...I'm some rookie trying to disperse the crowds, or joining up with my mates down the lot to which I was ordered to join up with...
That's the problem though. Why are you dispersing the crowds? Cops are supposed to be on the people's side. Protect and serve and all that. They do seem to protect and serve, only it's not the people, it's politicians and rich folks. If this is a free country, then people should be able to air their grievances. As a cop, you should be encouraging that. This whole notion that just existing in the street is a crime that the cops need to control, to "disperse the crowd" is ridiculous.
And what's worse is that those cops don't even know or wonder why they're doing what they're doing. Like you said, they were ordered to join up with "their" mates. Their mates though should be those people protesting. And yet, it's Group-A vs. Group-B. In Group-A you have the people, in Group-B it's the establishment, corporations, and rich folks.
Most cops just join Group-B because it's the most comfortable. Then from that point on they "just follow orders". But I don't see why that excuse of "I was just following orders" should ever work for anyone.
Let's just face the fact that many cops become cops because they like to assert dominance over others. We all knew kids in school like that. Sure, many are decent hard-working citizens, but not all of them. Not even most...
Thanks for posting that documentary! I saw it earlier in french but didnt know it was available in english for everyone to watch. Very interesting stuff.
Look let's settle down. These people aren't being mortared or shelled by artillery just as there aren't cars being turned over and shops set on fire.
It happens every time. A few idiots spoil it for everyone else. A few protesters are acting like assholes and a few cops act like assholes. Everyone cries bloody murder and brutality.
Oh on a slight tangent..
Listening to the young dudes from the protest on the satellite radio. It seems like a pretty self sufficient little community they have here with plenty of food, some doctors on premises etc. They use McDonalds for bathroom breaks, ironically . Seems it has been pretty calm. With a few assholes provoking the cops and a few cops not exercising patience. Other than that, seems pretty neat
Oh man, don't quote that guy, you bring down the intelligence level of the whole debate.. You realize he is the same one that thinks there are lizard aliens as part of the global conspiracy?
Do you think everyone that lives in NYC waited till they were fully educated and formed at age 20 and THEN moved there? The most poor members of NYC were most certainly born and raised there. Not to mention more people in a physical space means more opportunities for jobs, just from the sheer service sector needed for such a huge mass.
It's no secret that the top 1% control more wealth than ever before. But the point could be made that there wouldn't be the top 1% if it wasn't for the government in the first place. You said it yourself, they pass legislation that puts wealth in their hands. Would there be a Haliburton or Blackwater without the Military Industrial Complex?
I don't see it as the top 1% corrupting the government, I see it as the government creating, and enabling the existence of, those top 1%.
How is it that so many different flavors of government have all coincidentally been corrupted by wealth at the same time? You're arguing the chicken and the egg, but the thing that is the most consistent across Nations destroying social systems and the working class is wealth entrenchment, which speaks far higher to wealth accumulation in the hands of the few being the problem (which is the classic problem with capital). The US was formed from day one to benefit the wealthy, this is just more of the same.
As for your examples, the reason Haliburton and Blackwater get those immense contracts is because they spend millions on lobbying to get them given as no-bid. In this case it's clearly the wealthy forming companies, and using chunks of their money to essentially bribe the US government to give them huge chunks of tax money for a dubious service.
Fun fact: You know the 14th amendment was used far far more often for the benefit of corporations (which cannot exist without explicit government protection) than it ever was for black americans? Corporate personhood actually came from the 14th.
Oh man, don't quote that guy, you bring down the intelligence level of the whole debate.. You realize he is the same one that thinks there are lizard aliens as part of the global conspiracy?
Nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 103,000 in September, and the unemployment rate held at 9.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The increase in employment partially reflected the return to payrolls of about 45,000 telecommunications workers who had been on strike in August...
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised from +85,000 to +127,000, and the change for August was revised from 0 to +57,000.
So (if your expectations are embarrassingly low), it sounds good but there's a downside. When factoring in the return of Verizon workers, its about unchanged from last month. So while their isn't a collapse of the workforce (yet), there's no reason to be optimistic either. At this rate, we will never return to reasonable employment levels.
Apparently there's more bad news. While unemployment ticked down 0.1 percent, U6 unemployment has risen from 16.2 to 16.5. Representative of people moving to accept part time (probably service based) jobs.
Not sure what the point of this is supposed to be short of some symbolic gesture of outrage. Results are destined to be ineffectual at best.
I think this really highlights the problem with the average voter... they don't understand what's going on and they don't care. People are entrenched in problem oriented thinking where the object is to simply point the finger at somebody else and complain, it's wallstreet, it's obama, it's republicans, it's socialist liberals, it's christian conservatives, and so it goes.
On some level it makes sense, we're not all economic planners. We elect these people to make intelligent choices on our behalf. The problem is that when you don't understand the issues it's hard to tell WHO is proposing a working solution and as a result you can't tell who the right candidate is to vote for.
Because of this March on Wallstreet with no clearly defined objective, you're going to end up with a slew of candidates coming out promising to rid wallstreets influence on politics, and their solutions are going to be just as vague and ill defined. When everybody is promising the same shit and nobody wants to be specific, and you won't specifically tell people what you want, how are you going to know the right choice to make? How do you even have a conversation about it when you've got two groups of people who don't want to nail down details and only want to talk in the abstract? I'm dying to know what the other people in this thread (and the people involved in the march) actually want. Specifically. Not vague bullshit like "I want wage equality! Don't touch social security/medicare! Arrest the bankers!" -- What do you want your politicians to do? I see a lot of tinfoil hats and very little educated discussion about solutions.
Because of this March on Wallstreet with no clearly defined objective, you're going to end up with a slew of candidates coming out promising to rid wallstreets influence on politics, and their solutions are going to be just as vague and ill defined. When everybody is promising the same shit and nobody wants to be specific, and you won't specifically tell people what you want, how are you going to know the right choice to make? How do you even have a conversation about it when you've got two groups of people who don't want to nail down details and only want to talk in the abstract? I'm dying to know what the other people in this thread (and the people involved in the march) actually want. Specifically. Not vague bullshit like "I want wage equality! Don't touch social security/medicare! Arrest the bankers!" -- What do you want your politicians to do? I see a lot of tinfoil hats and very little educated discussion about solutions.
You are correct in the first part of your prediction (candidates promising change in wall street that are vague at best) but not necessarily with the 2nd part. People are protesting for very concrete reasons, and if those reasons aren't addressed, there is a very likely possibility they won't be assuaged. Egyptians are back in Tahrir square because the military didn't do enough to reform what they were protesting in the first place.
Normally I would be with you in your predictions a candidate promising change could send these people home, and that might happen, but I'm not so sure anymore with how bad some things are for certain groups, with no relief in sight. Hunger and poverty for your family can be powerful motivators.
My point is not that they're protesting for no reason, it's that they don't know what they want. They're protesting because they're unhappy because shit sucks. The question is what are we going to do about it?
I want people to discuss what they *want* politicians to do, not just vent about how mad they are about what's going on. That way we can actually have an objective conversation about the benefits and drawbacks of policy decisions and what the best choice is.
Normally I would be with you in your predictions a candidate promising change could send these people home, and that might happen, but I'm not so sure anymore with how bad some things are for certain groups, with no relief in sight. Hunger and poverty for your family can be powerful motivators.
Biggest fear is that. People can easily be talked into change and I agree that hunger,poverty can be a bit motivator, a lot of people think short term here and not long term. If you can put a band aid over over an issue to fix it now it can fulfill their appetite for change.
Most people don't have any savings at all here *although I understand it can be hard to save given the wages some make*. It amazes me how many people have credit card debt and go beyond their means of living financially. it shows that as a country we talk about the future but rarely do anything to prepare for it. Look at the housing crisis, so many people who bought homes that they should have known they couldn't afford. they did not plan for the scenario if they lost their job they couldn't afford the live in that house.
People see a tv they want and instead of making a plan to save up over a period of time they use it as a credit purchase and instead of paying it off quick they just pay the minimum. I have friends who go and buy $2000 tvs and put it on a credit card. if they were to lose their job that would be a big hit to their budget.
Sorry, going back to politics, I see it everyday how people can be easily bought into an idea if it "fixes" a small issue right then and there. Hell it doesn't even have to fix, it just has to promise to fix. And if someone talks a good game, they've already won the people.
still plenty of time before elections and I'm sure things will get worse sadly. So if we have a nice cold and gloomy winter to piggy back on a hot as shit summer *40-ish nonstop days of 105+ degree weather here* people are going to hurt. All the people who can't afford the food and heat/energy they need are going to be bitter as hell come spring and we're going to have a very interesting and volatile election year.
I want people to discuss what they *want* politicians to do, not just vent about how mad they are about what's going on. That way we can actually have an objective conversation about the benefits and drawbacks of policy decisions and what the best choice is.
First of all, lets transfer more power to the states and have smaller govt. Major issues should be handled at a state level. Why? We're a united country, but by regions we have slightly different beliefs and views. So while a new yorker might have a certain set of beliefs, it could be the opposite of someone who lives in Oregon. Let the states try and please their citizens rather than force a country of diverse attitude and culture to following one way of life.
Biggest fear is that. People can easily be talked into change and I agree that hunger,poverty can be a bit motivator, a lot of people think short term here and not long term. If you can put a band aid over over an issue to fix it now it can fulfill their appetite for change.
Most people don't have any savings at all here *although I understand it can be hard to save given the wages some make*. It amazes me how many people have credit card debt and go beyond their means of living financially. it shows that as a country we talk about the future but rarely do anything to prepare for it. Look at the housing crisis, so many people who bought homes that they should have known they couldn't afford. they did not plan for the scenario if they lost their job they couldn't afford the live in that house.
I hear you. I used to be ultra big on this personal accountability thing. I still am. I've been saving since I was 14. I put 37% down on my mortgage and I'm on track to pay it off in 3 years instead of 25. I bought my most recent two cars in cash, and my first vehicle I paid the loan off early. I have never had credit card debt for longer than a month, and currently don't even have a CC. I understand and value planning and saving and living within your means, and I would love to see more people (both here in Iceland where they also have a savings problem as well as in the US) save more and use credit less.
I also understand that since real wages have stagnated since the 70s, while being assaulted from birth to buy buy buy, your worth is wrapped up in the goods you own, look at these beautiful people who have everything, you should be like them, and by the way here is a credit card and a 100% loan and a 100% mortgage, and you get the problem we have now.
Even if you could magic every individual into having saved perfectly without going into debt, the current financial problem has it's roots much more in the corporations and ultra wealthy creating immense unregulated (or poorly regulated) financial wildernesses that they have shit up.
It's like obesity. You can look at individuals and say, "stop eating, move more" which is true in plenty of cases, but clearly that hasn't worked, and if the goal is to get the population fitter, letting this free market guilt induced "everyone should be 100% personally accountable" has failed, people are getting fatter, going more and more into debt, and saving less. There needs to be a systematic approach to fixing these, because without one, we're going to get more of the same.
The US was formed from day one to benefit the wealthy, this is just more of the same.
Sorry poop, that's just not true. The United States was formed to fight the existence of a central bank ruling over the people with debt and lending. It was the one of the prime reasons that we revolted against England. Thomas Jefferson has been quoted a great deal speaking specifically against this type of tyranny. There were always US politicians in the Rothschilds' pocket (e.g. Hamilton), but they didn't really take over the government until they created the Federal Reserve. Now all our taxes go to them to pay off the debt the US is constantly generating. That's what our income taxes were created for, to pay the debt machine created by the Rothschilds and their rich corporate friends.
What's worse, is that these "money changers", as they're called, have created every war ever since the war between France and England. Why? Because war is expensive and profitable for those loaning the money and selling the armaments. What's more, is the loans are guaranteed because they're paid for by the people through taxes.
Face it, America needs to drop a proverbial nuke on the Federal Reserve and the Rothschild cartels to get rid of this mess. America needs to make it a treason level felony to give money to candidates and politicians. No member of congress, Supreme Court, or the president/governor should be allowed to hold stock or other assets in any company while in office. It should also be disallowed to be employed by a corporation or a corporate owned company for no less than five years. Why? It's because they buy congress with campaign contributions, gifts, investment advantages, and cushy jobs after they leave office so that they will serve their interest and not ours.
First of all, lets transfer more power to the states and have smaller govt. Major issues should be handled at a state level. Why? We're a united country, but by regions we have slightly different beliefs and views. So while a new yorker might have a certain set of beliefs, it could be the opposite of someone who lives in Oregon. Let the states try and please their citizens rather than force a country of diverse attitude and culture to following one way of life.
lol
I'll let my man, Chomsky, handle this:
...The philosophical issue is that the Democrats believe in big government and entitlements, and the Republicans believe in getting power down closer to the people, to the States, because they're kind of populist types.
Well, it takes about maybe three seconds' thought to realize that moving power down to the States, in funding and so on, is just moving it away from the people, for a perfectly elementary reason: there's a hidden part of the system -- of the power system that you're not supposed to know about, or think about, and that's private power.
Now, it takes a big corporation, like say, General Electric or Microsoft to sort of pressure the Federal government, but even middle-sized guys have no problems with State governments, they can control them quite easily. And in case anyone was too dull to figure this out by themselves, the same day as Cogan's op-ed in the New York Times, which is a typical one, there was a story in the Wall Street Journal about Massachusetts, which had a headline that read: What Fidelity Investment Wants It Usually Gets. And then the story went on to say that Fidelity Investment, the biggest investment firm in Massachusetts, wanted even more subsidy and support from the State government than it already gets, and it was threatening if it didn't it would move over the border to Rhode Island, where it just owns the place. So therefore, the passionately libertarian Governor quickly rearranged, you know, tax subsidies, and one thing or another, so that Fidelity got what it wanted.
Well Fidelity couldn't have done that with the Federal government. It couldn't have said, you know, "you give us even more or we're going to move to Switzerland" or something. I mean, other guys can do it maybe, but not Fidelity.
Raytheon, which is the biggest manufacturing producer, did the same thing. Raytheon -- incidentally Fidelity is not -- it's not that Fidelity is poor, they just announced record profits a couple days ago. Same with Raytheon -- just announced record profits, but you know, having big problems, so they wanted even a bigger tax subsidy, and -- direct subsidy, and tax write-offs, which just means transfer of taxes to -- from the State of Massachusetts, and they threatened that if they didn't get them they were going to go to Tennessee, so of course they got them. The legislature passed a special law giving what they called defense industry special extra subsidies.
Notice that Raytheon is publicly subsidized in the first place. That's where its money comes from. But now it has to be additionally subsidized so that its profits will be even higher than the record profits it just made. Same with Fidelity. And that's the kind of game anybody can -- you know, even -- even way down to much smaller businesses can play with the States.
The consequences of devolution are quite straightforward. It means that any funding that goes to, say, block grants that go to the States, you can be reasonably confident that they'll end up in the deep pockets of rich people, not, you know, in the hands of hungry children, or poor mothers, or anything like that. That's how you get power down to the people. Ok. That's devolution.
In fact quite generally, when you look at it, what's called "government cutting" is more or less cost transfer. It's almost never reduction, sometimes it's increase.
ya, i'm paranoid about spending money. We use a credit card mainly because of the % of cash we get back based on how much we use it. But we pay the card off each month and make sure we always have enough in savings to pay it off in an emergency. I never buy an appliance/electronic unless I have the cash first. We don't make a ton of money, but with a little over 100k combined in school debt, we have a snowball plan to pay it off by 2015. We pick and choose with things we pay off first and what have the most volatile charges. Cars are paid off and no plans to buy a new one since they work just fine.
Before we bought our house we made sure we did the numbers that if my wife or I lost either of our jobs. We're even planning to have my wife stay home while we have kids and make sure we can afford it. What takes a few minutes each day can really help people plan for the future. People are afraid of numbers and combined with money woes, they just shun it and leave it to pile up into a shit pile of depression and lifetime of pain.
Agree though its more than just saving, but we'd be in better shape as a country if people would just pull back a bit and think before they go out and spend. Sorry to talk outside the occupy topic, but what all of this relates is how to HELP the situation.
Educate people on this. When I was in school.. high school.. college we were never taught how to properly plan for the future. They never taught you the true purpose of credit cards, of a credit score, of loans.. debt. No one in college was ever told how they should plan to pay off loans, where best to get the loans etc... as dumb as it sounds, I' a white male thats almost 30 so I have a lot of privileges compared to other races/sex that i technically shouldn't have. So add in that factor and some people are born with a huge disadvantage.
Point here.. school system could do a lot more. What we're taught is controlled by the rich and powerful. My entire life I was taught that communism was pretty much the devil and if I spoke it I'd have my dick cut off and sent to mexico basically. For the longest time I never knew what communism actually was and why it was a threat to capitalism. We're born to believe a certain way of life and driven to enjoy that life.
When I get mad at people for getting theirselves into a lifetime of debt, I have to pullback and partially give them credit that they may not have been educated fully on what they were doing.
First of all, lets transfer more power to the states and have smaller govt. Major issues should be handled at a state level. Why? We're a united country, but by regions we have slightly different beliefs and views. So while a new yorker might have a certain set of beliefs, it could be the opposite of someone who lives in Oregon. Let the states try and please their citizens rather than force a country of diverse attitude and culture to following one way of life.
What major issues are you talking about? You can't really design economic policy at a state level, at the moment that's actually in large part what we try and do and as a result states are competing with each other to promote business, it's become a contest to see which state can offer the biggest incentives, the lowest tax rates, and least regulation to corporations.
The results have been absolutely disastrous because in an every-man-for-himself environment people have basically no leverage over corporations because we're desperate to get them to choose us. Not only that but it doesn't even work because no matter how much states undercut eachother they're never going to be as attractive as exploiting labor in countries with lower standards of living and weaker currencies.
What major issues are you talking about? You can't really design economic policy at a state level
Yeah right dude, tell that to the colonist, that started this nation... it's easier at state level, it facilitates local growth! let the people manage their own money!
off the top of my head.. immigration, legalizing pot, marriage? Not saying its a great idea, but its a start to see what others think. A downside of it that it would break states into more individual entities and create a less united country.
Damn, Chomsky owns every single time. I got to see him in person recently on his visit to Iceland. The world is going to be a poorer place upon his passing. From his latest article (just an excerpt) this chunk is highly relevant to this discussion, but the full thing is great too. http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20110824.htm
The eminent American philosopher John Dewey once described politics as "the shadow cast on society by big business," warning that "attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance." Since the 1970s, the shadow has become a dark cloud enveloping society and the political system. Corporate power, by now largely financial capital, has reached the point that both political organizations, which now barely resemble traditional parties, are far to the right of the population on the major issues under debate.
For the public, the primary domestic concern, rightly, is the severe crisis of unemployment. Under current circumstances, that critical problem can be overcome only by a significant government stimulus, well beyond the recent one, which barely matched decline in state and local spending, though even that limited initiative did probably save millions of jobs. For financial institutions the primary concern is the deficit. Therefore, only the deficit is under discussion. A large majority of the population favor addressing the deficit by taxing the very rich (72% for, 21% opposed). Cutting health programs is opposed by overwhelming majorities (69% Medicaid, 79% Medicare). The likely outcome is therefore the opposite.
Reporting the results of a study of how the public would eliminate the deficit, its director, Steven Kull, writes that "clearly both the administration and the Republican-led House are out of step with the public's values and priorities in regard to the budget The biggest difference in spending is that the public favored deep cuts in defense spending, while the administration and the House propose modest increases The public also favored more spending on job training, education, and pollution control than did either the administration or the House."
The costs of the Bush-Obama wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now estimated to run as high as $4.4 trillion -- a major victory for Osama bin Laden, whose announced goal was to bankrupt America by drawing it into a trap. The 2011 military budget -- almost matching that of the rest of the world combined -- is higher in real terms than at any time since World War II and is slated to go even higher . The deficit crisis is largely manufactured as a weapon to destroy hated social programs on which a large part of the population relies. Economics correspondent Martin Wolf of the London Financial Times writes that "it is not that tackling the US fiscal position is urgent . The US is able to borrow on easy terms, with yields on 10-year bonds close to 3 percent, as the few non-hysterics predicted. The fiscal challenge is long term, not immediate." Very significantly, he adds: "The astonishing feature of the federal fiscal position is that revenues are forecast to be a mere 14.4 percent of GDP in 2011, far below their postwar average of close to 18 percent. Individual income tax is forecast to be a mere 6.3 percent of GDP in 2011. This non-American cannot understand what the fuss is about: in 1988, at the end of Ronald Reagan's term, receipts were 18.2 percent of GDP. Tax revenue has to rise substantially if the deficit is to close." Astonishing indeed, but it is the demand of the financial institutions and the super-rich, and in a rapidly declining democracy, that's what counts.
Though the deficit crisis is manufactured for reasons of savage class war, the long-term debt crisis is serious, and has been ever since Ronald Reagan's fiscal irresponsibility turned the US from the world's leading creditor to the world's leading debtor, tripling national debt and raising threats to the economy that were rapidly escalated by George W. Bush. But for now, it is the crisis of unemployment that is the gravest concern.
The final 'compromise' on the crisis -- more accurately, a capitulation to the far right -- is the opposite of what the public wants throughout, and is almost certain to lead to slower growth and long-term harm to all but the rich and corporations, which are enjoying record profits. Few serious economists would disagree with Harvard economist Lawrence Summers that "America's current problem is much more a jobs and growth deficit than an excessive budget deficit," and that the deal reached in Washington in August, though preferable to a highly unlikely default, is likely to cause further harm to a deteriorating economy.
Not even discussed is the fact that the deficit would be eliminated if the dysfunctional privatized health care system in the US were replaced by one similar to other industrial societies, which have half the per person costs and at least comparable health outcomes. The financial institutions and pharmaceutical industry are far too powerful for such options even to be considered, though the thought seems hardly Utopian. Off the agenda for similar reasons are other economically sensible options, such as a small financial transactions tax.
Meanwhile, new gifts are regularly lavished on Wall Street. The House Appropriations Committee cut the budget request for the Securities and Exchange Commission, the prime barrier against financial fraud. The Consumer Protection Agency is unlikely to survive intact. And Congress wields other weapons in its battle against future generations. In the face of Republican opposition to environmental protection, "A major American utility is shelving the nation's most prominent effort to capture carbon dioxide from an existing coal-burning power plant, dealing a severe blow to efforts to rein in emissions responsible for global warming," the New York Times reports.
The self-inflicted blows, while increasingly powerful, are not a recent innovation. They trace back to the 1970s, when the national political economy underwent major transformations, bringing to an end what is commonly called "the Golden Age" of (state) capitalism. Two major elements were financialization and offshoring of production, both related to the decline in rate of profit in manufacturing, and the dismantling of the post-war Bretton Woods system of capital controls and regulated currencies. The ideological triumph of "free market doctrines," highly selective as always, administered further blows, as they were translated into deregulation, rules of corporate governance linking huge CEO rewards to short-term profit, and other such policy decisions. The resulting concentration of wealth yielded greater political power, accelerating a vicious cycle that has led to extraordinary wealth for a tenth of one percent of the population, mainly CEOs of major corporations, hedge fund managers, and the like, while for the large majority real incomes have virtually stagnated.
In parallel, the cost of elections skyrocketed, driving both parties even deeper into corporate pockets. What remains of political democracy has been undermined further as both parties have turned to auctioning congressional leadership positions. Political economist Thomas Ferguson observes that "uniquely among legislatures in the developed world, U.S. congressional parties now post prices for key slots in the lawmaking process." The legislators who fund the party get the posts, virtually compelling them to become servants of private capital even beyond the norm. The result, Ferguson continues, is that debates "rely heavily on the endless repetition of a handful of slogans that have been battle tested for their appeal to national investor blocs and interest groups that the leadership relies on for resources."
You can't really design economic policy at a state level, at the moment that's actually in large part what we try and do and as a result states are competing with each other to promote business, it's become a contest to see which state can offer the biggest incentives, the lowest tax rates, and least regulation to corporations.
The results have been absolutely disastrous because in an every-man-for-himself environment people have basically no leverage over corporations because we're desperate to get them to choose us. Not only that but it doesn't even work because no matter how much states undercut eachother they're never going to be as attractive as exploiting labor in countries with lower standards of living and weaker currencies.
How is it that so many different flavors of government have all coincidentally been corrupted by wealth at the same time? You're arguing the chicken and the egg, but the thing that is the most consistent across Nations destroying social systems and the working class is wealth entrenchment, which speaks far higher to wealth accumulation in the hands of the few being the problem (which is the classic problem with capital). The US was formed from day one to benefit the wealthy, this is just more of the same.
As for your examples, the reason Haliburton and Blackwater get those immense contracts is because they spend millions on lobbying to get them given as no-bid. In this case it's clearly the wealthy forming companies, and using chunks of their money to essentially bribe the US government to give them huge chunks of tax money for a dubious service.
Fun fact: You know the 14th amendment was used far far more often for the benefit of corporations (which cannot exist without explicit government protection) than it ever was for black americans? Corporate personhood actually came from the 14th.
Not arguing here, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around your argument. Cause I actually agree with you on everything, except it seems that we reach a different conclusion at the very end. I think what you're saying is spot on for the most part.
You say that Haliburton and Blackwater get those contracts because they essentially bribe and abuse the government. No argument there. That's my point all along. So then how are you assuming that it's the wealthy that corrupt the government, when, by both of ours' logic, it's the government that created those wealthy people?
Seems pretty clear to me, without a military industrial complex, one that's fully funded by tax-dollars, the Haliburtons of the world wouldn't get contracts because there would be no contracts to give. It's not like average people, you and I for instance, would go around and buy tanks and helicopters, then go invade Iraq on the weekend. It takes a government with the power to declare war, and the power to tax to fund that war, for the Haliburtons out there to even have business.
You're also spot on about the 14th amendment, and I think we can both agree that corporate personhood is complete bullshit. I would even take it as far as saying that the existence of corporations is bullshit, since, as you noted, they cannot exist without explicit government protection.
So we have a government that runs a military, taxes in order to fund that military, created corporations, gave them personhood and protections not available to regular people. Wouldn't we be wise to get rid of it?
What major issues are you talking about? You can't really design economic policy at a state level, at the moment that's actually in large part what we try and do and as a result states are competing with each other to promote business, it's become a contest to see which state can offer the biggest incentives, the lowest tax rates, and least regulation to corporations.
The results have been absolutely disastrous because in an every-man-for-himself environment people have basically no leverage over corporations because we're desperate to get them to choose us. Not only that but it doesn't even work because no matter how much states undercut eachother they're never going to be as attractive as exploiting labor in countries with lower standards of living and weaker currencies.
Yeah, the states need to find a way to create incentives for competition (i.e. more businesses) rather than consolidation and avoid the monopolies that damage the state, employment, and the local economy.
Well sure (get rid of it), but if you just replace the current government without also fixing the disproportionate wealth, whatever you replace it with will be corrupted in 10 seconds.
At this point, capital has far more power than the US government, so it doesn't really matter if the money created the corrupt government, or the government created the corrupt money, because we have a fully corrupt system on both sides, and it needs to be addressed.
But what I'm saying, is that you have countries like Denmark and Canada and Iceland and Spain and Ireland who don't have the exact type of government the US has, and they are facing the same problem of the wealthy corrupting their democracy. So either all of these governments became corrupt through totally different methods OR it's wealth entrenchment that is the problem, and as long as you are working within the framework of capitalism, that's what you get, capital seeks to entrench itself, no matter the system or regulations, it will burst through them. This is a fundamental tenet of Marx's criticism of capitalism. It is simply astounding how you can listen to the Communist Manifesto (and contrary to what you might think, it isn't a rule-book of how to implement communism, it's much more a critique of capitalism) and how absolutely perfect it applies to the current system, despite the fact he's long dead and was writing about a totally different set of circumstances.
It's incredible to see the common ground and the healthy debates this thing has spawned (not just here, but everywhere outside a major news outlet). I've never seen so many republicans and democrats agree on things in one day. This thing is moving in the right direction, me thinks.
(quote)
"Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to address it? No, not yet. But neither are Congress or the president who, in thrall to corporate America and Wall Street, respectively, have consistently failed to engage in anything resembling a conversation as cogent as the many I witnessed as I strolled by Occupy Wall Street's many teach-ins this morning. There were young people teaching one another about, among other things, how the economy works, about the disconnection of investment banking from the economy of goods and services, the history of centralized interest-bearing currency, the creation and growth of the derivatives industry, and about the Obama administration deciding to settle with, rather than investigate and prosecute the investment banking industry for housing fraud."
I'll totally agree with that. It's wealth entrenchment, and yeah, if you replaced the government then whatever you replaced it with will get corrupted on the spot. The only thing is that since I believe they became wealthy through the government, I don't see how trying to use the government to fix this will work. Obviously the super-wealthy have shown that they have incredible power. And I can't imagine that voting some savior into power will help us. Seems to me like we need a revolution of sorts.
And actually I read the Communist Manifesto, and I liked it a lot (and this is coming from a Libertarian mind you). I think Marx was spot on with his description of the problem of wealth entrenchment (as you put it). I much preferred Marx's writing before the Manifesto though. His theory of communism is essentially Anarchism. It's not until the Manifesto that the question arose of how to implement anarchist communism, and he came up with the solution of having a powerful government that will redistribute the wealth. Then once things settle down, you could take away power from that government until there's nothing left, and you're in a pure communist society.
What's interesting to me is his opposition in Russia (as he was German) when the time came to implement communism. Mikhail Bakunin made this awesome argument (this is right when they were establishing the Soviet Union):
The question arises, if the proletariat is ruling, over whom will it rule? ... If there exists a state, there is inevitably domination [and] slavery .... What does it mean for the proletariat to be "organized as the ruling class"? ... Can it really be that the entire proletariat will stand at the head of the administration? . . . There are about forty million Germans. Will all forty millions really be members of the government? ... The entire nation will be governors and there will be no governed ones .... Then there will be no government, no state, but if there is a state, there will be governors and slaves .... So, in sum: government of the great majority of popular masses by a privileged minority. But this minority will be composed of workers, say the Marxists .... Of former workers, perhaps, but just as soon as they become representatives or rulers of the people they will cease to be workers. And they'll start looking down on all ordinary workers from the heights of the state: they will now represent not the people but themselves and their claims to govern the people. He who doubts this simply doesn't know human nature .... They say that such a state yoke, a dictatorship, is a necessary transitional means for attaining the most complete popular liberation. So, to liberate the masses of the people they first have to be enslaved .... They maintain that only a dictatorship,
their own naturally, can create the people's will; we answer: no dictatorship can have any other aim than to perpetuate itself, and it can only give rise to and instill slavery in the people that tolerates it ...
Which also, if you want to nerd it up, is echoed in my favorite part of Lord of the Rings:
Alas, no, said Elrond. We cannot use the Ruling Ring. That we now know too well. It belongs to Sauron and was made by him alone, and is altogether evil. Its strength, Boromir, is too great for anyone to wield at will, save only those who have already a great power of their own. But for them it holds an even deadlier peril. The very desire of it corrupts the heart. Consider Saruman. If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor, using his own arts, he would then set himself on Saurons throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear. And that is another reason why the Ring should be destroyed: as long as it is in the world it will be a danger even to the Wise. For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so. I fear to take the Ring to hide it. I will not take the Ring to wield it.
Now they should occupy the media to get the word out about their cause.
The only thing that will help is if the 99% REALLY come together to speak out about what is going on, and the main thing hindering that is the mass media.
I'm only loosely following this movement from Australia but what gets me from all the footage I've seen so far is the sheer pettiness and irresponsible behaviour being spouted by those opposing it (especially from the media), it verges on "Let them eat cake" sort of elitism.
From someone who isn't that versed in American politics its astonishing to see and to be honest I'm surprised your country has prospered this long with such cancerous leadership. I mean hell our leaders over here are pretty shit but at least they are relatively civil.
I just saw this image and guessing the ideology behind it is a popular counter attack from those against the movement/protests.
For me, this image is nothing more than a shallow attempt to discredit, at best it's a cheap gag.
Implying hypocrisy because these people consume in a world were you can't avoid it without becoming a voiceless social outcast is ludicrous.
If instead they were tent living, tree hugger's protesting in a field then I'd guess the same people who made this image would attempt to disregard their views as that of fringe dwelling left wing nut jobs.
I feel the basic point the protesters are trying to get across is the majority of normal hard-working citizens want leaders to 'fix the system', not 'destroy the system'.
They aren't asking for the complete removal of society, just that those with the power should exercise some real leadership instead of sweeping it all under the carpet for a few while the majority pay the price for greed.
And to counter another popular argument levelled against the protesters....no those protesting don't need to offer their own suggestions at how to fix things.
That's what the law makers, politicians and leaders of industry put there hands up to do on the peoples behalf.
They have every right as citizens of a free democratic country to judge their leaders as failing and to expect better.
For me, this image is nothing more than a shallow attempt to discredit, at best it's a cheap gag.
It also ignores the fact that none of these corporations with the tag "by X" created these things whole cloth. Every electronic good owes it's existence to subsidized state research. Gap sure as fuck didn't invent the loom. These corporations are responsible for one thing, and that is comodifying and packaging existing technologies into products. Even the companies that might have invented their product (say Bic with ball-point pens) the person who did the actual inventing didn't get paid well and is already dead. These corporations are a bunch of nepotistic non-inventing rich fucks who couldn't invent a way out of a wet paper bag.
Not to mention that our tax payer dollars are what allow all of those corporations to function, drive their goods to market on roads we paid for, using a currency our tax dollars stabilize, in stores that tax dollars police to keep from being robbed, etc etc.
The image implies some kind of hypocrisy that is only "evident" if you have the comprehension of a 5 year old.
Evil implies intention to do harm. What corporations do is make choices based on cost and risk even if the choice they make would be considered "evil". For example, a choice is presented to do something the legal way or the illegal way. The illegal way is cheaper, but it causes harm. The corporation chooses the illegal way because it's just cheaper. Every choice they make is nothing but a business decision. As a person, they would fit the psychological profile of a sociopath.
I just read up a bit on this. My mind is blown.... that's a brilliant system!
If you liked reading about that stuff, I recommend you look into all the Anarcho-X varieties. There are quite a few, and they're all very interesting.
In my imagined perfect world, we would have societies all over the world of the different Anarcho varieties, so people could live under whichever one of those systems seems most appropriate to them.
Not ALL corporations are evil, the vast majority do not make illegal choices, it's not worth the risk for most. But some choices they make are just plain socially/morally wrong. But don't generalize all of them as evil.
Even Haliburton was once started by "one" guy and his wife, with good innovative ideas. I'm sure he wasn't evil or had bad intentions, for Christ's sake all he did was pour cement for oil wells. The reason many of these huge corporations get government contracts is because they are the only ones with the shovel ready man-power and equipment. But a good bribe doesn't hurt either if there is a competitor, but they devoured (took over) the competition so they are the only game in town. Microsoft anyone?
I thought after Enron, Martha Stewart and those other idiots we made some progress on this shit, but apparently the only way to fix this is to create more fkn bureaucracy to oversee the fkn bean counters and CFO's/CEO's of the world. Money and power corrupt, it must be policed, the problem is I don't trust the government to do the policing. I swear I would feel better if they picked random fkn morons off the street to do it.
I must say I don't fully understand this protest though, there is no coherent voice. You got communists, socialists, anarchists, abortion rights groups, unions, people pissed at the bailouts and banks in general. I heard people screaming about the jews in charge...blah blah...I saw a pic of some dude taking a shit on a police car, I don't wanna hang with that shit.
Sorry (no-disrespect) but, the Anarcho-X, stuff you guys are talking about is the worst idea ever IMO. Here's why: We can't trust anybody when we have laws and government constraining them, what makes you think we can trust people to do the right thing when there are no constraints? What you will have is no innovation, mediocrity, slavery, a thriving black market, local War-Lords or crime bosses, and never ending violence.
"to each according to his or her need". -- you know what that means?
It means: On your way home from the widget factory, returning to your lovely 2 room apartment, and before you walk a mile to the train station, get in the cheese line because they got Munster this week and won't have more of it for 2 months. Oh and pickup the one newspaper that is printed, not to read it, but so we can wipe our ass with it because we've been out of toilet paper for 3 weeks. Do you remember the USSR? For God's sake 10% of ALL Cubans live in America having escaped communism! The shit don't work. For any variety of Anarcho-X (or please everyone Utopia) to work, the herd would need culling on an apocalyptic scale. Peace!
Sorry (no-disrespect) but, the Anarcho-X, stuff you guys are talking about is the worst idea ever IMO. Here's why: We can't trust anybody when we have laws and government constraining them, what makes you think we can trust people to do the right thing when there are no constraints?
Funny, cause you just used the counter-argument on your own.
Trust people to do the right thing? That's exactly what you're doing when you have a government. Who else would run the government then? Robots? Angels? Robot-Angels?
People run the government. People who you trust to do the right thing, while they wield tremendous amount of power. All I'm saying is take that power away.
LOL
That's even funnier, because you ALSO just used the counter-argument on your own! That's exactly what you're doing when you have NO government or a powerless government.
I lend my power to another man with my vote, but I can take it away from him as well. But if you remove that power from me than I am nothing but a potential victim to an un-like minded mob. The person entrusted with the power of the people has to take that responsibility more serious than their own lives. I believe they are sworn into office, an oath is taken. Words are said but apparently not meant by many of them.
There has got to be accountability, right now they get away with anything, but to diminish the power of the government is tricky, by how much? Too much government is harmful, wasteful, and easily corrupted, but too little can be utter chaos.
So Constitutional Angelic Robots are the only answer as long as Asimov's Laws are inherent to the core...and I'm the coder. hehe
Well no, the point I was making is that either way you twist it, BOTH of our arguments are about trusting people to do the right thing. You were saying that we would have to trust people in the absence of government, which would mean that we don't have to fall back on that if there's a government there. I'm merely trying to show that government or no government, we have to trust people.
The question I'm raising to you though, is trust them with what?
If there is no government, then it's trusting them with basic decisions that everyone makes. What to do with your time, money, expertise, how to treat your fellow man, etc.
If there is a government, then it's all of the above, but in addition the power of dominion over other people.
So what makes you think that we can trust people with the power of dominion over others? You're right in that you can vote someone out of office, but wouldn't it be easier if there was never the risk of having to do that? And even if you did, then who will you replace him with? Another snake-oil salesman? You would need a pretty steady supply of those Angelic Robots if you want to run a government in the long run. And last I checked, we're running low on those.
You seem to be afraid of being the victim of an un-like minded mob, but don't seem to bothered when that mob was first voted for.
It means: On your way home from the widget factory, returning to your lovely 2 room apartment, and before you walk a mile to the train station, get in the cheese line because they got Munster this week and won't have more of it for 2 months. Oh and pickup the one newspaper that is printed, not to read it, but so we can wipe our ass with it because we've been out of toilet paper for 3 weeks. Do you remember the USSR? For God's sake 10% of ALL Cubans live in America having escaped communism! The shit don't work. For any variety of Anarcho-X (or please everyone Utopia) to work, the herd would need culling on an apocalyptic scale. Peace!
This is the most disjointed paragraph ever. You are conflating anarchism with poorly implemented communism. (funny how failed communist states are evidence communism can never work, but failed capitalist states are just crazy coincidences that don't indict capitalism as a failed system).
And don't bring up Cuba, because your ignorance is showing. Cuba has lower infant mortality, and higher average life spans than in the US, despite using equipment from the 80s due to the embargo, and the reason there are so many Cubans in the US is because the US bribes them in a concerted effort to brain-drain Cuba of it's trained professionals. Cuba is THE ONLY nation on earth where if you show up in the US you get a free instant visa, 100% loans, free English lessons, entry to school, etc. They want doctors and other trained professionals (who got all their training state subsidized in Cuba) to flee the nation so Cuba cannot function. That's already outside the unjust embargo in place for decades by a huge global super power right near by, hurting their ability to function. Despite all that, they still beat the US in matters of importance, health, even if not many of them have a smart phone.
Yeah right dude, tell that to the colonist, that started this nation... it's easier at state level, it facilitates local growth! let the people manage their own money!
Can't tell if you're trolling but I'll respond anyway because a lot of people actually think like this... Consolidating power into the states doesn't promote local growth at all and if you think it does I'd love to hear you theory on how. As I said that's already mostly what we do already, if that's so great why doesn't it still work?
At the moment in the United States there is a huge disparity in unemployment between educated workers and uneducated ones. Low skilled workers have WAY higher unemployment than everyone else, they're also much more likely to be unemployed for far longer. Why's that? Because low skill jobs have been leaving the U.S. for decades.
The reality of this is that one of the largest factors in local economic growth (ESPECIALLY low skilled labor jobs) is wage (goes hand in hand with cost of living) and the value of your currency. Having a weak currency and low cost of living means it's cheaper for businesses in other countries to simply manufacture their cheap crap in yours, it also means importing goods is much less practical because your people have significantly less purchasing power as their money is worth less, as a result they will buy more locally. This is why people were suggesting that Greece's best option to dealing with their debt crisis was to simply drop out of the euro and devalue their currency to attract more business and grow their economy out of the toilet while making their debt easier to pay off.
Greece is a particularly important example in this situation because if we were to consolidate economic planning and power to the states without a unified political authority, while all using the same currency, do you know what we would have? The Euro...
The euro was basically modeled after the United States except since they do not have states, they have seperate countries, it was formed around council decision-making, not that of central political leadership like the United States under the federal government. Since they can't really affect the taxation/spending of other countries, they're beginning to see the weakness of this system as countries with horrible spending policies like Greece screw over everybody else. Now there's serious pressure on Greece to implement severe austerity measures as no other country in the Euro wants to shoulder their debt with their current spending habits...
You need everyone who is in the same currency to be united or the whole thing eventually falls apart. People knew this when they made the euro and it was one of their primary concerns, however it was politically impossible to elect a central authority at the time. After the euro crisis is over I think you'll see it reformed with more political unity.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things that states do much more effectively and efficiently that the federal government, economic policy is not one of them.
Well no, the point I was making is that either way you twist it, BOTH of our arguments are about trusting people to do the right thing. You were saying that we would have to trust people in the absence of government, which would mean that we don't have to fall back on that if there's a government there. I'm merely trying to show that government or no government, we have to trust people.
The question I'm raising to you though, is trust them with what?
If there is no government, then it's trusting them with basic decisions that everyone makes. What to do with your time, money, expertise, how to treat your fellow man, etc.
If there is a government, then it's all of the above, but in addition the power of dominion over other people.
So what makes you think that we can trust people with the power of dominion over others? You're right in that you can vote someone out of office, but wouldn't it be easier if there was never the risk of having to do that? And even if you did, then who will you replace him with? Another snake-oil salesman? You would need a pretty steady supply of those Angelic Robots if you want to run a government in the long run. And last I checked, we're running low on those.
You seem to be afraid of being the victim of an un-like minded mob, but don't seem to bothered when that mob was first voted for.
I think the ultimate solution would be to take power, and thus the potential for corruption, out of the equation. Get rid of representatives in congress and replace them with "proxies" whom are voted by their district, from their district and they only have a single one-year term. Their job is solely to execute the will of the people. Practice real democratic government (everybody votes. The internet makes it possible now) and whatever the people vote, the proxy is bound to abide by and thus votes as such in congress. Voting options would be "Yes", "No", and "Revise". The third option requiring a reason for revision. If voted to revise, the bill would be returned to the submitter and provided all comments for revision. To avoid corrupting the ballot, all voting will be publicly available, marked with a generated ID. Every bill that is submitted to the people should be no more than 3-4 pages in length and in plain terms. Anything more and it will overburden the people's ability evaluate each proposed bill, thus it should be automatically rejected until revised.
Those are just a few ideas. They're probably flawed and imperfect, but I'm a flawed and imperfect being trying to do what's best for everyone, which is what the government should be doing.
Replies
That's the problem though. Why are you dispersing the crowds? Cops are supposed to be on the people's side. Protect and serve and all that. They do seem to protect and serve, only it's not the people, it's politicians and rich folks. If this is a free country, then people should be able to air their grievances. As a cop, you should be encouraging that. This whole notion that just existing in the street is a crime that the cops need to control, to "disperse the crowd" is ridiculous.
And what's worse is that those cops don't even know or wonder why they're doing what they're doing. Like you said, they were ordered to join up with "their" mates. Their mates though should be those people protesting. And yet, it's Group-A vs. Group-B. In Group-A you have the people, in Group-B it's the establishment, corporations, and rich folks.
Most cops just join Group-B because it's the most comfortable. Then from that point on they "just follow orders". But I don't see why that excuse of "I was just following orders" should ever work for anyone.
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Let's just face the fact that many cops become cops because they like to assert dominance over others. We all knew kids in school like that. Sure, many are decent hard-working citizens, but not all of them. Not even most...
:thumbup: agreed, cops are just doing there job.
[ame="
[ame="
Oh man, don't quote that guy, you bring down the intelligence level of the whole debate.. You realize he is the same one that thinks there are lizard aliens as part of the global conspiracy?
...I'll be honest that seems silly to me.
Do you think everyone that lives in NYC waited till they were fully educated and formed at age 20 and THEN moved there? The most poor members of NYC were most certainly born and raised there. Not to mention more people in a physical space means more opportunities for jobs, just from the sheer service sector needed for such a huge mass.
How is it that so many different flavors of government have all coincidentally been corrupted by wealth at the same time? You're arguing the chicken and the egg, but the thing that is the most consistent across Nations destroying social systems and the working class is wealth entrenchment, which speaks far higher to wealth accumulation in the hands of the few being the problem (which is the classic problem with capital). The US was formed from day one to benefit the wealthy, this is just more of the same.
As for your examples, the reason Haliburton and Blackwater get those immense contracts is because they spend millions on lobbying to get them given as no-bid. In this case it's clearly the wealthy forming companies, and using chunks of their money to essentially bribe the US government to give them huge chunks of tax money for a dubious service.
Fun fact: You know the 14th amendment was used far far more often for the benefit of corporations (which cannot exist without explicit government protection) than it ever was for black americans? Corporate personhood actually came from the 14th.
ok forget it then....
Nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 103,000 in September, and the unemployment rate held at 9.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The increase in employment partially reflected the return to payrolls of about 45,000 telecommunications workers who had been on strike in August...
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised from +85,000 to +127,000, and the change for August was revised from 0 to +57,000.
So (if your expectations are embarrassingly low), it sounds good but there's a downside. When factoring in the return of Verizon workers, its about unchanged from last month. So while their isn't a collapse of the workforce (yet), there's no reason to be optimistic either. At this rate, we will never return to reasonable employment levels.
Apparently there's more bad news. While unemployment ticked down 0.1 percent, U6 unemployment has risen from 16.2 to 16.5. Representative of people moving to accept part time (probably service based) jobs.
I think this really highlights the problem with the average voter... they don't understand what's going on and they don't care. People are entrenched in problem oriented thinking where the object is to simply point the finger at somebody else and complain, it's wallstreet, it's obama, it's republicans, it's socialist liberals, it's christian conservatives, and so it goes.
On some level it makes sense, we're not all economic planners. We elect these people to make intelligent choices on our behalf. The problem is that when you don't understand the issues it's hard to tell WHO is proposing a working solution and as a result you can't tell who the right candidate is to vote for.
Because of this March on Wallstreet with no clearly defined objective, you're going to end up with a slew of candidates coming out promising to rid wallstreets influence on politics, and their solutions are going to be just as vague and ill defined. When everybody is promising the same shit and nobody wants to be specific, and you won't specifically tell people what you want, how are you going to know the right choice to make? How do you even have a conversation about it when you've got two groups of people who don't want to nail down details and only want to talk in the abstract? I'm dying to know what the other people in this thread (and the people involved in the march) actually want. Specifically. Not vague bullshit like "I want wage equality! Don't touch social security/medicare! Arrest the bankers!" -- What do you want your politicians to do? I see a lot of tinfoil hats and very little educated discussion about solutions.
You are correct in the first part of your prediction (candidates promising change in wall street that are vague at best) but not necessarily with the 2nd part. People are protesting for very concrete reasons, and if those reasons aren't addressed, there is a very likely possibility they won't be assuaged. Egyptians are back in Tahrir square because the military didn't do enough to reform what they were protesting in the first place.
Normally I would be with you in your predictions a candidate promising change could send these people home, and that might happen, but I'm not so sure anymore with how bad some things are for certain groups, with no relief in sight. Hunger and poverty for your family can be powerful motivators.
I want people to discuss what they *want* politicians to do, not just vent about how mad they are about what's going on. That way we can actually have an objective conversation about the benefits and drawbacks of policy decisions and what the best choice is.
Biggest fear is that. People can easily be talked into change and I agree that hunger,poverty can be a bit motivator, a lot of people think short term here and not long term. If you can put a band aid over over an issue to fix it now it can fulfill their appetite for change.
Most people don't have any savings at all here *although I understand it can be hard to save given the wages some make*. It amazes me how many people have credit card debt and go beyond their means of living financially. it shows that as a country we talk about the future but rarely do anything to prepare for it. Look at the housing crisis, so many people who bought homes that they should have known they couldn't afford. they did not plan for the scenario if they lost their job they couldn't afford the live in that house.
People see a tv they want and instead of making a plan to save up over a period of time they use it as a credit purchase and instead of paying it off quick they just pay the minimum. I have friends who go and buy $2000 tvs and put it on a credit card. if they were to lose their job that would be a big hit to their budget.
Sorry, going back to politics, I see it everyday how people can be easily bought into an idea if it "fixes" a small issue right then and there. Hell it doesn't even have to fix, it just has to promise to fix. And if someone talks a good game, they've already won the people.
still plenty of time before elections and I'm sure things will get worse sadly. So if we have a nice cold and gloomy winter to piggy back on a hot as shit summer *40-ish nonstop days of 105+ degree weather here* people are going to hurt. All the people who can't afford the food and heat/energy they need are going to be bitter as hell come spring and we're going to have a very interesting and volatile election year.
First of all, lets transfer more power to the states and have smaller govt. Major issues should be handled at a state level. Why? We're a united country, but by regions we have slightly different beliefs and views. So while a new yorker might have a certain set of beliefs, it could be the opposite of someone who lives in Oregon. Let the states try and please their citizens rather than force a country of diverse attitude and culture to following one way of life.
I hear you. I used to be ultra big on this personal accountability thing. I still am. I've been saving since I was 14. I put 37% down on my mortgage and I'm on track to pay it off in 3 years instead of 25. I bought my most recent two cars in cash, and my first vehicle I paid the loan off early. I have never had credit card debt for longer than a month, and currently don't even have a CC. I understand and value planning and saving and living within your means, and I would love to see more people (both here in Iceland where they also have a savings problem as well as in the US) save more and use credit less.
I also understand that since real wages have stagnated since the 70s, while being assaulted from birth to buy buy buy, your worth is wrapped up in the goods you own, look at these beautiful people who have everything, you should be like them, and by the way here is a credit card and a 100% loan and a 100% mortgage, and you get the problem we have now.
Even if you could magic every individual into having saved perfectly without going into debt, the current financial problem has it's roots much more in the corporations and ultra wealthy creating immense unregulated (or poorly regulated) financial wildernesses that they have shit up.
It's like obesity. You can look at individuals and say, "stop eating, move more" which is true in plenty of cases, but clearly that hasn't worked, and if the goal is to get the population fitter, letting this free market guilt induced "everyone should be 100% personally accountable" has failed, people are getting fatter, going more and more into debt, and saving less. There needs to be a systematic approach to fixing these, because without one, we're going to get more of the same.
Sorry poop, that's just not true. The United States was formed to fight the existence of a central bank ruling over the people with debt and lending. It was the one of the prime reasons that we revolted against England. Thomas Jefferson has been quoted a great deal speaking specifically against this type of tyranny. There were always US politicians in the Rothschilds' pocket (e.g. Hamilton), but they didn't really take over the government until they created the Federal Reserve. Now all our taxes go to them to pay off the debt the US is constantly generating. That's what our income taxes were created for, to pay the debt machine created by the Rothschilds and their rich corporate friends.
What's worse, is that these "money changers", as they're called, have created every war ever since the war between France and England. Why? Because war is expensive and profitable for those loaning the money and selling the armaments. What's more, is the loans are guaranteed because they're paid for by the people through taxes.
Face it, America needs to drop a proverbial nuke on the Federal Reserve and the Rothschild cartels to get rid of this mess. America needs to make it a treason level felony to give money to candidates and politicians. No member of congress, Supreme Court, or the president/governor should be allowed to hold stock or other assets in any company while in office. It should also be disallowed to be employed by a corporation or a corporate owned company for no less than five years. Why? It's because they buy congress with campaign contributions, gifts, investment advantages, and cushy jobs after they leave office so that they will serve their interest and not ours.
lol
I'll let my man, Chomsky, handle this:
...The philosophical issue is that the Democrats believe in big government and entitlements, and the Republicans believe in getting power down closer to the people, to the States, because they're kind of populist types.
Well, it takes about maybe three seconds' thought to realize that moving power down to the States, in funding and so on, is just moving it away from the people, for a perfectly elementary reason: there's a hidden part of the system -- of the power system that you're not supposed to know about, or think about, and that's private power.
Now, it takes a big corporation, like say, General Electric or Microsoft to sort of pressure the Federal government, but even middle-sized guys have no problems with State governments, they can control them quite easily. And in case anyone was too dull to figure this out by themselves, the same day as Cogan's op-ed in the New York Times, which is a typical one, there was a story in the Wall Street Journal about Massachusetts, which had a headline that read: What Fidelity Investment Wants It Usually Gets. And then the story went on to say that Fidelity Investment, the biggest investment firm in Massachusetts, wanted even more subsidy and support from the State government than it already gets, and it was threatening if it didn't it would move over the border to Rhode Island, where it just owns the place. So therefore, the passionately libertarian Governor quickly rearranged, you know, tax subsidies, and one thing or another, so that Fidelity got what it wanted.
Well Fidelity couldn't have done that with the Federal government. It couldn't have said, you know, "you give us even more or we're going to move to Switzerland" or something. I mean, other guys can do it maybe, but not Fidelity.
Raytheon, which is the biggest manufacturing producer, did the same thing. Raytheon -- incidentally Fidelity is not -- it's not that Fidelity is poor, they just announced record profits a couple days ago. Same with Raytheon -- just announced record profits, but you know, having big problems, so they wanted even a bigger tax subsidy, and -- direct subsidy, and tax write-offs, which just means transfer of taxes to -- from the State of Massachusetts, and they threatened that if they didn't get them they were going to go to Tennessee, so of course they got them. The legislature passed a special law giving what they called defense industry special extra subsidies.
Notice that Raytheon is publicly subsidized in the first place. That's where its money comes from. But now it has to be additionally subsidized so that its profits will be even higher than the record profits it just made. Same with Fidelity. And that's the kind of game anybody can -- you know, even -- even way down to much smaller businesses can play with the States.
The consequences of devolution are quite straightforward. It means that any funding that goes to, say, block grants that go to the States, you can be reasonably confident that they'll end up in the deep pockets of rich people, not, you know, in the hands of hungry children, or poor mothers, or anything like that. That's how you get power down to the people. Ok. That's devolution.
In fact quite generally, when you look at it, what's called "government cutting" is more or less cost transfer. It's almost never reduction, sometimes it's increase.
Before we bought our house we made sure we did the numbers that if my wife or I lost either of our jobs. We're even planning to have my wife stay home while we have kids and make sure we can afford it. What takes a few minutes each day can really help people plan for the future. People are afraid of numbers and combined with money woes, they just shun it and leave it to pile up into a shit pile of depression and lifetime of pain.
Agree though its more than just saving, but we'd be in better shape as a country if people would just pull back a bit and think before they go out and spend. Sorry to talk outside the occupy topic, but what all of this relates is how to HELP the situation.
Educate people on this. When I was in school.. high school.. college we were never taught how to properly plan for the future. They never taught you the true purpose of credit cards, of a credit score, of loans.. debt. No one in college was ever told how they should plan to pay off loans, where best to get the loans etc... as dumb as it sounds, I' a white male thats almost 30 so I have a lot of privileges compared to other races/sex that i technically shouldn't have. So add in that factor and some people are born with a huge disadvantage.
Point here.. school system could do a lot more. What we're taught is controlled by the rich and powerful. My entire life I was taught that communism was pretty much the devil and if I spoke it I'd have my dick cut off and sent to mexico basically. For the longest time I never knew what communism actually was and why it was a threat to capitalism. We're born to believe a certain way of life and driven to enjoy that life.
When I get mad at people for getting theirselves into a lifetime of debt, I have to pullback and partially give them credit that they may not have been educated fully on what they were doing.
The results have been absolutely disastrous because in an every-man-for-himself environment people have basically no leverage over corporations because we're desperate to get them to choose us. Not only that but it doesn't even work because no matter how much states undercut eachother they're never going to be as attractive as exploiting labor in countries with lower standards of living and weaker currencies.
Yeah right dude, tell that to the colonist, that started this nation... it's easier at state level, it facilitates local growth! let the people manage their own money!
The eminent American philosopher John Dewey once described politics as "the shadow cast on society by big business," warning that "attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance." Since the 1970s, the shadow has become a dark cloud enveloping society and the political system. Corporate power, by now largely financial capital, has reached the point that both political organizations, which now barely resemble traditional parties, are far to the right of the population on the major issues under debate.
For the public, the primary domestic concern, rightly, is the severe crisis of unemployment. Under current circumstances, that critical problem can be overcome only by a significant government stimulus, well beyond the recent one, which barely matched decline in state and local spending, though even that limited initiative did probably save millions of jobs. For financial institutions the primary concern is the deficit. Therefore, only the deficit is under discussion. A large majority of the population favor addressing the deficit by taxing the very rich (72% for, 21% opposed). Cutting health programs is opposed by overwhelming majorities (69% Medicaid, 79% Medicare). The likely outcome is therefore the opposite.
Reporting the results of a study of how the public would eliminate the deficit, its director, Steven Kull, writes that "clearly both the administration and the Republican-led House are out of step with the public's values and priorities in regard to the budget The biggest difference in spending is that the public favored deep cuts in defense spending, while the administration and the House propose modest increases The public also favored more spending on job training, education, and pollution control than did either the administration or the House."
The costs of the Bush-Obama wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now estimated to run as high as $4.4 trillion -- a major victory for Osama bin Laden, whose announced goal was to bankrupt America by drawing it into a trap. The 2011 military budget -- almost matching that of the rest of the world combined -- is higher in real terms than at any time since World War II and is slated to go even higher . The deficit crisis is largely manufactured as a weapon to destroy hated social programs on which a large part of the population relies. Economics correspondent Martin Wolf of the London Financial Times writes that "it is not that tackling the US fiscal position is urgent . The US is able to borrow on easy terms, with yields on 10-year bonds close to 3 percent, as the few non-hysterics predicted. The fiscal challenge is long term, not immediate." Very significantly, he adds: "The astonishing feature of the federal fiscal position is that revenues are forecast to be a mere 14.4 percent of GDP in 2011, far below their postwar average of close to 18 percent. Individual income tax is forecast to be a mere 6.3 percent of GDP in 2011. This non-American cannot understand what the fuss is about: in 1988, at the end of Ronald Reagan's term, receipts were 18.2 percent of GDP. Tax revenue has to rise substantially if the deficit is to close." Astonishing indeed, but it is the demand of the financial institutions and the super-rich, and in a rapidly declining democracy, that's what counts.
Though the deficit crisis is manufactured for reasons of savage class war, the long-term debt crisis is serious, and has been ever since Ronald Reagan's fiscal irresponsibility turned the US from the world's leading creditor to the world's leading debtor, tripling national debt and raising threats to the economy that were rapidly escalated by George W. Bush. But for now, it is the crisis of unemployment that is the gravest concern.
The final 'compromise' on the crisis -- more accurately, a capitulation to the far right -- is the opposite of what the public wants throughout, and is almost certain to lead to slower growth and long-term harm to all but the rich and corporations, which are enjoying record profits. Few serious economists would disagree with Harvard economist Lawrence Summers that "America's current problem is much more a jobs and growth deficit than an excessive budget deficit," and that the deal reached in Washington in August, though preferable to a highly unlikely default, is likely to cause further harm to a deteriorating economy.
Not even discussed is the fact that the deficit would be eliminated if the dysfunctional privatized health care system in the US were replaced by one similar to other industrial societies, which have half the per person costs and at least comparable health outcomes. The financial institutions and pharmaceutical industry are far too powerful for such options even to be considered, though the thought seems hardly Utopian. Off the agenda for similar reasons are other economically sensible options, such as a small financial transactions tax.
Meanwhile, new gifts are regularly lavished on Wall Street. The House Appropriations Committee cut the budget request for the Securities and Exchange Commission, the prime barrier against financial fraud. The Consumer Protection Agency is unlikely to survive intact. And Congress wields other weapons in its battle against future generations. In the face of Republican opposition to environmental protection, "A major American utility is shelving the nation's most prominent effort to capture carbon dioxide from an existing coal-burning power plant, dealing a severe blow to efforts to rein in emissions responsible for global warming," the New York Times reports.
The self-inflicted blows, while increasingly powerful, are not a recent innovation. They trace back to the 1970s, when the national political economy underwent major transformations, bringing to an end what is commonly called "the Golden Age" of (state) capitalism. Two major elements were financialization and offshoring of production, both related to the decline in rate of profit in manufacturing, and the dismantling of the post-war Bretton Woods system of capital controls and regulated currencies. The ideological triumph of "free market doctrines," highly selective as always, administered further blows, as they were translated into deregulation, rules of corporate governance linking huge CEO rewards to short-term profit, and other such policy decisions. The resulting concentration of wealth yielded greater political power, accelerating a vicious cycle that has led to extraordinary wealth for a tenth of one percent of the population, mainly CEOs of major corporations, hedge fund managers, and the like, while for the large majority real incomes have virtually stagnated.
In parallel, the cost of elections skyrocketed, driving both parties even deeper into corporate pockets. What remains of political democracy has been undermined further as both parties have turned to auctioning congressional leadership positions. Political economist Thomas Ferguson observes that "uniquely among legislatures in the developed world, U.S. congressional parties now post prices for key slots in the lawmaking process." The legislators who fund the party get the posts, virtually compelling them to become servants of private capital even beyond the norm. The result, Ferguson continues, is that debates "rely heavily on the endless repetition of a handful of slogans that have been battle tested for their appeal to national investor blocs and interest groups that the leadership relies on for resources."
Exactly this.
Not arguing here, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around your argument. Cause I actually agree with you on everything, except it seems that we reach a different conclusion at the very end. I think what you're saying is spot on for the most part.
You say that Haliburton and Blackwater get those contracts because they essentially bribe and abuse the government. No argument there. That's my point all along. So then how are you assuming that it's the wealthy that corrupt the government, when, by both of ours' logic, it's the government that created those wealthy people?
Seems pretty clear to me, without a military industrial complex, one that's fully funded by tax-dollars, the Haliburtons of the world wouldn't get contracts because there would be no contracts to give. It's not like average people, you and I for instance, would go around and buy tanks and helicopters, then go invade Iraq on the weekend. It takes a government with the power to declare war, and the power to tax to fund that war, for the Haliburtons out there to even have business.
You're also spot on about the 14th amendment, and I think we can both agree that corporate personhood is complete bullshit. I would even take it as far as saying that the existence of corporations is bullshit, since, as you noted, they cannot exist without explicit government protection.
So we have a government that runs a military, taxes in order to fund that military, created corporations, gave them personhood and protections not available to regular people. Wouldn't we be wise to get rid of it?
Yeah, the states need to find a way to create incentives for competition (i.e. more businesses) rather than consolidation and avoid the monopolies that damage the state, employment, and the local economy.
At this point, capital has far more power than the US government, so it doesn't really matter if the money created the corrupt government, or the government created the corrupt money, because we have a fully corrupt system on both sides, and it needs to be addressed.
But what I'm saying, is that you have countries like Denmark and Canada and Iceland and Spain and Ireland who don't have the exact type of government the US has, and they are facing the same problem of the wealthy corrupting their democracy. So either all of these governments became corrupt through totally different methods OR it's wealth entrenchment that is the problem, and as long as you are working within the framework of capitalism, that's what you get, capital seeks to entrench itself, no matter the system or regulations, it will burst through them. This is a fundamental tenet of Marx's criticism of capitalism. It is simply astounding how you can listen to the Communist Manifesto (and contrary to what you might think, it isn't a rule-book of how to implement communism, it's much more a critique of capitalism) and how absolutely perfect it applies to the current system, despite the fact he's long dead and was writing about a totally different set of circumstances.
It's incredible to see the common ground and the healthy debates this thing has spawned (not just here, but everywhere outside a major news outlet). I've never seen so many republicans and democrats agree on things in one day. This thing is moving in the right direction, me thinks.
Even a few mainstream media outlets are starting to take it seriously:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/05/opinion/rushkoff-occupy-wall-street/index.html
(quote)
"Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to address it? No, not yet. But neither are Congress or the president who, in thrall to corporate America and Wall Street, respectively, have consistently failed to engage in anything resembling a conversation as cogent as the many I witnessed as I strolled by Occupy Wall Street's many teach-ins this morning. There were young people teaching one another about, among other things, how the economy works, about the disconnection of investment banking from the economy of goods and services, the history of centralized interest-bearing currency, the creation and growth of the derivatives industry, and about the Obama administration deciding to settle with, rather than investigate and prosecute the investment banking industry for housing fraud."
And actually I read the Communist Manifesto, and I liked it a lot (and this is coming from a Libertarian mind you). I think Marx was spot on with his description of the problem of wealth entrenchment (as you put it). I much preferred Marx's writing before the Manifesto though. His theory of communism is essentially Anarchism. It's not until the Manifesto that the question arose of how to implement anarchist communism, and he came up with the solution of having a powerful government that will redistribute the wealth. Then once things settle down, you could take away power from that government until there's nothing left, and you're in a pure communist society.
What's interesting to me is his opposition in Russia (as he was German) when the time came to implement communism. Mikhail Bakunin made this awesome argument (this is right when they were establishing the Soviet Union):
Which also, if you want to nerd it up, is echoed in my favorite part of Lord of the Rings:
smart dude, but the inflection in the way he talks makes me want to nap.
Ahh I see. That's why I agree with you on so much. I'm a fan of all the Anarcho-X varieties.
The only thing that will help is if the 99% REALLY come together to speak out about what is going on, and the main thing hindering that is the mass media.
From someone who isn't that versed in American politics its astonishing to see and to be honest I'm surprised your country has prospered this long with such cancerous leadership. I mean hell our leaders over here are pretty shit but at least they are relatively civil.
I just saw this image and guessing the ideology behind it is a popular counter attack from those against the movement/protests.
For me, this image is nothing more than a shallow attempt to discredit, at best it's a cheap gag.
Implying hypocrisy because these people consume in a world were you can't avoid it without becoming a voiceless social outcast is ludicrous.
If instead they were tent living, tree hugger's protesting in a field then I'd guess the same people who made this image would attempt to disregard their views as that of fringe dwelling left wing nut jobs.
I feel the basic point the protesters are trying to get across is the majority of normal hard-working citizens want leaders to 'fix the system', not 'destroy the system'.
They aren't asking for the complete removal of society, just that those with the power should exercise some real leadership instead of sweeping it all under the carpet for a few while the majority pay the price for greed.
And to counter another popular argument levelled against the protesters....no those protesting don't need to offer their own suggestions at how to fix things.
That's what the law makers, politicians and leaders of industry put there hands up to do on the peoples behalf.
They have every right as citizens of a free democratic country to judge their leaders as failing and to expect better.
It also ignores the fact that none of these corporations with the tag "by X" created these things whole cloth. Every electronic good owes it's existence to subsidized state research. Gap sure as fuck didn't invent the loom. These corporations are responsible for one thing, and that is comodifying and packaging existing technologies into products. Even the companies that might have invented their product (say Bic with ball-point pens) the person who did the actual inventing didn't get paid well and is already dead. These corporations are a bunch of nepotistic non-inventing rich fucks who couldn't invent a way out of a wet paper bag.
Not to mention that our tax payer dollars are what allow all of those corporations to function, drive their goods to market on roads we paid for, using a currency our tax dollars stabilize, in stores that tax dollars police to keep from being robbed, etc etc.
The image implies some kind of hypocrisy that is only "evident" if you have the comprehension of a 5 year old.
Fight fire with fire?
I just read up a bit on this. My mind is blown.... that's a brilliant system!
Evil implies intention to do harm. What corporations do is make choices based on cost and risk even if the choice they make would be considered "evil". For example, a choice is presented to do something the legal way or the illegal way. The illegal way is cheaper, but it causes harm. The corporation chooses the illegal way because it's just cheaper. Every choice they make is nothing but a business decision. As a person, they would fit the psychological profile of a sociopath.
If you liked reading about that stuff, I recommend you look into all the Anarcho-X varieties. There are quite a few, and they're all very interesting.
In my imagined perfect world, we would have societies all over the world of the different Anarcho varieties, so people could live under whichever one of those systems seems most appropriate to them.
EDIT:
Also, this.
http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/100611-Occupy-Dallas-Protests-Today
Even Haliburton was once started by "one" guy and his wife, with good innovative ideas. I'm sure he wasn't evil or had bad intentions, for Christ's sake all he did was pour cement for oil wells. The reason many of these huge corporations get government contracts is because they are the only ones with the shovel ready man-power and equipment. But a good bribe doesn't hurt either if there is a competitor, but they devoured (took over) the competition so they are the only game in town. Microsoft anyone?
I thought after Enron, Martha Stewart and those other idiots we made some progress on this shit, but apparently the only way to fix this is to create more fkn bureaucracy to oversee the fkn bean counters and CFO's/CEO's of the world. Money and power corrupt, it must be policed, the problem is I don't trust the government to do the policing. I swear I would feel better if they picked random fkn morons off the street to do it.
I must say I don't fully understand this protest though, there is no coherent voice. You got communists, socialists, anarchists, abortion rights groups, unions, people pissed at the bailouts and banks in general. I heard people screaming about the jews in charge...blah blah...I saw a pic of some dude taking a shit on a police car, I don't wanna hang with that shit.
Sorry (no-disrespect) but, the Anarcho-X, stuff you guys are talking about is the worst idea ever IMO. Here's why: We can't trust anybody when we have laws and government constraining them, what makes you think we can trust people to do the right thing when there are no constraints? What you will have is no innovation, mediocrity, slavery, a thriving black market, local War-Lords or crime bosses, and never ending violence.
"to each according to his or her need". -- you know what that means?
It means: On your way home from the widget factory, returning to your lovely 2 room apartment, and before you walk a mile to the train station, get in the cheese line because they got Munster this week and won't have more of it for 2 months. Oh and pickup the one newspaper that is printed, not to read it, but so we can wipe our ass with it because we've been out of toilet paper for 3 weeks. Do you remember the USSR? For God's sake 10% of ALL Cubans live in America having escaped communism! The shit don't work. For any variety of Anarcho-X (or please everyone Utopia) to work, the herd would need culling on an apocalyptic scale. Peace!
Funny, cause you just used the counter-argument on your own.
Trust people to do the right thing? That's exactly what you're doing when you have a government. Who else would run the government then? Robots? Angels? Robot-Angels?
People run the government. People who you trust to do the right thing, while they wield tremendous amount of power. All I'm saying is take that power away.
That's even funnier, because you ALSO just used the counter-argument on your own! That's exactly what you're doing when you have NO government or a powerless government.
I lend my power to another man with my vote, but I can take it away from him as well. But if you remove that power from me than I am nothing but a potential victim to an un-like minded mob. The person entrusted with the power of the people has to take that responsibility more serious than their own lives. I believe they are sworn into office, an oath is taken. Words are said but apparently not meant by many of them.
There has got to be accountability, right now they get away with anything, but to diminish the power of the government is tricky, by how much? Too much government is harmful, wasteful, and easily corrupted, but too little can be utter chaos.
So Constitutional Angelic Robots are the only answer as long as Asimov's Laws are inherent to the core...and I'm the coder. hehe
The question I'm raising to you though, is trust them with what?
If there is no government, then it's trusting them with basic decisions that everyone makes. What to do with your time, money, expertise, how to treat your fellow man, etc.
If there is a government, then it's all of the above, but in addition the power of dominion over other people.
So what makes you think that we can trust people with the power of dominion over others? You're right in that you can vote someone out of office, but wouldn't it be easier if there was never the risk of having to do that? And even if you did, then who will you replace him with? Another snake-oil salesman? You would need a pretty steady supply of those Angelic Robots if you want to run a government in the long run. And last I checked, we're running low on those.
You seem to be afraid of being the victim of an un-like minded mob, but don't seem to bothered when that mob was first voted for.
This is the most disjointed paragraph ever. You are conflating anarchism with poorly implemented communism. (funny how failed communist states are evidence communism can never work, but failed capitalist states are just crazy coincidences that don't indict capitalism as a failed system).
And don't bring up Cuba, because your ignorance is showing. Cuba has lower infant mortality, and higher average life spans than in the US, despite using equipment from the 80s due to the embargo, and the reason there are so many Cubans in the US is because the US bribes them in a concerted effort to brain-drain Cuba of it's trained professionals. Cuba is THE ONLY nation on earth where if you show up in the US you get a free instant visa, 100% loans, free English lessons, entry to school, etc. They want doctors and other trained professionals (who got all their training state subsidized in Cuba) to flee the nation so Cuba cannot function. That's already outside the unjust embargo in place for decades by a huge global super power right near by, hurting their ability to function. Despite all that, they still beat the US in matters of importance, health, even if not many of them have a smart phone.
Pun/compliment aside it's been a very interesting read.
At the moment in the United States there is a huge disparity in unemployment between educated workers and uneducated ones. Low skilled workers have WAY higher unemployment than everyone else, they're also much more likely to be unemployed for far longer. Why's that? Because low skill jobs have been leaving the U.S. for decades.
The reality of this is that one of the largest factors in local economic growth (ESPECIALLY low skilled labor jobs) is wage (goes hand in hand with cost of living) and the value of your currency. Having a weak currency and low cost of living means it's cheaper for businesses in other countries to simply manufacture their cheap crap in yours, it also means importing goods is much less practical because your people have significantly less purchasing power as their money is worth less, as a result they will buy more locally. This is why people were suggesting that Greece's best option to dealing with their debt crisis was to simply drop out of the euro and devalue their currency to attract more business and grow their economy out of the toilet while making their debt easier to pay off.
Greece is a particularly important example in this situation because if we were to consolidate economic planning and power to the states without a unified political authority, while all using the same currency, do you know what we would have? The Euro...
The euro was basically modeled after the United States except since they do not have states, they have seperate countries, it was formed around council decision-making, not that of central political leadership like the United States under the federal government. Since they can't really affect the taxation/spending of other countries, they're beginning to see the weakness of this system as countries with horrible spending policies like Greece screw over everybody else. Now there's serious pressure on Greece to implement severe austerity measures as no other country in the Euro wants to shoulder their debt with their current spending habits...
You need everyone who is in the same currency to be united or the whole thing eventually falls apart. People knew this when they made the euro and it was one of their primary concerns, however it was politically impossible to elect a central authority at the time. After the euro crisis is over I think you'll see it reformed with more political unity.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things that states do much more effectively and efficiently that the federal government, economic policy is not one of them.
Yeah bro, this is a laundry list of complaints without a single proposed solution or demand for what they want politicians to do.
So no, not covered weeks ago. All you've done is basically illustrate my point.
I think the ultimate solution would be to take power, and thus the potential for corruption, out of the equation. Get rid of representatives in congress and replace them with "proxies" whom are voted by their district, from their district and they only have a single one-year term. Their job is solely to execute the will of the people. Practice real democratic government (everybody votes. The internet makes it possible now) and whatever the people vote, the proxy is bound to abide by and thus votes as such in congress. Voting options would be "Yes", "No", and "Revise". The third option requiring a reason for revision. If voted to revise, the bill would be returned to the submitter and provided all comments for revision. To avoid corrupting the ballot, all voting will be publicly available, marked with a generated ID. Every bill that is submitted to the people should be no more than 3-4 pages in length and in plain terms. Anything more and it will overburden the people's ability evaluate each proposed bill, thus it should be automatically rejected until revised.
Those are just a few ideas. They're probably flawed and imperfect, but I'm a flawed and imperfect being trying to do what's best for everyone, which is what the government should be doing.