biccat wrote:

sebster wrote:Any way you cut it, the government sector is going to be a very large part of the total economy. There is just no avoiding that in a modern economy. As such, there is always going to be a significant incentive for private individuals to benefit from distorting the system to access some of that cash.

Actually, it could be avoided in a modern economy. Because government does not have to be a significant economic actor.

Incomprehensible sentences removed for clarity.

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:

sebster wrote:Any way you cut it, the government sector is going to be a very large part of the total economy. There is just no avoiding that in a modern economy. As such, there is always going to be a significant incentive for private individuals to benefit from distorting the system to access some of that cash.

Actually, it could be avoided in a modern economy. Because government does not have to be a significant economic actor.

Incomprehensible sentences removed for clarity.

Given the general incompetence and corruption of capitalism, I beg to differ. Government may also be incompetent and corrupt, but at least it answers to everyone instead of merely the almighty dollar (and note that I did not disclude the almighty dollar-- yes, the government also answers to that, but not JUST to that like corporations do).

Frazzled wrote:Given the general incompetence and corruption of capitalism, I beg to differ. Government may also be incompetent and corrupt, but at least it answers to everyone instead of merely the almighty dollar (and note that I did not disclude the almighty dollar-- yes, the government also answers to that, but not JUST to that like corporations do).

Melissia wrote:It answers to those who vote (which, yeah, isn't really everyone, but it gives most adults FAR more of a chance than they have with corporations), and to those who have money to give to campaign donations due to their resistance to campaign finance reform.

biccat wrote:Now go to a store and see how long it takes for someone to come and offer to help you.

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:Now go to a store and see how long it takes for someone to come and offer to help you.

The store isn't interested in helping you, they're interested in profiting off you.

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:Now go to a store and see how long it takes for someone to come and offer to help you.

The store isn't interested in helping you, they're interested in profiting off you.

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:Now go to a store and see how long it takes for someone to come and offer to help you.

The store isn't interested in helping you, they're interested in profiting off you.

biccat wrote:Actually, it could be avoided in a modern economy. Because government does not have to be a significant economic actor.

sebster wrote:To build powerful modern industry you need government support. This is just how it is. Go and read about any new major development, and read about the amount of infrastructure government committed to the project. Go look at the efficiency of commercial transactions in the modern world, and then ponder why the same efficiency doesn't exist in Africa - it's because of the underlying level of government support.

sebster wrote:At which point we might return to your original point, that you could remove the incentive to corrupt government, by reducing it to just 13% of the total economy. Just $2 trillion dollars. Who'd bother trying to get a piece of that.

biccat wrote:I particularly like the part where you say I blindly follow a worldview and then say "that's just how it is" when defending yours. It's like some sort of bizarro world.

Presumably only those providing services, not those who...I dunno, seek regulations to enmesh their current practices in law and punish competition.

sebster wrote:Because when one worldview references how the world actually works, and the other doesn't, they are very different things.

sebster wrote:Seriously dude, how the world works actually fething matters. How much you could conceivably cut government spending back to, and still have modern economy is actually an important thing to consider.

sebster wrote:Both would. Obviously. Why would a cut in government to just $2 trillion stop corporations from trying to have legislation beneficial to them passed? Your answer of 'small government then magic' is ridiculous.

biccat wrote:If government doesn't have the authority to set wheat prices, then there will not be anyone lobbying for laws increasing wheat prices. So long as there are laws setting wheat prices, individuals/groups who have money to lobby will have an advantage over those who do not.

BrassScorpion wrote:Don't think these companies really need tax subsidies while most ordinary people are struggling to save enough to have a future at all.

New York City Chapter: Veterans of the 99% Call to Action
published by carjos24 on 10/31/11 12:48pm
Posted to:
New York City
Call to Action

Across the country Americans of all stripes are coming together in their cities and towns to demand government accountability and an end to Wall Street’s stranglehold on our political system. As the 99% movement has spread, the presence of veterans at rallies, marches, and occupations is becoming increasingly visible. Veterans who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and even World War II have participated in the occupations, speaking out for the 99%, and raising the movement’s visibility in the process. Most recently, the unconscionable treatment of Marine veteran Scott Olsen has drawn national attention to veterans’ participation in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

We are veterans of the 99%. We have been directly affected by the economic and social issues raised by Occupy Wall Street. We are part of this movement, and we believe it is time for us to make our participation as veterans more deliberate and more visible. As veterans who have served our country in the military, we now have a unique opportunity to continue serving here at home through our participation in this civic movement. As veterans, our presence in this movement is itself an intervention in the evolving narrative about Occupy Wall Street.

Over the past eight years, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War have been at the forefront of social justice movements involving veterans’ issues and war. We have learned many lessons from our efforts, and we now have an opportunity to help galvanize other veterans around our generation’s most visible and widely supported American social justice movement.

On November 2nd, members of the New York City Chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War and other veterans will come together at Wall Street with other Veterans of the 99%. We will march from Vietnam Veterans Plaza to Liberty Square (Zuccoti Park)—the heart of the Occupy Wall Street movement—and hold a press conference announcing our support for the 99%, and calling on other veterans and service members to join us.

November 2nd, march with us in support of the 99%. If you’re unable to come to New York, organize veterans in support of the 99% at your local occupations.

We are veterans. We are the 99%.

Veterans of the 99%
March to Occupy Wall Street
Wednesday, November 2nd
11:00am - 1:00pm

Veterans who would like to participate should contact veteransofthe99@gmail.com

Dress is top/blouse of your respective service uniform.

BrassScorpion wrote:

Melissia wrote:Seriously biccat, I dunno how you can make these claims that demand of government support would vanish just because you restricted supply....

Melissia wrote:It's like saying "if I take all the supply away, there's no more demand for food!". No, people are still going to want food.

House Republicans took the government to the brink of shutdown last spring by demanding across-the-board budget cuts to many vital programs. Instead of focusing on job creation, as Americans wanted them to, the GOP turned its attention to slashing funds for programs that funded assistance for women and children, local law enforcement, the social safety net, environmental protections, and many other programs they deemed as either too expensive or unnecessary. Worse, when challenged on why they hadn’t made the effort to tackle high unemployment, Republicans insisted that their slash-and-burn budget cuts were meant to create jobs.

Not all of those cuts made it through, but the GOP succeeded in passing massive spending reductions as part of a continuing resolution that kept the government operating. According to a new report from the Center for American Progress’ Scott Lilly, those cuts didn’t result in the job creating boon Republicans insisted would follow. Instead, it has done just the opposite, as those cuts will result in the destruction of roughly 370,000 jobs.

Lilly’s report focuses on three major areas where Republicans insisted on spending cuts: funding for local law enforcement, environmental cleanup of sites where nuclear weapons were disabled and destroyed, and investments into construction, repair, and maintenance of government buildings. Cuts to just those three areas will result in the loss of 90,000 jobs, the report found — 60,000 from direct cuts, and 30,000 additional jobs lost from the secondary impacts of job losses in each community.

And according to Lilly, those three areas weren’t among the worst budget cuts forced through by the Republican House:

“Similar stories could be told about many other budget cuts made in this bill—cuts that resulted in further job losses,” said Scott Lilly, author of the report and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. “All of the various 250 program reductions in the fiscal year 2011 Continuing Resolution probably eliminated more than 370,000 American jobs. The three areas selected for discussion in this paper are in my judgment neither the worst cuts made by the committee from a policy standpoint nor the best. But without a doubt they demonstrate the consequences of slashing government spending in a weak economy.”

According to the report, the $2.5 billion cut to local law enforcement funding could have prevented 36,000 police layoffs nationwide, and similar cuts made to grant programs could have prevented the loss of other state and local government jobs. Crunched by the recession and budget cuts, state and local governments shed more than 200,000 jobs in 2010 alone. Republicans not only cut such funding this spring but have now opposed the American Jobs Act — which included grants to state and local governments for the hiring of teachers, police officers, and firefighters.

BrassScorpion wrote:I will gladly source Think Progress.

'In God We Trust' instead of Jobs....
Submitted by louisehartmann on 1. November 2011 - 8:53

Republicans are continuing to ignore the jobs crisis. There are no votes on the schedule in the House of Representatives to pass any portion of President Obama’s American Jobs Act – or any other legislation to put Americans back to work. Instead – House leadership is demanding a vote to ensure that “In God We Trust” remains the official national motto. Even though nobody is trying to change the national motto – Republicans think it’s vitally important to pass legislation to uphold it today.

The bill’s sponsor – Republican Randy Forbes from Virginia defended his legislation saying it, “sends a message that 'In God We Trust' is not only written in the halls of our federal buildings, but it is a bedrock upon which our nation is built.” Putting aside the constitutional violations of such legislation – this bill - just like the anti-abortion legislation passed the week before – and the defunding NPR legislation passed earlier in the year – will not create a single job.

Not one job. Republicans have controlled the House since January, so, Speaker Boehner and Leader Cantor, where are the jobs?!

The details are familiar to many by now.
 
On October 10, hundreds of members of Occupy Oakland descended on downtown to take over Frank Ogawa Plaza. Twelve days later, occupiers marched through the city in their first action. Then, in the pre-dawn hours of October 25, Oakland police—aided by officers from seventeen other agencies—raided the camp, employing tear gas and flash-bang grenades. That afternoon a protest rally and march was held, leading to a violent nighttime confrontation with the police in which Scott Olsen, an Iraq war veteran, was hit in the head with a projectile and suffered a skull fracture. The following night an overflow crowd filled the plaza, with nearly 1,500 voting to hold a general strike on November 2. In the words of a widely circulated flyer, “All banks and corporations must close down for the day or we will march on them.”

To review: in less than two weeks, Occupy Oakland went from its first public action to calling for a city-wide general strike. That’s one hell of an escalation. In my previous life as a community organizer, our campaigns were launched with the understanding that they would be long, drawn-out affairs—weeks of door-knocking, the initial meeting, our first collective action—with the butcher paper taped to the walls measuring the progression in months.

So what accounts for the breathtaking speed of the events in Oakland? The sketchy record of the Oakland Police certainly deserves some credit, especially with the injured Olsen and the video footage showing an officer tossing a flash-bang grenade into a crowd of people trying to help him. And then there’s Mayor Jean Quan, who has also been a key if unwitting ally. Absent during the raid, she has attempted to explain her shifting positions with remarkable incoherence, and was recently booed when attempting to speak at a general assembly. At meetings of Occupy Oakland, many of the people I spoke with watched the unfolding occupation with sympathy—but just watched. It took the raid, the images of tear gas clouds and a bloodied Scott Olsen to get them into the streets. As Saul Alinsky wrote, all action is in the reaction. A former organizer, Quan will not soon forget that axiom.

Organizers have taken the openings created by the city’s response and doubled down, using the anger over police behavior and growing distrust of Quan and channeled it back into the original targets of the Occupy movement. And let’s admit it: marches and rallies are tired tactics, at least when spent listening to official leaders mouthing approved lines while holding signs in which those approved lines are written. By calling for a general strike, Occupy Oakland has gone into the deep end of the left’s swimming pool, navigating imaginative and uncharted waters.

“Everyone was really receptive,” said one woman after spending the afternoon handing out strike flyers (nearly 20,000 were passed out during the first two days). “Just that the term ‘general strike’ is being discussed in the American public…” her voice trailed off. “We’ll see what happens Wednesday.”

That no one knows what will happen is a key source of motivation and excitement. We’re taught to dream big, but often when I’m shuffling along at a protest I feel those dreams shrinking to the size of the sign I’m holding, like a cog in someone else’s grand machine. In Oakland we are still cogs, but the machine belongs to us, and it’s moving in a direction that’s not entirely clear. They’re something liberating about an uncertain future.

Of course, it’s easy to argue that calling for a general strike is foolish overreach. “It’s not possible to organize a general strike in one week,” said a member of the California Federation of Teachers during opening comments at the first strike-planning meeting. His was a reasonable statement. Even as Occupiers like to remind people that Oakland was the site of a general strike in 1946, it’s hard to imagine something similar happening today.

Still, there have been numerous signs pointing towards November 2 as being a success, even if plenty of people still show up for work. Each day brings news of another union joining the cause. An organizer with Unite-Here, which represents restaurant workers, spoke of union members preparing a giant feast for strikers. The Executive Board of the Oakland Educational Association, whose 2700 members teach in the city’s schools, has endorsed the day of action, with teachers at one elementary school telling parents the school will be closed for the day. Meanwhile, SEIU Local 1021, which represents 1,750 city workers, has encouraged its members to take a leave of absence for the day and come to the protest.

“We’re the one’s losing our homes and having city services cut because of what bankers and Wall Street have done,” said Dwight McElroy, President of 1021’s Oakland chapter. “Occupy Oakland is out there taking baton blows and tear gas to protest what has been happening, so it is incumbent on the labor movement to protect them.”

And for sympathetic workers unable or unwilling to strike, the plan is to assemble at Frank Ogawa Plaza at 5 pm and march to the Oakland Port, the fifth busiest in the country. Union contracts prevent longshoremen from striking, but a large picket line could prevent them from clocking in to their 7 pm shift, effectively shutting down all activity at the port. “This will show that not only are we the 99 percent but that they are not making any money without us,” explained Raymond “Boots” Riley, an organizer with Occupy Oakland and member of political hip-hop band The Coup.

“Strong people don’t need strong leaders.” That statement fits into the ideology of the Occupy movement, but it comes from Ella Baker, a legendary Civil Rights organizer. As an advisor to the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, Baker played a key role in encouraging the organization’s non-hierarchical orientation. Made up of young whites and blacks, SNCC would led a direct action movement of countertop sit-ins and then organize Freedom Summer, a voter registration project in Mississippi. Some older Civil Rights organizations disapproved such tactics. “We’re sitting this one out,” was NAACP’s message about Freedom Summer, fearing a backlash.

There are many differences between the Occupy movement and SNCC, especially when it comes to SNCC’s emphasis on developing leaders among the dispossessed through the tireless work of grassroots organizing. But the Occupy movement, like SNCC, is dreaming big and making “impossible” demands, and seems to be lighting a spark under organized labor much as SNCC breathed new life into the civil rights movement. When you’re dying a slow death, after all, not taking risks can be the riskiest course of action. As one union member told the Occupy Oakland’s strike subcommittee, “Thousands of union members are looking for inspiration. And whether you like it or not, you occupiers are now the leaders we are looking to.”

Frazzled wrote:Ok, now you're just trolling by posting unrelated posts.

Occupy This!

by Michael Shermer, Nov 01 2011

On Sunday morning, October 16, 2011, I taxied down to the Occupy Wall Street shindig from the 92nd Street Y where the Singularity Summit was unraveling as organizers scrambled to figure out how to work the wireless Internet system in the room while speakers boasted about how close we are to computers achieving human level intelligence. Human ignorance maybe, but intelligence? More on that topic later. (See my Scientific American column for January—out mid December—for my skeptical thoughts on when I think computers will achieve human level intelligence. Hint: We’re five years away…and always will be. But since I don’t want to sound so pessimistic, I have taken a cue from the singer/songwriters Zager and Evans, that the exordium and terminus of the singularity will be 2525 and 9595.)

When I posted some pics I snapped with my iPhone on twitter and made a couple of snide remarks, many of my fellow skeptics chided me for my insensitivity or berated me for my libertarian blindness to real social injustices being protested at the various “Occupy X” events. I call them events (or “shindigs”) because my general impression is that although there are some real issues being mentioned here and there in a desultory manner, for the most part I think most people I saw were in one of two categories: (1) onlookers such as myself snapping pictures and taking in the scene; (2) participants wanting to be part of what might turn out to be this generation’s (a) Woodstock or (b) Montgomery bus boycott. In my opinion it is neither, but I have to admit that I haven’t inhaled that much second-hand pot smoke since I was in college (yes, even at the staunchly conservative Pepperdine University, there were bountiful plumes of pot smoke wafting down the dorm room hallways!).

I have appended various photographs at the end of this essay to let the moment speak for itself, grammatically challenged signs and all, but let me first make a few comments regarding what might be gleaned from the party atmosphere of a few salient points of political and economic significance.

Why has no one from Wall Street gone to jail for the financial meltdown? Bill Maher has asked this question several times on his HBO show Real Time. I have asked many experts myself, including economists, lawyers, and Wall Street traders. Answer: no one went to jail because they didn’t break any laws. Conclusion: If you want someone punished for the meltdown you have to first change the law. Perhaps these protests are the first step in that direction, although I doubt it because I don’t think Wall Street by itself caused the meltdown. It was a combination of many factors, primary being the removal of risk aversion from both Wall Street traders (and bankers) and Main Street home buyers. Still, if you want to blame Wall Streeters…
What, exactly, did these Wall Street people do that was so wrong? Well, for one, the protestors seem to think that they are too greedy. This is like standing outside the Staples Center in Los Angeles to protest that Kobe Bryant and the Lakers are too greedy because they are constantly trying to win a championship and make a ton of money in the process. That’s the whole point of playing professional sports—to win and make a boatload of money in the process! Analogously, the only reason to work on Wall Street is to make a boatload of money. That’s the whole point of “playing the market.”

The Wall Streeters accepted bailout money that they shouldn’t have gotten. Yeah, well, whose fault is that? What did you think they would do? Turn the money down? Heck no! You offer someone a handout and they’ll take it, whether it is a main street worker or a Wall Street CEO. The problem is that they should never have been bailed out in the first place. That happened because of crony capitalism, which is nothing like the libertarian vision of real capitalism. So here I’m sympathetic with the Occupy X protestors: no “in profits we’re capitalists, in losses we’re socialists.” Sorry. If you want to play the game of Risk you have to accept the losses as well as the gains.

Wall Street CEOs and their resident COOs, CFOs, traders, and the like, make too damn much money, hundreds of times more than the gap used to be between the highest paid and lowest paid members of corporations. Emotionally I am once again sympathetic to the Occupy Xers: the amount of money some of these guys makes is obscene, and the income gap between them and us is Grand Canyonesque in yawning abyss. But what’s the number? How much is too much income? $1 million? $10 million? $100 million $1 billion? $10 billion? Is it really the job of some government agency to set a ceiling on how much anyone is allowed to make? Would any of my readers care to pick a number and defend it? And what if it is a number well under Bill Gates’ income? He’s giving most of it away to what most of us would consider very worthwhile causes (disease eradication in Africa, education in America). Is it okay to make $X if you give most of it away, or is it only okay if it is taxed away from you and spent on some cause someone else thinks is better than the causes you want to support?

The government should regulate Wall Street more. I agree that all competitions must be regulated by a well-defined set of rules that are consistently enforced with penalties assessed without prejudice or bias, from sporting contests to stock market trading. That is what the SEC is for, among other regulatory bodies. But from where I sit as an average Joe the Skeptic position of modest income who tries his hand at stock market trading in figures infinitesimally smaller than the Big Boys, it all looks like insider trading to me—from the Wall Street CEOs to the Beltway politicians appointed to look after them, who seemingly trade jobs and hold their positions no matter who is in power, Democrats or Republicans. Obama has drunk the Wall Street Kool Aid no less than Bush did. They all do. The entire system is corrupt, in that sense. Once you allow the players to dictate who enforces the rules of the game, the game is over. It would be like Barry Bonds being appointed Director of the Steroid Drug Testing Agency overseeing baseball to insure a fair contest, while he is still playing the game!

Will anything come of the Occupy This protests? Probably not. If the President of the United States can’t institute changes, who can? Congress? Yeah, right, there’s no corporate money tainting those jobs now is there? So here’s one man’s simplistic answer: no more government bail outs for anyone for anything, either on Main Street or Wall Street. Bail out money corrupts, and government bail out money corrupts absolutely.

That happened because of crony capitalism, which is nothing like the libertarian vision of real capitalism. So here I’m sympathetic with the Occupy X protestors: no “in profits we’re capitalists, in losses we’re socialists.” Sorry. If you want to play the game of Risk you have to accept the losses as well as the gains.