Wall Street Protestors

[TheSportsPredictor]

I can't believe the damn libruhl lamestream media hasn't given these protests more coverage.

I've read that the protestors have made a concerted effort not to
speak to the media. Perhaps this is why their message is unclear.

It is pretty amazing that every single one of the hundreds of thousands involved have said "No comment" to everything.

 

[Azrael]

Corporations: all the rights of the individual, none of the responsibilities. Discuss.

 

[CarltonBanks]

It seems to me that these protesters are out there screaming about a lot of things that Obama has done/is doing...but end it all with "re-elect Obama." Obama had more Wall Street money in his 2008 campaign than anyone else I can remember, and these protesters are anti-Wall Street. They are calling for student loans to be forgiven...and Obama nationalized them to make that money for the government. Some of these protesters have been paid to be there, which sounds a little shady. They are protesting just to protest, it seems.

 

[Azrael]

It seems to me that these protesters are out there screaming about a lot of things that Obama has done/is doing...but end it all with "re-elect Obama." Obama had more Wall Street money in his 2008 campaign than anyone else I can remember, and these protesters are anti-Wall Street. They are calling for student loans to be forgiven...and Obama nationalized them to make that money for the government. Some of these protesters have been paid to be there, which sounds a little shady. They are protesting just to protest, it seems.

Any evidence of this? Any links?

 

[Boom_70]

It seems to me that these protesters are out there screaming about a lot of things that Obama has done/is doing...but end it all with "re-elect Obama." Obama had more Wall Street money in his 2008 campaign than anyone else I can remember, and these protesters are anti-Wall Street. They are calling for student loans to be forgiven...and Obama nationalized them to make that money for the government. Some of these protesters have been paid to be there, which sounds a little shady. They are protesting just to protest, it seems.

Any evidence of this? Any links?

Az, at this rate you will wear out your question mark key by end of day.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Sounds to me like they're barking up the right tree.

If you want to look at the root causes of the meltdown in 2008, banks are the place to start.

But if you want to look at where we are economically today, U.S. fiscal and monetary policy (our last several Congresses and presidents) added to the disaster that is the Euro, added to individual fiscal policies of just about every European country that has put them on the verge of a bankruptcy are the places to start. Then add to that one big piece of populist regulation known as Dodd-Frank, which is going to hurt, not help.

In 2008, people should have never bought the "too big to fail" crud. But this is not 2008. And there have been so many bad decisions at the policy level since 2008 that kicked a can down the road to the point where we now have a crisis, that focusing on banks is bewildering. The banks people are so angry at are teetering. Look at the stock charts of Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, for example. B of A is down more than 50 percent this year. Morgan is down close to 50 percent. As is Citigroup. These are companies that seriously might not be around a year from now if we start seeing sovereign defaults in Europe and a double dip recession. And it has nothing to do with 2008 or anything any of those companies have done that is illegal or immoral.

If anything, the overreaction to what happened in 2008 has created a lot of the resentment we are now seeing. Dodd-Frank has been a disaster of populist-driven regulation that as is often the case when "the government comes to help people," is (and will) hurt consumers. By limiting how much banks can charge for transactions, they ****ed with a free marketplace, and now we are seeing the consequences. Those banks are in business to make money for their shareholders. Tie their hands and they will start kicking with their feet to make up the revenue you are denying them. It was predictable all along

That's not particularly a "bank" issue. If the government steps in and tells ANY business what it can and can't charge for certain services or transactions, consumers are ultimately the ones who are going to pay.

In any case, those people have every right to protest. I personally think the President has set the tone by creating an atmosphere of scapegoating and class warfare to try to quell the unrest because of a bad economy and unemployment. And the protests we are seeing are an extension of that. When you asked "why are they protesting?" I get it, in that unemployment is high and the economy is in a stupor. People want to express their dissatisfaction. And as is often the case, the form of protest is simplistic (in my opinion).

Banks were making money even before they started charging fees to customers. Fees are only a fairly recent phenomenon. And there's no free market when everyone is doing the same thing (except for the local credit unions). If all the banks all decide to charge $5 per transaction, the only free market then is deciding to take your money and put it under your mattress.

What happened was banks got too greedy for their own good, gambled away their money thanks to deregulation and needed the government to bail them out. Glass-Steagel should never have been repealed in the first place.

This shows an unawareness of, or disregard for, how markets work. Most banks are charge similar fees and have similar pricing structures, precisely because they operate in a market. They have found a market equilibrium, in which one bank can't undercut the others without losing overall revenue, and other banks can't charge higher fees without losing revenue by costing themselves customers. There is plenty of competition in the commercial banking area. If I run Chase, and I can somehow boost volume of loans enough by charging a lower interest rates, OF COURSE, I am going to do it. But that isn't possible, because everyone is already maximizing their revenue by charging an equilibrium price, where the mix of rates plus consumers in at those rates brings in the most money. Anyone in business finds that price point that maximizes revenue.

All businesses operate that way. They have competitors. They price things in a way that takes into account that competition. "If I raise prices, as much as I would love to, I risk losing more business than I make up from the higher prices." "If I lower prices, I may get more customers, but the lower margins will lead to decreased revenues." It's why unless you have some competitive advantage that allows you to shave costs in a way that your competitors can't, prices in competitive businesses tend to be similar -- for example, in commercial banking.

Name your area of commercial banking. You have your choice of dozens of companies offering credit cards. Dozens of places to open your money market account. Dozens of places to get a checking account. These are highly competitive busineses, and each prices their services in a way that takes into account their competition, what price point can maximize revenue (and hopefully profits), and in the case of things like lending, risk.

Now you get the Federal government stepping in (and mind you, this plays into my earlier post about special interest, because Dodd-Frank was special-interest driven) and putting price ceilings on what businesses can charge. The end result isn't surprising. It messed with that equilibrium, and now is costing consumers, as banks find other ways to make up the revenue government took away from them.

You cited credit cards, which I find pretty ironic, considering that for years, they were allowed to basically tear up any contract they had with their customers and impose new terms. In the free market, a contract is based upon an agreement with two parties with specified terms.

Now, you can say that a credit card company specified their terms (usually in very small print amid a mass of other nonsensical legalese) that they can change their deal at any time. Which is great and all. Except that every credit card company did it. There was no competition. Every card company was doing it.

And then some of them actually changed their terms where, if you wanted to close your account, they charged a fee for that. Charging you for choosing to go somewhere's else (this happened to my wife, by the way). That's not free market competition. That's legalized theft.

 

[CarltonBanks]

http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/06/organizer-admits-to-paying-occupy-dc-protesters-video/

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Is it ironic that a guy criticizing the protestors has a screen name that ends with the word "banks"?

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/06/organizer-admits-to-paying-occupy-dc-protesters-video/

Job creators.

 

[vicd]

"Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants."

 

[Gehrig]

I think the problem is the lack of accountability for the ultra rich that is pissing people off. Not so much that they are ultra rich. Billionaire lose all their money? No worries, claim bankruptcy and live off the money stowed away in offshore accounts. Committed fraud? No worries, the company goes under, everyone loses their jobs, and the CEO gets a huge payout. Committed illegal deals with other countries? No big deal. Don't want to pay taxes? Cool. Just use all the loopholes.

Meanwhile people are getting years in jail for a puff of weed or stealing a couple bucks worth of items from a store, and popping out close to 40% of their paychecks. It's not the disparity. It's that the quality of life is going down for the middle class in the poor, while the rich continue to get richer, despite many of their very shady and illegal practices. Then they took our money to bail them out, and then instead of reinvesting it in more jobs, they horde it while making record profits. That's the real issue.

Side note:
It's hilarious how on Fox News they're saying all these people are just lazy and won't go out and get a job, then 5 minutes later complain about how Obama isn't creating any jobs. The Tea Partiers were patriots, these people are lazy bums. Funny how that dynamic works out.

 

[Azrael]

Save us, Tucker Carlson!

 

[CarltonBanks]

http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/06/organizer-admits-to-paying-occupy-dc-protesters-video/

Job creators.

They will save us!

 

[deskslave]

Those banks are in business to make money for their shareholders.

Then they need to stop telling us how it's vital that they be allowed to do what they want so that they can make loans to people.

It's selfish **** like this that pisses people off. Yes, banks have shareholders. But they also have customers. Once upon a time, those people were more than a source of revenue.

Banks are NOT just another corporation. They serve a vital, fundamental purpose in the economy, as they are fond of telling us about every 6.2 seconds. Therefore, they are and must be about more than just "making money for their shareholders."

If they don't want to put the interests of actual, real people somewhere on the totem pole, then we have every right to make them do it.
And if they still don't want to, then maybe it really is time for a new system.

I disagree with you. They are just corporations. That is all they are. Corporations beholden to their shareholders. The rest of it: The politicians pointing fingers at them; the rhetoric from them about regulation and how they'd loan if only. ... ; your posts about greed and selfishness, as subjective criteria as those are; it's just senseless noise. Bank of America doesn't owe me anything. And frankly, I am glad for that, because I don't think it is going to survive another year. At least I give it less than a 50/50 shot. Maybe this time around we don't get more special interest cronyism from our government, and we let BofA and Morgan Stanley and any others that don't have viable businesses to go by the wayside rather than handing out unfair favors that add to our debt. Banking can be a great business--if you have the ability to minimize risk and maximize profits. A lot of the largest banks in the world have failed miserably at the minimizing risk problem, whether it was CDOs on mortgages or exposure to sovereign debt that presupposed that the global economy would continue to expand infinitely.

There are plenty who can manage their risk better, and will do it better than the ones that have failed. We should just let it happen. The same way any business that mismanages itself goes out of business.

But this notion that any of these companies owes use anything? They are in business to earn a profit. And somehow, because of attitudes like the one you expressed in your post, they get put in the position of apologizing for trying to do it.

If they want to be seen as essential to the fabric of society, as I'm pretty sure they do, then they need to start acting like it.

If not, then why did we spend hundreds of billions to keep them afloat, and why are we spending billions more trying to bribe them to actually lend money to people?

What you say about corporations is true. Where we differ is that I see that as a fundamental problem. It's about more than the relentless, blood-sucking pursuit of profit for shareholders. Or at least it ought to be.

 

[CarltonBanks]

Save us, Tucker Carlson!

How Alinsky-esque of you!
I want to know where the black people are in this "protest." We heard about how "white" the Tea Parties are, how about the Occupy Wall Street protesters? Pretty Wonder Bread from the looks of it.
(Will now wait while Az scours the Interwebs to find a picture or two of black protesters...should be a hoot).

 

[Stitch]

http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/06/organizer-admits-to-paying-occupy-dc-protesters-video/

I'm concerned you aren't a journalist because that article is as reliable as an ESPN story that uses "sources say".

 

[Azrael]

Sorry, I should have said "Save us, competely impartial journalist Tucker Carlson!" I regret the error.

As to the rest of it, we haven't really heard anything of substance about Occupy Wall Street, period. The press ignored it until that shift commander maced those kids last week. I have no idea what the demographics are down there.

 

[cjericho]

http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/06/organizer-admits-to-paying-occupy-dc-protesters-video/

Job creators.

If he can find enough things to protest he can keep some people employed.

 

[vicd]

Save us, Tucker Carlson!

How Alinsky-esque of you!
I want to know where the black people are in this "protest." We heard about how "white" the Tea Parties are, how about the Occupy Wall Street protesters? Pretty Wonder Bread from the looks of it.
(Will now wait while Az scours the Interwebs to find a picture or two of black protesters...should be a hoot).

I saw that story about Michelle Malkin on FOX too. I counted at least 6 black people in the photo they used. But I'm sure those are the only six in the thousands that are marching.

 

[YGBFKM]

I'm quietly protesting through my Occupy a Job campaign.