We are the 99%!

[ShinMaruku]

You know, in a certain point with all this crazy shit, a bunch of people are getting what they deserve. "I want the big life with my shitty ass paycheck, but we can get more credit now, so I guess I shall run up my credit" Or "I wanna go to college, this overpriced shit college I'll go to and ignore my good state college that is under 6 grand a year." Yeah the people funneling this need to burn, but so do the people who go along with it. You are complicit in your own ruin.

[Split]

You know, in a certain point with all this crazy shit, a bunch of people are getting what they deserve. "I want the big life with my shitty ass paycheck, but we can get more credit now, so I guess I shall run up my credit" Or "I wanna go to college, this overpriced shit college I'll go to and ignore my good state college that is under 6 grand a year." Yeah the people funneling this need to burn, but so do the people who go along with it. You are complicit in your own ruin.Which group are you even addressing? It seems like you're blaming the 99% of the U.S. for not being wealthy or having poor credit, but this is not at all a clear statement. The onus is on the CEOS of big businesses like Haliburton and AIG not to screw their own employees and everyone else in the country over by giving themselves huge cash bonuses while our economy is already tanking because they need a second yacht/mansion/sports car. They're already getting tax breaks as it is, breaks on taxes which they are further dodging through giving to charities as a way of reducing taxable income.

No, I have no fucking sympathy for these people; as a member of a working-class family (father is a teacher, mother is a secretary) and on behalf of the 99% to which I belong, these people who practice pathological hoarding of wealth are a blight on our country!!

Also, your post seems like a rant. There's a forum for that.

[ShinMaruku]

Not quite a rant. I am blaming everybody for this mess. The writing was on the wall for years and nobody seen enough to ask to stop and address

[Sinue_v2]

NPR: Betting against the American Dream (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/405/inside-job)

One of the better breakdowns of the situation which lead to the current economic disaster, and places blame on several agents - but in particular Magnetar (a hedge fund manager) who is highlighted as an example of one of the many hedge fund firms which played a central role in setting up the collapse, but have yet to receive very much of the public outrage.

Instead, at the time, the news is flooded with bullshit about Bernie Madoff who, while being legitimately a thieving douche-bag, had the numbers of the investment capital lost being grossly inflated to absolute maximum levels of interpretation. Meanwhile the Hedge Fund managers slipped under the radar.

So far as the banks are concerned, I'm more upset at the criminal uses of robosigners and falsified documents to provide ownership Ex post facto which has allowed them to foreclose on mortgages they don't even own. Someone needs to be kicking these attorney generals in the ass and getting them to prosecute on that.

[ShinMaruku]

The bankers pay a bunch of these attorney generals

[Randomness]

So far as the banks are concerned, I'm more upset at the criminal uses of robosigners and falsified documents to provide ownership Ex post facto which has allowed them to foreclose on mortgages they don't even own. Someone needs to be kicking these attorney generals in the ass and getting them to prosecute on that.

This. The economy and such will recover in time, that's inevitable (regardless of what any politician says - booms and busts shall occur til the end of time). From a moral standpoint, the general public does bear a portion of responsibility for the collapse (albeit a small one - nowhere near as big as the lenders).

Honestly, my personal opinion is that since there is solid evidence of wrongdoing by banks here, and definitely cases where they have fraudulently taken property, the just result is to annul any debts that cannot prove conclusively is owed to them. If they cannot prove a mortgage debt was transferred to them, the person who took it out walks. This serves a dual purpose. First, the losses they will inevitably take from this serve as punishment. Second, it gives them a large financial incentive to sort the mess out, which has the added bonus of preventing this kind of shit in the near future. Obviously, there could be market repercussions from any large losses, so the ideal implementation would probably be a legally mandated moratorium on all foreclosure until such time as the records have been sorted out. Also, all mortgage payments and interest would of course be suspended. The banks don't have to write down a loss for a long time, which delays the pain (and lets them spread it out, and such). And obviously, afterwards, it would be clear which debts were owed to whom... naturally, any debt where the records had been lost irretrievably is de facto annulled... which could be a significant financial boon to people (in addition to the inevitable return of money collected as payment on false debt - though this would probably end up being settlements).


The bankers pay a bunch of these attorney generals

Attorney generals are paid by the various governments out of tax money. As for appointment, that is obviously a political process... but the banks don't have nearly as much of a lock on that as some people would like you to believe. Public outrage remains the single most powerful force in politics, and is not always rational (just like anything that is essentially an amalgamation of the will of countless people). Certainly, media has a significant influence on this, but media organizations are not some giant conspiracy - getting a scoop means getting money, so any truly big story is bound to break eventually.

[ShinMaruku]

Follow some of the attorney generals after they leave office if they get pick up by some bank or think tank well don't look shocked. Now I won't say it's all some massive conspiracy but there is enough of these guys in some pockets at you can't rely on them 100% to work as they should.

Yeah the lender do need to burn but really some people should have smelled the shit in the water. When something looks too good be true, it often is. Especially when the wages have been in the shitter and all they give is credit. That's a red flag.

[Sinue_v2]

Public outrage remains the single most powerful force in politics, and is not always rational

Not always rational? Hehehehahaha.... good one.

The "Public" is rarely rational, even if the individuals who comprise it typically are. Herd mentality/group psychology is a bitch. "Outrage" is rarely rational either. To quote Kevin Costner playing Kenneth O'Donnell in the movie Thirteen Days, "You know, call me Irish, but I don't believe in "cooler heads prevailing."

So the two combined seem to me have little to no hope of being anything more than a group of loud ignorant jackasses feeding off of each others vitriol and operating on raw emotion, targeting not the actual wrong-doers, but whole institutions, anyone associated with them, and by and large anyone who displays flagrant excesses of wealth - selecting and censoring their facts to justify their blind disgust. That's why I just can't get behind movements like "the 99%", even if I agree with them in principal.

But otherwise you're right. That is the single most effective tool in generating political pressure. One I sometimes wish the representatives would listen LESS to... not more. Elect a representative who you support because of what THEY stand for; what THEIR principals are, and then let them do THEIR job. If you don't like the job they do, vote them out next cycle. But this idea that the "will of the people" should be a lever onto which moves the representative's actions is bullshit, and if it actually worked as idealized, would just make a representative a proxy of pure democracy - mob mentality. And if that's the case, why do we need them? But they're not, and there's a reason why America is a Constitutional Republic and not a democracy.

Follow some of the attorney generals after they leave office if they get pick up by some bank or think tank well don't look shocked.

Picked up by a Bank? What, like they have an armored truck parked discreetly in the alley behind the statehouse or something?

Come on, unless you have some clear evidence of corruption in the AGs office in the form of taking bribes from the a bank, then all you're doing is throwing up post-hoc justifications to insulate a challenged world view.

Especially when the wages have been in the shitter and all they give is credit. That's a red flag.

The banks don't have anything to do with your wages, unless you work for the bank itself. You'll need to speak to your employer's payroll department on that one... as well as perhaps your local/federal representatives about minimum wage laws.

[Randomness]

Not always rational? Hehehehahaha.... good one.

The "Public" is rarely rational, even if the individuals who comprise it typically are. Herd mentality/group psychology is a bitch. "Outrage" is rarely rational either. To quote Kevin Costner playing Kenneth O'Donnell in the movie Thirteen Days, "You know, call me Irish, but I don't believe in "cooler heads prevailing."

So the two combined seem to me have little to no hope of being anything more than a group of loud ignorant jackasses feeding off of each others vitriol and operating on raw emotion, targeting not the actual wrong-doers, but whole institutions, anyone associated with them, and by and large anyone who displays flagrant excesses of wealth - selecting and censoring their facts to justify their blind disgust. That's why I just can't get behind movements like "the 99%", even if I agree with them in principal.

But otherwise you're right. That is the single most effective tool in generating political pressure. One I sometimes wish the representatives would listen LESS to... not more. Elect a representative who you support because of what THEY stand for; what THEIR principals are, and then let them do THEIR job. If you don't like the job they do, vote them out next cycle. But this idea that the "will of the people" should be a lever onto which moves the representative's actions is bullshit, and if it actually worked as idealized, would just make a representative a proxy of pure democracy - mob mentality. And if that's the case, why do we need them? But they're not, and there's a reason why America is a Constitutional Republic and not a democracy.


I suppose I should read a bit less Asimov.

And yes, I completely agree with regards to the pitfalls of pure democracy. California pretty much exemplifies the problem.

The biggest issue right now with our political system is homogeneity. I mean, look at the Republican primary. I'd like to see more substantive policy differences. Is that too much to hope for? I understand that they're going to have similar worldviews, but they're basically paraphrasing the exact same script. It would be nice if the candidates actually differed in a meaningful way (other than whether they fall into the "Democrats are traitors" category). I could live with there being only two parties if there were more meaningful differences between members.

[Zyrusticae]

This. The economy and such will recover in time, that's inevitable[...]
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

You keep believing that.

Me, I'm going to support a different system, one that isn't the monetary system, one that doesn't support infinite growth in a world with finite resources.

Yes, let's keep the thousands-of-years-old system even though it results in the inevitable collapse of the world economy as we outstrip the world's resources because of monetary gain. As we proceed to push ourselves towards an inevitable death spiral, as we proceed to a future where we fight for scraps of food and handfuls of water.

Yes, keep believing that it's all just a silly little recession and that things will just "get better" in time, even though we are not actually changing anything at all about how we consume more and more and more and more.

I like how everybody focuses on superficial symptoms of the real issues behind our ills. I like how nobody even discusses the core of our problems, instead believing that the system, as old and lethargic as it is, cannot possibly be related to the problems we see today.

When less than 1% of the population holds nearly half of an entire country's wealth, there is a problem. And don't even try to justify that kind of wealth distribution.

[Randomness]

I wish you luck coming up with a system for the transfer and exchange of value that isn't money (and obviously, isn't inconvenient).

[amtalx]

Sounds like a vote for Communism. That's worked out really well historically...

[Zyrusticae]

Sounds like a vote for Communism. That's worked out really well historically...
This is actually a very common (and very interesting) counterpoint.

See, when one actually analyzes communism, you can see that it was only something of a halfway point. It was a philosophy, not really a system, but an idea that was implemented in a very half-assed method and abused by its progenitors for their own gain. The most notable failing of communism is the attempt to coexist with a planet that still uses a monetary system - hence the massively unequal wealth distribution within the Soviet Union during its reign. But also noteworthy is their reliance on hard labor without some form of motivation or compensation for efficient work.

The former can only be addressed one way - by a complete worldwide cessation of the monetary system. Obviously, this is not going to happen without some pretty extreme triggers - things like, say, over 50% unemployment, mass riots, skyrocketing crime rates, and other symptoms that will occur as the current system (inevitably) reaches the breaking point.

The latter is actually the cause of the aforementioned rising unemployment rate - technological unemployment. Those terribly menial tasks that the communists simply could not get people to perform without monetary incentive are being completely replaced with robotics and machinery. Those machines can perform the required tasks without any incentive, and do so for much, much less upkeep than a real human being. As technological progress continues, more and more jobs will simply be replaced by machines as it is simply the more cost-efficient option, consequently also increasing the unemployment rate.

Technological unemployment is the biggest and most obvious symptom of the failing of the capitalist system. We are actually dramatically increasing our production efficiency over time, yet for some reason people are holding fewer jobs and getting paid less and less, thus decreasing the quality of life for many people the world over. How does that even make any sense? Even more telling is the constant increase in wealth among the upper 1% - they just keep making more and more money, while everyone who's doing the actual work just digs deeper into an economic hole from which there is no escape.

Now, I'm not saying communism is the answer - because communism is not a good descriptor for what follows after capitalism. Something will follow after capitalism, because that is a simple inevitability, or else we just continue on the current course and destroy ourselves utterly. But I think human society will not allow that.

Whatever follows after will be based on actual resources, and not based on something as intangible and non-existent as money. We won't be having billions starving while our food production continues to ramp up, simply because those people cannot make the money to attain food.

But the first step is to acknowledge the fact that we have to change things. And a good start would be getting the money out of politics...

[Sinue_v2]

It was a philosophy, not really a system, but an idea that was implemented in a very half-assed method and abused by its progenitors for their own gain. The most notable failing of communism is the attempt to coexist with a planet that still uses a monetary system - hence the massively unequal wealth distribution within the Soviet Union during its reign.

The Zeitgeist Movement's resource based economy seems to make one of the same fundamental mistakes - the total misunderstanding of human nature. By attacking "Money" as the cause of greed and corruption, you're mistaking money for wealth, when it's only an abstract representation of what wealth really is. Wealth is a marker of the total of resources you control. Money is merely an abstraction layer used to give liquidity to the exchange, trade, and refinement of those resources.

At the end of the day, it still comes down to who controls the resources. Nobody hordes money because it's of any worth on it's own merits. People horde money because it is used to leverage resources. It is the means, not the end. Get rid of money and you will still have to deal with the problem of corruption and the hording of resources by those who are charged with managing and allocating them.

All animals compete for resources in nature, and will consume/horde them mindlessly.. often aggressively... as a mechanism to improve their chances of survival. After all, those who can't compete effectively for food, sexual mates, shelter, or water will get selected against. Typically, competition over limited resources prevents the flagrant displays of greed that we continually kick ourselves over. However the destructiveness and rampant reproduction of invasive species which choke out the native flora and fauna is the same basic phenomena.

We are greedy because it's a damned effective survival mechanism. You can't just turn off that instinct though when it's not convenient at the moment. To make matters worse, we have a whole suite of social instincts that can profoundly alter perspective and behavior within social groups and hierarchies. This is why greed and corruption will never go away in business or politics... because it's not the "bad apples" who just keep finding their way to these positions of power... but these positions and power themselves which we imbue these institutions with that corrupt.

That was one of the major problems which has prevented the establishment of a true communist government anywhere, ever. It's also why revolutions have a tendency to devolve into dictatorships. I don't see how the "Zeitgeist Movement" plans to address this issue within itself. I've never heard them explore the topic, usually favoring to point it out as a weakness of other economic models while offering little but utopian pipe dreams as a solution.

By the way... question. If Zeitgeist movement got it's way, then who's in charge of evaluating necessity and distributing those resources appropriately? What agency would be responsible for preventing the accumulation of resources/wealth concentration? What would prevent an individual from using accumulated resources from using them to exploit others?

Also, what makes us think we can control a complex system like global resource management from a structured top-down control approach? Like, when has that ever worked out well for us in the past? Capitalism, especially laissez-faire capitalism which relies more on individual agents interacting to produce structure, optimization, and growth from the bottom up by not regulating or interfering with it's optimization. Though laissez-faire, I think, follows a train of thought more analogous to nativism and doesn't fully encompass what a complex system is and how it behaves. What you mistake for instability is actually unpredictability, where the outcome of any given interaction cannot be known, only observed over time to see and estimate how a system is likely to respond to that interaction again. This unpredictability is key to emergent phenomena known as emergence; system properties rising out of the interactions of individual agents on a lower level, which in turn can create new behaviors of interaction on higher levels, which then in turn can effect the interactions of lower-level agents in either a positive or negative feedback loop. Complex systems are non-linear, meaning they are NOT zero sum scenarios, as you implied earlier. The total is worth more than just the sum of it's constituent parts.

However, I don't endorse laissez-faire capitalism either because the economy, like the environment, doesn't give a shit about you or your families well being. Nor is it forward thinking, being incapable of self-correcting prior to an event which can cause widespread systemic failure. The whole mechanism is blind, and left to it's own operation, will no more be able to avoid recessions, and meltdowns, and inequality any more than evolution is able to adapt creatures preemptively to prevent mass extinctions. We do need mechanisms by which to interact effectively and deliberately, which may help avoid the worst pitfalls to itself and the public welfare. Too much regulation and controls, and you'll lose adaptability and optimization, leading to stagnation and death. Too little regulation and control, and the system loses it's coherence and becomes even more unpredictable and erratic. Trends becomes harder to predict with any confidence, which makes it useless when evaluating short and long term risk.

We're going to have to drop or correct the old economic theories wherein it's evident that they are not useful or accurate enough in describing the reality of how or why the economy behaves the way it does.

[washuguy]

Hey Sinue, quick question, how do you do that thing where you answer posts and separate the questions you want to address? May I get a tutorial or something? Please and thank you, I think that would save a lot of time and space.

You know, in a certain point with all this crazy shit, a bunch of people are getting what they deserve. "I want the big life with my shitty ass paycheck, but we can get more credit now, so I guess I shall run up my credit" Or "I wanna go to college, this overpriced shit college I'll go to and ignore my good state college that is under 6 grand a year." Yeah the people funneling this need to burn, but so do the people who go along with it. You are complicit in your own ruin.

You seem... Angry. LOL I know where your frustration comes from though, correct me if I'm wrong; We go through life like everything is all good and the world is at peace, and chase empty dreams and tangible items that mean NOTHING at the end of the day. You're born, you grow up, go to school, and your whole life is revolving around money and enslavement to a system that doesn't care about you, or people for that matter, and the 99% are pretty much being herded by the 1%, whether they're knowledgeable or not. And these people in power aren't really doing much, God bless them, but they make promises and don't keep them, and we keep putting these guys in power.

There's fault on BOTH sides, the 99% and the 1%. The 1% for being arrogant, mean spirited, and treating people like garbage, turning a blind eye to hurting people and the world, and not following the BASIC rules and human laws, the 99% for not studying up, some being willingly ignorant (Some people don't have time to look into this unfortunately cause they are busy looking out for their families :( ) or doing anything about it. I'm not talking about war, anarchy or anything like that, that won't solve squat, I BELIEVE IN GOVERNMENT, but it MUST be ran by good people. I'm talking about being aware that this current system of things has our minds captive, and we need to be free and come together like the human family we were MADE TO BE.

All this hate and bickering and arguing among ourselves won't fix anything. We need to pull our resources together, everything for everyone and nothing for ourselves alone. I haven't mastered this, no human has mastered this i'm sure, but we have to start somewhere. At this rate, it'll never get fixed, EVER... According to MY belief, the only way it'll be fixed is if Jesus comes and establishes his reign, according to bible prophecy, the world is going to spiral down into great evil because of EXACTLY what we're talking about now (This is what I believe based on my study and observation, you come to your own conclusion, if you want to talk about this please feel free to hit me up. :) ). The 1% got us on every level you can think of; Mentally/strategically, physically, spiritually, they got us. The ONLY thing that'll defeat this is love, but the world is going cold, and we think it's normal. It's sad to watch man... All these big words and stuff about "how the system works" is nonsense. It has it's place, we need to know it I guess, but this stuff isn't hard to understand, all that is smokescreen and mirrors from what's really going on, call me whatever you want, it's the truth. It's all a big game to keep us from loving each other, worshiping our money, things and what we can get for ourselves.