Community | October 29, 2011 | 12 comments

Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating

source: http://tinyurl.com/6yr7qqz

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LOrion
Oh, Christ, I thought. He’s saying the protesters are hypocrites because they’re using banks. I sighed.
"Listen," I said, "where else are you going to put three hundred thousand dollars? A shopping bag?"
"Well," he said, "it's just, their protests are all about... You know..."
"Dude," I said. "These people aren't protesting money. They're not protesting banking. They're protesting corruption on Wall Street."
"Whatever," he said, shrugging.
http://tinyurl.com/6yr7qqz
  1. groups:
    Community,   Culture,   Collective Journalism,   Gay,   7 more
  2. tags:
    regulations,  Corruption,  Banks,  occupy wall street,  1 more
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12 comments // Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating

  • ejasun
  • JustZ
  • Sparky2U
    • +1
      Sparky2U  

    • The OWS protests are shining a light on the corruption on Wall Street,
      my question is what good is it doing? What laws will these protests cause to be inacted? With our Congress and I mean both Dems and Repubs, there is no chance of any investigations or laws being drafted. They all want the cash. They are the Millionaires Club after all. So what happens when the light the protesters are shining on the corruption goes out ? Nothing.

    • 7 months ago
  • Argon18
    • +5
      Argon18  
    • Sparky2U:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Lf6n1sTPM

      "The world won't get no better if we just let it be
      The world won't get no better we gotta change it yeah, just you and me."

      Don't underestimate the importance of shining the light on what is trying to be hidden, that alone shows that bringing the focus back to the corruption has thwarted the plans to try to distract from the crimes.

      The attention being paid to all the instances of fraud, abuse and theft increases the odds a lot more of something being done about them. At least a lot better odds than letting the 1% control the narrative as they have been doing.

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marlise-karlin/occupy-wall-street-revolution_b_106...

      "We are in the midst of an era, a marker in our history where radical change is sweeping across the globe. There are three camps for viewing this time; the gloom and doomers, the dismiss-it and go-back-to-sleep-walking-through-lifers, and those who are excited about the opportunity it brings.

      In 1968 a small group of women working as machinists in a factory were classified as unskilled and they became the torch that would burn fires of inequality around the world. The Ford Motor Company, who was then the fourth largest car corporation in the world, went to great lengths to assure that these women would be stopped, even threatening the British Secretary of State that they would pull tens of thousands of jobs out of England if she didn't make the problem go away.

      And still this small band of women held firm to their decision, that it wasn't right and it needed to be changed. It didn't take Congress, the House of Parliament or a war to cause this extraordinary shift that ricocheted around the world. It took 158 peaceful women.

      If the base of Occupy is to grow, violence will need to be viewed for what it is -- old patterns that don't support the rise of solutions. Dialogue that resonates from the heart invites new ideas to be birthed. When anger and fear diminish, more will join."

    • 7 months ago
  • Argon18
    • +6
      Argon18  
    • Image

    • It's par for the course that they can only see the extremes, since they only think in binary terms of winning or losing, protesting banks or being against money.

      They can't see the degrees, it isn't about being envious of the successful, it's about the corrupt practices used to achieve the success. It isn't about the institution of banking, it's about the crimes that the banks have committed.

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/27/occupy-wall-street-isnt-h_n_1035988.htm...

      "Over at The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof has enunciated an excellent defense of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, aimed at dispelling the notion that the Occupiers are some single-minded mass movement targeting the capitalist system for destruction. In fact, Kristof says, "while alarmists seem to think that the movement is a 'mob' trying to overthrow capitalism, one can make a case that, on the contrary, it highlights the need to restore basic capitalist principles like accountability."

      Kristof's right to suggest that the Occupiers aren't "half-naked Communists aiming to bring down the American economic system." This isn't the "Project Mayhem" of Chuck Palahniuk novels -- we're talking about a movement that's spurring people to move their money from "too big to fail" banks into credit unions. That's not exactly "smash the system." That's more like a group of people seeking out a means to maximize their power within the system, or using consumer choice to preserve, enhance and improve the best parts of the system. As Matt Taibbi notes in a fitting companion piece to Kristof's, "These people aren't protesting money. They're not protesting banking. They're protesting corruption on Wall Street."

      Taibbi calls them "cheaters," Kristof calls them "cronies," but the concept of "corruption" is intrinsic to both critiques. In fact, one could well argue that the truest evidence of Wall Street corruption is the fact that prior to the economic collapse, what Wall Street was practicing wasn't really "capitalism" at all."

    • 7 months ago
  • JustZ
    • 0
      JustZ  
    • Argon18:

      I think you hit the nail square on its head with this Argon18- awesome post!

      "They can't see the degrees, it isn't about being envious of the successful, it's about the corrupt practices used to achieve the success. It isn't about the institution of banking, it's about the crimes that the banks have committed."

      So whenever the obtuse MSM continues asking- 'What is OWS all about? What do 'they' want?" Well, here it is you idiots:
      OWS is not about money! It's about the wholesale corruption of our banks, corporations, and city, state, and federal governments ... who've have stolen billions from 99% of all Americans! It's about sanctioned greed and dishonesty of our elected legislators in Washington. It's about the 1% not being held to the same laws as the 99% are. It's about not one single person being arrested for the continued crimes being committed by corrupt firms on Wall Street. It's about removing common sense laws and regulations that keep the most greedy in check. It's about not playing by the rules with zero consequences for the wealthiest among us. It's about unchecked greed.

      No more. There is a revolution brewing and it's not going to be pretty. But one thing is for sure. The 99% have had enough. It's time to revolt and demand justice.

    • 7 months ago
  • BRAVATRAVELS
    • BRAVATRAVELS  
    • This comment was removed as a violation of community guidelines.
  • Argon18
    • +5
      Argon18  
    • BRAVATRAVELS:

      The hypocrisy of their rhetoric is also that they try to claim that if you're rich and famous, you have no credibility advocating OWS goals. Again it's not an either/or choice since it depends on how you got rich and what you do when you are rich.

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/29/michael-moore-blogs-i-can_n_1065381.htm...

      "Noting that he was once an unemployed striver in Flint, Michigan, Moore laid out a basic set of guidelines that he has followed since the success of his film "Roger & Me" in 1989. Included were paying his full taxes, give a large chunk of his money to charity and avoid owning stock on the principle that he'd make money from work, not on the fiscal wrangling of Wall Street that hurt so many members of the middle class."

      http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/life-among-1

      "Finally, I believed the concept of making money off your money had created a greedy, lazy class who didn't produce any product, just misery and fear among the populace. They invented ways to buy out companies and then shut them down. They dreamed up schemes to play with people's pension funds as if it were their own money. They demanded companies keep posting record profits (which was accomplished by firing thousands and eliminating health benefits for those who remained). I made the decision that if I was going to earn a living, it would be done from my own sweat and ideas and creativity. I would produce something tangible, something others could own or be entertained by or learn from. My work would create employment for others, good employment with middle class wages and full health benefits.

      Which is exactly what has driven the Right crazy when it comes to me. How did someone from the left get such a wide mainstream audience?! This just isn't supposed to happen (Noam Chomsky, sadly, will not be booked on The View today, and Howard Zinn, shockingly, didn't make the New York Times bestseller list until after he died). That's how the media machine is rigged -- you are not supposed to hear from those who would completely change the system to something much better. Only wimpy liberals who urge caution and compromise and mild reforms get to have their say on the op-ed pages or Sunday morning chat shows."

    • 7 months ago
  • DanCastro
    • +2
      DanCastro  

    • This for me is the basic fuel to our outrage as a country. It is one thing to risk and lose, no one wants to hear about a known risk and a loss. It is quite another to learn that the people who were paid to provide impartial advice and to provide assistance to those who are not market experts, were colluding among themselves to "churn" stock to make more money and selling products they knew to be soon worthless. Now they expect the country to "take it" because they stole the money "fair and square"? I would rather say that these scoundrels should pray to their god Mammon, the god of greed, that MLK made non-violence the cornerstone of protest or they might have found themselves in a "Qaddafi moment" with a stick up their butt as their heads are put on the chopping block! You know "Let them eat cake!" style! ;-)

    • 7 months ago
  • BRAVATRAVELS
  • DanCastro
    • +1
      DanCastro  
    • BRAVATRAVELS:

      Dude, we have been 'revolting' since our founding! We fought for women's right to vote, we fought for equal rights for all, we just fought for the end of "Don't ask.." and now we fight for our right to be treated fairly by those institutions we give our trust to without having to find out that they failed in their fiduciary trust and in fact lied and stole our money!

    • 7 months ago
  • letsliveinpeace
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