Post #541
Quote:The Epic Failure of Republican Trickle Down Economics
By Jon Perr
Geez Peter,
Are you working for the DNC now?Why is this partisan article in the non-partisan OWS thread?Oh,nevermind..........
Peter Lemkin Wrote:Israel tests police state techniques on Palestinians and exports them to America
December 4, 2011 by zulfahmed
Israel is a kind of factory for repression and mechanisms of repression that are being sold to other countries in the world. And mechanisms that are used against Palestinians are often replicated and used against citizens of other countries by their governments because they've already been tested on Palestinians as kind of guinea pigs, if you want.
Exactly. The reason the US government emphasizes the Israeli conflict so much is because it is using it as a prop to move away from Constitutional democracy and towards the polemics of the Israel-centric "War On Terror". Israel is especially useful because it exerts an unquestionable and automatic "God-given" right. The US is attempting to adopt this sort of philosophical "zionism" because it wants people to believe that everything it does is similarly, automatically in the name of some undefined God-given "freedom". The forge marks of CIA methodology are obvious. This is a greatly profitable venue for the Military Industrial Complex interests that supply the weapons and politics.
A similar adopting occurs in China where US interests like a government ordered economic structure.
Keith Millea Wrote:Post #541
Quote:The Epic Failure of Republican Trickle Down Economics
By Jon Perr
Geez Peter,
Are you working for the DNC now?Why is this partisan article in the non-partisan OWS thread?Oh,nevermind..........
Never fear, both I personally and OWS as a group think the Democrats are as much to blame as the Republicans. The only difference is the Republicans gloat about the 'plan' and say it is wonderful; the Democrats carry out the same plan, but give lip service to it being undesirable.
When I find a good article critiquing the Democrats record, I'll post it. It has been noted [in a slightly different vein] by OWS, however, that most of the Mayors of the cities in which the OWS occupations have been destroyed were Democratic Mayors....so there is no love lost on them by OWS, nor on Obama, nor on Obama's finanacial advisors [who were advisors under Bush or bankers telling Bush what to do]....this fools no one - not I - not OWS - I hope no one on this Forum.
More from Madame Bezprezimena:
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[TD]The true "street thugs" are run by CIA - the snipers, death squads, etc. But there is another level of what I call "street thugs" and that is the intelligentsia turned protester. I watched Soros buy them in the Balkans. The top leadership actually knew they were in bed with Soros. The lesser ones were so compartmentalized in their access to behind-the-scenes knowledge that they thought they were conducting real protests - because there is a legitimate intellectual opposition in every country. Those were turned into academic street thugs for Soros - there is no other way to describe it, once you see it.
The intellectual opposition is bought at the leadership levels and they are typically employed in some Soros human rights group long-term. They then mobilize the opposition academic elite in the country and take them to the street. This is mixed with rowdy imported rabble-rousers. The whole effort complete with what would normally be intelligent protesters begins to look like a bad British soccer game with Liverpool losing soon....a rowdy contact sport in the streets. Soros knows how to turn the liberal academic intelligentsia of any country into street thugs like nobody else can.
Wait until the US starts its scheduled WW III and the economy goes into full no-parachute freefall and when Soros infuses OWS with enough professional rabid rabble-rousers, yoiu will see our own intelligentsia turn street thug...you will see.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf9i7O9Xf...r_embedded
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[TD]The Russian protests above. At minute 00:52, note the red flag. That says "Rot Front" in Russian cyrillic writing. (Yes, I am sure.) "Rot Front" is actually German language and the Russian party was named after the old DDR-German communist party equivalent.
"Rot Front Russia" is a communist proletarian party in Russia, named in redux nostalgia after the old Soviet Empire. It is led by Sergej Uldatsov who is a
Soros disciple. See his resume here:
link. Excerpt from his resume: Awards received. Soros student, 1994. You can research all the leaders of this "leaderless" protest like him and will find Soros or CIA or NED ad infinitum.
He is a Soros student indeed - 1994 was a good year for Soros. That's when he was collecting ex-USSR and Balkans countries like football cards and collected the likes of Uldatsov in country after country. They were in shards after the zionist social and economic detonation of those countries and they were cheap post collapse. Soros harvested the likes of Uldatsov in a host of impoverished post-collapse countries and he feeds them to this day and deploys them when needed. They are his sleeper cells in countless countries when he needs to whip up an instant revolution somewhere.
At minute 01:59 you will see the black and white logo of Storm Front White Pride right next to Rot Front - the far right and communists united?? Yes, if Soros has anything to do with it...this is the classic blueprint of a color revolution, the unorthodoxy of such combos...been tellin' ya, the man has suberp organizational talents, you gotta see him in action to recognize this stuff....
Also, the mass arrests might have less to do with "suppression of democracy in Russia" as Mrs. Clinton and the zionist choir across the web are shrieking about in unison now - but it likely has more with the fires you see set on this video and incidents of violence which would have sent US protesters to the nearest FEMA camp for similar behavior also. Anyone living in militarized Prison Country USA who is tsk-tsk-tsking about Russia's lack of democracy is providing SNL skits, not political commentary.
The sulfurous stench of Soros hangs over all of Moscow right now.
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Quote:Never fear, both I personally and OWS as a group think the Democrats are as much to blame as the Republicans.
And while I'm at it...
Where the fuck has Jerry Brown been?I used to have some respect for the guy,but man,he went and hid under the blankets,and is still sucking his thumb.
I'm in a quandry....To vote or not to vote........
New branch.
Up the Occupation!
Keith Millea Wrote:Quote:Never fear, both I personally and OWS as a group think the Democrats are as much to blame as the Republicans.
And while I'm at it...
Where the fuck has Jerry Brown been?I used to have some respect for the guy,but man,he went and hid under the blankets,and is still sucking his thumb.
I'm in a quandry....To vote or not to vote........
Yeah, his silence is deafening. There were a few articles a few weeks back about him...but there was so little substance in them and about his actions / statements I didn't post. You can find them if you google OWS and his name. He made a statement, generally, on rights of protestors [mentioning no names] and that he thought they should have
some [mentioning no extent and DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT]. What little respect I ever had for him is long gone. He has been appealed to specifically by OWS and has not even had the decency to answer, let alone to act in their behalf - not even lip service.
The Remarkable Political Stupidity of Wall Street
Friday 9 December 2011
by: Robert Reich
Wall Street is its own worst enemy. It should have welcomed new financial regulation as a means of restoring public trust. Instead, it's busily shredding new regulations and making the public more distrustful than ever.
The Street's biggest lobbying groups have just filed a lawsuit against the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, seeking to overturn its new rule limiting speculative trading.
For years Wall Street has speculated like mad in futures markets food, oil, other commodities causing prices to fluctuate wildly. The Street makes bundles from these gyrations, but they have raised costs for consumers.
In other words, a small portion of what you and I pay for food and energy has been going into the pockets of Wall Street. It's just another hidden redistribution from the middle class and poor to the rich.
The new Dodd-Frank law authorizes the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to limit such speculative trading. The commission considered 15,000 comments, largely from the Street. It did numerous economic and policy analyses, carefully weighing the benefits to the public of the new regulation against its costs to the Street. It even agreed to delay enforcement of the new rule for at least a year.
But this wasn't enough for the Street. The new regulation would still put a crimp in Wall Street's profits.
So the Street is going to court. What's its argument? The commission's cost-benefit analysis wasn't adequate.
At first blush it's a clever ploy. There's no clear legal standard for an "adequate" weighing of costs and benefits of financial regulations, since both are so difficult to measure. And putting the question into the laps of federal judges gives the Street a huge tactical advantage because the Street has almost an infinite amount of money to hire so-called "experts" (some academics are not exactly prostitutes but they have their price) who will use elaborate methodologies to show benefits have been exaggerated and costs underestimated.
It's not the first time the Street has used this ploy. Last year, when the Securities and Exchange Commission tried to implement a Dodd-Frank policy making it easier for shareholders to nominate company directors, Wall Street sued the SEC. It alleged the commission's cost-benefit analysis for the new rule was inadequate.
Last July, a federal appeals court inundated by Wall Street lawyers and hired-gun "experts" agreed with the Street. So much for shareholders nominating company directors.
Obviously, government should weigh the costs against the benefits of anything it does. But when it comes to the regulation of Wall Street, one overriding cost doesn't make it into any individual weighing: The public's mounting distrust of the entire economic system, generated by the Street's repeated abuse of the public's trust.
Wall Street's shenanigans have convinced a large portion of America that the economic game is rigged.
Yet capitalism depends on trust. Without trust, people avoid even sensible economic risks. They also begin trading in gray markets and black markets. They think that if the big guys cheat in big ways, they might as well begin cheating in small ways. And when they think the game is rigged, they're easy prey for political demagogues with fast tongues and dumb ideas.
Tally up these costs and it's a whopper.
Wall Street has blanketed America in a miasma of cynicism. Most Americans assume the reason the Street got its taxpayer-funded bailout without strings in the first place was because of its political clout. That must be why the banks didn't have to renegotiate the mortgages of Americans many of whom, because of the economic collapse brought on by the Street's excesses, are still under water. Some are drowning.
That must be why taxpayers didn't get equity stakes in the banks we bailed out as Warren Buffet got when he bailed out Goldman Sachs. That means when the banks became profitable gain we didn't get any of the upside gains; we just padded the Street's downside risks.
The Street's political clout must be why most top Wall Street executives who were bailed out by taxpayers still have their jobs, have still avoided prosecution, are still making vast fortunes while tens of millions of average Americans continue to lose their jobs, their wages, their medical coverage, or their homes.
And why the Dodd-Frank bill was filled with loopholes big enough for Wall Street executives and traders to drive their ferrari's through.
The cost of such cynicism has leeched deep into America, causing so much suspicion and anger that our politics has become a cauldron of rage. It's found expression in Tea Partiers and Occupiers, and millions of others who think the people at the top have sold us out.
Every week, it seems, we learn something new about how Wall Street has screwed us. Last week we heard from Bloomberg News (that had to go to court for the information) that in 2009 the Street's six largest banks borrowed almost half a trillion dollars from the Fed at nearly zero cost but never disclosed it.
In early 2009, after Citigroup tapped the Fed for almost $100 billion, the bank's CEO, Vikram Pandit, had the temerity to call Citi's first quarter the "best since 2007." Is there another word for fraud?
Finally, everyone knows the biggest banks are too big to fail and yet, despite this, Congress won't put a cap on the size of the banks. The assets of the four biggest J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo now equal 62 percent of total commercial bank assets. That's up from 54 percent five years ago. Throw in Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, and these six leviathans preside over the American economy like Roman emperors.
Speaking of Rome, if Italy or Greece defaults and Europe's major banks can't make payments on their debts to Wall Street, another bailout will surely be required. And the politics won't be pretty.
There you have it. A federal court will now weigh costs and benefits of a modest rule designed to limit speculative trading in food and energy.
But in coming months and years, the American public will weigh the social costs and social benefits of Wall Street itself. And it wouldn't surprise me if they decide the costs of the Street as it is far outweigh the benefits.
The result will be caps on the size of banks. Some will be broken up. Glass-Steagall will be resurrected. Some Wall Street bigwigs may even see in the insides of jails.
If so, the Street has only itself to blame.
Will Occupy Shut Down All West Coast Ports?
By Gavin Aronsen
| Sat Dec. 10, 2011 3:00 AM PST
On the waterfront: Could this Occupy protest be a contender?: westcoastportshutdown.org westcoastportshutdown.org Around nine o'clock on the night of November 2, after more than 30,000 people marched to the Port of Oakland in support of Occupy Oakland's call for a general strike, an independent arbitrator declared the port unsafe for its workers, effectively securing its closure for the rest of the night. This Monday, Occupy Oakland will try to best its 12-hour port shutdown with a more ambitious West Coast "port blockade" joined by more than a dozen occupations from Anchorage to San Diego.
Occupy Oakland's renewed call to shut down the "Wall Street on the waterfront" was sparked in large part by the October firing of 26 port truckers in Los Angeles and Long Beach who wore Teamster T-shirts to work in defiance of their anti-union employer, the Australian-owned Toll Group. Monday's protests are also being billed as a protest against port terminals run by the Goldman Sachs-owned Stevedoring Services of America (SSA) and a show of solidarity with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union's rank-and-fileparticularly in Longview, Washington, where the union is engaged in a contract fight with Export Grain Terminal, a subsidiary of the agribusiness giant Bunge.
Barucha Peller, a member of Occupy Oakland's West Coast port shutdown coordinating committee, said Monday's plans are an "unprecedented" stand for a movement that's only three months old. Activists have learned from the previous shutdown, she believes, and will work to avoid repeating mistakes such as blocking truck drivers mistakenly thought to be incoming nonunion workers. "November 2 we were organizing on the fly," she explained. "Now we're communicating a lot better with the port truckers and flyering a lot more down at the port." Both truckers and the ILWU members, she added, have had "really positive responses" to the plans.
Stan Woods, a member of the ILWU Local 6 in San Francisco on Occupy Oakland's port shutdown committee, believes that Monday's plans are in line with the union's decades-long history of picketing in support of social-justice causes (which former communications director Steve Stallone details here). "I have no doubt the national leadership believes what it says," Woods said, "but the ILWU, despite its problems, is one of the most democratic unions, with lots of autonomy." Solidarity strikes have been illegal since 1947, but ILWU workers have a history of protesting without official union sanction.
The ILWU leadership is against another port shutdown. Last Wednesday evening, ILWU communications director Craig Merrilees attended a meeting of about 40 members of Occupy the Hood's Oakland chapter to hand out a letter from union president Robert McEllrath, which disputed occupiers' claims. "Support is one thing," the letter read (PDF). "Organization from outside groups attempting to co-opt our struggle in order to advance a broader agenda is quite another and one that is destructive to our democratic process and jeopardizes our over two year struggle in Longview." McEllrath wrote that criticism of the ILWU's position "is shortsighted and only serves the 1%." A separate letter from the Port of Oakland (PDF) made a similar argument that port shutdowns would hurt average citizens by "diverting cargo, tax revenue, and jobs to other communities."
Of course, disrupting commerce is the whole point of Monday's protests. According to the Journal of Commerce, the West Coast ports are responsible for more than 50 percent of the country's containerized trade, and a 10-day lockout of longshoremen in 2002 cost an estimated $1 billion a day. Occupy Oakland's November blockade reportedly caused $4 million in revenue loss. In the video announcing Monday's protest, local hip-hop artist and Occupy Oakland organizer Boots Riley declared the movement's intention to "shut down all West Coast ports" to "not only make a statement but cause a lot of profit loss." (Watch his statement below.)
In reality, though, the Occupy movement has no intention of actually trying to shut down all of the more than three dozen ports along the West Coast of the United States and Canada. According to the protest's website, occupations in 14 coastal citiesincluding Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, and Vancouverwill participate, but they don't all plan to shut down their respective ports.
The Port of Los Angeles, which adjoins the Port of Long Beach, is the nation's largest with 43 miles of waterfronttoo large to realistically bring to a halt. Michael Novick, a member of Occupy Los Angeles' general strike preparation committee, said his group instead sees the protest as a "first step toward a general strike" in his city next May. Occupy LA, he said, only plans to picket at one or more SSA terminals at the two ports.
Port of Los Angeles spokesman Phillip Sanfield isn't especially concerned about a shutdown. He said officials at the port will take a "thoughtful approach" that will "protect the First Amendment and allow people to demonstrate."
Just as Oakland's November 2 "general strike" wasn't really a general strike in the truest sense, the absence of a total West Coast port shutdown won't prevent the Occupy movement from making another bold statement. An untold number of occupations, from Houston to Denver to Wall Street, have direct actions planned Monday to express support for the port shutdown. Even rail workers in Japan are participating. As at other Occupy events, getting people to show up is half the battle. As Peller asks, "What's it going to look like when tens of thousands are marching on the coasts?"