Anybody participating in Wall St Occupation?

Blogmaster, it looks like The Working Families Party changed the title. LOL. The newest ad put out today is titled "DO YOU WANT MORE THAN A JOB? GET POLITICAL! GET PAID!" - it's here.

It starts with "...The Working Families Party is hiring new and experienced progressive activists to join the front lines to work on urgent New York State campaigns. Staff will help educate and mobilize around legislative campaigns-focusing on economic justice, corporate accountability, environmental protection, public funding of elections and investment in education..."

Here is there website: http://www.workingfamiliesparty.org/jobs/

And, there Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/WorkingFamilies

It looks like they are using there Facebook page to support the Occupy Wall Street protesters. You're right, to say there are some paid actors on Wall Street, it's not that far-fetched.

Pay for this gig is: "Compensation: $350-$650 A Week, Depending On Responsibility and Length of Time on Staff"

 

They are not the only ones, just the most obvious. When it comes down to it money runs those protests and whoever throws the most around buys the opinions presented in the media.

 

Money is powerful, it does have a great deal of influence. In essence, I agree with what you're saying, but we would probably differ on the degree. If I were a true supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement, morally I could not accept a position like that on Craigslist. I would see it as a conflict of interest. As far as "paid political actors", they do exist. However, I would tend to believe they are not the majority of protesters. On the other hand, many people, on all sides of the political spectrum probably see this as an opportunity to push, and spread their political agenda. Even non-political, as in commercial advertising will probably want to jump on the bandwagon to capitalize on potential profits.

Like travel mugs, and more!!!...




On a side note, I haven't been watching the news the last few days. I just saw this video, I wonder if things are going to get even uglier.

[video=youtube;fdeuuzXS_sY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdeuuzXS_sY[/video]

They came to my area, and have set up close to where I live. I don't know anyone that is involved (as far as physically showing up to "Occupy"), but read in the news that many protesters here had an altercation with police as well.

 

The following two charts seem to define a lot of the reasons behind the "occupy wall street" effort: I believe the movement is a healthy response to much of what has been occurring within the US over a very long period of time.

Similar to the Tea Party the occupy wall street movement is expressing very real concerns for a lot of people.
Over the long haul of history there have been movements by people with similar concerns when a nations economic system gets out of whack and favors the wealthy over the middle class and the poor to an outlandish level. The charts describe that situation far better than anything else. It will be interesting to see how this current protest movement evolves.

 

If there really are legitimate concerns as the forefront of this movement then those protesting are in the wrong geographic location. They should be occupying the Whitehouse in DC, not Wall Street.

 

If anyone would look at the two graphs I provided above, its easy to see there are tremendous reasons to protest current conditions. The graphs portray long term booms in corporate profits and CEO pay, while worker pay has essentially stagnated. What is even more amazing is that over a long period the minimum wage has been reduced in constant dollars against inflation. So while low and medium range salaries have stagnated.....at the top of the heap corporate profits and corporate CEO pay have simply exploded.

Its clear the economy has moved to simply enrich the rich.

Meanwhile, the graphs don't even depict the problems with continued unemployment following the latest recession, unless one reads through the pictures in the second graph. There you see that corporate profits have hit incredible records....while the unemployment problem persists. Clearly companies are sucking up the cash, rewarding their top executives, and aren't willing to hire Americans.

The protesters are right where they should be. In our hyper capitalistic society, when unemployment soared and the initial effort at an economic boost with a jobs bill was included, the president and congress can't force companies to hire. Companies are free to do what they want. They have obviously chosen to enrich themselves and their top executives while laying off millions.

All the President can do is spur job growth through government employment. Of course the Right Wing vilifies that. I'd suggest that besides protesting near Wall Street, they should protest at the next and any subsequent GOP political debates. Those guys (and woman) keep throwing around all world false bromides that obviously don't work...and simply support the wealthy getting wealthier.

 

Let me phrase this another way. The protesters are located where they feel the blame belongs, not where they believe the solution resides.

That said, they are in the long lon/lat.

Latitude*: N36º 28.130'
Longitude*: W86º 39.177'

 

Of course they are not, but the majority doesn't matter to the majority. What matters is who makes it in front of the camera.

 

hmm, interesting tread,

i am just thinking,why are they arresting the people? if they dont do anything bad,i mean they are doing their thing,as long they dont do anything
stupid,then why arrest them?

thanks

 

Mia: For a guy who has previously called the protesters hippies, suggested they are smoking dope, and generally degraded them and their movement, I would suggest you are the last person on earth who knows what they think or believe!!!!

As to money floating into this movement from outside sources.....its not unusual, in fact its the norm. Since the Tea Party got off the ground there have been a lot of established outside forces with plenty of money who have interacted with the Tea Party, got involved and tried to push their established agendas onto that established by the amorphous Tea Party folks who established their own political force.

Representatives from organized Labor have offered personnel and assistance to the Occupy Wall Street Group.

Lets see what is going to happen. If outside groups are throwing money around lets hopefully find out where that money is coming from to get a better idea of the established outside groups that are trying to influence the evolution of this nascent group.

 

Regardless of what MIA thinks about the protesters, he is dead on. This is too much of a festival of chant induced expressions of frustrations rather than great minds coming together. Well, there is some of that going on, but the leadership is not about that. They don't tolerate something going against their own agenda.

 

To me, there is a lot of time and opportunity for this movement to narrow its focus and develop. I don't think we are anywhere's near to seeing how that might evolve. I also suspect some of its so called leaders will come and go rather quickly.

I was active politically long ago, from stuff outside the organized political agenda to stuff inside. A lot of things can move and change, and once one has the time to look back at it....some of the changes can occur rather quickly. I don't think this "movement" is anywhere's near being organized or focused at this point. Give it time. Lets see how it evolves.

 

My worries: Something insignificant will happen first. Say couple of CEOs get arrested. Small fish, big media spectacle.

Now look at the worship of hacker group Anonymous and where that might lead.

 

Blogmeister:

I go back to the graphs I posted and issues that focus on those topics and the long term change of American wealth and power. Today much of that wealth and power is focused on Wall Street.

I hope this movement focuses on those types of issues. But we will see. This started out as a real grass roots movement, not unlike the Tea Party, just from the totally opposite side of the political spectrum. Lets see how it evolves, and hopefully it doesn't get twisted into games and side issues, at least from my perspective View attachment 63068 View attachment 63069

 

Wall St. is just a tiny tool sidetracking from the much larger Federal Reserve issue.

Here is an example to what I was referring to in regards to media attention being used to focus on the hacker group which may or may not wind up being used to create chaos without a person being held accountable:



[video=youtube;UlCMB-A35M4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCMB-A35M4[/video]

 

Blogmeister: I have no idea how the Federal Reserve Bank has impact on this situation. Why don't you explain what you mean by that and why you believe the Fed is at fault and where and why it is at fault.

 

The Fed controls the American economy and it is privately owned. Prints money without anything backing the money. Prints money and lends it to the American tax payer at high interest demanding IRS collected funds to be funneled into their privately corporation to pay interest on loans for wars etc. without the debt ever decreasing.

Wall St. is just a tool for the real people in charge, who are the ones who control the Federal Reserve.





My suspicion is that those on top have already pulled their money out of Wall St. and simply need a boogeyman to crash it for them ... "Anonymous".


That was the short version. Here is the long one:


[video=youtube;lUpZhhbKUBo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUpZhhbKUBo[/video]

 

Normally, I would agree with MIA, that the protesters need to protest where the solution resides.
In this case, however, I think the bankers need to get the message before the politicians feel the heat. And the reason for that is because I think the bankers need to understand that their grip on politicians is slipping before action is taken to go after the politicians.
And that approach seems to be working so far. Politicians are coming out in favour of (maybe not strongly, that can't be expected) the protests because many of them are hungry for votes and too stupid to realize that they're next.
This approach may yet divide the "enemy" (Politicians on one side and bankers on the other) in order to facilitate change.
As long as the cozy relationship exists between bankers and politicians, things will never change. The protesters need to get the politicians on board before going after the bankers (by using the politicians).
Who knows if it will work. But I think the plan is a sound one.

 

Blogmeister:

That Ron Paul/ the banks own the Fed/there is a conspiracy of bankers going back to ancient Jews/ stuff is a bunch of crazy batsh!t bullsh!t for the weak minded.

Banks don't OWN the Fed in any traditional sense of the word own. I can't buy a bank's share. They can't sell it to Donald Trump or some Saudi Billionaire, or the biggest shareholders of Apple, or Google, or IBM. I can sell my house to anyone....but I can't buy shares of the fed owned by a bank. Its not ownership in the traditional sense of the word!!!

Banks don't CONTROL the fed. They do influence it. The aggregate bank ownership gives them a MINORITY SHARE of the board that controls the directions of the FED. The appointees by the President have the majority share.

Banks and the Fed, and the government form a partnership to protect the monetary system within the nation. Its actions are not perfect. NOTHING IS PERFECT. They make decisions. If the decisions seem to be working-->great. If the decisions aren't working they need to change the decisions....and from time to time they do.

After the relatively enormous inflation within the US during the latter 1970's and early 1980's, the Fed was the vehicle that essentially crushed inflation. In doing so it also sponsored a recession in tight credit, reduced business activity, etc.

Were you around then?? I was. Imagine trying to buy a home when mortgage rates were around 18%. It was flipping difficult. Imagine trying to get credit for an operating business paying 15 to 20% interest to fuel expansion. Flipping difficult. But in raising interest rates, the fed cooled off the parts of the economy that were causing inflation. Overall the next 20 years so terrific growth, and access to funds for lots of people.

You can thank the fed for those actions!!!!!!!

Thereafter the US has run into a relatively long long period (over 25 years) with relatively low inflation. That has tended to work better, but in its own right it doesn't solve every issue. But overall low inflation beats the cr@p out of runaway inflation for everyone, wealthy and poor, workers, and businesses.

The fed and affiliate entities work with the government to oversee the monetary and financial system within the US. It does support banks. The banking system and access to capital is E.S.S.E.N.T.I.A.L

In the late 1980's and early 1990's there was another recession. It was a direct result of bad lending practices primarily by localized banks into the commercial real estate world. Were you there??? I was. I was a commercial real estate broker and investor in a major market for about 2 decades.

While the rest of the nation fell into a recession the commercial real estate industry and especially the office building industry was in a DEPRESSION!!! Because there was NO MONEY. The banking system into the commercial real estate industry FAILED.

All cash and liquidity was cut off. There was no money for buying and selling buildings. FAR WORSE was that the liquidity provided for existing buildings was stripped BARE. Buildings couldn't finance construction, leasing, changing space for new and existing tenants. THERE WAS NO MONEY!!!!!

The industry went into DEPRESSION. A huge number of people lost work. No architects, no construction, NO ANYTHING!!!!

The US government stepped in. IT Took control of banks and of buildings. The US government OWNED all this stuff on a massive basis.

First slowly the government intermediaries opened up funds for operating businesses. Buildings were able to finance tenant construction, leasing, etc. At least they could operate as businesses after the crisis ht the sh!t fan and all activity STOPPED. I recall the interim period with no funds roughly lasting around a year or so, contingent on different buildings, ownerships getting quicker access to funds. By the way, at that time, nobody screamed about socialization, or communism, or government taking control. Nobody screamed at all.

Why???? Probably because as the crisis hit...first in the SouthWest and later nationwide....Reagan and Bush I were the Presidents. Right Wing Polemicists kept their mouths shut!!!

Over a period of roughly 6-8 years the Feds and their intermediaries sold OFF EVERY BANK AND EVERY BUILDING back to private sources. It took time.

After allowing and enabling the creation of a crisis, by not overseeing lending policies, the government stepped in to correct the problems. It ended up being a joint effort with government and business. Over time, as the commercial real estate industry moved back into health, more people went back to work within the industry.

When the banking industry collapses the entire economy dies!!!!! I experienced it first hand in a microcosm within the commercial real estate industry. There is no doubt for the good of the entire population the banking industry needs to be protected.

Does that mean that we have to enable the Wall Streeters to live off the fat of the earth, via the bank bailouts of 2008/2009 and then get off scot free while the rest of the nation suffers from an incredible an overwhelming amount of unemployment and underemployment???? No.

It should take smart regulation. Its not something that should be demonized. Its the application of common sense. Unfortunately most of this stuff is demonized by political loud mouths.

Getting back to the long term issues that the graphs I presented portray. Wealth in this nation has skewed dramatically toward corporations and the already wealthy!!!! Its incredibly dramatic. There is overwhelming evidence of this in lots of data....much of it going back 30 years or so. This past recession, dating back to its formal start, at the end of 2007, has been accompanied by incredibly high unemployment....and the striking impact of the graph that shows major corporate profits skyrocketing to never before experienced high levels......while huge numbers of people can't get work, Executive salaries are skyrocketing while common people salaries stagnate and the lowest level of minimum daily wages is going backwards.

Those are issues that I hope the Occupy Wall Street movement focuses on. I wouldn't worry a Rat's @ss about the Fed. That is a myth formulated by politically radical people who want to dramatize reality into crazy pictures of black and white rather than more realistic shades of gray.

Meanwhile, when you get back to me and tell me I can buy shares in the FED and independently own it....then I'll start believing it is owned by a conspiratorial group of mysterious bankers. Until then that concept is PURE BUNK!!

 

Get yourself together Early. I couldn't care less what Ron Paul says and my research is not based on his speeches. And this has not a thing to do with jews either. Try again and maybe you will not sound like a long winded fool the next time.