In The USA: the Next Revolution

[AdamG]

AdamG, how did you know I was a Doors fan?

We are the Borg.

[slapout9]

Hans Solo aka (former CIA/Marine Corps Intell Officer Robert D. Steele) will go to Wall Street to advise on the New Kind of Revolution. Link to RT interview of Robert D. Steele.


http://rt.com/news/usa-protests-revolution-reform-063/


I belive sometime in his past Steele wrote a paper on predicting Revolutions. Worth listening to the interview anyway.

[AdamG]

The American Inverse-Taliban strikes.

Sheriff's deputies are closing in on suspects from a troublemaking Amish splinter group in Ohio who have broken into homes and cut off the beards and hair of other Amish men.

Authorities tell HuffPost Crime they are planning to arrest at least four men who are followers of Sam Mullet, a bishop who Jefferson County Sheriff Fred Abdalla said has clashed with other Amish leaders for years.

The rest of the tale lies here, English

Punchlines form up below.

[slapout9]

Finally the Church has started to join the protest. Big developement IMO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GLw3...ayer_embedded#!

[slapout9]

Link to Occupy Wall Street Commercial.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=5O_Ao9w1u7c

[Presley Cannady]

I belive sometime in his past Steele wrote a paper on predicting Revolutions. Worth listening to the interview anyway.

I know when someone's selling me a bill of goods; Steele's doing precisely that.

[slapout9]

I know when someone's selling me a bill of goods; Steele's doing precisely that.

Presley,you might be right, haven't heard anything from him since his meeting with OWS crowd.

[Bill Moore]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=MIN0eMR9gZg

This guy makes sense of it for me. It isn't our system that is broken, but key people in the system, especially senior bankers.

In summary, he makes a good case that we no longer practice capitalism anymore, because the capitalists don't assume the risks, we do. The bankers are rewarded for failure with bailouts and large bonuses, which we pay for and we assume the risk, not the bankers. He makes a point that if the CEOs assume the risks and don't get bail outs and large bonuses for failure, we may be able to turn this back around again.

[Bill Moore]

Interesting, hat tip to John Robb at Global Guerrillas

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...ef=online-news

The work, to be published in PloS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

No surprise, but now it is supported by data. This adds credence to the too big to fail argument, which is unacceptable in a real capitalist system where competition should ensure there are failures and rebirths.

[Ken White]

Most in their shoes would do the same. The real culprits are in Government. They are the folks who have skewed the rules to allow such unfettered greed and who allow and even encourage the 'too big to fail' mantra. They are too big to fail only because their failure will mean the loss of campaign contributions -- and jobs. The voters do not like that ergo it is to be avoided...

It's not new, they've been doing it for years. Think Chrysler in the 70s, Railroads in the 50s. Consider also the award of DoD contracts on the basis of not best quality items but the most jobs in the most districts -- that's been the norm for decades. We have Blackhawks because at contract award time, Sikorsky was in trouble while Bell had plenty of business. We have the M16 / M4 instead of other weapons because Colt was and is a BIG campaign contributor (see Dodd, C; Lieberman J.).

The crooks in Congress and the Administrations (plural, both parties in both cases) foster such shenanigans and then release self righteous public announcements slamming the very people who contribute most to their campaigns.

People want to jail Bankers, no one wants to convict the slimy political types -- why, I cannot fathom...

[Dayuhan]

People want to jail Bankers, no one wants to convict the slimy political types -- why, I cannot fathom...

Because politicians have gotten really, really good at diverting blame onto scapegoats. Not necessarily innocent scapegoats, but scapegoats nonetheless.

Practice makes perfect, and they have lots of practice...

PS:

My first question on reading the excerpt above was on the assumptions surrounding the word "control". The article expands slightly:

Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), warns that the analysis assumes ownership equates to control, which is not always true. Most company shares are held by fund managers who may or may not control what the companies they part-own actually do. The impact of this on the system's behaviour, he says, requires more analysis.

In fact institutional ownership is generally quite passive and rarely exerts any direct management control, except through the prospect of changing holdings if results are consistently poor. I'd have to see the study to make any conclusions, but this points to a potentially huge leap in assumptions. The word "control" makes a nice little alarmist touch, but the extent to which it actually exists... well, we shall see.

[Fuchs]

Well, based on certain experiences Germany ha a peculiar article in its constitution (even in the first 20, very powerful, articles!): Article 14.

It says (in the official translation):

Article 14
[Property – Inheritance – Expropriation]
(1) Property and the right of inheritance shall be guaranteed.
Their content and limits shall be defined by the laws.
(2) Property entails obligations. Its use shall also serve the
public good.
(3) Expropriation shall only be permissible for the public good.
It may only be ordered by or pursuant to a law that determines
the nature and extent of compensation. Such compensation
shall be determined by establishing an equitable
balance between the public interest and the interests of
those affected. In case of dispute concerning the amount of
compensation, recourse may be had to the ordinary courts.

The bold part is important and one of the most well-known one-liners of the whole constitution.

We don't make enough use of it, but almost all Germans appear to agree that property does mean responsibility to a great extent.
The responsibility to exert control of a corporation and keep it from harming society is one effect, the progressiveness of the income tax code another.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Ken

People want to jail Bankers, no one wants to convict the slimy political types -- why, I cannot fathom...

I'm not sure "most" people want to jail bankers for making bad business decisions, but I suspect that if most people thought about it they wouldn't want those bankers (and others) rewarded with our tax dollares for their mistakes. A middle class family fails to pay for the medical insurance loses coverage, they fail to pay their mortgage they lose their house, etc., and that is appropriate. Yet when a fat cat drives his company bankrupt by making foolish decisions (in some cases) his company not only gets a bail out with tax dollars (our money), the CEO and others who drove the train off the track get fact bonus checks from the tax payers. We're either capitalists in the land of the free responsible for our decisions or we're not. If a company's leaders drive it off a cliff let it fail and don't reward those who make bad decisions. It isn't that hard, or rather it shouldn't be. You're right we have long history of doing this, so perhaps we're simply resigned to a crappy reality.

I think most people would to convict the slimy political types, but apparently they're a protected species, so we hunt what we can They also have to break a law to be convicted, and I don't think is against the law to develop stupid laws, so they have considerable maneuver room unless the American public gets more involved. The promise of the information age making the process more transparent and more democratic hasn't happened yet, but we may be moving in that direction.

[tequila]

Most in their shoes would do the same. The real culprits are in Government. They are the folks who have skewed the rules to allow such unfettered greed and who allow and even encourage the 'too big to fail' mantra. They are too big to fail only because their failure will mean the loss of campaign contributions -- and jobs. The voters do not like that ergo it is to be avoided...

There's a lot wrong with this statement, but the biggest has to be that TBTF institutions do not exist.

If you think that if Citigroup, AIG, and BofA had been allowed to go bust in 2008 and the economy would not have imploded, then you really need to share what you are smoking with the rest of us. I'm not talking about a few million people out of work. I'm talking about people not being able to cash paychecks.

This problem is, of course, even worse now.

[Ken White]

There's a lot wrong with this statement, but the biggest has to be that TBTF institutions do not exist.

Oh, I certainly agree they now exist -- but they did not 30 years ago. That's about when Congress started sticking its greedy and ill informed nose into the financial system more heavily than in prior years (though they've always done so to one extent or another...). Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977, the 1980 Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act. Same time there wwere Carter, Kahn and imprudent deregulation. Then Gramm-Leach-Briley (an ex post facto cover for the Citi - Travelers - Smith Barney amalgamations, illegal under the then active both Glass Steagall and the Bank Holding Company Act but with a 'waiver' forced by massive Congressional pressure...

Some of that was beneficial and needed, most was ill advised and poorly (deliberately or not) crafted. All gave big campaign donators a license to, if not steal, certainly to amass wealth. I have no problem with amassing wealth by Bankers et.al. -- that's what they do -- I have a large problem with Congroids amassing wealth.

If you think that if Citigroup, AIG, and BofA had been allowed to go bust in 2008 and the economy would not have imploded, then you really need to share what you are smoking with the rest of us. I'm not talking about a few million people out of work. I'm talking about people not being able to cash paychecks.

Understood and mostly agreed though I suggest that if any one had been allowed to go under, the others may have gotten the message without such drastic consequences -- we'll never know, didn't happen. I strongly believe Chrysler should've been allowed to fail back in '76 to send a message to industry and commerce to be careful. That, too did not happen.

My point was and is they were allowed if not encouraged to get that big by the US Congress and several State Legislatures. The Bankers were supposed to try, the Watchdogs were not supposed to be in thrall to the Foxes.

This problem is, of course, even worse now.

Agreed.

Why is that true, he asked disingenuously?

[Ken White]

...It isn't that hard, or rather it shouldn't be. You're right we have long history of doing this, so perhaps we're simply resigned to a crappy reality.

I think most people would to convict the slimy political types, but apparently they're a protected species, so we hunt what we can

Sounds like scapegoating and punishing the innocent to me...

...The promise of the information age making the process more transparent and more democratic hasn't happened yet, but we may be moving in that direction.

I think we are. I certainly hope so.

[Bill Moore]

Sounds like scapegoating and punishing the innocent to me...

Perhaps, but I am not aware of any innocents being caught in the cross fire. Not all of the guilty are held accountable, and some of the guilty are rewarded nicely for failure (hell if they weren't bankers, they could be school teachers in the public school system).

When we reward the rich with taxpayers for dollars for failing, then we really are robbing the poor to pay the rich, and it sure as hell isn't creating more jobs. Not one of the bankers put in jail (and very few have been) appear to be wrongly acused, but on the other hand that doesn't mean they're not scapgoats. The Republicans have it wrong, and the Democrats are making things worse, so unless our system becomes more transparent and the people have more influence over these decisions (versus ideologue politicians) based on information instead of philosophies I don't see this crisis abating anytime soon.

[Ken White]

Perhaps, but I am not aware of any innocents being caught in the cross fire. Not all of the guilty are held accountable, and some of the guilty are rewarded nicely for failure (hell if they weren't bankers, they could be school teachers in the public school system).

Exactly my point -- Congress is more guilty in all this stupidity than are the Bankers -- Congress and State Legislatures not only allowed it, they encouraged it, the Bankers just did what they were supposed to do.

So yes, Bankers share some but not most of the blame. Even those innocent taxpayers have a bit of blame -- they elected these Squirrels...

Not many innocents in any of this...

[Dayuhan]

Exactly my point -- Congress is more guilty in all this stupidity than are the Bankers -- Congress and State Legislatures not only allowed it, they encouraged it, the Bankers just did what they were supposed to do.

Well... yes. People often fail to appreciate the limits of regulation, especially when we're trying to regulate against incentives. Much better to manage the incentives in the first place... and that we do badly. Politicians love a bubble and hate to allow a bust to run its course.

People often fail to recognize that main street and the common folks played a real role in the development of this mess as well, especially during the collective insanity of the late 90s, when many of the trends that led to the recent mess were laid down.

[kowalskil]

Occupy Wall Street?

The last issue of Montclarion, a student newspaper at Montclair State University,#published an article of Grover Furr, about the Occupy Wall Street movement:

http://www.themontclarion.org/archives/3740261

Yes, rich people always want to be richer and richer. This is unfortunate; no one knows how to stop this, without taking away constructive motivation. What fraction of Bill Gates' fortune is consumed and what fraction is productively invested? My guess is that the first fraction is much less than 10%, and that he is not a rare exception.

What does Professor Furr have to offer us? Consider a complex machine which works but not perfectly. Anyone can destroy it; no advanced knowledge is usually needed to accomplish this. But one has to be highly knowledgeable in order to repair it, or to design a better replacement. I am thinking about sophisticated engines, airplanes, TV sets, X ray scanners, computers, airconditioners, oil refineries, etc.

The same is true for an economic system. No system is perfect; but some are more efficient than others. Trying to destroy US capitalism #without offering something better is likely to create a lot of misery. I am thinking about what Lenin and Stalin did, as decribed in my two short books. These books are now freely available online; the links are at:

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/links.html

Note that even now, one hundred years after the Soviet revolution, standards of living in Russia are much lower than in the US, and in other western countries.

Ludwik Kowalski#(see Wikipedia)
.