I blame the Republicans.
That’s a surprise. 
That’s a surprise. [/quote]
well said. I guess we could equate being asleep to a straight sell out.
[quote=“Tigerman”]
I’m just curious… why didn’t you ask Jaboney for a source for his statement?[/quote]
Because I’m a die-hard left winger, out to praise the OCW crowd and gut the Tea Party, but foiled by your noble efforts, Tigerman!
Your honor! I’d like to withdraw my case. Tigerman was just too good for me.
(I never should have inhaled…I never should have inhaled…)
[quote=“BigJohn”][quote=“Tigerman”]
I’m just curious… why didn’t you ask Jaboney for a source for his statement?[/quote]
Because I’m a die-hard left winger, out to praise the OCW crowd and gut the Tea Party, but foiled by your noble efforts, Tigerman!
Your honor! I’d like to withdraw my case. Tigerman was just too good for me.
(I never should have inhaled…I never should have inhaled…)[/quote]
Just kidding!
Um…I’ve read a lot more about the Tea Party than these OWS types. I was wondering if there was in fact a credible source (Stern is hilarious, but not necessarily credible as a representative sample picker) about the OWS members level of knowledge on the issues.
John, there is a good interview on Charlie Rose from a few days ago. The rep is articulate but lapses into cliches at times.
But the other guests are all big name academics and reporters and help to put this into perspective.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]John, there is a good interview on Charlie Rose from a few days ago. The rep is articulate but lapses into cliches at times.
But the other guests are all big name academics and reporters and help to put this into perspective.
charlierose.com/view/interview/11938[/quote]
Thanks! Will check it out.
But don’t a lot of Democratic Party supporters on Forumosa always use comedians such as Maher or Stewart or Mercer (the latter if expats are Canadians) when discussing political issues? Why not use another comedian such as Stern? His samplings are pretty indicative of this crowd IMHO.
What also amazes me is the protesters’ use of the word “greed” when describing Wall Street.
Isn’t the worse kind of greed the kind where you covet or want to damage something that someone else has? :loco:
These people want what the 1% have or even a lifestyle that most upper middle class people have, but don’t want to work towards getting it. They are lazy and likely want to steal. Why do they critcize Wall Street greed when they share the same trait? Doesn’t that make them hypocrites?
You can’t honestly believe what you are saying here…
People work hard, lose their jobs due to no fault of their own, use their tax dollars to bail out Wall Street only to watch Wall Street make enormous profits, pay huge salaries and do nothing for the good of the people who bailed them out. The entire economic and political system is rigged to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class, and you don’t think that’s something to be pissed off about?
If there is any fault to the protesters is that they waited too long to speak up.
You can’t honestly believe what you are saying here…
People work hard, lose their jobs due to no fault of their own, use their tax dollars to bail out Wall Street only to watch Wall Street make enormous profits, pay huge salaries and do nothing for the good of the people who bailed them out. The entire economic and political system is rigged to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class, and you don’t think that’s something to be pissed off about?
If there is any fault to the protesters is that they waited too long to speak up.[/quote]
Are these the same people who never saved more than 5% of their income, bought far more than they ever needed, usually on credit, bought a home on the cheap and then defaulted. put their kids through the “best” schools and not the schools they could afford, etc…?
I totally get the anger at the banks and the government for cupping the scrotum of the banks before and after the bubble and the collapse, but there is an issue here of personal responsibility that needs to be examined as well. Not everyone is a victim of the Man.
You can’t honestly believe what you are saying here…
People work hard, lose their jobs due to no fault of their own, use their tax dollars to bail out Wall Street only to watch Wall Street make enormous profits, pay huge salaries and do nothing for the good of the people who bailed them out. The entire economic and political system is rigged to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class, and you don’t think that’s something to be pissed off about?
If there is any fault to the protesters is that they waited too long to speak up.[/quote]
You also forgot about the poor and middle class being taxed through inflation. My dad’s year worth of salary during his first years of work would be enough to pay for a decent meal at a restaurant these days. Imagine that! Working for an entire year to afford a decent meal at a restaurant! Talk about devaluation! Holy shit!
[quote=“jdsmith”]Are these the same people who never saved more than 5% of their income, bought far more than they ever needed, usually on credit, bought a home on the cheap and then defaulted. put their kids through the “best” schools and not the schools they could afford, etc…?
I totally get the anger at the banks and the government for cupping the scrotum of the banks before and after the bubble and the collapse, but there is an issue here of personal responsibility that needs to be examined as well. Not everyone is a victim of the Man.[/quote]
I thought you were going to block me…
And perhaps they couldn’t save more than 5% of their income and had to buy things on credit because they earned peanuts while the cost of living skyrocketed. I’m not saying that there aren’t financially irresponsible people out there, but I’d guess most people do their best to get by but are getting frustrated by continually being beat down.
Well, the beatings would have been less severe for some had not they decided they needed the flat screen, giant SUV…I think the book Nickle and Dimed shows how women, particularly single mothers got royally screwed over the past 20-30 years.
It’s just hard for me to have sympathy for the middle class white collars who bought 500K homes on a 60K salary and expected everything to work out foin. 
As for ignoring you, I’m a big believer in second chances. 
Well, the beatings would have been less severe for some had not they decided they needed the flat screen, giant SUV…I think the book Nickle and Dimed shows how women, particularly single mothers got royally screwed over the past 20-30 years.
It’s just hard for me to have sympathy for the middle class white collars who bought 500K homes on a 60K salary and expected everything to work out foin.
As for ignoring you, I’m a big believer in second chances. [/quote]
One of those recent documentaries about the GFC (I think it was the one narrated by Matt Damon) shows an immigrant family all upset because it’s all come crashing down around their heads. The husband is/was a gardener or something similar and they are/were in the biggest fucking house I’ve ever seen. It has something like three garages. The only things missing are the moat, drawbridge and portcullis. At what point did such people stop to think that maybe it was all a little bit beyond their means?
My friend, whose family are in deep financial shit, recounted to me going back to visit his folks in America. He said he was all jet-lagged and so on, so he was wide awake at 4am. He heard a whole lot of noise and thought someone was breaking into the house in the middle of the night, so he went to investigate. Everyone was getting up to go to those big post-Thanksgiving sales. He looked out the window, and he said it was like a scene from a zombie apocalypse movie with people wandering around in the streets going to their cars. Several hours later, his family returned with a carload of shit they neither needed nor could afford. This was about two or three years ago during the midst of the meltdown.
The greed and excess is not just at the top. It permeates every level of society and is out of control.
The first one and a half minutes of this clip sum it up perfectly, especially 1:15-1:33.
You can’t honestly believe what you are saying here…
People work hard, lose their jobs due to no fault of their own, use their tax dollars to bail out Wall Street only to watch Wall Street make enormous profits, pay huge salaries and do nothing for the good of the people who bailed them out. The entire economic and political system is rigged to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class, and you don’t think that’s something to be pissed off about?
If there is any fault to the protesters is that they waited too long to speak up.[/quote]
You also forgot about the poor and middle class being taxed through inflation. My dad’s year worth of salary during his first years of work would be enough to pay for a decent meal at a restaurant these days. Imagine that! Working for an entire year to afford a decent meal at a restaurant! Talk about devaluation! Holy shit![/quote]
What’s causing the inflation though? The government printing money like it’s going out of fashion. What’s causing the governmet to print money? Because people want services they can’t afford or don’t want to pay for.
I would disagree. Many of these people are the authors of their own misery. They considered credit to be cheap, if not free, money. Their household debt to personal income has skyrocketed and many of them took out mortgages they couldn’t afford.
It’s easy to blame the Wall Street for creating the debt instruments. But didn’t irresponsible people take out these risky mortgages? In the end, weren’t they the buyers? Too many people bought way more house than they could afford. In my opinion, these people are the really greedy people. And yet they have the cheekiness to call Wall Street greedy. These petit-bourgeois people had to have the car, the house, and tons of tacky crap that maxed out their credit cards.
What entertains me about these protesters is that they truly believe in wealth redistribution or taxing the rich.
I, on the other hand, think it all comes own to personal responsibility. These people need to stop buying more than they can afford and grow up. And whether it’s the whiney student spending $150,000 for a Gender studies degree or a person spending money they don’t have to buy a house, there are a lot of dumb people out there that need to grow up.
But it is so easy to blame someone else and protest right? Classic victim complex.
Your tongue is purtier than a 3 dollar whore!
:bravo:
But thats not the whole story is it? When a bank makes a loan, typically they need to evaluate the ability of the borrower to repay that loan, because if it turns out that they are unable to repay, then the bank would loose money.
Yet, the banks were offering riskier and riskier loans, with the Government pushing them to do so, with the result that when interest rates rose and people began to default it was the taxpayer that had to pay for the unwise decision to buy a house they couldn’t afford and the banks stupidity in not checking their ability to pay for such a purchase. Why should your average Joe blow who had nothing to do with these idiotic transactions be the one that ends up covering the costs?
You might mock someone who borrowed 100k to do some useless degree, yet, why oh why would anyone ever lend them the money in the first place? Again, because the Government, using average Joe Blows taxs’s guarantee the bank will get back their investment, they carry no risk.
Corporations, working together with Government to maximize their profit, through legislation that minimizes their liability by support from taxpayers who have nothing to do with the risky behavior of all involved. To make sure the Government got back their money, they made student loans the one type of debt that could not be discharged through bankruptcy. Worked great for a while, money being made on defaulted loans and collection agencies and the college tuition went up and up. Yet, now with student utterly unable to pay back their loans, it seems Obama is playing with the idea of writing off these debts and guess who picks up that bill?
That’s really all there is to it. The other hand is the gross financial irresponsibility of the borrowers once they got the “cheap” loans.