Kthug thinks #OWS is working:
What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.
Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.
This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.
So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.
If something does actually become of this, the “panicked Plutocrats” have no one to blame but themselves. It was their own greed.
El Tiburon
You have to wonder when the “authorities” will get involved to shut this down. And if they do, will the 99% do whatever is necessary to keep it going.
Or a worse fate: will it be co-opted by the Establishment?
Otherwise so far I like what i am seeing and hearing. I will be joining my local (Austin) OWS this week and to donate some funds. But we need EVERYONE to pitch in.
Rommie
Eventually, if they are pushed hard enough, they’ll just declare that they are Going Galt in some form, or otherwise will stop what they are doing, and the economy goes with them. Hostage taking x 300+ million. So back off, don’t make the 1% do it! Extremists indeed.
jon
They have titles, not jobs.
beltane
They’ll never blame themselves of course. These bots are hardwired to blame everyone and everyone but themselves. If OWS is successful, the ousted oligarchs will live out their days stewing in their own sour victimhood blaming the “moochers” and commies for their well-deserved downfall, kind of like their idol Ayn Rand.
If the day of reckoning ever comes, the speech and actions of these people have eliminated mercy as an option.
beltane
@jon: We have to remember that these people DO NOT WORK nor do they contribute anything of value to the world in which they inhabit. They are human tapeworms who have embedded themselves in the digestive tract of our society, enriching themselves at the expense of the host whose labor is essential to their survival.
MeDrewNotYou
No, they don’t. They absolutely think they’re entitled to all their wealth and power, as shown by their behavior since TARP and the bailouts. The 1% are nervous because they think that they might lose some of their power and privilege. What’s especially infuriating (to them) is that they deserve everything they’ve got (eat what you kill and what not) and the stupid proles are about to punish the job creators when we should really be thankful for the crumbs they deign to give us.
Cat Lady
@ Rommie: how will we ever survive no more over-leveraging, credit default swaps, high speed trading, CDOs, SIVs and arbitraging? OH NOES!
RosiesDad
Wall Street and DC should be shitting their pants or close to it but it’s hard to tell yet. Although continued media exposure isn’t hurting.
I hope the thing continues to build; the only way the Plutocracy will be changed for the better–short of overthrow–will be if the Plutocrats are scared into changing.
El Tiburon
@MeDrewNotYou:
Right. Remember Leona Helmsley of “taxes are for the little people” fame?
These people honestly believe they are almost God-like when compared to the riff-raff that is the 99% of Americans. They are like the coddled superstar athlete in high school that is handed everything and exist by a different set of rules. It is coming as quite a shock to these Masters that the rabble don’t love them but loathe them. And not for their wealth, but for their douchebaggery.
Ken
Really? Quick poll: If the system crashes again, who thinks another bailout will make it through Congress?
RossInDetroit
I actually care less that one d-bag has a fleet of gold plated yachts he didn’t earn than I care that millions of Americans can’t earn enough to feed and house their kids.
Emphasis on the rich looks like envy. Emphasis on the widespread damage that they caused looks like empathy. The latter is more effective, more to the point and harder to refute.
boss bitch
We are the ones that should be running scared.
Article says they are feuding but I don’t care about that. They are ready to spend AT LEAST half a billion for 2012.
JGabriel
John Cole:
Roger Moore
@Rommie:
Go ahead, make my day. The Wall Street types going Galt would be one of the best things that could possibly happen to this country. They’re doing more damage as parasites sucking the blood from the real economy than anything else. The sooner they stop the better.
Bill E Pilgrim
Hilarious.
Everyone’s a critic of OWS, even their emperor.
Roger Moore
@Ken:
* Raises hand to vote yes *
Of course there will be another bailout. The same- sadly correct- arguments that led to the first bailout will prevail again. The Teabaggers will shout and scream, but the people who don’t want a complete economic meltdown will hold their noses and vote yes again.
JGabriel
@El Tiburon:
What do you mean by the Establishment?
Clearly we don’t want Occupy Together co-opted by the top 1%.
But if you mean the government, well, isn’t the whole point to have the government co-opt the protesters complaints about inequality — of wealth, of opportunity, of education, of health care — and pass legislation to rectify the perverse incentives and gross distributional iniquities in today’s society?
.
Bill E Pilgrim
By the way someone has got to do a mashup song of this guy singing “Becky Becky Becky Stan Stan”. If not then I will, even though I don’t know how. Could be sort of a call and response thing.
J
Cantor’s remark makes perfect sense when understood to mean that the crime is that of pitting Americans who don’t count against his masters, those who do. His life’s work, sedulously advancing by lies and slander the interests of America’s worthless ruling class at the expense of the nation as a whole deserves, of course, nothing but praise.
I highly recommend for those who don’t know it, Oscar Wilde’s The Soul of Man under Socialism.
kindness
Well they can’t go Galt. They all have huge mortgages & mistresses that they must continue to fund. So I figure they’ll just try to wait it out. I’m sure they think if they wait till winter the crowd will thin & then they can get back to electing Republicans.
I say we start wheeling around a guillotine down there with the protesters. That’ll give the bankers an idea of what the rest of us REALLY think.
Roger Moore
@JGabriel:
I think it’s equally important to ask what he means by “co-opted”. If it means that the group doing the co-opting takes on the message of the protesters, that’s great. But if it means the group doing the co-opting tries to take over the group and redirect its energies to something different, that’s a problem. To some extent, though, that’s an advantage of a loosely organized group like OWS; you can’t redirect them just by buying off their leadership.
Raenelle
Greed is the motor of capitalism. I can well imagine that our overlords think it immensely unfair to be castigated and blamed for playing the game better than others. Benefiting society was always just assumed to be that which we would get for allowing the vice of greed to be the essence of our economic system–benefits for all was never the point; just an assumed subsidiary. The way I see it, the problem isn’t that those who benefit from our system are sociopaths. The problem surely is capitalism itself, a system which seems inevitably to put sociopaths in control.
Chris
What jgabriel said @ 13. The New Deal happened because the proles finally banded together long enough to universally hate on the rich, and the rich have ruled the last three decades largely by keeping that from happening again. Hence the terror at anyone who threatens to become too popular among the proles.
Epicurus
@Raenelle: @Raenelle: And that surely implies that you have another, more efficient and viable system? We’re waiting….this is not to say that our current condition is ideal, but please; just what are the alternatives?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Raenelle: We did pretty well between the end of the Great Depression and the Reagan
RevolutionReversal of the New Deal.Granted, the inherent flaw in capitalism may be precisely that it’s unstable and before too long everyone starts thinking “Hey, I’m going to be rich, right around the corner!” a la Joe the Plumber and starts voting for plutocrats who will unravel things like the New Deal.
It did last a bunch of decades though, and while it was certainly less than perfect, that period makes right now look like the Middle Ages by comparison. At least there was a middle class.
El Tiburon
@JGabriel:
I mean taken over and watered down. Agreed if members of the Democratic party are emboldened to finally stand up to the Financial Establishment by OWS, then that type of co-option is what we are looking for.
jrg
@beltane:
It’s important to remember that markets do have a purpose… To efficiently allocate capital to productive activities. You could argue that trading in a secondary market does not allocate any such capital, but no one would buy new issues to finance productive activity if there was no secondary market to trade them in.
That said, trading is not a productive activity in and of itself. Financiers should not enjoy a lower effective tax rate than the rest of us, nor should the incentives be set up such that taxpayers finance the downside of risk. If anything, that hinders productive activity, rather than enabling it.
danimal
@JGabriel: The politics of the plutocrats has been frustrating to sensible progressives and moderates. Their politics have also been, I predict, mind-numbingly stupid and short-sighted, bordering on the idiotic.
They had a great deal if they worked with Obama. Their leverage is shrinking every day as the great middle America wakes up and demands they pay their share. Now, the pendulum that has swung their way for thirty plus years is swinging leftward, and they have no way of stopping it. The American people are sometimes slow, but once they figure out the game, they will not be fooled again.
Linnaeus
@Raenelle:
The older I get, the more and more I tend to agree with this. Capitalism isn’t going away anytime soon, if at all, but I think it behooves us as a society to think more about the flaws in capitalism that are a feature, not a bug, and do what we can about them.
Virginia Highlander
@Roger Moore:
Nah. There is a much cheaper solution: join their council meeting and prevent a consensus on anything that fails to steer things your way.
Raenelle
@Epicurus: Democratic socialism, like in most of Europe. The economy should serve the interests of a society, not the other way around.
I’m so disappointed that someone with the name of Epicurus, a philosopher I much admire, dismissed or forgot what’s going on in much of Europe.
Bruce S
I posted this comment in the OWS media thread, but I’m going to restate it here where it’s more on point…Just an observation and the suggestion that this would have seemed unthinkable a month ago: the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the President of the United States, the Vice-President of the United States, The New York Times and – yes, according to an email in my box this morning from the ubiquitous “Robby Mook, DCC” – the Beltway Democratic Party organization, have all embraced and rendered “legitimate” the anti-establishment sentiments of an angry bunch of living, breathing, non-metaphorical “Dirty Fucking Hippies” ensconced with signs, protesting and refusing to leave Dirty Fucking Wall Street.
Who’da thunk? I’m loving it…
handsmile
@JGabriel: (#17)
Your questions point to the Scylla and Charybdis now confronting the navigators of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.
The “Establishment,” the “Government,” is the 1%. One need look no further than tabulations of the personal finances of members of Congress to recognize their elite membership: http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/
Yet it is these very so-called public officials who must draft and enact the legislation that will advance the OWS mission to remedy financial and social inequities.
To my mind, this paradox illuminates the reluctance of OWS to cultivate the participation of even liberal members of the Democratic Party. It will become necessary, but at this stage of the protest’s development, I don’t think negotiations are prudent.
slag
@beltane:
This is exactly right. Their self-identity fundamentally depends on the bootstrap mythology that we’ve allowed them to perpetuate. And when self-identity is at stake, things can get pretty vicious.
I’ve long wondered what kind of bridge it would take for them to get from there to here and have never figured it out. But it seems that no matter what line you take–kindness, frankness, derision–all you’re doing is reinforcing their mythology. All of which begs the question: Will fundamentalism ever find a cure?
Bill E Pilgrim
You know, in this general discussion about capitalism and the New Deal and so on, the thing that always strikes me is that it’s all about perception. Those on the right who keep thinking that we’re nearing some sort of soc ialist state, it’s utterly absurd. I mean even if you agree that so cialism is not ideal– we are nowhere near that kind of system, despite their hysteria about it.
There’s plenty of room I think to imagine a more moderate form of capitalism similar to what we had in the postwar years, without going anywhere near real soc ialsm. The problem is that now, what we have is plutocracy, not capitalism.
I live in a system that’s traditionally leaned far more toward soc_ialsm than the USA ever has, and it’s still basically capitalism, especially these days. And it’s far from perfect, but the income disparity is much smaller than in the States, and everyone has health care.
Virginia Highlander
@handsmile: BooMan has been banging on this. You really can’t avoid politics. I had one impassioned supporter of OWS tell me that it was the government’s job to craft specific legislation that would meet his demands. Sometimes you just want to cry.
I also wonder how many protesters want to bring down the government itself. There is a lot of crazy out there.
Raenelle
@Bill E Pilgrim: I have hopes for a regulated economy where the government is stronger than its capitalists, too. I don’t have a problem with letting the free market loose on things that aren’t vital for individual or national survival. But, e.g., the government should be in control of banks.
Raenelle
@Linnaeus: Greed isn’t a bug. It’s the entire motor. Without it, nothing. Phft.
I have no hopes for utopia. I’m actually bitter and cynical and think the capitalists are doing victory laps now. I believe the rich can always hire one-half of the working class to shoot the other half. I have no hope. But we should be using our terms correctly. Capitalism isn’t failing because of some bad apples, or because of any moral failing at all. It might be especially egregious right now because our working class was so thoroughly neutered after Reagan, because we let the New Deal regulations, designed to soothe the claws of the beast, because we let those regulations lapse. But capitalism is working just fine–just for fewer and fewer people, but in the aggregate . . .
The way we discuss things matters to me. Greed is not a bug. It’s not even just a feature. It’s THE feature.
Bruce S
“I had one impassioned supporter of OWS tell me that it was the government’s job to come with legislation that would meet his demands. Sometimes you just want to cry.”
The protester was echoing a very good New York Times editorial in support of OWS that appeared on Saturday.
The reality is that liberals and the “left” have had policy points and “agendas” for reform by the ton for years – what they haven’t had is a social movement. The bodies in the streets registering anger at the system, the arc of inequality and the insane distribution of money and power are much more important right now than whittling down a list of “demands.” Rebuild The Dream, Campaign for America’s Future, MoveOn.org and even Democrats in the progressive caucus can forge an agenda easily enough. As one commenter noted the problem for liberals has been “How many divisions does Paul Krugman have?” OWS can serve, in effect, as “Krugman’s Army.”
Raenelle
@Linnaeus: The problem, it seems to me, though, is that greed isn’t just an important feature–it’s more like THE feature. Private ownership, then let everyone do what is in their economic self-interest to do. That’s pretty much it. What can be fixed there and still remain capitalism?
RossinDetroit
@Bruce S:
I love seeing Dr. Shrill get credit because he’s been right about the economic mess far more than anyone else. But I can’t think of a less likely revolutionary leader. Columns like his latest are probably as far as he’s willing and comfortable to go in the direction of leadership.
That’s too bad, because I like the idea of an academic economist leading the poor and middle class to greater economic equality and better standard of living.
IM
OWS can serve, in effect, as “Krugman’s Army.”
No cult of personality here!
(just joking)
Bruce S
#37 – Ross, I wasn’t suggesting he would be a “revolutionary leader” – it’s sort of the point that he’s not. But he and others like Robert Reich can be the source of good advice and direction on issues as this movement gels which I don’t expect a 20-year old protestor to necessarily be able to articulate (although some clearly could.) What’s been missing on the liberal side isn’t “demands” but pissed off people expressing the moral outrage that pols will need to respond to. I sort of like that these protests haven’t reduced themselves to discussing the financial transaction tax…
p.a.
Be prepared for police (and other) moles instigating violence a la what happened to the Black Panthers in the ’60’s.
Virginia Highlander
@Bruce S: I honestly do not see how that changes anything. The protesters are not protesting in support of any such legislative agenda and a significant number seem blissfully unaware that such legislative agendas have been out there for years.
Take Obama’s jobs bill, for instance. There is a bit of legislature aimed at putting folks back to work at the nominal expense of the wealthy elite. Krugman supports the idea. How will his army help ram that bill through the Republican House?
On a related note, will Krugman’s army gracefully accept that this is not possible if indeed it proves to be impossible? Or will this turn into another “a pox on both your houses” sort of thing?
I still support OWS and its spin-offs. I just don’t see what’s going to come of it.
Kola Noscopy
If something does actually become of this, the “panicked Plutocrats” have no one to blame but themselves. It was their own greed.
I don’t understand why you folks think anything needs to “come of this.”
After all, Mr. Obama has “had this” for three years now.
Roger Moore
@Raenelle:
What people are allowed to do. We don’t, and never have, had a system where people are given absolutely unfettered right to do as they please with their private property. We have always had some kinds of limits on what kinds of goods and services people are allowed to buy and sell, what they’re allowed to say about their products, etc. Those kinds of regulations, especially ones that force people to be honest about what they’re selling, can have a very powerful effect on how the market works. Strengthening market regulations (e.g. treating credit default swaps as insurance and requiring sellers to have an adequate reserve) can do a lot to reign in the worst abuses without undermining the strength of market pricing.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Don’t be mean to the job creators. They are very fragile. I refer to them as the ‘China Dolls’.
gaz
@Ken: Care to rejoin reality, or do you honestly think this thread will benefit from your hypothetical BS.
As far as our gov leadership is concerned, the bankers will get whatever they want, in any case. It doesn’t matter if it’s politically toxic. As has already been demonstrated, it will be handled in closed door sessions away from public scrutiny.
Anyway, why don’t you join the discussion instead of engaging in absurd and speculative hypotheticals that only serve to derail it?
Bruce S
#45 – Virginia. Have a little faith.
People furrowing their brows and stroking their chins trying to figure out the most practical way to achieve goals are usually not the ones who step out first in social movements. And social movements on the left notoriously fuck up. But, I didn’t go down and sit in on Wall Street – I was putting up blog posts about “serious” economic issues by “serious” people for these last months. Thankfully, some younger folks with more heart and more audacity stepped up while I was “being logical.” It’s the start of something. We’ll see where it goes. But without those bodies down there, our blog comments etc. are just another form of angst and political masturbation. Thank god for the youngbloods. I was one back in 63-70. I was more than a little nuts and should have listened more to folks with more political experience. One mistake a lot of us made – which was reverting to dogmatic leftist gobbledygook when the going got rough – these kids can probably avoid. They’ll make other mistakes. We can reach out and try to help with whatever wisdom we might think we’ve accumulated.
But God Bless OWS! Krugman et al could play Frank Sinatra ’56 – “kids today with their rock-and-roll!” – but I think most of us older types have been wondering who the hell would bring the noise and we should, at this point, just be damned glad to hear it.
gaz
@JGabriel: awesome post. go 99ers =)
priscianusjr
@Cat Lady:
Bruce S
#45 “How will his army (OWS) help ram (Obama’s jobs) bill through the Republican House?”
Only Stalin’s or Hitler’s army could pull that off, and that’s not how we play the game…
Obama is doing a good job of pushing his bill among the people. But this is something different and it frames the issues in much bigger terms than a President possibly could. This actually DOES raise the prospect of liberals having a multi-dimensional chess game going…
gaz
@priscianusjr:
Collateralized Debt Obligations that abstracted and obscured the connection between loaners and loanees? Innovative!!! woot!
Falsely flagging Junk Bonds as AAA, then betting against the market (and your own clients)? Innovative!
Causing the crash of 2008 and then managing to frame everything (with the help of a corrupt 4th estate, and a corrupt gov) in order to avoid prosecution or penalty? Very Innovative.
I don’t know how much more “Innovation” america can take.
We’re bleeding from all of our orifices after the last 30 years of “innovation”
Innovation must be the latest euphemism for gang rape.
Raenelle
@Roger Moore: The regulators and the central planners have been with us since, I think, robber baron days. And for a while there, with the New Deal, it looked hopeful that the benefits of capitalism would be distributed widely.
My bitter angel keeps whispering to me, however, that the rich can always hire one-half of the working class to shoot the other half. And the way I read history is that the capitalists have increased their hold on the political system at an ever-increasing rate. During the last half of the 20th century, they just exported the emiseration of the working class, mostly but not exclusively, to Central and South America. Now they’re coming for us. They are so confident that our voices don’t matter any more that they are now in the process of stripping voting and organizing rights–no disguise, they are just blatantly moving against them. If regulations are the answer, they’re going the wrong way.
Linnaeus
@Raenelle:
Agreed. Capitalism is working. We’ve seen these patterns and tendencies before.
I don’t hold out any hope for some kind of revolution and I’m not sure that such a revolution would turn out well. But I think it’s healthy for more and more people to start exploring the inherent problems in our economic system.
Raenelle
@Linnaeus: Greed is the motor. I just don’t see how that gets tamed. There’s never going to be a point when the capitalists will be satisfied with such-and-such a market share. They always argued that health care wasn’t a right but simply a market commodity–the best going to the highest bidder. They hate social security, they’ve gutted workers’ comp and vacation time and overtime pay, etc., and they relish stripping our bargaining, voting and civil rights from us. Our government is now so thoroughly controlled by them that I see little hope–a real David and Goliath story, if ever there was one, but I don’t believe in divine intervention to change the probably outcome of that battle.
We’re all just expendable peasants to them, and I think they’ve calculated that they have nothing to fear from our pitchforks.
handsmile
@Virginia Highlander: (#36 & #45)
Thanks, I appreciate your reminding me that I’ve been negligent of late in reading Booman.
On the “crazy out there” (Anecdote, not data department):
In my several visits to and one march with the “Occupy Wall Street” protest here in New York City, the number of anarcho-syndicalists I’ve encountered has been pleasingly low.
While perhaps not bristling with the economic and political sophistication of the average commenter on this blog, many of the protesters with whom I spoke were impressively articulate on one or more objectives of the OWS mission. Far from being “blissfully unaware” of legislative agendas or the means by which to adopt them, there was a pervasive sentiment that the mechanisms of legislative action (drafting/enactment/enforcement) and the principal actors in that drama (elected officials) have become ossified and unresponsive.
The “Occupy Wall Street” protests are a contemporary manifestation of a tradition of reform initiatives within the system of participatory democracy. Like you, “I just don’t see what’s going to come of it.” But I am crystal clear on what’s going to come without it.
chonchito
@Rommie:
What I don’t get is the people that make it seem that those who are wealthy are having a difficult time because they are being “demonized”. If you have money, the president’s rhetoric or the OWS protests have absolutely no effect on your life. It’s not as if people are pulling people out of their BMWs and beating them and robbing them on the street. People that have money are concerned with making more of it just like those without money want more of it for the most part. At most some people will have to pay a little more in taxes which might force them to do without a luxury purchase here and there. The whole argument is so ridiculous that I can’t understand how it has any traction. It’s as if the super wealthy are afraid that people are going to come after them because of their money en masse but when has that happened.
Chris
Agree with Raenelle @ 57. Greed is the motor and they’ll never be satisfied with anything less than everything they can get their hands on. (Sometimes, not even that).
It’s why I think even Krugman’s dream of a “new New Deal” is insufficient to the task. Even if we do one day manage to get back to that point, it’s still only half the battle. The other half is guarding the progress made so that the MOTU can’t roll it back like they did this time around.
Too much to hope for? Eh, probably. But I’d damn sure love to see movement conservatism buried as completely as monarchism or communism some day.
Chris
Agree with Raenelle @ 57. Greed is the motor and they’ll never be satisfied with anything less than everything they can get their hands on. (Sometimes, not even that).
It’s why I think even Krugman’s dream of a “new New Deal” is insufficient to the task. Even if we do one day manage to get back to that point, it’s still only half the battle. The other half is guarding the progress made so that the MOTU can’t roll it back like they did this time around.
Too much to hope for? Eh, probably. But I’d damn sure love to see movement conservatism buried as completely as monarchism or communism some day.
El Cid
@priscianusjr: Several million billion gazillion years ago, one of the arguments on why NAFTA wouldn’t matter much for American workers is that we’d totally move into economic categories such as FINANCIAL INNOVATIONS, and this was a very persuasive argument given that Ross Perot was an egotistical maniac and made lots of simplistic arguments.
Well, we did as stated enrich the economy with FINANCIAL INNOVATION, creating, in fact, hundreds of trillions of imaginary dollars via imaginary investment instruments based on imaginary fractional portions of imagined combinations of real estate properties.
That’s some fucking INNOVATION right there.
Economies may be “enriched,” though, without much of anyone gaining from it.
Elie
@JGabriel:
This.
Just heard a heartfelt account on Seattle NPR outlet, (KUOW), from a young, suburban stay at home Mom who is participating in the Seattle Occupy together/wall street protests here. She stated more eloquently than I can repeat that this was a mainstream issue — that working class people are who are showing up to the rallies and that being able to be there in place, overnight, is attracting more and more people each day. Folks KNOW this is righteous — their mental and cognitive processes are starting to put it together. Once put together, its going to be really hard to make the awareness go away.
The oligarchs are scared. They NEED to be scared — not for their physical safety, but that people are largely on to them. If the protesters are attacked or harrassed, all they will do is further imbed this reality and make the people fearless.
We have been wanting to free the shakles of being made consumers. We want to renew our citizenship — our link to each other and to the real principles of democratic institutions.
Raenelle
@Chris: Oh, I hate to disagree with someone who agrees with me. But, though I love approval, I’m also an asshole, so here goes. Monarchy is not dead. Neither is communism. Neither is feudalism. Neither is slavery. Hell, nationalism is only a couple of centuries old. Capitalism is merely ascendant right now.
The real question, though, is whether capitalism will destroy the planet before its appetite is contained.
DWG
A tax system skewed to advantage the wealthy is by no measure a fair system. There is absolutely no justification for the tax rate on wage income to exceed the tax rate on passive income. Income is income. When you have a 15 percent capital gains rate, it means wealthy people living on accumulated riches are paying roughly half the tax rate of middle and upper middle class wage earners. A lot of people foolishly believe that a flat tax is the solution, but that’s not what a flat tax is. A flat tax would eliminate progressive taxation of wage income — so that people earning $200,000 a year would pay the same rate as people earning $10,000 a year. What you need is a more fair way to tax unearned income, not the elimination of the progressive income tax.
Arguing that the wealthy are “job creators” is pure propaganda.
As a side note, the French Revolution was precipitated in part by a tax code skewed to advantage the artistocracy. They were exempt from taxation; it was the middle class, merchant and working classes that bore the tax burden—and in that case, it was an onerous burden. But another factor was that economically, France had reached a situation where it could not create enough opportunities for the children of the bourgeoisie, who found their ambitions frustrated as they finished their university educations. The nail in the coffin was a poor harvest—famine in some parts of France finally drove the people to revolt.
What we face in our country is a dangerous situation and frankly, stupid policy, to allow young people to be saddled with outrageous debt just to pay for an education. For a number of years people struggled under this debt without complaint because there were jobs to be had. OWS is borne out of frustration created by foolish policy on one hand and a government failure to see the urgency of a 9.2 percent unemployment rate (really nearly 16 percent when you consider the underemployed, a category populated mostly by recent graduates). It’s foolhardly and short-sighted to allow this situation to languish, and yet Obama has done just that.
His economic advisers are simply much too tied to Wall Street, and their assumption has been that what is good for Wall Street hedge fund managers is good for America.
Really it is well past the time for him to fire his economic team.
El Cid
@DWG:
Does creating their own jobs count?
Chris
Well DAMN, Rae, aren’t you a ray of sunshine.
Just kidding, I see and take your point. It’d be depressing as hell to finally shake uber-capitalism only to get monarchy or communism in its place, let alone slavery.
Chris
Well DAMN, Rae, aren’t you a ray of sunshine.
Just kidding, I see and take your point. It’d be depressing as hell to finally shake uber-capitalism only to get monarchy or communism in its place, let alone slavery.
Chris
Damn. Sorry for the double posts, not sure what’s up with that.
FlipYrWhig
More and more I’m starting to think it’s a lazy swipe to say that OWS doesn’t have clear goals and whatnot. It strikes me that that’s not at all the point — they’re not rallying for legislation or much of anything in the electoral domain. I think there’s a strong case to be made that the point is to be a “permanent critique.” “We’re here, we’re dissatisfied, get used to it, and we’ll stop when we’re satisfied again, so, do your best and we’ll let you know.”
NR
@Ken:
Wrong question. The right question is: If the system crashes again, who thinks anybody will go to jail?
The banksters will just bail out on golden parachutes and go live it up in the Cayman Islands or someplace. Because both major political parties are dedicated to protecting their sorry asses.
NR
@Chris:
The New Deal also happened because there was a major political party that was willing to make it happen. We don’t have that today.
We won’t see similar reforms until we replace one of the major parties with a party willing to make those reforms. Simple as that.
Raenelle
@Chris: I’m not that pessimistic about communism. I mean, if I were Erin Burnett, say, I’d be very unhappy about my prospects under such a system. But, for me and my pack, I’d be willing to give it a try.
Elie
@DWG:
You almost had me agreeing with you until you got to the part about Obama somehow being able to make the unemployment rate magically disappear. For someone who so articulately stated the history of the French revolution, you sure don’t get what a President can or cannot do.
Here’s something for you to think about: as bad as the unemployment rate is now, it could have been much much worse without the early stimulus. If your argument is going to be that the stimulus was not big enough, you may be right, but its hard to think of how it could have politically been bigger since the one passed was the largest in history. If there was some other measure that would have made the jobs appear and make the 9% to 5%, I don’t know what that would have been and I think you don’t either.
What IS valid is that our system is terribly broken and does not work for the average joe anymore. That is not a fault of Obama, though he is certainly contributing to some extent since he is part of the system. That you don’t even fucking MENTION the Republicans as having any responsibility for blocking what we can do is very interesting. Hmmmm…Why is that?
Chris
NR: it took decades to get the Democrats to that point. W. J. Bryan had his populist revolt in 1896, the New Deal started in 1933. Heavy grassroots activism with lots and lots of setbacks in between.
Rae: again, good point. But sign me up for Social Democracy anyway.
Elie
@FlipYrWhig:
I agree wicha. The movement can function as something of a reproach…..
I think that its having significant influence and will grow in that influence… not that every outcome will necessarily be positive — I expect for instance, that there will be continued efforts to detract and suppress it and/or to push them out of their location…
Importantly though, every day that passes, they are setting up in a location that is going to be hard to push them out of — they are helping to open the eyes and awareness of the American 99 percenters….
Bruce S
“for me and my pack, I’d be willing to give (communism) a try”
Actually, based on what we know from the real world, it would work out best for the guys who are always first in line to join the police force, for folks whose idea of a brilliant career is working at the DMV and – yes – for opportunistic, soulless shills like Erin Burnett who have no problem cynically fabricating bullshit, in service to power, for public consumption.
Social democracy works pretty well, as our Northern European brethren have shown…no path to utopia but no likely path to “red fascism” – which every “communist” regime has devolved to – either.
Linnaeus
@Bruce S:
Hey, someone‘s gotta work at the DMV.
JGabriel
@Elie:
Honestly, I’m okay with the idea of the plutarchs being a little scared for their physical safety too ….
.
Corner Stone
@Linnaeus:
I was actually at the TX DPS office recently to renew a DL, and let me tell you. Working at the DPS is not an easy job.
For the two hours I was there, every person who came in the door had a majorly bad attitude. They hated the DPS person before they ever opened their mouths. And no matter what was said, it didn’t somehow jibe with what they wanted to hear so they gave the DPS person a bunch of shit about it.
It was just awful to watch. No idea how they do it day after day.
When my ticket was called the lady was expecting some shit, you could just tell. I said some pretty lame joke then asked her politely what she needed from me to complete the renewal. She kind of looked at me funny, then said something about her kids and we chatted for maybe 15 seconds about that. Then we finished and I told her Thanks, and I appreciate it. She looked like a martian had just escaped out my ass and lasered the place.
IOW, they have a hard freakin’ job, and not one I would ever want to try.
Once I got to the window I was done in under two minutes, eye test, forms, signatures, thumb printing brief chat and all.
Bruce S
78 – Linneaus: yeah, that was a cheap shot. Actually our local DMVs used to remind me of what I assumed it was like to spend an ordinary day in East Germany, but in the last few years they’ve gotten their act together and it’s not a bad experience at all, considering it’s almost by definition not how you want to be spending your time. Quite efficient. I also love the Post Office. But I’m glad we’ve also got Apple balancing those basic government services. I just wish Apple didn’t use the infrastructure of “communist” dictatorship to provide a cheap labor environment to make the stuff I like. I’d feel better paying a little more if some of it was made stateside and the rest by folks abroad who were paid decently and treated decently. Don’t want to pee on Steve Jobs’ grave so soon, but that is a big, big problem that is as disturbing as much of what the Wall Street boys have done.
Elie
@JGabriel:
Yeah, but to me its not a priority and that emotion — anger and needing to act on anger in an unfocuse way, just ends up in a place you don’t want.
We want the energy and the courage to change what needs to be changed — not on stupid reprisals and denting heads. I say this fully accepting my own “imperfections” — my own wanting to pop a head or two. I just know its almost always a distraction that takes your focus away from where it needs to be.
John Weiss
@danimal: I wish I could be so optimistic.
I thought that after the Vietnam debacle that such destructive nonsense could never happen again.
Sigh. It sure as hell did. And after the lessons of the great depression? Sure as hell will.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Well, that’s right neighborly of you.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: I would’ve also accepted “mighty white”.
Linnaeus
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, working at any kind of job in which you serve the general public is often harder than it looks. Which is not to say that people should be excused for doing their jobs poorly, but rather that doing a good job means you have to take a lot of shit that most people wouldn’t accept in their own jobs.
@Bruce S:
Eh, no worries. I understood what you meant.