Occupy Wall Street Movement Is a Year Old: Did it Change Anything?
Chris D
2012/09/17 19:00:00
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It must get tiring camping out in front of the Stock Exchange and complaining that there are no work opportunities, because the crowds have gone home -- hopefully to a place to live and a job. The campers did have a point though.
The banks caused a huge crisis by repackaging crappy defaulting loans and selling them back to us as mortgage-backed securities and "derivative" investment products. That's a nice magic trick...then once it all blew up, the the politicians used tax payer money (otherwise known as TARP funds) and bailed the bankers out, so they could still get their bonuses. Maybe the bankers who were paying big money to the election campaigns (on both sides) were cashing in their influence? Either way, the whole thing sinks. So maybe we should be able to regulate the financial services industry a bit better so that banks can't defraud America. Isn't that the government's job?
How did the industry ever get deregulated in the first place? Well, the whole cause of this mess can be traced back to when Bill Clinton signed the The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act into law in 1999, repealing part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, removing barriers in the market among banking companies, securities companies and insurance companies that prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company. Voila, the fox was now guarding the hen house, and guess what happened?
So the government causes the problem by letting banks self-regulate their businesses. The Occupy Wall Streeters started with a good high level complaint, but then the cause spiraled into a sloppy self, indulgent mess that became an attraction for petty criminals and anyone looking to cause trouble. Did the movement change anything or was it all just noise?
CNN.COM reports:
The banks caused a huge crisis by repackaging crappy defaulting loans and selling them back to us as mortgage-backed securities and "derivative" investment products. That's a nice magic trick...then once it all blew up, the the politicians used tax payer money (otherwise known as TARP funds) and bailed the bankers out, so they could still get their bonuses. Maybe the bankers who were paying big money to the election campaigns (on both sides) were cashing in their influence? Either way, the whole thing sinks. So maybe we should be able to regulate the financial services industry a bit better so that banks can't defraud America. Isn't that the government's job?
How did the industry ever get deregulated in the first place? Well, the whole cause of this mess can be traced back to when Bill Clinton signed the The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act into law in 1999, repealing part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, removing barriers in the market among banking companies, securities companies and insurance companies that prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company. Voila, the fox was now guarding the hen house, and guess what happened?
So the government causes the problem by letting banks self-regulate their businesses. The Occupy Wall Streeters started with a good high level complaint, but then the cause spiraled into a sloppy self, indulgent mess that became an attraction for petty criminals and anyone looking to cause trouble. Did the movement change anything or was it all just noise?
CNN.COM reports:
Police encircled Lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park on Sunday as protesters geared up to observe the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street.
Read More: http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/16/us/ny-occupy-anniver...
In life, as well as managing a country or a business, no one can satisfy everybody - you just gotta do what needs to be done for the best of the country, or the business. It might go awry sometimes, but hey.. you will never know what works best if you don't try.
It's just, LIFE....
...at the same time that the people in society who record facts HAVE been paying attention...
Can you show me anything legit that attaches "them/they" to a Communist Party or sect?
They did however change things for many Americans, the occupiers started conversations about banking practices, the education bubble, drone strikes, surveillance, use of "necessary force" by police, and many other subjects. The movement was flawed, the politics behind the movement were flawed, but not everything to come out of occupy was negative.
A critical mass of rebellion is the only chance for a profound confrontation with the governance hacks, which serve the interests of the elites that restrain the debate to meaningless subjects. Distraction from essential elements for reclamation of our birthrights is the master component used by the power cabal to keep people entertained in their self-induced stupor.
Distract us, the citizens ~ in their view, 'the mob,' 'the rabble,' 'the peasants' ~ with small issues while the large ones are ignored. Divide the citizens into factions using often phony issues, set them at each other's throats, keep them bickering. Also, as the Romans said with admirable brevity: Bread, circuses and wine. Keep us supplied with cheap food to prevent riots, keep us occupied with cheap staged entertainments, and keep us drugged. The term may not have existed as such in ancient Rome, but the patricians were absolutely determined to keep the citizenry as sheeple.
The model implemented by the Roman Empire has been tweaked a bit here and there since then, and upgraded with remarkable improvements in technology, but otherwise has not changed very much.
(If you have the time and desire, this page is an informative guide to where we are now...and where we are going.)
If fists, rocks and nightsticks didn't go flying
everywhere it's a start.