So, with the hope of providing the Occupy Wall Street protesters with some talking points, what follows are some perspectives that might be useful in framing the issues that we are facing as an economy....
Read the whole post at Hussman Funds Weekly Market Comment, Talking Points for the "Occupy Wall Street" Protesters
Scathing. Hussman picks up where Dylan Ratigan left of in his now famous rant, which Occupy Wall Street has picked up as Our One Demand.
from krugman today :
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Last year, you may recall, a number of financial-industry barons went wild over very mild criticism from President Obama. They denounced Mr. Obama as being almost a socialist for endorsing the so-called Volcker rule, which would simply prohibit banks backed by federal guarantees from engaging in risky speculation. And as for their reaction to proposals to close a loophole that lets some of them pay remarkably low taxes — well, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, compared it to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.
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I'd like to add that the banks pulled a reverse krystal nacht on the 99% ... not the other way around.
what a bunch of story benders - in fact maybe "poop bending" which is not one of the martial arts.
Creative destruction is what krystal nacht was to the Germans - destroy the Jews' shops and homes and then prevent them from getting their insurance monies from the Germans not in those ghettos or hoods.
ReplyDeleteA reverse krystal nacht is also creative destruction - slam the market and then go and vulture pick the foreclosures etc
as well as only provide MMT for the rich 1% and nothing for the 99%
ReplyDeleteDylan has the passion for sure and it apparently has rubbed off onto some to the OWS people.
ReplyDeleteBut his use of the word 'extracted' is not accurate. Of course Ratigan is out of MMT paradigm.
'Extracted' implies the fallacy of 'taxpayer on the hook' ie financial assets have been/have to be 'extracted' from the taxpayers to fund govt shenanigans, etc..... absurd. Govt authorities can always provide NFA in sufficient amounts to maintain full employment with price stability.
Lot's of emotion around the OWS people, probably needed to kick this process off, but I hope this cools off eventually and then progresses to some true thought breakthroughs via MMT for these young people.
As if many of the OWS folks understand his talking points. They are there not to resolve issues but to protest that they are poor and being left out, that's all.
ReplyDeleteDon't believe the media hype about OWS being some sort of an issues based movement against corruption. If you go to that square now, hand out US$1m to every protester along with a bag of Jersey Shore and Maury Show DVDs, this so called protest would be over immediately.
It's all about the almighty dollar and who has it and who doesn't. Period.
Red, have you empirical evidence for these assertions? Have you actually talked to any of the protestors?
ReplyDeleteI have participated in my local OWS meetings and most of the people there are young, white, well-educated people. A couple of people that spoke from the soap box were local small business owners.
The local OWS has an outreach committed to reach out to minorities, the homeless, etc., the people one would expect to be populating these events.
It's now the way you picture it at all in my area. The people that are showing up want real hope and real change, not grandiose promises and them bupkis for Main Street and bailouts for Wall Street.
The are mightily pissed off at both parties and are taking to the streets as a last straw since the voting booth is broken.
The is a relative affluent, professional town with virtually no problems, pretty stable employment, and virtually untouched by the crisis. These people are not protesting lack of bread but a future they don't like the looks of because ordinary people are being ignored in this country for the 1%. This really is the 99%, or at least the 90%.
Tom, there have been dozens of interviews of the protesters. I haven't seen one interview in which a protester makes any sensible demands or proposes any credible solutions.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, there is plenty of footage on them and there is minimal evidence to suggest any of them are "well educated" as you describe.
Fact is, anyone who spends most of their productive time complaining about their lot in life is by definition unproductive. You think these people in the US have a hard time? Come to China and I'll show you a new perspective on that. In China, people don't protest about their lot in life not because the government prohibits it, its because if they waste time on these frivolous activities instead of earning a meal, they die. Literally.
That's the way life should be - survival of the fittest. I didn't hear anyone complaining about this gigantic American "corruption" over the past 30 years while times were good and everyone was living a good life. Were people complaining about corporations and banks when their 401Ks were booming due to record profits? NO. Now that some people have found a way to make the system work for them better than others, all of these people crawl out of the woodwork to complain?
These protesters are hypocrites - its not they are not asking for handouts - they are just complaining that the handouts are going to someone else e.g. banks and not to them.
That's why I'm saying - hand a big bag of money over to each one of them and I guarantee you it will be the end of story. Just like it has been for the past 30 years before the financial crisis of 2008.
Yeah, Red, kinda like the way we hand big bags of money to corporations and the wealthy. See, they're not protesting either! But, hey, it's okay to do that right?
ReplyDeleteHaha. Mike, that's my point exactly. No one complains when you hand them a big bag of money.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, if I only have limited big bags of money and I have to give them to someone, I know who I'm handing them to. If I hand them to banks, corporations and wealthy individuals - I know I will get payola back. If I hand them to some guy on the street, the only thing I'm likely to get back is a thank you. In the case of the US, the guy might even mug you of the bag before you give it to him and there will be no thank you.
So, in summary - the system is working perfectly the way it is now :)
If I hand them to banks, corporations and wealthy individuals - I know I will get payola back. If I hand them to some guy on the street, the only thing I'm likely to get back is a thank you.
ReplyDeleteIf by "thank you" you mean increasing AD and closing output gap, then yes.
Otherwise, no.
red, that is about the dumbest thing i have read on this site. with that logic, we should abandon all form of government and society. sounds like the movie escape from new york. screw you, i got mine mentality. not to mention that our commander in chief comes on tv and says we need to curb our spending, so we will put social security, medicare, and medicaid on the chopping block, programs the 90% depend on. and you seriously wonder why people are pissed off? seriously? also, do you think the real "joe sixpack" understands all this shit? i just learned of mmt this year, it should be a required class, like civics. people think that we borrow money from china, students should learn how the macroeconomy works before they go into the voting booth. i hope that ows never gives up.
ReplyDeleteThe reason why the protestors look like IDIOTS is because the journalists are paid to pick out these simple folk and pass on anything substantial - 1 for reason it is easy for the journalist major and 2 for the owners of the mega media who don't want anyone to know that CBS was owned by GE or something similar when GE was nuclear bomb maker and all that during the 80's
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