Nationswide protests-will they spread?

[sdduuuude]

[quote=UCGal]I also see a lot in common with the OWS movement and the very early tea party movement – before it got co-opted by Dick Army and the GOP[/quote]

Interesting you should say that. The same thought popped into my head as well as I was reading this thread.

It seems to me that both sides of the left/right spectrum hate the socialized loss + privatized gains.

I would guess the OWS crowd would tend towards “socialized loss, socialized gain”

I’m firmly in the “privatized loss + privatized gain” side.

[briansd1]

Ideology aside, let’s look at reality for a minute. The big banks already got the bailouts. Shouldn’t they be required to pay back something for the bailouts?

The Tea Party is saying “don’t tax or regulate the banks notwithstanding the bailouts they receive. They should get a free ride.”

OWS is saying “let’s make the banks payback the benefits they received.”

[briansd1]

I think that it’s absolutely outrageous that protesters in Boston are arrested for camping out in a public park. That’s especially galling when we are supporting the protesters of the Arab Spring.

Apparently, it’s not allowed to camp out at a park in America. Sounds like the dictator in Syria can follow the example of Boston’s mayor.

http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/10/boston-mayor-says-sympathizes-with-protesters-but-they-can-tie-the-city/GFmOU1qwApiGhBNsNSzMIL/index.html

[scaredyclassic]

it’s probably a good rule not to let people sleep in parks.they wouldn’t really be parks anymore. they’d be campsites. creepy campsites…

[briansd1]

I agree we should generally not let people sleep in parks.

But when there’s a political protest movement and people come and join the protest, it’s only natural for the crowds to grow and take up more than the original area.

What about the protesters who camped out in Tahrir Square, or Tienanmen Square protesting the policies of their governments? Would those governments be justified in clearing them out by force because overnight sleeping is not allowed, or because they are causing some inconvenience to other citizens?

I can think of a number of “safety” reasons to not allow protests to grow.

[CA renter]

[quote=pri_dk][quote=CA renter]Not only that, but the PTB has managed to brainwash all the idiots into believing that the unions have caused all our problems.[/quote]

Nobody believes that unions cause all the problems. They are one of the problems.

I grew up in the rust belt. I know firsthand what unions can do to an economy.

You really believe that only “1%” of the population is greedy?[/quote]

Was that because of the unions, or because of corporate mismanagement and the off-shoring of our jobs — due to tax and trade policies that reward companies for destroying our job base?

[jpinpb]

[quote=CA renter][quote=pri_dk][quote=CA renter]Not only that, but the PTB has managed to brainwash all the idiots into believing that the unions have caused all our problems.[/quote]

Nobody believes that unions cause all the problems. They are one of the problems.

I grew up in the rust belt. I know firsthand what unions can do to an economy.

You really believe that only “1%” of the population is greedy?[/quote]

Was that because of the unions, or because of corporate mismanagement and the off-shoring of our jobs — due to tax and trade policies that reward companies for destroying our job base?[/quote]

Thanks, CAR. This should be real obvious to everyone by now, unless one is wearing blinders heavily in denial or actually part of the 1%.

[Anonymous]

Do either of you even know what the rust belt is? You certainly don’t know its history.

The word “off-shoring” didn’t even exist when those industries declined.

The decline of American heavy industry was due to a number of reasons: labor costs, foreign competition, failure to modernize. Labor cost was one of the key issues and there is very little debate, even among pro-union historians, that the power of of unions in the steel and automotive industries was a major contributor to their decline.

The except from the story bellow illustrates a common situation:

Manny could have moved on, but his ambition trapped him in McKeesport. He started working part-time in the mill in 1947 during his junior year in high school and never stopped. His steelworker wages carried him through college and graduate school, and by the time he received a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1958, he was making too much money as a steelworker to leave the mill. He had accumulated seniority by then and was grossing $4,000 more a year than he would have received if he had gone into biophysics. Manny stayed in the mill and got into union politics. I had talked to him many times in the 1960S and I970S when he held a variety of local union offices.

http://www.pittsburghinwords.org/john_hoerr.html

I had an uncle that had an engineering degree but chose to be a crane operator at a steel plant because he could make a lot more money. He lost the union job in the early 80s and never got his career on track.

10% unemployment? Been there, done that.

[jpinpb]

pri_dk – my brother is involved in the auto industry and claims union as the problem. Couple of questions that maybe you can give me some feedback/answers. How many factory auto workers are living in mansions and fly in private jets?

Should labor be brought to the low levels of third world countries, working conditions and pay, so that the head guys at corporations can continue to enjoy their rich lifestyle?

When companies are making record profits off the backs of workers in third world countries, tax breaks by our government that the rich paid politicians to pass and the loss of jobs here, do you really still hold on to the unions being the cause of these problems?

Should our labor (pay and conditions) be as cheap as third world countries so we can keep jobs and companies can make record profits?

[Coronita]

delete

[Anonymous]

[quote=jpinpb]Should labor be brought to the low levels of third world countries, working conditions and pay, so that the head guys at corporations can continue to enjoy their rich lifestyle?[/quote]

That’s a false dichotomy – a classic logical fallacy.

It really doesn’t matter “how many factory auto workers are living in mansions and fly in private jets” What matters is how many factory workers there are, the total cost of their labor to the industry and how that cost impacts the competitiveness of the industry.

Which number do you think was higher? The total executive compensation of United States Steel (USS) in 1980 or the total cost of labor?

Did USS lose to foreign competition because they paid their executives more than Japanese companies did?

Or were there other expenses that were a bigger problem?

(Hint: Executive compensation was less than 1% of revenue.)

You could have taken every dime of compensation away from the CEOs and VPs and given it all to the workforce and it would not have made one bit of difference.

You’re whole argument demonstrates the real problem: that people insist on taking sides and simplifying human nature down simplistic stereotypes.

I’m in support of the basic goals of the OWS protesters. We do need to change some of the rules to avoid the “privatized gains/socialized losses” phenomenon as well as some other basic structural problems – problems that originate from multiple sources.

I’ll ask again: Do you really believe that only 1% of the population is greedy?

[Coronita]

I have a dumb question. When these people protest against “Wall Street”, exactly who are they targeting????

And second…. Did you folks read this…

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/113655/paulson-fires-back-critics-wsj?mod=bb-budgeting&sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode=

Paulson Fires Back at Critics

……

A coalition of community groups and labor unions fingered Mr. Paulson’s home for a march to the homes of “prominent New York billionaires.” The group is pushing to increase taxes on millionaires.

By midafternoon, some 250 protesters had gathered outside Mr. Paulson’s apartment building in New York’s Upper East Side, the fifth stop in a march that the organizers said also included the residences of James Dimon, chief executive of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM – News), and Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp. (NWS – News), parent company of The Wall Street Journal.

“He’s one of those billionaire hedge-fund guys who bet on the meltdown of the mortgage [market] and won big,” Vilma Nelson, a 60-year-old Bronx resident, said of Mr. Paulson. “He’s the type of person we’re against.”

I don’t think most people even know what the fvck their protesting against, let alone know who to target…
I’m trying to figure out why people like this 60 year person feels that “he’s (paulson) the type of person we’re against”… Just because he’s rich and has means to make money, their against him? Why? I guess people are just pissed at anyone that is “rich”…It’s people like this that behave in robin hood that just want a redistribution of wealth…. French revolution anyone?

[sdduuuude]

[quote=briansd1]Ideology aside, let’s look at reality for a minute. The big banks already got the bailouts. Shouldn’t they be required to pay back something for the bailouts?

The Tea Party is saying “don’t tax or regulate the banks notwithstanding the bailouts they receive. They should get a free ride.”

OWS is saying “let’s make the banks payback the benefits they received.”[/quote]

I appreciate the reality of the situation as you describe. Would be nice to undo what was done, but more important to make sure we aren’t in a position to have to bail them out again in the future.

That is an interesting quote “don’t tax or regulate the banks notwithstanding the bilsouts they receive. They should get a free ride.” Talk about putting words in someone’s mouth. You actually quoted the entire Tea Party there without actually listing a source of the quote. When you make a strawman argument, you don’t mess around. You actually throw in a quote that was never actually said.

Somehow the Tea Party went from a concept of reducing government waste to supporting bank bailouts and lobbying banks to do whatever the hell they want. A true marketing/PR disaster for them, it seems.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=jpinpb]pri_dk – my brother is involved in the auto industry and claims union as the problem. Couple of questions that maybe you can give me some feedback/answers. How many factory auto workers are living in mansions and fly in private jets?

Should labor be brought to the low levels of third world countries, working conditions and pay, so that the head guys at corporations can continue to enjoy their rich lifestyle?

When companies are making record profits off the backs of workers in third world countries, tax breaks by our government that the rich paid politicians to pass and the loss of jobs here, do you really still hold on to the unions being the cause of these problems?

Should our labor (pay and conditions) be as cheap as third world countries so we can keep jobs and companies can make record profits?[/quote]

Unions serving government seem to be the problem, not so much unions serving corporations. As far as I’m concerned, the unions and corporations can battle it out in their own way. Both are private enterprises, really.

Unions serving government, however, seem vey crooked to me. The unions gain a monopoly on providing services, they block individuals from working in their area, then trade votes for higher wages. It is true thug behavior and needs to stop. Unions serving government are really an unregulated monopoly. Not sure how anyone can love that.

Because fat-cat corporate officials supply the funds for corporate union workers, I can understand how you might side with the union there. However every-day taxpayers bear the brunt of paying public union wages. In a sense, the union is the private corportion here, milking the public coffers and taxpayers.

[briansd1]

[quote=sdduuuude]I appreciate the reality of the situation as you describe. Would be nice to undo what was done, but more important to make sure we aren’t in a position to have to bail them out again in the future. [/quote]

You can’t undo what was done in late 2008.

I don’t see the Tea Party proposing anything to make sure we don’t have to bailout the banks again.

The Tea Party is against any regulation of the banks and against any taxing of the banks for the bailouts they received. That’s essentially giving the banks a free ride.

The Tea Party is for laws that are status quo ante the 2008 financial crisis. Seems to me a receipe for a repeat of the bailouts in the future.

[Author]

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