as a false proxy for "free enterprise." They are thus dupes of the RW. The OWS folks have a decent skepticism of of MegaCorp. Inc, but pathetically little knowledge of the facts of free-market life and too much trust in the ability of the Government to legislate over market forces. In that sense, they are the dupes of the LW.

I generally agree with this. It's going to be interesting when the more rational, thinking segments of both groups realize they're essentially fighting the same enemy, just in different segments, although the line between government and corporations has blurred to almost nothingness.
The problem is power and the abuse of power by extremely wealthy, powerful forces. Bush was a shill for oil and gas and the defense industry. Obama is a shill for Wall Street and to some degree, the defense industry. Both groups have been duped. The Tea Party, by the god-guns-abortion nutjobs, so they'll vote against their own financial interests, and the left was duped by Obama and the Democratic Party.
The good news is this all kindling for real change and revolution in America, where the average, working American can in fact "take back their country" and begin to rebuild their communities. I hope the reasonable people on both sides will get past the name calling and finger pointing and realize how much we really have in common.

marfacowboy
10/11/2011, 04:37 PM
http://wac.0873.edgecastcdn.net/800873/blog/wp-content/uploads/OWSvsTP.jpg

Bingo. We had a President named Ike that more or less told where all of this was headed. He was a more decent rational man than anyone we've had in the White House in god knows how long.

badger
10/11/2011, 05:03 PM
Rising wages and falling quality in China (and their decreasing desire to deal wiith demanding customers such as WalMart when they can more easily export to Sub-Saharan Africa, SE Asia, etc), a burgeoning domestic market in India and rising labor costs in Brazil, Indonesia and SE Asia are beginning to make US basic manufacturing competitive again.

I figured this would kick in eventually. Chinese people are starting to have higher lifestyle standards like their American counterparts and while the one-kid policy means there's only an additional mouth to feed, that additional mouth also needs to wear Nike, get private tutoring and get a kick arse dowry saved up for a kick arse wife (because the one-kid is always a boy, never a girl)

TUSooner
10/11/2011, 07:08 PM
I generally agree with this. It's going to be interesting when the more rational, thinking segments of both groups realize they're essentially fighting the same enemy, just in different segments, although the line between government and corporations has blurred to almost nothingness.
The problem is power and the abuse of power by extremely wealthy, powerful forces. Bush was a shill for oil and gas and the defense industry. Obama is a shill for Wall Street and to some degree, the defense industry. Both groups have been duped. The Tea Party, by the god-guns-abortion nutjobs, so they'll vote against their own financial interests, and the left was duped by Obama and the Democratic Party.
The good news is this all kindling for real change and revolution in America, where the average, working American can in fact "take back their country" and begin to rebuild their communities. I hope the reasonable people on both sides will get past the name calling and finger pointing and realize how much we really have in common.
One can hope.

KantoSooner
10/12/2011, 08:38 AM
I figured this would kick in eventually. Chinese people are starting to have higher lifestyle standards like their American counterparts and while the one-kid policy means there's only an additional mouth to feed, that additional mouth also needs to wear Nike, get private tutoring and get a kick arse dowry saved up for a kick arse wife (because the one-kid is always a boy, never a girl)

When I first started manufacturing in SE Asia, the annual income for simple factory workers in China was around $300/year. For that, you got a primary educated person who was literate and willing to work, with focus, 12 hour days. You had to provide three meals, a uniform, shoes and in some cases a dorm. But that was the deal. Now you need to pay minimum $300/month, plus the above with some limited benefits. Still well below the US wage scale, but in the meantime, the labor force in China has become less desperate and less willing to wait for the future. Plus the factory management, which was always paid pretty much US scale, is now outright hostile and pushy.
So, long and short of it, some manufacturing is more attractively done now outside of China.
In Churchill's words, "It's not the end, nor is it even the beginning of the end; but it may be the end of the beginning."

OklahomaTuba
10/12/2011, 09:10 AM
lol
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_DbO2kTcUJc/TpSRfiW1PuI/AAAAAAAAHw0/DQpxNC97gv0/s1600/mediaguideows.jpg

TUSooner
10/12/2011, 09:57 AM
lol
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_DbO2kTcUJc/TpSRfiW1PuI/AAAAAAAAHw0/DQpxNC97gv0/s1600/mediaguideows.jpg

I know political cartoons are supposed to caricatures and exaggerations, but that's dumb. What media is he talking about? I suspect his "media" it is as mythical and amorphous as "Wall Street. " (FOX is big-time commercial media, y'know?) I have yet to see any depictions even close to this. It's just more fuel for the blazing fire of Right Wingnut paranoia about the "MSM."

Oh yeah, thanks for dumbing down this thread with the "Tuba Touch."

NormanPride
10/12/2011, 01:45 PM
Burp. (http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1)

TUSooner
10/12/2011, 02:12 PM
Burp. (http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1)
Yes, hide that so nobody will see it!

Ton Loc
10/12/2011, 02:20 PM
Burp. (http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1)

Nice link...

They could have made that shorter with a cartoon that showed the banks/corps and the government giving each other reach arounds with one hand, wads of money in the other hand all while standing on the shoulders of the rest of the country.

But I'm no artist. Apparently, I need to become a banker.

sappstuf
10/12/2011, 03:03 PM
A fine video about the protests...

4QTfNEDgusQ

soonercruiser
10/12/2011, 03:12 PM
As has been said by others, the one child policy is starting to actually effect the Chinese. Within a decade or so, the Chinese economy will be "bust"! Who will THEY import labor from?

KantoSooner
10/12/2011, 04:34 PM
Well, there's been 'outsourcing' by Chinese companies to Vietnam already. Indonesia and Brazil offer low cost alternatives.
India to some degree. and then there's Mexico, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. All offer somewhat attractive labor pools and NUMBERS. (central America won't be a factor because they have low populations). Africa really won't be a factor because of horrendous infrastructure issues and low public education levels.
So, we'll see some stuff either not leaving the US or coming back.
Which is not all to the good. Back in 'the good ole days' American made sneakers cost $10 or so (Chuck Taylors, not Nikes, mind). In today's dollars, these would be $150...for your entry level sneaker. Run that effect through the whole economy, along with over borrowing by our government and our selves and you've got an inflation engine that's just starting to rev up. The 'China Effect' has been a big part of keeping inflation in check since the mid-1980's. For those who didn't live through 'stagflation', it wasn't fun.

OklahomaTuba
10/13/2011, 08:42 AM
I have yet to see any depictions even close to this.You must not be paying much attention then.

Bourbon St Sooner
10/13/2011, 01:08 PM
I could get behind these folks if they would say they are against the crony capitalism that pervades our economy these days. And I'd really be for reforming the broken corporate governance system in this country. But when they trot out a laundry list of liberal giveaways as their "demands", I just get turned off.

TitoMorelli
10/13/2011, 01:39 PM
Burp. (http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1)



Oh, belch. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Insider)

"Henry Blodget (author of the article at the burp-link) is the CEO and Editor-In-Chief, a Yale graduate who previously worked on Wall Street before being barred from the securities industry after a conviction for securities fraud."

Bourbon St Sooner
10/13/2011, 03:38 PM
Oh, belch. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Insider)

"Henry Blodget (author of the article at the burp-link) is the CEO and Editor-In-Chief, a Yale graduate who previously worked on Wall Street before being barred from the securities industry after a conviction for securities fraud."

So you're refuting the facts of the article?

NormanPride
10/13/2011, 03:39 PM
Oh, belch. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Insider)

"Henry Blodget (author of the article at the burp-link) is the CEO and Editor-In-Chief, a Yale graduate who previously worked on Wall Street before being barred from the securities industry after a conviction for securities fraud."

Ad hominem. Try again.

Trophy Husband
10/13/2011, 04:08 PM
Can someone please provide to me one documented case where someone was "forced", against their will, to take out a mortgage loan from a financial institution.

TUSooner
10/13/2011, 04:45 PM
Can someone please provide to me one documented case where someone was "forced", against their will, to take out a mortgage loan from a financial institution.
What would that have to do with someone who took out a mortgage 9with much encoragement) thinking it was the wise thing to do and then lost his job? Blame whoever you want, since you got yours.

But yeah, some people are stupid and need to take their licks for acting unwisely. But what about the free-wheeling investment banks? As things stand, they are playing with our money. For them, it's "head I win, tails we do it over." They take colossal risks and if they win, they collect their zillions. If they lose, well, they don't lose because we taxpayers bail them out and save them for the consequences of their own folly. And they collect their zillions! We need to stop amusing ourself to distraction over the red herring hippies and Leninists and start looking at what's going on behind the curtain.

KantoSooner
10/13/2011, 04:59 PM
TU, you're utterly wrong.


There is no curtain. I am all for unfettered capitalism, but that is NOT what we have now. What we have done is to remove that most healthy of capitalism's tools: fear. Without real consequences to real decisions, we get the flacid, herd behavior that Wall Street has shown for most of my life. A bunch of men (and women) expensively coiffed and suited mumbling bull**** that most of them don't understand and that none of them examine against the world around them....while making huge piles of cash. And all of this without risk because, if they screw it up, Uncle Sugar decides they're too big to fail and whips a bigger pile o' lucre at them.
Well, here's a capitalist 'Enough', from me. Screw 'em. We saved the banking system from meltdown to avoid what? a recession/depression? Hello. How about if we'd taken the 1.5 trill or whatever and simply put together a relief org for the hardest hit individuals and then forbidden anyone who bought mortgage backed securities from collecting on them UNLESS they could, within 24 hours, provide a precise picture of their exposure. If they can't then they should be deemed to be 'terminally stupid' and lose their money. Unfair and harsh, but no more so than what we've done.

And nothing that's been done has been hidden. The so called 99% of us who aren't on 'Wall Street' were simply too besotted by the finanso-babble to call BS on the investment bankers. Well, it turns out, once again, that common sense was right. Those things we couldn't understand? Well, no one could. Not even the guys peddling them.

From wherever you come on the political spectrum, I think we can all agree that the best thing to come of the current mess would be an abrupt heightening of financial conservatism at a personal level. Do you really understand what is going on with your IRA? Why in God's name do you continue to put money into it? Etc.

Serge Ibaka
10/13/2011, 05:20 PM
Tea party = responsible people with the ability to think
Occutards= no personal responsibility without the ability to think

Therein lies the difference.

Yeah!!!!!!!! GENERALITIES ARE CORRECT AND MAKE SENSE WHOOOOOOOoooOooOoOoOooOOOOOOOOOO!

TheHumanAlphabet
10/13/2011, 10:45 PM
Occupy Wall Street is a counter to the Tea Party as Saddam Hussein is to the Founding Fathers.

Not even close. OWS bunch of anarchists that want nothing but free shat and to stop all things corporate. Tea party are a bunc of people who have had it with run away gunment spending and want to reigh in the free wheeling congressional folks.

AlboSooner
10/13/2011, 10:51 PM
Republicans vs. Democrats.

/thread

AlboSooner
10/13/2011, 10:54 PM
Occupy Wall Street is a counter to the Tea Party as Saddam Hussein is to the Founding Fathers.

Not even close. OWS bunch of anarchists that want nothing but free shat and to stop all things corporate. Tea party are a bunc of people who have had it with run away gunment spending and want to reigh in the free wheeling congressional folks.

Only one group is lamenting at the ruling class though.

Serge Ibaka
10/13/2011, 11:33 PM
Occupy Wall Street is a counter to the Tea Party as Saddam Hussein is to the Founding Fathers.

Not even close. OWS bunch of anarchists that want nothing but free shat and to stop all things corporate. Tea party are a bunc of people who have had it with run away gunment spending and want to reigh in the free wheeling congressional folks.

As disorganized as OWS might be, I'm pretty sure it's the very opposite of "anarchist."

You do not know things.

JohnnyMack
10/14/2011, 07:41 AM
Occupy Wall Street is a counter to the Tea Party as Saddam Hussein is to the Founding Fathers.

Not even close. OWS bunch of anarchists that want nothing but free shat and to stop all things corporate. Tea party are a bunc of people who have had it with run away gunment spending and want to reigh in the free wheeling congressional folks.

Typical right wing rhetoric that flies in the face of facts. But that's how the far right operates, repeat the lie. Repeat the lie.

TUSooner
10/14/2011, 08:38 AM
TU, you're utterly wrong.


There is no curtain. I am all for unfettered capitalism, but that is NOT what we have now. What we have done is to remove that most healthy of capitalism's tools: fear. Without real consequences to real decisions, we get the flacid, herd behavior that Wall Street has shown for most of my life. A bunch of men (and women) expensively coiffed and suited mumbling bull**** that most of them don't understand and that none of them examine against the world around them....while making huge piles of cash. And all of this without risk because, if they screw it up, Uncle Sugar decides they're too big to fail and whips a bigger pile o' lucre at them.
Well, here's a capitalist 'Enough', from me. Screw 'em. We saved the banking system from meltdown to avoid what? a recession/depression? Hello. How about if we'd taken the 1.5 trill or whatever and simply put together a relief org for the hardest hit individuals and then forbidden anyone who bought mortgage backed securities from collecting on them UNLESS they could, within 24 hours, provide a precise picture of their exposure. If they can't then they should be deemed to be 'terminally stupid' and lose their money. Unfair and harsh, but no more so than what we've done.

And nothing that's been done has been hidden. The so called 99% of us who aren't on 'Wall Street' were simply too besotted by the finanso-babble to call BS on the investment bankers. Well, it turns out, once again, that common sense was right. Those things we couldn't understand? Well, no one could. Not even the guys peddling them.

From wherever you come on the political spectrum, I think we can all agree that the best thing to come of the current mess would be an abrupt heightening of financial conservatism at a personal level. Do you really understand what is going on with your IRA? Why in God's name do you continue to put money into it? Etc.

I'm not quite sure what I am utterly wrong about, because I essentially agree with what you just said: that the problem with unfettered capitalism is that it really isn't being tried and that the bankers have been protected instead of being made to lie in the bed they made. Evidently it was my inartful reference to a curtain. I really just meant we should open our eyes. It doesn't really matter too much since I have been known to miscommunicate or misunderstand in the past.
+1 to you in any event for this post.

Trophy Husband
10/14/2011, 09:08 AM
Folks knew they couldn't repay these loans but they took them anyway. It's the borrowers fault. It's like these people that eat at McDonalds every day, then want to blame McDonalds for their health problems.

Trophy Husband
10/14/2011, 10:54 AM
Typical right wing rhetoric that flies in the face of facts. But that's how the far right operates, repeat the lie. Repeat the lie.

Oh please, the left has made a living out of dividing this country with their rhetoric. "Tax the rich more and that will solve all of our problems", "the rich need to pay their fair share". They neglect to mention that 47% of people in this country don't pay ANY taxes.
Why aren't you and your liberal hacks outraged at those people?
The federal government could confiscate 100% of the every americans wages and it wouldn't make a dent in the debt that Obama has run up.
It just sounds good to say "stick it to the rich". It won't do a damn thing for anyone else, but it will make the havenot's feel better about themselves.

The left has no original ideas so they keep regurgitating, the same old, "tax and spend" BS. If the stimulus worked so well, why do we need to wash, rinse and repeat? Why are things worse now than they were prior to the "porkulus"?

Oh wait, I know why, "it's Bush's fault".

Trophy Husband
10/14/2011, 10:58 AM
What would that have to do with someone who took out a mortgage 9with much encoragement) thinking it was the wise thing to do and then lost his job? Blame whoever you want, since you got yours.

But yeah, some people are stupid and need to take their licks for acting unwisely. But what about the free-wheeling investment banks? As things stand, they are playing with our money. For them, it's "head I win, tails we do it over." They take colossal risks and if they win, they collect their zillions. If they lose, well, they don't lose because we taxpayers bail them out and save them for the consequences of their own folly. And they collect their zillions! We need to stop amusing ourself to distraction over the red herring hippies and Leninists and start looking at what's going on behind the curtain.

We tax payers were forced to bail them out, because of the porkulus bill. Many of these banks didn't want the bail out money but were forced to take it by Barry and his Boys. Many of the banks have paid back the money with interest. Let me ask you have you received a refund check from the Feds for the portion of the bail out you paid through your taxes? (along with the interest the feds collected on?)

The damn feds made money on the bail out, they used the tax payers to foot the bill, and when it was time to be paid back, they turned their back on us and kept every penny that was paid back to them.

I have no sympathy for the feds or for those who voted for this sorry president. They elected him, they continue to support his self destructive behavior, so they can take their tears and cry me a river with them.

sappstuf
10/14/2011, 12:14 PM
As disorganized as OWS might be, I'm pretty sure it's the very opposite of "anarchist."

You do not know things.

Direct quote from the co-founder of the "We are the 99%" group...


I am an anarchist

Here is his full response.. You can make your own decision on if he really is anachist or just an idiot... I've made mine.


I am an anarchist, though my belief is that anarchism should be more about building things up than tearing things down. I am a dedicated pacifist.

But to state that there are self-described anarchists in the group and that they go all the way to the top and have been there from the beginning is absolutely factual.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/we-are-the-99-percent-creators

cleller
10/14/2011, 12:29 PM
I enjoy the fact the Russell Simmons, Alec Baldwin and Al Gore support the occupiers. They're all 1%'ers that got that way thru cozy relationships with the people the occupiers are rallying against.

JohnnyMack
10/14/2011, 12:31 PM
Oh please, the left has made a living out of dividing this country with their rhetoric. "Tax the rich more and that will solve all of our problems", "the rich need to pay their fair share". They neglect to mention that 47% of people in this country don't pay ANY taxes.
Why aren't you and your liberal hacks outraged at those people?
The federal government could confiscate 100% of the every americans wages and it wouldn't make a dent in the debt that Obama has run up.
It just sounds good to say "stick it to the rich". It won't do a damn thing for anyone else, but it will make the havenot's feel better about themselves.

The left has no original ideas so they keep regurgitating, the same old, "tax and spend" BS. If the stimulus worked so well, why do we need to wash, rinse and repeat? Why are things worse now than they were prior to the "porkulus"?

Oh wait, I know why, "it's Bush's fault".

Just cause I loathe the GOP and the ultra right wing moonbats doesn't mean I'm a liberal hack, sugar tits.

Trophy Husband
10/14/2011, 01:49 PM
Just cause I loathe the GOP and the ultra right wing moonbats doesn't mean I'm a liberal hack, sugar tits.

Trust me, you're a liberal hack

Turd_Ferguson
10/14/2011, 01:51 PM
Just cause I loathe the GOP and the ultra right wing moonbats doesn't mean I'm a liberal hack, sugar tits.No, your just a God hating **** stirrer, pocket fuzz.

Trophy Husband
10/14/2011, 01:53 PM
Just cause I loathe the GOP and the ultra right wing moonbats doesn't mean I'm a liberal hack, sugar tits.

Liberal hack playbook 101, when confronted with facts that you can not overcome, resort to insulting the one/ones who are presenting the facts.
Come with something other than "sugar tits" or take your toys and go home.

TUSooner
10/14/2011, 02:28 PM
Liberal hack playbook 101, when confronted with facts that you can not overcome, resort to insulting the one/ones who are presenting the facts.
Come with something other than "sugar tits" or take your toys and go home.

Not nice. Especially form someobe who hasn't been around long enpough to know who you are talking to or about. People who disagree with your rigid opinions are not automatically "liberal hacks." Some of them are conservatives or libertarians who have more brains than you or who demand more than slogans and cant.

- 1 for you.

sappstuf
10/14/2011, 05:13 PM
oSo-MEiMbac

I'm speechless....

diverdog
10/14/2011, 07:06 PM
Liberal hack playbook 101, when confronted with facts that you can not overcome, resort to insulting the one/ones who are presenting the facts.
Come with something other than "sugar tits" or take your toys and go home.

You are lucky he did not call you "butt plug".

diverdog
10/14/2011, 07:09 PM
We tax payers were forced to bail them out, because of the porkulus bill. Many of these banks didn't want the bail out money but were forced to take it by Barry and his Boys. Many of the banks have paid back the money with interest. Let me ask you have you received a refund check from the Feds for the portion of the bail out you paid through your taxes? (along with the interest the feds collected on?)

The damn feds made money on the bail out, they used the tax payers to foot the bill, and when it was time to be paid back, they turned their back on us and kept every penny that was paid back to them.

I have no sympathy for the feds or for those who voted for this sorry president. They elected him, they continue to support his self destructive behavior, so they can take their tears and cry me a river with them.

Wow you have no facts do you. Do me a favor and google troubled asset relief program and then get back to me.

soonercruiser
10/14/2011, 09:32 PM
Sorry,
JohhnyLacofFacts!
"Repeating the lie often enough" IS actually in the Alinskyian play BOOK!

soonercruiser
10/14/2011, 09:37 PM
Just cause I loathe the GOP and the ultra right wing moonbats doesn't mean I'm a liberal hack, sugar tits.

In this case "the husband" is correct!
And, your lack of respect for posters, and name calling is in the Alinskyian play book too.

diverdog
10/14/2011, 10:14 PM
Sorry,
JohhnyLacofFacts!
"Repeating the lie often enough" IS actually in the Alinskyian play BOOK!

Really? Where is it in the book?

cleller
10/15/2011, 08:33 AM
If nothing else, these threads can educate. I was completely in the dark on Saul Alinsky. Interesting to learn he is obviously very important not only in Obama's background, but also Hillary's. (she did her "hidden" thesis on him) Also, he was a mentor of Cesar Chavez. Now, some say the Tea Party is adopting his methods. Weird world.

I'm sure I would not have liked his politics, but his "Rules for Radicals" was very canny. He's worth reading up on, for education.

JohnnyMack
10/15/2011, 09:09 AM
The message offered up by Rush, Hannity and to a large part Fox News is a very dichotomous, black and white, us versus them message. Talk radio compounds this problem by offering little in terms of a positivity and spends its time destroying the other side, rather than offering up anything that can be used to build it's case. Now MSNBC has countered by turning Maddow into an attack dog who does the same thing that makes right wing talk so contemptible. The media, by and large is a worthless entity that spends it's time massaging a message and destroying the other side. I think the conservative media needs a William F. Buckley type rather than what they have as a king in Rush.

GDC
10/15/2011, 09:39 PM
As usual, Matt Taibbi hits the nail on the head...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/my-advice-to-the-occupy-wall-street-protesters-20111012


My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters: Hit the bankers where it hurts

By MATT TAIBBI
OCTOBER 12, 2011 8:00 AM ET


I've been down to "Occupy Wall Street" twice now, and I love it. The protests building at Liberty Square and spreading over Lower Manhattan are a great thing, the logical answer to the Tea Party and a long-overdue middle finger to the financial elite. The protesters picked the right target and, through their refusal to disband after just one day, the right tactic, showing the public at large that the movement against Wall Street has stamina, resolve and growing popular appeal.

But... there's a but. And for me this is a deeply personal thing, because this issue of how to combat Wall Street corruption has consumed my life for years now, and it's hard for me not to see where Occupy Wall Street could be better and more dangerous. I'm guessing, for instance, that the banks were secretly thrilled in the early going of the protests, sure they'd won round one of the messaging war.

Why? Because after a decade of unparalleled thievery and corruption, with tens of millions entering the ranks of the hungry thanks to artificially inflated commodity prices, and millions more displaced from their homes by corruption in the mortgage markets, the headline from the first week of protests against the financial-services sector was an old cop macing a quartet of college girls.

That, to me, speaks volumes about the primary challenge of opposing the 50-headed hydra of Wall Street corruption, which is that it's extremely difficult to explain the crimes of the modern financial elite in a simple visual. The essence of this particular sort of oligarchic power is its complexity and day-to-day invisibility: Its worst crimes, from bribery and insider trading and market manipulation, to backroom dominance of government and the usurping of the regulatory structure from within, simply can't be seen by the public or put on TV. There just isn't going to be an iconic "Running Girl" photo with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup or Bank of America – just 62 million Americans with zero or negative net worth, scratching their heads and wondering where the hell all their money went and why their votes seem to count less and less each and every year.

No matter what, I'll be supporting Occupy Wall Street. And I think the movement's basic strategy – to build numbers and stay in the fight, rather than tying itself to any particular set of principles – makes a lot of sense early on. But the time is rapidly approaching when the movement is going to have to offer concrete solutions to the problems posed by Wall Street. To do that, it will need a short but powerful list of demands. There are thousands one could make, but I'd suggest focusing on five:

1. Break up the monopolies. The so-called "Too Big to Fail" financial companies – now sometimes called by the more accurate term "Systemically Dangerous Institutions" – are a direct threat to national security. They are above the law and above market consequence, making them more dangerous and unaccountable than a thousand mafias combined. There are about 20 such firms in America, and they need to be dismantled; a good start would be to repeal the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and mandate the separation of insurance companies, investment banks and commercial banks.

2. Pay for your own bailouts. A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about. It would also deter the endless chase for instant profits through computerized insider-trading schemes like High Frequency Trading, and force Wall Street to go back to the job it's supposed to be doing, i.e., making sober investments in job-creating businesses and watching them grow.

3. No public money for private lobbying. A company that receives a public bailout should not be allowed to use the taxpayer's own money to lobby against him. You can either suck on the public teat or influence the next presidential race, but you can't do both. Butt out for once and let the people choose the next president and Congress.

4. Tax hedge-fund gamblers. For starters, we need an immediate repeal of the preposterous and indefensible carried-interest tax break, which allows hedge-fund titans like Stevie Cohen and John Paulson to pay taxes of only 15 percent on their billions in gambling income, while ordinary Americans pay twice that for teaching kids and putting out fires. I defy any politician to stand up and defend that loophole during an election year.

5. Change the way bankers get paid. We need new laws preventing Wall Street executives from getting bonuses upfront for deals that might blow up in all of our faces later. It should be: You make a deal today, you get company stock you can redeem two or three years from now. That forces everyone to be invested in his own company's long-term health – no more Joe Cassanos pocketing multimillion-dollar bonuses for destroying the AIGs of the world.

To quote the immortal political philosopher Matt Damon from Rounders, "The key to No Limit poker is to put a man to a decision for all his chips." The only reason the Lloyd Blankfeins and Jamie Dimons of the world survive is that they're never forced, by the media or anyone else, to put all their cards on the table. If Occupy Wall Street can do that – if it can speak to the millions of people the banks have driven into foreclosure and joblessness – it has a chance to build a massive grassroots movement. All it has to do is light a match in the right place, and the overwhelming public support for real reform – not later, but right now – will be there in an instant.

This story is from the October 27, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone.

diverdog
10/16/2011, 02:24 PM
As usual, Matt Taibbi hits the nail on the head...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/my-advice-to-the-occupy-wall-street-protesters-20111012

He is absolutely right on.

AlboSooner
10/16/2011, 04:28 PM
As usual, Matt Taibbi hits the nail on the head...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/my-advice-to-the-occupy-wall-street-protesters-20111012

great read

cleller
10/16/2011, 07:39 PM
Getting back to comparing the Tea Party with the Occupiers:
Who would throw a better party?
Who would you let babysit your kids?
Who is more likely to have been convicted of a crime of moral turpitude?
Who would be better in The Redzone?!

SanJoaquinSooner
10/16/2011, 10:50 PM
we all need a little perspective

8r1CZTLk-Gk&

NormanPride
10/17/2011, 10:07 AM
****ing ****ty team only beat Kansas by 30 on the road. We should have held them to less than 20 yards in the second half! Way to be lazy and stupid, defense! Offense couldn't even pass the century mark trying to run the ball with their third string guards. Damn we suck!

marfacowboy
10/17/2011, 10:18 AM
I'm not quite sure what I am utterly wrong about, because I essentially agree with what you just said: that the problem with unfettered capitalism is that it really isn't being tried and that the bankers have been protected instead of being made to lie in the bed they made.

I take issue with any notion of "unfettered capitalism." From my perspective, that means unfettered growth, and growth economics, or the notion that we must grow or even can grow ad infinitum, is a significantly flawed, even dangerous idea. It's too taxing on resources and is already proven to be completely unsustainable and unrealistic.
Any economic system is ultimately bound by geophysical and biological resources. And if you allow capitalists to "run amok" without any government regulation (although I'm not certain that's what you mean, TUSooner), we all know where that leads. We've got huge problems in what some call an over-regulated system. I can't imagine what it would be like with less regulation.
Making money is fine, but you can't destroy the only home you have while you're doing it.

TUSooner
10/17/2011, 01:14 PM
I take issue with any notion of "unfettered capitalism." From my perspective, that means unfettered growth, and growth economics, or the notion that we must grow or even can grow ad infinitum, is a significantly flawed, even dangerous idea. It's too taxing on resources and is already proven to be completely unsustainable and unrealistic.
Any economic system is ultimately bound by geophysical and biological resources. And if you allow capitalists to "run amok" without any government regulation (although I'm not certain that's what you mean, TUSooner), we all know where that leads. We've got huge problems in what some call an over-regulated system. I can't imagine what it would be like with less regulation.
Making money is fine, but you can't destroy the only home you have while you're doing it.

Yes. I should be careful talking economics, since I don't know that much. You are correct that wide-open, unregulated, laissez-faire was not what I had in mind. I was more concrened with the idea -- a gross generalization! -- that under the current set-up, the big boys have different rules that the rest of us. As my friend who does know some economics put it, when they flip the coin (i.e. take risks) they can't lose. If it's heads, they score big, if it's tails, the rest of us bail them out. If, in their haste to make loans, investors make some bad ones - to Greece or to Jimmy Halfwit - it should be their problem, not spread across the public's backs. Too many of our posting colleagues around here seem to think anything that favors Megabiz or Megabank is just good old "free enterprise," while anything calling Megabiz or Megabank to account is "communism." I guess Teddy Roosevelt was a Bolshevik, in that case.

TUSooner
10/17/2011, 01:21 PM
I generally cringe when the Rolling Stone says anything about politics. But that Matt Taibbi fellow makes some sense.


http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...sters-20111012

GDC
10/17/2011, 02:57 PM
I generally cringe when the Rolling Stone says anything about politics. But that Matt Taibbi fellow makes some sense.

Honestly, he is the only reason to read Rolling Stone anymore.

marfacowboy
10/17/2011, 03:53 PM
Yes. I should be careful talking economics, since I don't know that much. You are correct that wide-open, unregulated, laissez-faire was not what I had in mind. I was more concrened with the idea -- a gross generalization! -- that under the current set-up, the big boys have different rules that the rest of us. As my friend who does know some economics put it, when they flip the coin (i.e. take risks) they can't lose. If it's heads, they score big, if it's tails, the rest of us bail them out. If, in their haste to make loans, investors make some bad ones - to Greece or to Jimmy Halfwit - it should be their problem, not spread across the public's backs. Too many of our posting colleagues around here seem to think anything that favors Megabiz or Megabank is just good old "free enterprise," while anything calling Megabiz or Megabank to account is "communism." I guess Teddy Roosevelt was a Bolshevik, in that case.

I'm sure you're correct, and it's always interesting to me how and why people support things they believe are in their self interest when, in reality, they most certainly are not in their best interest. Another thing that's interesting to me is how damn near every corporate executive I've ever known or worked with has spent most of their career trying to find a way out and get to a refuge from the monstrosities they helped construct.

Fraggle145
10/17/2011, 04:57 PM
Nice link...

They could have made that shorter with a cartoon that showed the banks/corps and the government giving each other reach arounds with one hand, wads of money in the other hand all while standing on the shoulders of the rest of the country.

But I'm no artist. Apparently, I need to become a banker.

Double Dutch Rudder.

Blue
10/17/2011, 10:46 PM
Whether you agree with it or not, the Tea Party had a message. OWS has had about a million messages coming from here, there, and everywhere.

There were some of them saying they're protesting for $20 minimum wage, a ban of all fossil fuels, and free college education for all.

If they simply said, "We're against Big Government getting in bed with Wall Street and bailing them out. We're against Corporations and Big Government rigging the game for everybody else. We're against the Federal Reserve."

I don't see that. I see the same marxist wannabes in Che Guevara shirts I saw in college who tried to convince me Bush and the Republicans were behind 9/11, Mother Earth is in pain, and "guns are evil m'kay."

I'm glad to see my generation getting involved but many of these people don't know what they're protesting. They seem to have all of this energy but no place to aim or direct it.

I hope they can do better on their PR, get their message nice and clear, and really shake up the establishment.

I really see no point in reading past this third reply.

Commies.

TUSooner
10/18/2011, 07:53 AM
The message offered up by Rush, Hannity and to a large part Fox News is a very dichotomous, black and white, us versus them message. Talk radio compounds this problem by offering little in terms of a positivity and spends its time destroying the other side, rather than offering up anything that can be used to build it's case. Now MSNBC has countered by turning Maddow into an attack dog who does the same thing that makes right wing talk so contemptible. The media, by and large is a worthless entity that spends it's time massaging a message and destroying the other side. I think the conservative media needs a William F. Buckley type rather than what they have as a king in Rush.

hammer + nail = this ^^^^

marfacowboy
10/18/2011, 08:52 AM
The message offered up by Rush, Hannity and to a large part Fox News is a very dichotomous, black and white, us versus them message. Talk radio compounds this problem by offering little in terms of a positivity and spends its time destroying the other side, rather than offering up anything that can be used to build it's case. Now MSNBC has countered by turning Maddow into an attack dog who does the same thing that makes right wing talk so contemptible. The media, by and large is a worthless entity that spends it's time massaging a message and destroying the other side. I think the conservative media needs a William F. Buckley type rather than what they have as a king in Rush.

I agree 100%. I fear we're too far down this path, however. Both sides are entrenched and neither shows any sign of retreating to a place where sensible compromises could be reached. Even The New York Times commentaries, while I generally agree with them, are pretty much hard line position pieces these days.
So, what we have are two very divergent views on the role of government and the private sector. The right is dominated by Chicago school economists that want a Friedman world on steroids. The other side is looking for a more rational mix of free market capitalism, controlled by regulation and environmental awareness, and socialism. Not government socialism, but more of a capitalist-socialist hybrid with more employee owned firms and cooperatives. That's how you break the 1%, by dilution of equity, but they'd of course defend that with violence, if necessary. In fact, they're already doing it.
Things will swing to the left once more moderates and blue collar conservatives figure out they've been voting against their own self interest, and that the rich really don't give a **** about them. Police, fire, auto-workers...anyone that's a wage earner and in a union will eventually figure it out, and when that happens, "god, guns and abortion" will no longer seem like such big issues.

prrriiide
10/19/2011, 05:27 AM
We've got huge problems in what some call an over-regulated system. I can't imagine what it would be like with less regulation.

The problem is where the regulations are (or aren't), and what they regulate (or don't). You are right that unfettered capitalism can't be trusted to provide for the common good, but you also have to take into account that MANY corporations are in existence today only due to government intervention via legislation and policy. They should, by all rights, be belly-up and a footnote in an MBA textbook. But the government is propping them up. True unfettered capitalism is a brutally Darwinian system in which only the fittest of enterprises survive. The problem is that the government has, as Kanto has pointed out, removed the risk from big businesses.

If the government only regulated consumer and environmental protections, and left the rest of the system to fend for itself, I think you'd see a lot of changes.

Trophy Husband
10/19/2011, 12:00 PM
Wow you have no facts do you. Do me a favor and google troubled asset relief program and then get back to me.
This whole sub prime mess started with the dems, Fanny and Freddie. Predatory lenders my ***, as I said unless you can provide proof that anyone was ever forced, against their will to borrow this money, it's all just pissing in the wind.

A guy making 2400 a month, knows damn good and well he can't afford a 1100 a month mortgage payment. No one is entitled to the "American Dream", it is however available to all who are willing to work to achieve it. Some will succeed and some will not. For those who do, great, for those who can not, you do the best you can and live within your means.

This logic is lost on liberals because their core beliefs state that everyone should be equal based on the fact they live on the planet earth and not based on them doing equal work, putting out equal effort and making wise choices in their lives.

TUSooner
10/19/2011, 12:36 PM
This whole sub prime mess started with the dems, Fanny and Freddie. Predatory lenders my ***, as I said unless you can provide proof that anyone was ever forced, against their will to borrow this money, it's all just pissing in the wind.

A guy making 2400 a month, knows damn good and well he can't afford a 1100 a month mortgage payment. No one is entitled to the "American Dream", it is however available to all who are willing to work to achieve it. Some will succeed and some will not. For those who do, great, for those who can not, you do the best you can and live within your means.

This logic is lost on liberals because their core beliefs state that everyone should be equal based on the fact they live on the planet earth and not based on them doing equal work, putting out equal effort and making wise choices in their lives.

It is obviously silly to belive this:
everyone should be equal based on the fact they live on the planet earth and not based on them doing equal work, putting out equal effort and making wise choices in their lives.

But not everybody who gets bashed as a "liberal" actually belives that. In fact, I know a bunch of "real" liberals who don't even believe that.

Also---
Was any lender forced to make a loan? Or were they just foolishly allowed to do it? Perhaps they were "enticed"; but that isn't an excuse for dumb borrowers, is it? So it shouldn't be for dumb lenders either. Unless lenders were compelled to make bad loans, and to create or invest in bad-loan securities, then it's their own tough luck (not the taxpayer's) that they loaned money to the "guy making 2400 a month." Plenty of lenders took foolish risks. Don't they have to pay for their mistakes just like your foolish 2400-a-month guy?

prrriiide
10/19/2011, 01:04 PM
provide proof that anyone was ever forced, against their will to borrow this money, it's all just pissing in the wind.

http://tinyurl.com/3fbt8fu

And gollydamn! The first thing that comes up is:


Fed fines Wells Fargo $85 million for questionable mortgages

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011, 2:12 pm


The Federal Reserve fined Wells Fargo (WFC (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=WFC): 25.43 -1.66%) $85 million and issued a cease and desist order for allegedly steering prime mortgage borrowers into subprime loans, along with falsifying income information on applications.



A guy making 2400 a month, knows damn good and well he can't afford a 1100 a month mortgage payment. No one is entitled to the "American Dream", it is however available to all who are willing to work to achieve it. Some will succeed and some will not. For those who do, great, for those who can not, you do the best you can and live within your means.

Wrong. This is the same red herring that the talking heads on radio and Faux News have been trotting out for years now, and it's just as false now as it was 3 years ago.Unlike wine, bullschidt doesn't improve with age. The mortgage houses (Countrywide, WF, BoA, others) steered people into taking loans that they could afford - until the Fed raised the interest rate (which the banks said wasn't going to happen) and the loans re-set into much higher payments.

I know from whence I speak, because I was almost one of the statistics. Countrywide did it to me, but I was fortunate enough to sell and buy another house with a good, traditional rate before the bottom fell out. I went from being told by Countrywide that the only loan I qualified for was an ARM in 2004 to being given a 5.25% loan in 2006 by a different broker. That broker told straight up that he left a high-paying position at Countrywide because his choice was to lie to customers about their credit status and steer them into ARMs, or not make his monthly quota. These people lied and ruined people's lives for the bucks they could make in the sub prime market. And not one went to jail over it.

Had I not been able to get out from under that ARM, my loan rate would have re-set (in 2007), almost doubling my payment from $865/mo. to $1650/mo. That happened to millions of homeowners across the country. You're going to sit there and tell me that it wasn't because that's what the banks and mortgage brokers were hawking? That's crap. Some people did knowingly get in over their heads. That's tough for them. But the far greater majority were pushed into sub prime's by unethical conduct on the part of the lenders.


This logic is lost on liberals because their core beliefs state that everyone should be equal based on the fact they live on the planet earth and not based on them doing equal work, putting out equal effort and making wise choices in their lives.

Do you really think like this? Do you really think that liberals are against hard work, and the American Dream? Maybe you should shut off the radio and the Faux News, leave your cave, and go out in the real world and notice that a BIG percentage of the hard-working Americans you know that are living as much of the American dream as they can are more liberal than they are conservative.

soonercruiser
10/19/2011, 09:00 PM
For the polling numbers on the OWS crowd, see my thread....
http://www.soonerfans.com/forums/showthread.php?161311-OWS-Statistics-NOT-THE-TEA-PARTY!

XingTheRubicon
10/20/2011, 08:05 AM
http://tinyurl.com/3fbt8fu
I know from whence I speak, because I was almost one of the statistics. Countrywide did it to me, but I was fortunate enough to sell and buy another house with a good, traditional rate before the bottom fell out. I went from being told by Countrywide that the only loan I qualified for was an ARM in 2004 to being given a 5.25% loan in 2006 by a different broker. That broker told straight up that he left a high-paying position at Countrywide because his choice was to lie to customers about their credit status and steer them into ARMs, or not make his monthly quota. These people lied and ruined people's lives for the bucks they could make in the sub prime market. And not one went to jail over it.

Had I not been able to get out from under that ARM, my loan rate would have re-set (in 2007), almost doubling my payment from $865/mo. to $1650/mo. That happened to millions of homeowners across the country. You're going to sit there and tell me that it wasn't because that's what the banks and mortgage brokers were hawking? That's crap. Some people did knowingly get in over their heads. That's tough for them. But the far greater majority were pushed into sub prime's by unethical conduct on the part of the lenders.


I bought a home in Feb of 2004. I was offered an adjustable rate mortgage as well, in fact, they pushed it pretty hard.

I found it a useful strategy to educate myself on an ARM vs. fixed rate before I signed a six figure contract.

Liberals will always blame their own ignorance on others.

NormanPride
10/20/2011, 10:33 AM
It's not necessarily ignorance when you are deliberately being mislead about your position.

XingTheRubicon
10/20/2011, 11:47 AM
I understand what you are saying, however car dealers, bankers, lawyers, ,marketers, etc...will at some/several points in your life, bend the truth for pursuit of their own interests.

It's up to you when the term "adjustable rate" is brought up when you're about to make the biggest purchase of your life, not to just go..."uh, okay, golly...sure."

Ike
10/20/2011, 12:04 PM
I found it a useful strategy to educate myself on an ARM vs. fixed rate before I signed a six figure contract.

Liberals will always blame their own ignorance on others.
I completely agree with you on the notion that it's not right for someone to blame their own ignorance on others. However, When you consider just how much ignorance coupled with deceit contributed to the current economic morass we are in, and just how much other peoples ignorance and other peoples deceit made things a lot worse for everyone, then I think it's time to think about what can be done to limit that.

prrriiide
10/20/2011, 02:51 PM
Liberals will always blame their own ignorance on others.

And conservatives will always blame their own arrogance on others. See, I can play the BS generality game, too.

I raised concerns with them. Their pitch was "well, it doesn't re-set for 36 months. You should be able to qualify for a traditional rate by then." When I called to get my new loan, I called them first. They told me the same thing. I shopped and got my eyes opened.

SanJoaquinSooner
10/20/2011, 03:09 PM
An oil exec was asked on CNBC to comment on the news flash that Gadhafi is dead.

He said, "The company did some drilling there a few years ago, but our exposure to Libya is not significant. I see no big consequences from this news."


:highly_amused:

dwarthog
10/20/2011, 04:01 PM
It is obviously silly to belive this:

But not everybody who gets bashed as a "liberal" actually belives that. In fact, I know a bunch of "real" liberals who don't even believe that.

Also---
Was any lender forced to make a loan? Or were they just foolishly allowed to do it? Perhaps they were "enticed"; but that isn't an excuse for dumb borrowers, is it? So it shouldn't be for dumb lenders either. Unless lenders were compelled to make bad loans, and to create or invest in bad-loan securities, then it's their own tough luck (not the taxpayer's) that they loaned money to the "guy making 2400 a month." Plenty of lenders took foolish risks. Don't they have to pay for their mistakes just like your foolish 2400-a-month guy?

You raise valid points here.

There probably should be some level of culpability here for the lenders as they were no doubt "aggressive" in pushing some of these questionable loans.

For me the core issue is the perceived attempt to shift responsibility for making good decisions from the borrower onto the lender. And by that I mean good decisions with regards to trying to get something more than is reasonable based on your income or ability to make the payment. That should have been basic decision making 101.

No matter who ends up as the public's bad guy here, the taxpayers, are going to end up holding the bag once more.

I can hardly wait for the student load crisis to land on us after this mess is sorted out.... :(

Midtowner
10/20/2011, 04:06 PM
I can hardly wait for the student load crisis to land on us after this mess is sorted out.... :(

Congress has already solved this problem with some brave legislation. Starting in 3 years, if for these next 3 years, a school has a >50% default rate on its student loans, they won't have access to any more student loan money. If just 50% can not default, however, they can have upwards of $30K per year for tuition.

/sarc

SicEmBaylor
10/21/2011, 04:53 AM
hammer + nail = this ^^^^
Add me to the list in support of this statement.

marfacowboy
10/21/2011, 05:43 AM
The problem is where the regulations are (or aren't), and what they regulate (or don't). You are right that unfettered capitalism can't be trusted to provide for the common good, but you also have to take into account that MANY corporations are in existence today only due to government intervention via legislation and policy. They should, by all rights, be belly-up and a footnote in an MBA textbook. But the government is propping them up. True unfettered capitalism is a brutally Darwinian system in which only the fittest of enterprises survive. The problem is that the government has, as Kanto has pointed out, removed the risk from big businesses.

If the government only regulated consumer and environmental protections, and left the rest of the system to fend for itself, I think you'd see a lot of changes.

I have no issue with this whatsoever. GM is a recent example, although in the case of GM, the government not only saved GM, it saved the jobs of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of workers at companies that supply GM. I believe GM has paid the $6.7 loan amount with interest, but the government still has a huge equity stake in the company which is technically "at risk." So, the jury is still out on this one, but I believe it would have been a crushing blow had GM failed at that point in time.

prrriiide
10/21/2011, 01:21 PM
[I have no issue with this whatsoever. GM is a recent example, although in the case of GM, the government not only saved GM, it saved the jobs of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of workers at companies that supply GM. I believe GM has paid the $6.7 loan amount with interest, but the government still has a huge equity stake in the company which is technically "at risk." So, the jury is still out on this one, but I believe it would have been a crushing blow had GM failed at that point in time.

The problem is that the industry [knew that the gov't would bail them out. The precedent had been set with Reagan and Chrysler. Of course the demise of GM would have had catastrophic consequences for the economy. But would GM have been in that position to begin with if they had known that it was sink or swim? Some might pooh-pooh that question, but they sure as hell seem to be doing well now, after a giant cash infusion. Why are they doing now what they couldn't do before the bail out?

sappstuf
10/21/2011, 01:48 PM
The problem is that the industry [knew that the gov't would bail them out. The precedent had been set with Reagan and Chrysler. Of course the demise of GM would have had catastrophic consequences for the economy. But would GM have been in that position to begin with if they had known that it was sink or swim? Some might pooh-pooh that question, but they sure as hell seem to be doing well now, after a giant cash infusion. Why are they doing now what they couldn't do before the bail out?

Very good point. Government bailouts sends the message that riskier behavior is acceptable because there is a safety net. It is unavoidable.

My personal belief is that markets can only get so far out of whack before they self-correct if everyone is playing on the same field(proper role of the government). But when the government gets involved in areas it shouldn't, even if for a good reason at first, it increases the margins of whackiness that is possible before it self-corrects.

It is the difference between a bubble, which is fine. And a huge-super-gigantic-mega bubble, which isn't so fine.

GDC
10/22/2011, 12:09 PM
MmusrhoEPyU

soonercruiser
10/22/2011, 08:13 PM
Maher is soooo square, HE doesn't get it!
OWhatevers are the new hippies!
Duh!
:distant:

Turd_Ferguson
10/26/2011, 08:35 PM
LMAO!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQX4u-W7uyQ

Caboose
10/26/2011, 09:43 PM
LMAO!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQX4u-W7uyQ

Haha. He wants you to stay calm.

sappstuf
10/28/2011, 08:06 AM
LMAO!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQX4u-W7uyQ

The funniest part is that he is a Columbia grad student with a trust fund...

Trophy Husband
10/28/2011, 10:51 AM
It is obviously silly to belive this:

But not everybody who gets bashed as a "liberal" actually belives that. In fact, I know a bunch of "real" liberals who don't even believe that.

Also---
Was any lender forced to make a loan? Or were they just foolishly allowed to do it? Perhaps they were "enticed"; but that isn't an excuse for dumb borrowers, is it? So it shouldn't be for dumb lenders either. Unless lenders were compelled to make bad loans, and to create or invest in bad-loan securities, then it's their own tough luck (not the taxpayer's) that they loaned money to the "guy making 2400 a month." Plenty of lenders took foolish risks. Don't they have to pay for their mistakes just like your foolish 2400-a-month guy?

Lenders were basically leveraged into making these bad loans by the FED GOV. Again, please provide one documented case where a consumer was forced, against their will, to take out one of these mortgage loans. Predatory lender, my azz.

JohnnyMack
10/28/2011, 11:48 AM
Lenders were basically leveraged into making these bad loans by the FED GOV. Again, please provide one documented case where a consumer was forced, against their will, to take out one of these mortgage loans. Predatory lender, my azz.

The concept of predatory lending does not equate to forcing someone against their will to take out a mortgage loan.

NormanPride
10/28/2011, 11:55 AM
Why does it have to be one specific side's fault? And why is this getting so heated? It's like if the banks are at fault TH is personally offended or something...

Midtowner
10/28/2011, 12:13 PM
Lenders were basically leveraged into making these bad loans by the FED GOV. Again, please provide one documented case where a consumer was forced, against their will, to take out one of these mortgage loans. Predatory lender, my azz.

Are you talking about the Community Reinvestment Act? Go read books. CRA loans were a small minority of the failed mortgage backed securities. The biggest problem was that we had an unregulated mortgage industry, which in large part, due to Glass Steagall, had a lot of cash it needed to loan out. The pressure/reward for writing and underwriting loans increased, so the oversight and the requirements slacked off. The crisis was caused by the banks and the financial industry. It used to be that if you invested in a mortgage backed security, you'd expect the banks to have done some due diligence in the loan. They didn't. They loaned money to a lot of people who shouldn't have received loans.

Trophy Husband
10/28/2011, 03:43 PM
Are you talking about the Community Reinvestment Act? Go read books. CRA loans were a small minority of the failed mortgage backed securities. The biggest problem was that we had an unregulated mortgage industry, which in large part, due to Glass Steagall, had a lot of cash it needed to loan out. The pressure/reward for writing and underwriting loans increased, so the oversight and the requirements slacked off. The crisis was caused by the banks and the financial industry. It used to be that if you invested in a mortgage backed security, you'd expect the banks to have done some due diligence in the loan. They didn't. They loaned money to a lot of people who shouldn't have received loans.

and not a damn one of those consumers were forced, against their will, to borrow the money, that's my point. Geez!!!! Predatory lender, was a phrase coined by the "we're all innocent victims" crowd to make it appear as if these evil lenders were praying upon these poor unsuspecting consumers.

I've got a mortgage loan, two auto loans and a heloc, and not one of those loans was forced upon me. If I can't pay them back, that's my fault.

Midtowner
10/28/2011, 08:22 PM
and not a damn one of those consumers were forced, against their will, to borrow the money, that's my point. Geez!!!! Predatory lender, was a phrase coined by the "we're all innocent victims" crowd to make it appear as if these evil lenders were praying upon these poor unsuspecting consumers.

I've got a mortgage loan, two auto loans and a heloc, and not one of those loans was forced upon me. If I can't pay them back, that's my fault.

Here's what we know: If banks lower standards to get loans, people will apply and be approved. If banks tighten standards, people who shouldn't be approved will not be approved.

People who can't pay a loan back will always apply. Many out of stupidity, others out of desperation. On one side of the equation, you have the poor and poorly educated. On the other side, you have mortgage brokers and folks who structure loan programs for underwriters. Which side of that equation do you think has more savvy and sense?

Blaming the most uneducated and poorest person who is a party to the loan is just silly. It's an excuse for the class warfare types to blame the poor for the misdeeds of the bankers.

XingTheRubicon
10/30/2011, 09:20 AM
I don't understand why the gov't can't just regulate it by requiring 3% down for credit scores 700 and up, and 5% down for credit scores below 700 on an individual mortgage.

You're newly married, have a 680 score and combined you make 80K a year and want to buy a 300K house? OK, 15K down. Sign whenever you're ready.

pphilfran
10/30/2011, 02:37 PM
The minimum down payment should be at least 10%...if you can't save 30k you can't afford a 300k home...

People can't sell home today because they are upside down...

diverdog
10/30/2011, 03:20 PM
and not a damn one of those consumers were forced, against their will, to borrow the money, that's my point. Geez!!!! Predatory lender, was a phrase coined by the "we're all innocent victims" crowd to make it appear as if these evil lenders were praying upon these poor unsuspecting consumers.

I've got a mortgage loan, two auto loans and a heloc, and not one of those loans was forced upon me. If I can't pay them back, that's my fault.

Actually some were forced in a sense in that the loans or the rates were not fully disclosed to the consumer. They may have signed documents that were fraudulent at the time and they never knew about it.

The problem you are having is you assuming that everyone in the mortgage game was ethical and you would be wrong. There are documented cases of bank underwriters being bribed by developers to approve loans. Bloomberg did an expose on mortgage sellers (woman) who traded sex for loan approvals in the Miami market. There were times that developers and the banks were in bed together and the bank mortgage officers were given commissions to approve loans. Consumers are under a reasonable assumption that the bank will not approve something they cannot afford. We are the experts and people depend on our advice (we=me as a banker) and we should not make loans that people cannot pay.

As for CRA there is absolutely no provision in Sec 802 of the act to force banks to make CRA loans. Banks are not forced into CRA and there is absolutely no where in the act that says banks have to make bad loans to unqualified borrows. On top of all that banks are not required to participate in CRA and there is no penalty per se for non-compliance. The only stick the federal government holds over the banks heads is through FDIC who might make it harder for banks to open new branches in certain areas.

Most of the bad loans made in low income communities were by predatory subprime lenders who were under little if any government oversight.

diverdog
10/30/2011, 03:21 PM
The minimum down payment should be at least 10%...if you can't save 30k you can't afford a 300k home...

People can't sell home today because they are upside down...

I say 20%.

XingTheRubicon
10/30/2011, 07:48 PM
If you knew the default rate difference between 5% down mortgages and zero down, you'd be fine with 5. Anything over 10 is naive.

soonercruiser
10/31/2011, 09:57 PM
Are you talking about the Community Reinvestment Act? Go read books. CRA loans were a small minority of the failed mortgage backed securities. The biggest problem was that we had an unregulated mortgage industry, which in large part, due to Glass Steagall, had a lot of cash it needed to loan out. The pressure/reward for writing and underwriting loans increased, so the oversight and the requirements slacked off. The crisis was caused by the banks and the financial industry. It used to be that if you invested in a mortgage backed security, you'd expect the banks to have done some due diligence in the loan. They didn't. They loaned money to a lot of people who shouldn't have received loans.

Apparently YOU need to read some "other" books, Midtowner.
The CRA act paid a special, critical part in setting up the whole housing loan & mortgage securities collapse.

Try this book...Wreckless Endangerment!
Then after you've read it tell me what you think, and please share some of the big names at fault!

soonercruiser
10/31/2011, 10:01 PM
James Johnson at Fannie Mae had the whole industry from builders to lenders leaning on Congress to leave the system as it was.....as he had manipulated and constructed it!
Most of the pimping was done by the local "Community Partners Organizations" of Freddie & Fannie!
Johnson set it up that way.....so every pimp could have their hookers!

diverdog
10/31/2011, 10:42 PM
Apparently YOU need to read some "other" books, Midtowner.
The CRA act paid a special, critical part in setting up the whole housing loan & mortgage securities collapse.

Try this book...Wreckless Endangerment!
Then after you've read it tell me what you think, and please share some of the big names at fault!

Did you actually read the book or are you just spouting off?

AlboSooner
11/1/2011, 11:16 AM
The Tea Party is a movement within the Republican Party to purge the party off the moderate and liberal conservatives.

Midtowner
11/1/2011, 12:20 PM
Did you actually read the book or are you just spouting off?

Since he can't even spell the name of the book, I'll give you even money on the later. Reading the NY Times review, it would seem to be a book I'd largely agree with.

soonercruiser
11/2/2011, 11:36 AM
Did you actually read the book or are you just spouting off?

About half way through Diver.
It's pretty tough reading for someone like me who hates mandatory reading. Wayyy too much detail.
(too many years of mandatory reading in my life)
But, I am discovering audio books to help put me to sleep at night!
:encouragement:

Also "reading" the Coming Insurrection by the Invisible Committee.
This is a book about the hearts and mind of the popular socialist and anarchist insurrections.

soonercruiser
11/2/2011, 11:36 AM
Since he can't even spell the name of the book, I'll give you even money on the later. Reading the NY Times review, it would seem to be a book I'd largely agree with.

Typical Alinskyian attack Midtowner!
You do it soooooo well!
:stupid:

Trophy Husband
11/3/2011, 03:25 PM
I wonder how many of the dregs in the occupy crowd have ever had to make a mortgage payment, pay property taxes, raise a child, make a payroll, run a business etc. I'd be willing to bet the vast majority have not.

How many of them worked their way through college as opposed to going on someone else dime? IE student loan or mommy and daddy. There's a reason this country isn't run by a bunch 20 somethings and hippies that never moved passed Woodstock, they're a bunch of free loading parasites.

They know they'll never be chit because they don't have the drive, dedication and desire to do what it would take, so they'd rather live a meager existence being spoon fed just enough to survive by their God, the Guvment.

Trophy Husband
11/3/2011, 03:27 PM
Actually some were forced in a sense in that the loans or the rates were not fully disclosed to the consumer. They may have signed documents that were fraudulent at the time and they never knew about it.

The problem you are having is you assuming that everyone in the mortgage game was ethical and you would be wrong. There are documented cases of bank underwriters being bribed by developers to approve loans. Bloomberg did an expose on mortgage sellers (woman) who traded sex for loan approvals in the Miami market. There were times that developers and the banks were in bed together and the bank mortgage officers were given commissions to approve loans. Consumers are under a reasonable assumption that the bank will not approve something they cannot afford. We are the experts and people depend on our advice (we=me as a banker) and we should not make loans that people cannot pay.

As for CRA there is absolutely no provision in Sec 802 of the act to force banks to make CRA loans. Banks are not forced into CRA and there is absolutely no where in the act that says banks have to make bad loans to unqualified borrows. On top of all that banks are not required to participate in CRA and there is no penalty per se for non-compliance. The only stick the federal government holds over the banks heads is through FDIC who might make it harder for banks to open new branches in certain areas.

Most of the bad loans made in low income communities were by predatory subprime lenders who were under little if any government oversight.

No one "FORCED" them to do anything, stop shifting the blame.

Trophy Husband
11/3/2011, 03:29 PM
The concept of predatory lending does not equate to forcing someone against their will to take out a mortgage loan.

The term implies the borrows are at no fault. The majority of the these loans were made to people with poor credit scores, people who were looking for something for nothing.

Trophy Husband
11/3/2011, 03:31 PM
Are you talking about the Community Reinvestment Act? Go read books. CRA loans were a small minority of the failed mortgage backed securities. The biggest problem was that we had an unregulated mortgage industry, which in large part, due to Glass Steagall, had a lot of cash it needed to loan out. The pressure/reward for writing and underwriting loans increased, so the oversight and the requirements slacked off. The crisis was caused by the banks and the financial industry. It used to be that if you invested in a mortgage backed security, you'd expect the banks to have done some due diligence in the loan. They didn't. They loaned money to a lot of people who shouldn't have received loans.

The fed Gov, thanks to Clinton, Todd, Franks etc forced the financial institutions to make loans to non qualified buyers, that is what started this whole mess. Another liberal "feel good" policy that didn't work.

JohnnyMack
11/3/2011, 03:34 PM
The term implies the borrows are at no fault. The majority of the these loans were made to people with poor credit scores, people who were looking for something for nothing.

Sure, there's blame on both sides. From lenders who should have known better as well as borrowers who should have known better. I don't think anyone would deny that greed affected the decision making of both sides.

Trophy Husband
11/3/2011, 03:38 PM
About half way through Diver.
It's pretty tough reading for someone like me who hates mandatory reading. Wayyy too much detail.
(too many years of mandatory reading in my life)
But, I am discovering audio books to help put me to sleep at night!
:encouragement:

Also "reading" the Coming Insurrection by the Invisible Committee.
This is a book about the hearts and mind of the popular socialist and anarchist insurrections.

I'm so sick of these liberal book worms not being able to think outside the pages of some rag they've picked up. These idiots read a book on how to rebuild a transmission, then they think they're master mechanics. If you gave em a screwdriver they'd try to eat pudding with it.

Trophy Husband
11/3/2011, 03:40 PM
Sure, there's blame on both sides. From lenders who should have known better as well as borrowers who should have known better. I don't think anyone would deny that greed affected the decision making of both sides.

Johnny the lenders were strong armed into making bad loans. What, one morning all these lenders plopped out of bed and decided they were going to start making bad loans?

Trophy Husband
11/3/2011, 03:43 PM
The folks who are getting the free stuff, don't like the folks who are paying for the free stuff, because the folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff.

The folks who are paying for the free stuff want the free stuff to stop, and the folks who are getting the free stuff want even more free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting!

Now... The people who are forcing the people who pay for the free stuff have told the people who are RECEIVING the free stuff, that the people who are PAYING for the free stuff, are being mean, prejudiced, and racist.

So... The people who are GETTING the free stuff have been convinced they need to hate the people who are paying for the free stuff by the people who are forcing some people to pay for their free stuff, and giving them the free stuff in the first place.

We have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are now more people getting free stuff than paying for the free stuff.

Now understand this. All great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded. The reason? The voters figured out they could vote themselves money from the treasury by electing people who promised to give them money from the treasury in exchange for electing them.

The United States officially became a Republic in 1776, 235 years ago. The number of people now getting free stuff outnumbers the people paying for the free stuff. We have one chance to change that. In 2012. Failure to change that spells the end of the United States as we know it.

ELECTION 2012 IS COMING
A Nation of Sheep Breeds a Government of Wolves!

JohnnyMack
11/3/2011, 04:27 PM
Johnny the lenders were strong armed into making bad loans. What, one morning all these lenders plopped out of bed and decided they were going to start making bad loans?

Greed is funny. I'm sure they didn't plan for it in the overly simplistic way you just offered up, but I do think that they were lured by easy money and it went from bad to worse once the investment banks started bundling these things up and stamping a AAA rating on them. The e-mails that have been uncovered don't show investment banks fretting over a federal government strong-arming them into making these loans, rather they're acutely aware that the product they were pushing was a piece of ****, yet they continued. I believe greed was a much bigger motivating factor than big brother.

badger
11/4/2011, 12:01 PM
http://cagle.com/news/Protesters11/images/garymccoy.jpg

More cartoons (both sides of the political spectrum) here. (http://cagle.com/news/Protesters11/main.asp)

Trophy Husband
11/4/2011, 04:01 PM
Greed is funny. I'm sure they didn't plan for it in the overly simplistic way you just offered up, but I do think that they were lured by easy money and it went from bad to worse once the investment banks started bundling these things up and stamping a AAA rating on them. The e-mails that have been uncovered don't show investment banks fretting over a federal government strong-arming them into making these loans, rather they're acutely aware that the product they were pushing was a piece of ****, yet they continued. I believe greed was a much bigger motivating factor than big brother.

Yes but they were forced to "push" the piece of "****" chit thanks to Todd, Clinton and Frank. This whole "everyone DESERVES a home" liberal feel good BS is what got the ball rolling, sure it picked up some debris along the way, but the feds started the mess.

diverdog
11/4/2011, 07:26 PM
I wonder how many of the dregs in the occupy crowd have ever had to make a mortgage payment, pay property taxes, raise a child, make a payroll, run a business etc. I'd be willing to bet the vast majority have not.

How many of them worked their way through college as opposed to going on someone else dime? IE student loan or mommy and daddy. There's a reason this country isn't run by a bunch 20 somethings and hippies that never moved passed Woodstock, they're a bunch of free loading parasites.

They know they'll never be chit because they don't have the drive, dedication and desire to do what it would take, so they'd rather live a meager existence being spoon fed just enough to survive by their God, the Guvment.

Some those dreggs served in combat. How about you?

diverdog
11/4/2011, 07:29 PM
Johnny the lenders were strong armed into making bad loans. What, one morning all these lenders plopped out of bed and decided they were going to start making bad loans?

I have worked in finance for twenty five years and you do not what the f*** you are talking about when it comes to CRA.

Trophy Husband
11/6/2011, 11:55 PM
Some those dreggs served in combat. How about you?

Re read my post dip chit, I said "I wonder how MANY of the dregs" I did not say "everyone".

Trophy Husband
11/7/2011, 12:00 AM
I have worked in finance for twenty five years and you do not what the f*** you are talking about when it comes to CRA.

Sub-prime loans were the stuff of which the toxic derivatives were made, and it was not some idle whim or fancy of the bankers that led to the proliferation of sub-prime loans; it was the pressure of the CRA that led to the invention of the concept of the “credit score” so as to diminish the discretion of lending institutions. Credit scores in turn became a driver of the expansion of credit to ever less creditworthy borrowers.

diverdog
11/7/2011, 07:00 AM
Sub-prime loans were the stuff of which the toxic derivatives were made, and it was not some idle whim or fancy of the bankers that led to the proliferation of sub-prime loans; it was the pressure of the CRA that led to the invention of the concept of the “credit score” so as to diminish the discretion of lending institutions. Credit scores in turn became a driver of the expansion of credit to ever less creditworthy borrowers.

1. Only 20% (approx)of all subprime loans were made by banks. All the rest were made by none FDIC institutions not subject to FDIC or CRA.

2. I have made millions of dollars in CRA loans and not once was I forced to do it and not once was I forced to put through a poorly underwritten loan. Our CRA portfolio has very good performance and we recieved an outstang rating from the Federal Reserve.

This is from the Federal Reserve:

Two basic points emerge from our analysis of the available data. First, only a small portion of subprime mortgage originations is related to the CRA. Second, CRA-related loans appear to perform comparably to other types of subprime loans. Taken together, the available evidence seems to run counter to the contention that the CRA contributed in any substantive way to the current mortgage crisis.

And:

An analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in 2009 concluded unequivocally that the CRA was not responsible for the mortgage loan crisis, pointing out that CRA rules have been in place since 1995 whereas the poor lending emerged only a decade later.[42] Furthermore, most sub-prime loans were not made to the LMI borrowers targeted by the CRA, especially in the years 2005-2006 leading up to the crisis. Nor did it find any evidence that lending under the CRA rules increased delinquency rates or that the CRA indirectly influenced independent mortgage lenders to ramp up sub-prime lending.



3. Wall Street had a huge appetite for CDO's and MBO and pressured their mortgage companies to make more loans. These were not FDIC backed institutions.

4. It was leverage on Wall Street that caused this crash. There were simply not enough CRA loans that could fail to crash the economy.

This is in reference to all loans.


Others have pointed out that there were not enough of these loans made to cause a crisis of this magnitude. In an article in Portfolio Magazine, Michael Lewis spoke with one trader who noted that "There weren’t enough Americans with [bad] credit taking out [bad loans] to satisfy investors’ appetite for the end product." Essentially, investment banks and hedge funds used financial innovation to enable large wagers to be made, far beyond the actual value of the underlying mortgage loans, using derivatives called credit default swaps, CDO and synthetic CDO. As long as derivative buyers could be matched with sellers, the theoretical amount that could be wagered was infinite. "They were creating [synthetic loans] out of whole cloth. One hundred times over! That’s why the losses are so much greater than the loans."[43]

diverdog
11/7/2011, 07:08 AM
Re read my post dip chit, I said "I wonder how MANY of the dregs" I did not say "everyone".

Reread my post. I said some not all. You still did not answer my question.

Trophy Husband
11/7/2011, 10:12 AM
The Subprime mess can be traced back to the dems, Clinton, Fank and Todd, that is a fact. I don't give a **** what YOUR personal experience with it is. You will not convince me otherwise so let's move on.

JohnnyMack
11/7/2011, 10:27 AM
The Subprime mess can be traced back to the dems, Clinton, Fank and Todd, that is a fact. I don't give a **** what YOUR personal experience with it is. You will not convince me otherwise so let's move on.

Dichotomy. It's what's for breakfast.

diverdog
11/7/2011, 12:51 PM
The Subprime mess can be traced back to the dems, Clinton, Fank and Todd, that is a fact. I don't give a **** what YOUR personal experience with it is. You will not convince me otherwise so let's move on.

Uh no... It can be traced back to Reagan but that narrative does not sync with your view...does it?

pphilfran
11/7/2011, 01:09 PM
Good stuff, DD...thanks!

badger
11/7/2011, 01:27 PM
The Subprime mess can be traced back to the dems, Clinton, Fank and Todd, that is a fact. I don't give a **** what YOUR personal experience with it is. You will not convince me otherwise so let's move on.

I think many factors are responsible, but there's a reason why home improvement stores like Lowe's and Home Depot expanded so fast until recently: Everyone was getting in on the home ownership act, whether they could afford a home or not.

I worked at Lowe's as a cashier a few college summers and I was astounded at how much money was getting sunk into those types of products and there's no possible way that the average American household could afford all that stuff without assistance... and that assistance came from the government, but not just the Clinton administration.

I was always amused by irate customers that would try to tell me how much money they were spending at the store. First, I'm a $7/hour seasonal employee, so whatever you're spending isn't going to me personally. Secondly, every customer around you except our thieving regulars are spending as much if not more than you and third... why are you irate at me again? Whatever your problem is, I guarantee you that a lowly cashier is not the cause of it :D

diverdog
11/7/2011, 02:06 PM
Good stuff, DD...thanks!

Thanks phil. Most people do not understand CRA. It is community reinvestment meaning the entire community. I have helped lots of small businesses through CRA lending. More than a few are really wealthy after building their businesses. All the large public housing projects that I have funded outside of HUD are well managed and very profitable.

The kids on Wall Street need to solidify their message. It should be about an unregulated market that is a danger to all of us, jobs and corporate access to congress. If they stick to those themes they can win.

cleller
11/7/2011, 08:53 PM
So everyone agrees, we've just been thru a mess. What do we do next? Complain and shout, or paint someone's house?

By that I mean earn money by painting a house. How many of these protesting snots have ever earned a dollar that way?

Trophy Husband
11/8/2011, 05:21 PM
Uh no... It can be traced back to Reagan but that narrative does not sync with your view...does it?

A lie that you can not and will not prove. Just lib speak.

cleller
11/15/2011, 07:38 AM
Today's update: Some of the employees from those nasty corporations are now having to clean up the park for the OWS protesters. Doesn't sound like they put up too much of a fight to leave. Even protesters need a little concierge service now and then.

soonercruiser
11/16/2011, 12:06 AM
Originally Posted by diverdog
Uh no... It can be traced back to Reagan but that narrative does not sync with your view...does it?


A lie that you can not and will not prove. Just lib speak.

Officially, by intent and law, it began with Clinton....1995. GW picked up the ball after him.
Read the Book Reckless Endangerment!

Trophy Husband
11/16/2011, 03:45 PM
Reading the NY Times

I now understand what's wrong with you. :eagerness:

diverdog
11/16/2011, 06:02 PM
A lie that you can not and will not prove. Just lib speak.

Oh where oh where do I start. How about Title VIII (AMPTA) of the Garn-St.Germain Depository Act, that was written by Richard Pratt, Reagan's first chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board? That part of the act (which I acknowledge was passed with bipartisan support and signed by Reagan) deregulated banking and allowed for alternative loans like adjustable rate mortgages and interest only mortgages. Reagan was also the one who bailed out the S&L's setting the example for future bank bail outs.

C&CDean
11/16/2011, 06:09 PM
Oh. So now it's Ronaldus Maximus' fault that a bunch of dead beats are loitering in NYC? Who knew?

OU_Sooners75
11/16/2011, 10:55 PM
Tea Party members are out looking for work.

Occupiers are out looking for a hand out!

diverdog
11/16/2011, 11:14 PM
Oh. So now it's Ronaldus Maximus' fault that a bunch of dead beats are loitering in NYC? Who knew?

No the root causes of the housing crisis. Pretty much started in the Reagan years. Although I might be able to make the argument it started at the very end of Carter's term. Deregulating banking was not a good idea.

I do not blame the protestors. We are handing them a **** load of debt and I would be pretty damn angry as well.

diverdog
11/16/2011, 11:15 PM
Tea Party members are out looking for work.

Occupiers are out looking for a hand out!

Ha. Tea Party are looking to protect their entitlements. Ask cruiser.

Sooner5030
11/16/2011, 11:30 PM
No the root causes of the housing crisis. Pretty much started in the Reagan years. Although I might be able to make the argument it started at the very end of Carter's term. Deregulating banking was not a good idea.

I do not blame the protestors. We are handing them a **** load of debt and I would be pretty damn angry as well.

root cause....seriously?

How about the dolts that CHOSE to borrow money to purchase an asset......or the dolts that CHOSE to lend money to folks?

You are exhibit A in evidencing what is wrong with this country and the decisions made by folks.

soonercruiser
11/16/2011, 11:45 PM
Ha. Tea Party are looking to protect their entitlements. Ask cruiser.

COME ON DIVER!
I do accept HONESTY at a minimum from 'ya!

You know that I have posted even I would accept some benefit cuts as a military retiree.
I have said this on both Forums!
But, I would expect those who have pulled the wagon to be the latter to sacrifice!

Be honest!

soonercruiser
11/16/2011, 11:46 PM
To give you visual learners a chance to catch up a little.....

http://members.cox.net/franklipsinic/Political/Tea%20Party%20vs%20OWS.jpg

diverdog
11/17/2011, 07:21 AM
To give you visual learners a chance to catch up a little.....

http://members.cox.net/franklipsinic/Political/Tea%20Party%20vs%20OWS.jpg

And which one soaks up the most entitlements from society? I am betting it is the tea baggers. As Grandpa Simpson said "don'i get between a senior citizen and his freebies". Isn't that right cruiser?

cleller
11/17/2011, 07:43 AM
Could we stipulate that 3 things should be obvious to the informed:

Clinton and associates embarked on a program to try and spread home ownership without sufficiently realizing the possible outcomes of their actions.

Greedy and unscrupulous persons managing banking and loan programs took advantage of the situation.

Lots or people bought houses/obtained loans they should not have. They should have had the wisdom to see the dangers.

I think all three are to blame about equally. OWS only wants to blame the bankers, it seems. They may also want to hold the government hostage to try and squeeze money out of them. The country has faced worse crisis, and found better ways to solve them.
If government were not around like a crutch or net for so many people, they might be forced to educate themselves in ways to earn money or survive.

KABOOKIE
11/17/2011, 10:03 AM
And which one soaks up the most entitlements from society? I am betting it is the tea baggers. As Grandpa Simpson said "don'i get between a senior citizen and his freebies". Isn't that right cruiser?

I would say those tea party types are entitled to their social security. After all it is THEIR money.

I saw occupy Portland state whiners want lower college tuition. Here's a tip, enroll at a juco. These people are pretty ****ing stupid for being so called enlightened politically.

TheHumanAlphabet
11/17/2011, 10:41 AM
And which one soaks up the most entitlements from society? I am betting it is the tea baggers. As Grandpa Simpson said "don'i get between a senior citizen and his freebies". Isn't that right cruiser?

You are delusional...

Trophy Husband
11/17/2011, 10:45 AM
And which one soaks up the most entitlements from society? I am betting it is the tea baggers. As Grandpa Simpson said "don'i get between a senior citizen and his freebies". Isn't that right cruiser?

You're question should be, "which one has paid into the system therefore is more entitled to receive benefits?".

Trophy Husband
11/17/2011, 10:55 AM
I would say those tea party types are entitled to their social security. After all it is THEIR money.

I saw occupy Portland state whiners want lower college tuition. Here's a tip, enroll at a juco. These people are pretty ****ing stupid for being so called enlightened politically.

None of them are enlightened, they can not think outside the context of what ever text book they are reading. They have book smarts and no real world experience to go with it.
It's like a guy who reads a book on how to run the wishbone offense, and now he thinks, because he can eloquently structure a paragraph explaining all the intricacies of the wishbone offense, he's an offensive coordinator.
When the truth of the matter is, if you gave the guy a football, he'd try to wear it as a hat.

BetterSoonerThanLater
11/17/2011, 06:43 PM
And which one soaks up the most entitlements from society? I am betting it is the tea baggers. As Grandpa Simpson said "don'i get between a senior citizen and his freebies". Isn't that right cruiser?

grandpa simpson has worked most of his life and paid taxes and into social security. OWS'r that has never had to work hard, or doesn't want to-- has not and does not pay any federal income tax. who do you think deserves the help more? i try to stay out of the political forums, but i love to read them. you sir, are a standout. and not in a good way. this post continues the trend in which you constantly look like a person who thinks they know more about the real world, but probably got their life experience reading the likes of marx and niche. take your tired arguments somewhere in which the 18-25 yr olds with impressionable minds fornicate with liberal professors and talk about how social utopia consists of pachulli oil, think tanks, and tent cities, while those of us who actual work hard for a living, live within our means, and dont expect handouts actually enjoy living in the US. if all of these borderline socialist don't like it here, then GTFO and go live elsewhere. i can assure you, North Korea and the like will not be an upgrade to what they currently have. my 2 cents. take it our leave it.

semper fi

C&CDean
11/17/2011, 07:46 PM
diverdog is kinda the antithesis of trophy boyfriend. just sayin'...

diverdog
11/17/2011, 09:40 PM
grandpa simpson has worked most of his life and paid taxes and into social security. OWS'r that has never had to work hard, or doesn't want to-- has not and does not pay any federal income tax. who do you think deserves the help more? i try to stay out of the political forums, but i love to read them. you sir, are a standout. and not in a good way. this post continues the trend in which you constantly look like a person who thinks they know more about the real world, but probably got their life experience reading the likes of marx and niche. take your tired arguments somewhere in which the 18-25 yr olds with impressionable minds fornicate with liberal professors and talk about how social utopia consists of pachulli oil, think tanks, and tent cities, while those of us who actual work hard for a living, live within our means, and dont expect handouts actually enjoy living in the US. if all of these borderline socialist don't like it here, then GTFO and go live elsewhere. i can assure you, North Korea and the like will not be an upgrade to what they currently have. my 2 cents. take it our leave it.

semper fi

I will compare my real world experiences to yours any day week hoss.

Lets talk about Grandpa Simpson. When Grandpa Simpson started working he would have paid 2% in FICA compared to the current self employed rate of 15.3% (2011). In 1977 his FICA rate was increased to 6.15% and it was not exposed to nearly the income it is today. During that time the Republicans and Democrats got into a sort of bidding war for the senior citizen vote and pegged SS COLA's to the CPI . Here are the COLA during that time:
July 1975 -- 8.0%
July 1976 -- 6.4%
July 1977 -- 5.9%
July 1978 -- 6.5%
July 1979 -- 9.9%
July 1980 -- 14.3%
July 1981 -- 11.2%
July 1982 -- 7.4%

By the time Reagan got into office SS was going broke and he nearly doubled the tax and doubled the amount of income that it was exposed to the tax just to save SS. So to boil it down for you Grandpa Simpson did not pay nearly enough into the system for the benefits he receives from SS and Medicare. Grandpa Simpsons effective tax rate was on the whole lower than most workers today when you add in both FICA and Income Tax. That is why we are going broke. He got a great deal the kids on Wall Street are going to get screwed.

Finally it seems to me those impressionable 18-25 year olds are fighting our wars and they are the ones who are going to be paying for the debt. Their SS will probably never materialize and they will pay into the system longer than you and I . You want to sit here and call them marxists when they are the ones who have taken nothing from the government? Most tea baggers I know in my area are military retirees who go on to work for the state and local government getting two and three government retirement checks and then they bi*ch about the debt and government spending. You tell me who is the real problem?

http://www.ssa.gov/cola/automatic-cola.htm


(http://www.ssa.gov/cola/automatic-cola.htm)

diverdog
11/17/2011, 09:47 PM
You're question should be, "which one has paid into the system therefore is more entitled to receive benefits?".

Trophy:

Most Americans do not pay that much in taxes and most have not paid enough for the benefits they receive. There was a survey on this site about 6 months ago and the average tax rate of those who posted was around 10-12% on AGI. According to the CBO the average household income tax rate in 2006 was 9.1% and payroll taxes were 7.5%. Very few people pay enough to support a ghetto queen. On average 1 out 2 posters on this board most likely pay zero income taxes. They pay FICA but they do not pay income taxes after all the deductions and earned income credits.

In case you have to know I have paid estimated taxes for the better part of 20 years. The last three years I actually got a decent rebate because one of my businesses failed in this economy and I was allowed to write off the losses. This year I will pay through the nose.


http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/100xx/doc10068/effective_tax_rates_2006.pdf

MR2-Sooner86
11/17/2011, 09:54 PM
70 Percent of "Tea Party Supporters" Oppose Medicare Cuts (http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/04/19/poll_70_percent_of_tea_party_supporters_oppose_med icare_cuts.html)

When the Neo-Con run Tea Party wants to take cuts seriously (social security/medicare/defense) then I'll take them seriously.

Those same sh*theads support Perry and Cain yet the one candidate who wants real cuts, $1 trillion worth, they don't like because he doesn't want to go bomb brown people in Iran.

With that said, as idiotic and hypocritical as they are, they at least have a unified message (don't stop sending our young men off to die and don't cut my social security) where as OWS reminds me of a the "highly educated progressives" I went to college with who in reality couldn't think out of a paper bag. They're mad but they don't know what they're mad at so they go to their book of Progressive 101 which is to go after the evil rich man, ignoring the fact Congress is made up of...rich white men who also happen to write all the rules, rigging the game, for the ones they're protesting.

diverdog
11/17/2011, 10:05 PM
70 Percent of "Tea Party Supporters" Oppose Medicare Cuts (http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/04/19/poll_70_percent_of_tea_party_supporters_oppose_med icare_cuts.html)

When the Neo-Con run Tea Party wants to take cuts seriously (social security/medicare/defense) then I'll take them seriously.

Those same sh*theads support Perry and Cain yet the one candidate who wants real cuts, $1 trillion worth, they don't like because he doesn't want to go bomb brown people in Iran.

With that said, as idiotic and hypocritical as they are, they at least have a unified message (don't stop sending our young men off to die and don't cut my social security) where as OWS reminds me of a the "highly educated progressives" I went to college with who in reality couldn't think out of a paper bag. They're mad but they don't know what they're mad at so they go to their book of Progressive 101 which is to go after the evil rich man, ignoring the fact Congress is made up of...rich white men who also happen to write all the rules, rigging the game, for the ones they're protesting.

MR2

This is exactly the problem. We ran up the debt and we do not want to do a damn thing about it. I think it is morally reprehensible that we are passing on a $14 trillion dollar debt to these kids. If it were up to me there would be a freeze on all current pay and benefits received through the government including military pay and retirement. Tax increase would be on the table as well. We have got to get this budget under control.

Turd_Ferguson
11/17/2011, 11:04 PM
MR2

This is exactly the problem. We ran up the debt and we do not want to do a damn thing about it. I think it is morally reprehensible that we are passing on a $14 trillion dollar debt to these kids. If it were up to me there would be a freeze on all current pay and benefits received through the government including military pay and retirement. Tax increase would be on the table as well. We have got to get this budget under control.Wait, I thought we were gonna spend our way out of debt?

BetterSoonerThanLater
11/18/2011, 12:45 AM
I will compare my real world experiences to yours any day week hoss.

Lets talk about Grandpa Simpson. When Grandpa Simpson started working he would have paid 2% in FICA compared to the current self employed rate of 15.3% (2011). In 1977 his FICA rate was increased to 6.15% and it was not exposed to nearly the income it is today. During that time the Republicans and Democrats got into a sort of bidding war for the senior citizen vote and pegged SS COLA's to the CPI . Here are the COLA during that time:
July 1975 -- 8.0%
July 1976 -- 6.4%
July 1977 -- 5.9%
July 1978 -- 6.5%
July 1979 -- 9.9%
July 1980 -- 14.3%
July 1981 -- 11.2%
July 1982 -- 7.4%

By the time Reagan got into office SS was going broke and he nearly doubled the tax and doubled the amount of income that it was exposed to the tax just to save SS. So to boil it down for you Grandpa Simpson did not pay nearly enough into the system for the benefits he receives from SS and Medicare. Grandpa Simpsons effective tax rate was on the whole lower than most workers today when you add in both FICA and Income Tax. That is why we are going broke. He got a great deal the kids on Wall Street are going to get screwed.

Finally it seems to me those impressionable 18-25 year olds are fighting our wars and they are the ones who are going to be paying for the debt. Their SS will probably never materialize and they will pay into the system longer than you and I . You want to sit here and call them marxists when they are the ones who have taken nothing from the government? Most tea baggers I know in my area are military retirees who go on to work for the state and local government getting two and three government retirement checks and then they bi*ch about the debt and government spending. You tell me who is the real problem?
http://www.ssa.gov/cola/automatic-cola.htm


(http://www.ssa.gov/cola/automatic-cola.htm)

when you serve along side me in two seperate tours, then you can bring this **** up. until then, don't sit here and try to lecture me. while you sit in your comfy little house trying to "educate" others via the internet about your "personal life experience", myself and others like me, spent our 20's fighting for the very freedoms you enjoy.

anyone can throw out stats, and i wasn't calling the soldiers marxist idiot. i was telling you to go sit with the 18-20 yrs that were. --go to cal berkeley, i'm sure you could find some there.

as for your "Stats", i can do searches on the internet too "Hoss". do yourself and everyone else here a favor and spread out. you may have intelligence fine sir, but your life experience is smoke and mirrors, and sounds like a bunch of regurgitated garbage that i hear from liberals all the time. you sir, are not original, nor do you impress anyone here.

by the way, i also, will more than likely not see SS, however, being a responsible adult, i took charge of my own retirement, and PLANNED FOR MY FUTURE and WORKED HARD. i'm not out protesting successful individuals and looking for pity OR HANDOUTS. in fact, i'm 32 and could retire in 10 years no sweat. and thats without my military pension for serving for 24 yrs. i bet that just hurts your bleeding heart....YOU HAVE A GOOD NIGHT DOING YOUR GOOGLE SEARCHES AND WATCHING YOUR HEROS STAND INFRONT OF COP CARS AND FARTING IN TENTS WHILE SHOOTING HEROIN.

Turd_Ferguson
11/18/2011, 08:13 AM
when you serve along side me in two seperate tours, then you can bring this **** up. until then, don't sit here and try to lecture me. while you sit in your comfy little house trying to "educate" others via the internet about your "personal life experience", myself and others like me, spent our 20's fighting for the very freedoms you enjoy.

anyone can throw out stats, and i wasn't calling the soldiers marxist idiot. i was telling you to go sit with the 18-20 yrs that were. --go to cal berkeley, i'm sure you could find some there.

as for your "Stats", i can do searches on the internet too "Hoss". do yourself and everyone else here a favor and spread out. you may have intelligence fine sir, but your life experience is smoke and mirrors, and sounds like a bunch of regurgitated garbage that i hear from liberals all the time. you sir, are not original, nor do you impress anyone here.

by the way, i also, will more than likely not see SS, however, being a responsible adult, i took charge of my own retirement, and PLANNED FOR MY FUTURE and WORKED HARD. i'm not out protesting successful individuals and looking for pity OR HANDOUTS. in fact, i'm 32 and could retire in 10 years no sweat. and thats without my military pension for serving for 24 yrs. i bet that just hurts your bleeding heart....YOU HAVE A GOOD NIGHT DOING YOUR GOOGLE SEARCHES AND WATCHING YOUR HEROS STAND INFRONT OF COP CARS AND FARTING IN TENTS WHILE SHOOTING HEROIN.

Pwnt.

diverdog
11/18/2011, 08:52 AM
when you serve along side me in two seperate tours, then you can bring this **** up. until then, don't sit here and try to lecture me. while you sit in your comfy little house trying to "educate" others via the internet about your "personal life experience", myself and others like me, spent our 20's fighting for the very freedoms you enjoy.

anyone can throw out stats, and i wasn't calling the soldiers marxist idiot. i was telling you to go sit with the 18-20 yrs that were. --go to cal berkeley, i'm sure you could find some there.

as for your "Stats", i can do searches on the internet too "Hoss". do yourself and everyone else here a favor and spread out. you may have intelligence fine sir, but your life experience is smoke and mirrors, and sounds like a bunch of regurgitated garbage that i hear from liberals all the time. you sir, are not original, nor do you impress anyone here.

by the way, i also, will more than likely not see SS, however, being a responsible adult, i took charge of my own retirement, and PLANNED FOR MY FUTURE and WORKED HARD. i'm not out protesting successful individuals and looking for pity OR HANDOUTS. in fact, i'm 32 and could retire in 10 years no sweat. and thats without my military pension for serving for 24 yrs. i bet that just hurts your bleeding heart....YOU HAVE A GOOD NIGHT DOING YOUR GOOGLE SEARCHES AND WATCHING YOUR HEROS STAND INFRONT OF COP CARS AND FARTING IN TENTS WHILE SHOOTING HEROIN.

First of all I am a disable vet. I have had three major surgeries trying to fix my problems. So don't lecture me about sacrifices. Did you take that rant from A Few Good Men?

I have owned three businesses and I have spent my civilian career in sales actually producing income for my companies. You are a government employee and you know almost nothing about meeting payroll, profit and loss, purchasing, taxes, insurance, utility bills, dealing with government regulations etc. I did not need to do a google search on taxes because I know what they are and have had to pay them. For the past 13 years I have worked as a commercial lender and I spend my days pouring over taxes, profit and loss statements and doing global cash flows. So of the two of us I am willing to bet I know a lot more about our tax code than you do. Yeah I have book learning because I was sent to commercial lending school to learn about this stuff.

Let me give you a hard dose of reality. Military pensions are now larger than the military payroll. That is not sustainable and the generous retirement system we give our soldiers is going to change. It has to because we cannot afford it. Nor can we afford the military that we have and it will be cut. I support Ron Paul on the needs for massive cuts in our military.

The Tea Party would have my support if they would man up and start making the sacrifices that are needed now like cuts in their entitlements, higher taxes for everyone and cuts in current spending including getting out of our wars.

Oh and I willing to bet those kids at Cal Berkley will make more money and pay more taxes than you ever will.

BetterSoonerThanLater
11/18/2011, 12:21 PM
First of all I am a disable vet. I have had three major surgeries trying to fix my problems. So don't lecture me about sacrifices. Did you take that rant from A Few Good Men?

I have owned three businesses and I have spent my civilian career in sales actually producing income for my companies. You are a government employee and you know almost nothing about meeting payroll, profit and loss, purchasing, taxes, insurance, utility bills, dealing with government regulations etc. I did not need to do a google search on taxes because I know what they are and have had to pay them. For the past 13 years I have worked as a commercial lender and I spend my days pouring over taxes, profit and loss statements and doing global cash flows. So of the two of us I am willing to bet I know a lot more about our tax code than you do. Yeah I have book learning because I was sent to commercial lending school to learn about this stuff.

Let me give you a hard dose of reality. Military pensions are now larger than the military payroll. That is not sustainable and the generous retirement system we give our soldiers is going to change. It has to because we cannot afford it. Nor can we afford the military that we have and it will be cut. I support Ron Paul on the needs for massive cuts in our military.

The Tea Party would have my support if they would man up and start making the sacrifices that are needed now like cuts in their entitlements, higher taxes for everyone and cuts in current spending including getting out of our wars.

Oh and I willing to bet those kids at Cal Berkley will make more money and pay more taxes than you ever will.

first of all, thank you for your service. secondly, dont pretend to know anything about what i do or do not do for a living. you can bet all you want, and you'd lose it all. i don't need to sit here and try to compare resume's with you. where you want to sit here and try to tell everyone about how smart and accopmished you are, i'm trying to explain to you just how pompous you sound. the fundamental difference between the TP and OWS is that of the two--stemming from the original argument-- at least the tea party has worked for what they are recieving. as far as you talking about pensions for the military...of every possible occupation in this country, don't you think they ---WE-- deserve it? the overall problem here is this: the economy sucks. and everyone wishes that they can help everyone else. it's just not possible. but if we had to choose, and honsetly think about this one, would it be the senior citizens, who have worked hard their entire lives and actually need assitance, or the 18-25 yr olds on wallst occupying and protesting those with money, and that dont want to work hard or earn it?

get over yourself Dog. everyone has issues. life sucks, get a helmet. the comment about a few good men just makes you look desperate. if spewing a bunch of numbers at people, and trying--yes trying--- to seem smarter than others is what makes you feel better about yourself and your situation, then so be it. this FEW GOOD MAN can take it.


semper fi

diverdog
11/18/2011, 01:17 PM
first of all, thank you for your service. secondly, dont pretend to know anything about what i do or do not do for a living. you can bet all you want, and you'd lose it all. i don't need to sit here and try to compare resume's with you. where you want to sit here and try to tell everyone about how smart and accopmished you are, i'm trying to explain to you just how pompous you sound. the fundamental difference between the TP and OWS is that of the two--stemming from the original argument-- at least the tea party has worked for what they are recieving. as far as you talking about pensions for the military...of every possible occupation in this country, don't you think they ---WE-- deserve it? the overall problem here is this: the economy sucks. and everyone wishes that they can help everyone else. it's just not possible. but if we had to choose, and honsetly think about this one, would it be the senior citizens, who have worked hard their entire lives and actually need assitance, or the 18-25 yr olds on wallst occupying and protesting those with money, and that dont want to work hard or earn it?

get over yourself Dog. everyone has issues. life sucks, get a helmet. the comment about a few good men just makes you look desperate. if spewing a bunch of numbers at people, and trying--yes trying--- to seem smarter than others is what makes you feel better about yourself and your situation, then so be it. this FEW GOOD MAN can take it.


semper fi

You are the one attacking me. I am about as humble a person as you will ever meet. I am sorry if you do not like numbers but that is the world I live in and I use numbers to understand problems.


Look I do not agree with some of the OWS messages and tactics but I understand their anger. Most of us were victims to one of the greatest financial crimes in history. A lot of politicians and bankers should have gone to jail. They didn't and I think people are waking up to that fact. One day we are going to get hit with the bill and it won't be pretty.

Thank you for your service. I always liked working with the Marines. A Gunny tought me how to shoot in HS and I competed for years. When I got out of HS I tried to enlist in the Marines but I was to thin. The Army would not take me for the same reason.

soonercruiser
11/18/2011, 01:28 PM
You're question should be, "which one has paid into the system therefore is more entitled to receive benefits?".

BINGO! ^^^^^^
What say you Diver?

AND....Diver, why do you keep posing questions that are insulting to me??
Please be honest and respectful!
The questions don't really rile me. They just make me ask myself why you want to just be an insulting prick like Dean or Stoop!

Of all the people that will scream, lie, and wreck havoc on American society.....
It is those who are "in the wagon" that scream the loudest! And, "hate" the most!
(i.e.....have not paid in much, if anything.)

soonercruiser
11/18/2011, 01:32 PM
You are the one attacking me. I am about as humble a person as you will ever meet. I am sorry if you do not like numbers but that is the world I live in and I use numbers to understand problems.


Look I do not agree with some of the OWS messages and tactics but I understand their anger. Most of us were victims to one of the greatest financial crimes in history. A lot of politicians and bankers should have gone to jail. They didn't and I think people are waking up to that fact. One day we are going to get hit with the bill and it won't be pretty.

Thank you for your service. I always liked working with the Marines. A Gunny tought me how to shoot in HS and I competed for years. When I got out of HS I tried to enlist in the Marines but I was to thin. The Army would not take me for the same reason.

BUT...
Come on, admit it Diver!
You were medically separated and you still harbor a deep resentment to those military who made it to full retirement, and are now collecting their regular retirement checks.
(much "sucking on the goverment tit" rant support from you...)

soonercruiser
11/18/2011, 01:40 PM
First of all I am a disable vet. I have had three major surgeries trying to fix my problems. So don't lecture me about sacrifices. Did you take that rant from A Few Good Men?

Let me give you a hard dose of reality. Military pensions are now larger than the military payroll. That is not sustainable and the generous retirement system we give our soldiers is going to change. It has to because we cannot afford it. Nor can we afford the military that we have and it will be cut. I support Ron Paul on the needs for massive cuts in our military.

The Tea Party would have my support if they would man up and start making the sacrifices that are needed now like cuts in their entitlements, higher taxes for everyone and cuts in current spending including getting out of our wars.

Oh and I willing to bet those kids at Cal Berkley will make more money and pay more taxes than you ever will.

Hey Diver,
I got news for you!
The social give-away programs like SS and Medicare are the largest parts of the federal budget and liabilities in the future.
National defense IS the biggie obligation in the Constitution!

I've got no problem with miltary cuts and efficiencies.
But, let the real give-away cutting occur first! That's where the meat is!
The LW and LW politicians have always gone after the military first.
And, we always have to reverse that at great expense later.

Lets the dumb kids at Berkley get a job and start paying in first - rather than guess what they MIGHT pay into the system.

soonercruiser
11/18/2011, 01:42 PM
Could we stipulate that 3 things should be obvious to the informed:

Clinton and associates embarked on a program to try and spread home ownership without sufficiently realizing the possible outcomes of their actions.

Greedy and unscrupulous persons managing banking and loan programs took advantage of the situation.

Lots or people bought houses/obtained loans they should not have. They should have had the wisdom to see the dangers.

I think all three are to blame about equally. OWS only wants to blame the bankers, it seems. They may also want to hold the government hostage to try and squeeze money out of them. The country has faced worse crisis, and found better ways to solve them.
If government were not around like a crutch or net for so many people, they might be forced to educate themselves in ways to earn money or survive.

Cleller,
Unfortunately, we can add Boooosh to the list of contributors.
Rather than stick to his guns, he supported several give away programs that significantly added to the deficit too.

BetterSoonerThanLater
11/18/2011, 01:44 PM
You are the one attacking me. I am about as humble a person as you will ever meet. I am sorry if you do not like numbers but that is the world I live in and I use numbers to understand problems.


Look I do not agree with some of the OWS messages and tactics but I understand their anger. Most of us were victims to one of the greatest financial crimes in history. A lot of politicians and bankers should have gone to jail. They didn't and I think people are waking up to that fact. One day we are going to get hit with the bill and it won't be pretty.

Thank you for your service. I always liked working with the Marines. A Gunny tought me how to shoot in HS and I competed for years. When I got out of HS I tried to enlist in the Marines but I was to thin. The Army would not take me for the same reason.

no worries Dog. not attacking, just hoping that you would see that my argument was one more based on morality rather than statistics. i agree their is alot of cronies and ethically shallow individuals on wall st. however, there are those kinds of people everywhere you go. if it were up to me, they should be occupying 1600 pennsylvania avenue, and capitol hill rather than cities around the country and interfereing with the lives of ordinary citizens. my theory is, if you intend to protest, or argue something, be prepared, and organized, but be respectful. once you start pissing people off, they aren't going to hear your message, and then you become a nuisance. the tea party group isnt interfering with the everyday citizens lives. the OWS are not only interupting businesses, they are affecting tourism, and the ability for workers to get to work. the constitution provides the right to peacably assemble and protest as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others. in this case the OWS crowd does not observe that law.

as you well know Dog, we have fought for the right of these individuals to believe what they want. they are afforded the rights given to them under the constitution because of ppl like you fighting for that right. but the second those rights get exploited and abused, i have a problem with that. if it felt like i was attacking you, i apologize. there just seems to be a real lack of respect in this world now a days. ppl feel they deserve it, without having earned it.

final thought and then i'm done with all this: work hard, don't expect handouts, be responsible and hold yourselves accountable for your own actions. if a mistake is made, man up and own it, then correct it. don't blame other for your mistakes. life can be challenging, but its how you deal with obstacles that defines you. your actions speak louder than your words, tent cties, and signs.

hope you are doing well. i never like to hear of a fellow soldier getting hurt. take care and nice debating with ya!

diverdog
11/18/2011, 01:48 PM
BINGO! ^^^^^^
What say you Diver?

AND....Diver, why do you keep posing questions that are insulting to me??
Please be honest and respectful!
The questions don't really rile me. They just make me ask myself why you want to just be an insulting prick like Dean or Stoop!

Of all the people that will scream, lie, and wreck havoc on American society.....
It is those who are "in the wagon" that scream the loudest! And, "hate" the most!
(i.e.....have not paid in much, if anything.)

Cruiser:

You are one of those in "the wagon". Your pension is an expense and it is an expense that has not been paid for by society. We are $14 trillion dollars in debt and climbing. At some point the market is going to force us to look at entitlements and any federal pension is an entitlement. You may feel you earned it but that is inmaterial to the argument.

I doubt your retirement will be affected. My guess is the COLAs will change and your medical deductibles will climb. For current soldiers we should honor most of our promises except for health care. The service member should pay more for family coverage. A new system should go in place with both contributions, a point system to buy down retirement age and a higher age for pension eligibility.

I am also willing to pay higher taxes to keep the current system in place.

diverdog
11/18/2011, 02:09 PM
no worries Dog. not attacking, just hoping that you would see that my argument was one more based on morality rather than statistics. i agree their is alot of cronies and ethically shallow individuals on wall st. however, there are those kinds of people everywhere you go. if it were up to me, they should be occupying 1600 pennsylvania avenue, and capitol hill rather than cities around the country and interfereing with the lives of ordinary citizens. my theory is, if you intend to protest, or argue something, be prepared, and organized, but be respectful. once you start pissing people off, they aren't going to hear your message, and then you become a nuisance. the tea party group isnt interfering with the everyday citizens lives. the OWS are not only interupting businesses, they are affecting tourism, and the ability for workers to get to work. the constitution provides the right to peacably assemble and protest as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others. in this case the OWS crowd does not observe that law.

as you well know Dog, we have fought for the right of these individuals to believe what they want. they are afforded the rights given to them under the constitution because of ppl like you fighting for that right. but the second those rights get exploited and abused, i have a problem with that. if it felt like i was attacking you, i apologize. there just seems to be a real lack of respect in this world now a days. ppl feel they deserve it, without having earned it.

final thought and then i'm done with all this: work hard, don't expect handouts, be responsible and hold yourselves accountable for your own actions. if a mistake is made, man up and own it, then correct it. don't blame other for your mistakes. life can be challenging, but its how you deal with obstacles that defines you. your actions speak louder than your words, tent cties, and signs.

hope you are doing well. i never like to hear of a fellow soldier getting hurt. take care and nice debating with ya!

Ditto:

I can live with your positions. Sometimes I like to debate just to debate. You can tell me I am full of **** and I will not take offense. Actually I proved on the OUI board when I weighed myself before and after a dump...4 pounds lighter. See numbers are useful.

I have taken a huge interest in what happened to this nation and I have some pretty firmly held beliefs on how we got screwed. I put a lot of blame on Wall Street and our government. You are right we need protest in DC and I think those will come. The OWS and Tea Party have legit beefs. If they were to find common ground we could get the changes that are needed.

Thanks for the thoughts on my injuries. Actually it motivated me to start diving since I was neutrally bouyant under water. What does get me down is that I cannot go with my son to the Boy Scout Northern Tier High Adventure Base for a ten day canoe trip. I spend a huge amount of time in the outdoors but the big trips are not in the cards anymore.

One thing I would suggest to you while you are a young stud and in shape is to take those bucket list trips now.

DD

C&CDean
11/18/2011, 02:13 PM
Did cruiser just call me an insulting dick?

diverdog
11/18/2011, 02:19 PM
Hey Diver,
I got news for you!
The social give-away programs like SS and Medicare are the largest parts of the federal budget and liabilities in the future.
National defense IS the biggie obligation in the Constitution!

I've got no problem with miltary cuts and efficiencies.
But, let the real give-away cutting occur first! That's where the meat is!
The LW and LW politicians have always gone after the military first.
And, we always have to reverse that at great expense later.

Lets the dumb kids at Berkley get a job and start paying in first - rather than guess what they MIGHT pay into the system.

Cruiser for the most part I agree with you. I am one of those "everything is on the table " cost cutters.

I do think college should be free. Many of our founding fathers agree with me...Jefferson. I look at education as an investment. I would be ok with some sort of federal service requirement. But in the long run having kids come out of school in debt is not good for the economy.

diverdog
11/18/2011, 02:28 PM
Did cruiser just call me an insulting dick?

They call that a left handed compliment in West Virginia. Sorry you got nailed in the crossfire. I think it was intended for me.

soonercruiser
11/18/2011, 02:31 PM
Cruiser:

You are one of those in "the wagon". Your pension is an expense and it is an expense that has not been paid for by society. We are $14 trillion dollars in debt and climbing. At some point the market is going to force us to look at entitlements and any federal pension is an entitlement. You may feel you earned it but that is inmaterial to the argument.

I doubt your retirement will be affected. My guess is the COLAs will change and your medical deductibles will climb. For current soldiers we should honor most of our promises except for health care. The service member should pay more for family coverage. A new system should go in place with both contributions, a point system to buy down retirement age and a higher age for pension eligibility.

I am also willing to pay higher taxes to keep the current system in place.

Diver,
When I got to the Homeland Pharmacy this afternoon, my Rx co-pay will be 50% more than it was 2 months ago!
My TRICARE quarterly enrolement fee went up 30% at the last payment!

I do take offense to "in the wagon" referring to those who have served, and MORE THAN paid in.

diverdog
11/18/2011, 02:31 PM
BUT...
Come on, admit it Diver!
You were medically separated and you still harbor a deep resentment to those military who made it to full retirement, and are now collecting their regular retirement checks.
(much "sucking on the goverment tit" rant support from you...)

Cruiser my only beef with the military was how ****ty they treated me after I got hurt. I accepted that my job was dangerous and getting hurt was a real possibility. I am still fighting with the VA 15 years later like a lot of DAV.

soonercruiser
11/18/2011, 02:35 PM
Did cruiser just call me an insulting dick?

No Dean!
Anything close to that, and you'd be happily banning me for life!
And, since I know how happy that would make you, I avoid it!
(I do have that long enough of a memory)

But, all the same, as someone else mentioned in another thread....I would love to see some of the messages that your "moderate" buddies send you about we evil hard-core conservatives.
It's pretty hard to have any consistent values these days.
:confusion:

diverdog
11/18/2011, 02:36 PM
Diver,
When I got to the Homeland Pharmacy this afternoon, my Rx co-pay will be 50% more than it was 2 months ago!
My TRICARE quarterly enrolement fee went up 30% at the last payment!

I do take offense to "in the wagon" referring to those who have served, and MORE THAN paid in.

Wow. That is a lot. Is there a reason for the increase?

C&CDean
11/18/2011, 02:37 PM
They call that a left handed compliment in West Virginia. Sorry you got nailed in the crossfire. I think it was intended for me.

What people like cruiser will never figure out (obviously) that just because you yell the loudest, and just because you yell more often, and just because you are really passionate about your beliefs makes you righteous. What's really weird is that I pretty much agree with him on the issues, I just can't stand the fact that he's an obnoxious, REPETITIVE, one-track minded blowhard who truly sullies the conservative movement because folks on the fence think loudmouths like him are what the conservatives are about.

I think I've seen him type the word "alinskyian" no less that 40 times on this board. I've seen him say "boosh" and all kinds of other stupid little juvenile names for folks out there. I get emails every day from folks just like him. Yes, we know, Obama is the suck. So is Pelosi, Frank and a bunch of other liberal government people. WE. GET. IT. The problem is folks like him feel the need to repeat it every 7-seconds which pretty much makes their words unheard, but their noise like nails on a chalkboard. Why do the talk radio crowd feel a need to parrot their boys all day/night? They aren't going to make a single person change their mind - other than a few fence-sitters go to the dark side because they think all conservatives are nutjobs like cruiser. Kinda sad actually.

Anyhow, carry on.

soonercruiser
11/18/2011, 02:37 PM
Cruiser my only beef with the military was how ****ty they treated me after I got hurt. I accepted that my job was dangerous and getting hurt was a real possibility. I am still fighting with the VA 15 years later like a lot of DAV.

Please don't let it effect how you treat others, in person, or with your keyboard!
I have prayed for you!
(a complete healing)

soonercruiser
11/18/2011, 02:42 PM
What people like cruiser will never figure out (obviously) that just because you yell the loudest, and just because you yell more often, and just because you are really passionate about your beliefs makes you righteous. What's really weird is that I pretty much agree with him on the issues, I just can't stand the fact that he's an obnoxious, REPETITIVE, one-track minded blowhard who truly sullies the conservative movement because folks on the fence think loudmouths like him are what the conservatives are about.

I think I've seen him type the word "alinskyian" no less that 40 times on this board. I've seen him say "boosh" and all kinds of other stupid little juvenile names for folks out there. I get emails every day from folks just like him. Yes, we know, Obama is the suck. So is Pelosi, Frank and a bunch of other liberal government people. WE. GET. IT. The problem is folks like him feel the need to repeat it every 7-seconds which pretty much makes their words unheard, but their noise like nails on a chalkboard. Why do the talk radio crowd feel a need to parrot their boys all day/night? They aren't going to make a single person change their mind - other than a few fence-sitters go to the dark side because they think all conservatives are nutjobs like cruiser. Kinda sad actually.

Anyhow, carry on.

I have to spell it "Boooosh", 'cause the libs mostly know him by that name - from their posts all during his ride.
(I really wish you could hear the way I pronounce words like "ALINSKYIAN"!)
It really is the only good word to descibe the LWers decent into personal attacks and calling names rather than presenting facts with their rants!

soonercruiser
11/18/2011, 02:47 PM
Wow. That is a lot. Is there a reason for the increase?

Congress and DOD had been working on these adjustments for military retiress over several past years, while they have been delaying on any meaningful social program cuts.
As I have observed over my whole military career and retirement - they always attack the military and retirees first!
They just never go any farther along the cutting trail.

One other possibly useful observation.
I thought that working for the state/university would be different!
Duh! The waste and bureauracy are even worst than the military!
(don't bother asking for details)

C&CDean
11/18/2011, 02:51 PM
I have to spell it "Boooosh", 'cause the libs mostly know him by that name - from their posts all during his ride.
(I really wish you could hear the way I pronounce words like "ALINSKYIAN"!)
It really is the only good word to descibe the LWers decent into personal attacks and calling names rather than presenting facts with their rants!

Perhaps you should look up what "Alinskyian" means.

I ragged out the libs on here when they were acting/sounding EXACTLY like you do now over GWB. They were ignorant loudmouths and close-minded dillweeds back then.

Why can't you take the high road and not act EXACTLY like they did for 8 years? It's people who have to scream constantly who **** it all up. People like you make the rift deeper and wider. You ain't doing a ****ing thing to help the situation in this country with your constant blathering. Obama & Co's shortcomings are so massive and widespread you'd have to be a deaf, dumb, blind dead retard to not see it. You constantly posting THE EXACT SAME crap with foam on your lips ad nauseum ain't helping our cause. At all.

soonercruiser
11/18/2011, 03:23 PM
Perhaps you should look up what "Alinskyian" means.

I ragged out the libs on here when they were acting/sounding EXACTLY like you do now over GWB. They were ignorant loudmouths and close-minded dillweeds back then.

Why can't you take the high road and not act EXACTLY like they did for 8 years? It's people who have to scream constantly who **** it all up. People like you make the rift deeper and wider. You ain't doing a ****ing thing to help the situation in this country with your constant blathering. Obama & Co's shortcomings are so massive and widespread you'd have to be a deaf, dumb, blind dead retard to not see it. You constantly posting THE EXACT SAME crap with foam on your lips ad nauseum ain't helping our cause. At all.

Why can't you see the neutral road, and just let us rant - it is a "Right" you know?
I wasn't here on the forum when "others" on the Left did ....
But, from what I've seen since I've been here, YOU only jump hard on the RWers!

Your passion might be Bar-B-Que and football.
But, my passion is politics and community service, because they can make a difference in people's lives!

diverdog
11/18/2011, 03:30 PM
No Dean!
Anything close to that, and you'd be happily banning me for life!
And, since I know how happy that would make you, I avoid it!
(I do have that long enough of a memory)

But, all the same, as someone else mentioned in another thread....I would love to see some of the messages that your "moderate" buddies send you about we evil hard-core conservatives.
It's pretty hard to have any consistent values these days.
:confusion:

For the record I would never rat out a poster. I will fight my own battles.

soonercruiser
11/18/2011, 03:32 PM
BTW Dean,
Alinskyian is referring to the "tactics" that the "users" of the book Rules for Radicals employ to silence the truth or dissent!
They lie! They call names and belittle their detractors!

This is what Obama taught his community organizing classes.
This is what I have even seen in some "Socoal Justice" meetings in local OKC churches over the last 2 years.
It is a very accurate and fully decsriptive term for those who would yell and "srike out", rather than discuss issues and facts.

Discussion and more facts is what I expect when I post a thread subject, with an accompanying story.
But, what I get (at best) from the LWers is, "wow, that's a reliable new source"!

C&CDean
11/18/2011, 03:38 PM
You didn't read a ****ing word I typed, did you? Sheez.

soonercruiser
11/18/2011, 03:42 PM
For the record I would never rat out a poster. I will fight my own battles.

Nope! I don't think that you are, Diver. I know that you do fight your own battles.

But some of the hard core lefties are suspect.
As I previously posted, you do fall on either side of the log at times.
I seem to be able to crawl to only the top at times. (just to peek over) :shame:

Trophy Husband
11/18/2011, 04:13 PM
BTW Dean,
Alinskyian is referring to the "tactics" that the "users" of the book Rules for Radicals employ to silence the truth or dissent!
They lie! They call names and belittle their detractors!

This is what Obama taught his community organizing classes.
This is what I have even seen in some "Socoal Justice" meetings in local OKC churches over the last 2 years.
It is a very accurate and fully decsriptive term for those who would yell and "srike out", rather than discuss issues and facts.

Discussion and more facts is what I expect when I post a thread subject, with an accompanying story.
But, what I get (at best) from the LWers is, "wow, that's a reliable new source"!

It's their little game. "you're a dumb ***, and need to provide something other than your right wing rantings", so you do, then they say something like "well, I seriously doubt the validity of that artical/story/poll/survey" or what ever else you have provided to support your side of the story.

I was called out for not citing a source for a story I posted. No comment about the information provided in the story I posted, just a passing comment "well I doubt the validity of that story and I've only seen it being discussed on right wing blogs".

So later I posted a story giving full credit to the author and the response was "nice cut and paste". No response to the information provided within the story. You're fighting a losing battle my brother.

diverdog
11/18/2011, 04:18 PM
Why can't you see the neutral road, and just let us rant - it is a "Right" you know?
I wasn't here on the forum when "others" on the Left did ....
But, from what I've seen since I've been here, YOU only jump hard on the RWers!

Your passion might be Bar-B-Que and football.
But, my passion is politics and community service, because they can make a difference in people's lives!

Hell I combine BBQ and community service. That is really good for everyone.

Trophy Husband
11/18/2011, 04:23 PM
Why can't you see the neutral road, and just let us rant - it is a "Right" you know?
I wasn't here on the forum when "others" on the Left did ....
But, from what I've seen since I've been here, YOU only jump hard on the RWers!

Your passion might be Bar-B-Que and football.
But, my passion is politics and community service, because they can make a difference in people's lives!

:eagerness::eagerness::eagerness::eagerness::eager ness::eagerness:

JohnnyMack
11/18/2011, 04:33 PM
Did cruiser just call me an insulting dick?

If he didn't, I will.

C&CDean
11/18/2011, 06:29 PM
If he didn't, I will.

Yeah, but when you say it I cop wood.

cleller
11/18/2011, 07:00 PM
Tea Party vs Occupy Wall Street:

I can imagine running into a Tea Party type just about anywhere I do business: lumber yard, grocery store, tire shop, insurance agent, etc. Where do these occupiers hide in the workforce? Probably teaching our kids somewhere.

JohnnyMack
11/18/2011, 07:55 PM
Yeah, but when you say it I cop wood.

In BMore this week. Missing you.

diverdog
11/18/2011, 09:06 PM
In BMore this week. Missing you.

Are you on vacation or just working?

soonercruiser
11/18/2011, 09:47 PM
Diver,
When I got to the Homeland Pharmacy this afternoon, my Rx co-pay will be 50% more than it was 2 months ago!
My TRICARE quarterly enrolement fee went up 30% at the last payment!

I do take offense to "in the wagon" referring to those who have served, and MORE THAN paid in.

Diver,
I stand correcting myself. :uncomfortableness:
My TRICARE copay for meds went up 15% October 1.
The $33 proposed for next year would be the 50% in less than a year.

diverdog
11/18/2011, 11:49 PM
Diver,
I stand correcting myself. :uncomfortableness:
My TRICARE copay for meds went up 15% October 1.
The $33 proposed for next year would be the 50% in less than a year.

That still puts you less than my $50 copay on meds. So that should make your day.

Chuck Bao
11/19/2011, 03:35 AM
Tea Party vs Occupy Wall Street:

I can imagine running into a Tea Party type just about anywhere I do business: lumber yard, grocery store, tire shop, insurance agent, etc. Where do these occupiers hide in the workforce? Probably teaching our kids somewhere.

That may be because the average American doesn't understand how Wall Street works. I have tried explaining it to some of my family and friends. It is so far removed from everyday life in Oklahoma that I am wasting my breath.

With that being said, it is a bit scary that Wall Street is driving our economy rather than Washington and people don't understand that. The Occupy Wall Street movement may turn out to be the most important public protests in 50 years if people listen to the message.

Trophy Husband
11/19/2011, 07:44 AM
it is a bit scary that Wall Street is driving our economy rather than Washington

Yes, Washington is the answer. Get the damn money out of the private sector ASAP.


if people listen to the message.

What message? The "get rid of capitalism" message? The "why do I have to pay back my student loan?" message? There is no message because a large portion of the people in the occupy crowd don't seem to know just what it is they are doing their.


That may be because the average American doesn't understand how Wall Street works.

Thank goodness we have "above average Americans" such as you to explain it to us.

diverdog
11/19/2011, 07:53 AM
Yes, Washington is the answer. Get the damn money out of the private sector ASAP.



What message? The "get rid of capitalism" message? The "why do I have to pay back my student loan?" message? There is no message because a large portion of the people in the occupy crowd don't seem to know just what it is they are doing their.



Thank goodness we have "above average Americans" such as you to explain it to us.

trophy:

BAO is right. Even the government does not understand everything that Wall Street does. There is some sophisticate sh*t going on in that town. For instance can you explain how the CDS market works? I can't and I have been FINRA licensed.

DD

C&CDean
11/19/2011, 12:00 PM
Yes, Washington is the answer. Get the damn money out of the private sector ASAP.



What message? The "get rid of capitalism" message? The "why do I have to pay back my student loan?" message? There is no message because a large portion of the people in the occupy crowd don't seem to know just what it is they are doing their.



Thank goodness we have "above average Americans" such as you to explain it to us.

The next time you insult a regular, long-time poster on here you will be goner than a gone thing. Final warning. Pal.

soonercruiser
11/19/2011, 02:05 PM
That still puts you less than my $50 copay on meds. So that should make your day.

Nope!
Doesn't make anything.

soonercruiser
11/19/2011, 02:14 PM
The next time you insult a regular, long-time poster on here you will be goner than a gone thing. Final warning. Pal.

Trophy!

Rule #1 (Not posted formally in the web site rules)
Don't whiz off the mods!

Rule #2 (Not wriiten formally in the rules)
Only regular posters or friends of the mod can insult fellow posters!
(It happens all the time - sometimes very vile personal attacks)

Rule #3
Rule #1 and #2 don't make any sense of fairrness; let alone a long-time poster beging something "better" than a short-time poster. But, who cares about fairness!

Rule #4 (Not formall written in the site rules)
Only strong conservatives are fair game for personal attacks like - stupid - brainless - "nutjobs" - etc.)

Rule #5 (Not written in the formal rules)
When it comes down to it, any excuse is good enough.

diverdog
11/19/2011, 02:32 PM
Trophy!

Rule #1 (Not posted formally in the web site rules)
Don't whiz off the mods!

Rule #2 (Not wriiten formally in the rules)
Only regular posters or friends of the mod can insult fellow posters!
(It happens all the time - sometimes very vile personal attacks)

Rule #3
Rule #1 and #2 don't make any sense of fairrness; let alone a long-time poster beging something "better" than a short-time poster. But, who cares about fairness!

Rule #4 (Not formall written in the site rules)
Only strong conservatives are fair game for personal attacks like - stupid - brainless - "nutjobs" - etc.)

Rule #5 (Not written in the formal rules)
When it comes down to it, any excuse is good enough.

You sure like playing with fire.

Remember this is Dean's and Phil's house. We are just guest.

And Cruiser since I am one of the more liberal posters on this board I think the rules favor conservatives far more than the liberals.

On the whole I think this board is well moderated and C&C is one funny dude.

SouthCarolinaSooner
11/19/2011, 03:53 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4

"I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protesters. The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere." —Barack Obama

right

C&CDean
11/19/2011, 06:02 PM
Trophy!

Rule #1 (Not posted formally in the web site rules)
Don't whiz off the mods!

Rule #2 (Not wriiten formally in the rules)
Only regular posters or friends of the mod can insult fellow posters!
(It happens all the time - sometimes very vile personal attacks)

Rule #3
Rule #1 and #2 don't make any sense of fairrness; let alone a long-time poster beging something "better" than a short-time poster. But, who cares about fairness!

Rule #4 (Not formall written in the site rules)
Only strong conservatives are fair game for personal attacks like - stupid - brainless - "nutjobs" - etc.)

Rule #5 (Not written in the formal rules)
When it comes down to it, any excuse is good enough.

Good as of an excuse as any. I tried to reason with you yesterday, but you're a blind, hateful person who only knows one thing. Attack-mode. I tire of your schtick. Please read what I said in my 3-day vacation note. I mean it. You embarrass us normal conservatives with your idiocy/vitriol/hate. Also, I don't believe I was even talking to you.

SanJoaquinSooner
11/22/2011, 02:43 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4





Here's an open letter from a UC Davis Professor:


An Open Letter to My Students and Colleagues at UC Davis:

A lot has been said so far about who is responsible for the horrific violence on campus last week. A lot of blame is being passed around, and it’s all pretty accurate. But I’d like to take a different approach, if I may, and offer our students, my students—and yes, you are all my students whether I’ve had you in class or not—an apology on behalf of the faculty.

That’s right. An apology. Not just because there weren’t as many of us with you on Friday, getting arrested and pepper spray down our throats, as there were at Berkeley. But because of something bigger.

Because we left the wrong people in charge.

You see, with few exceptions, the people running this campus up in Mrak Hall think of themselves as administrators, not as educators. Because, with few exceptions, these are people who haven’t seen the inside of a classroom in years, if not decades, if ever. These are people who don’t have you guys. They don’t have students to remind them every single day on this campus why they are here, simply by stopping by their offices with a friendly, “Hey, Professor, I just had a question about something…” These are people who don’t have you all to keep them humble by (to use a personal example) reminding them that they almost forgot to collect the paper that’s due in class today, or pointing out the typos on their final exams.

No, instead, what we have are people who end up thinking of you as data points and dollar signs, rather than as whole human beings, whose hearts and minds we as a faculty have the honor and privilege of shaping into the future of our state, our nation, and our world. (And I assert that no one who thought of you as whole human beings could possibly have called in armed riot police to deal with a peaceful protest, tents or no tents.)

So how did it get this way? Of course it’s complicated, but one answer is that, as faculty, we’re busy. I know, you hear that a lot, right? “We’re busy.” But it’s true. We expend a lot of energy on our research. And the vast majority of us put a lot of time and effort into our teaching too. Because we care about you. We do. But there’s a whole host of other things, administrative things, that go into running a university, that we as a faculty have had less and less to do with over the years. Things like budgets. And efficiency reports. And “Resource Management.” And the truth is that most of us hate those things, and we’re perfectly happy to let someone else deal with all of it.

As it turns out, though, there’s a kind of power in those things. Big power, actually. Money power. And in many cases that power wasn’t just taken from us, we gave it away, all too gladly.

You know, it wasn’t malicious. We thought it would be fine, better even. We’d handle the teaching and the research, and we’d have administrators in charge of administrative things. But it’s not fine. It’s so completely not fine. There’s a sickening sort of clarity that comes from seeing, on the chemically burned faces of our students, how obviously it’s not fine.

So, to all of you, my students, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry we didn’t protect you. And I’m sorry we left the wrong people in charge.

And to my colleagues, I ask you, no, I implore you, to join with me in rolling up our sleeves, gritting our teeth, and getting back to the business of running this place the way it ought to be run. Because while our students have been bravely chanting for a while now that it’s their university (and they’re right), it’s also ours. It’s our university. And as such, let’s make sure that the inhuman brutality that occurred on this campus last Friday can never happen again. Not to our students. And not at our university.

Cynthia Carter Ching, Associate Professor

SanJoaquinSooner
11/22/2011, 03:21 AM
On Sunday, UC President Mark Yudof said he was "appalled" by images of protesters being pepper-sprayed and plans an assessment of law enforcement procedures on all 10 campuses.

"Free speech is part of the DNA of this university, and non-violent protest has long been central to our history," said Yudof, who heads the 10-campus UC system. "It is a value we must protect with vigilance."

Blue
11/22/2011, 03:41 AM
What "Occupy" is all about...Please take the time to scroll through these pictures. They say it all about this "movement"

http://zombietime.com/occupy_oakland_10-22-2011/

diverdog
11/22/2011, 07:04 AM
What "Occupy" is all about...Please take the time to scroll through these pictures. They say it all about this "movement"

http://zombietime.com/occupy_oakland_10-22-2011/

The sign that scared the **** out of me read "flouride will calcify the penile gland". As often as I brush my teeth my dick should be a stalagtite.

soonercruiser
11/22/2011, 09:51 PM
As the details are coming out...
It turns out that the campus police were enforcing a ban on camping on campus.
The students refused to leave, and then again blocked the sidewalk from trafiic.
They were warned again no to resist and clear the sidewalk!
Two warnings? Enough!

The pepper spray was a good way to incapacitate them and cart them off.
(There was barely enough campus police to handle the small group on the sidewalk one-on-one.)
I would not have been OK with the use of the tazer.

The students apparently "control" the campus; and the President is a wuss.
(She is an administrator; no a "leader"!)
Just more evidence of how SOME students view the value of their education.
They are calling for a campus wide walk-out tomorrow.

Turd_Ferguson
11/22/2011, 10:31 PM
As the details are coming out...
It turns out that the campus police were enforcing a ban on camping on campus.
The students refused to leave, and then again blocked the sidewalk from trafiic.
They were warned again no to resist and clear the sidewalk!
Two warnings? Enough!

The pepper spray was a good way to incapacitate them and cart them off.
(There was barely enough campus police to handle the small group on the sidewalk one-on-one.)
I would not have been OK with the use of the tazer.

The students apparently "control" the campus; and the President is a wuss.
(She is an administrator; no a "leader"!)
Just more evidence of how SOME students view the value of their education.
They are calling for a campus wide walk-out tomorrow.I heard her give an apology to the students and you couldn't hardly understand a ****'n word she was saying...

soonercruiser
11/22/2011, 10:38 PM
I heard her give an apology to the students and you couldn't hardly understand a ****'n word she was saying...

As a liberal college President, she was forced to apologize for enforcing the rules/law.
:moody:

soonercruiser
11/22/2011, 10:41 PM
I just watched the video posted.
Seems there was a guy on the far right-hand side that bailed out pretty quick once the pepper spray came out.
:topsy_turvy: