Bippity10 wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Bippity10 wrote:

DurzoBlint wrote:

jrodmc wrote:

Bippity10 wrote:

Silverfuel wrote:

martin wrote:

Bippity10 wrote:I can't stand when really rich actors, mucisians and athletes like Bill Maher etc try to pretend that they are not part of the really rich. That they are one of us schleps fighting the power. All Maher does is play to his crowd, whip them in to a frenzy, get them on his side and then waltz on home to count his money. These guys care as much about us and our plight as the politicians do.

because you have been successful you can't empathize or understand or have a voice?

I guess I don't watch Maher, is he pretending to be poor or not part of the really rich?

No man, he doesn't act like he is poor at all. This is just a way to discredit what he is saying. If he was a poor person saying it, then people would say he is a socialist asking for a hand out.

Yeah, because that's the way the Bip handles things. Running around calling people socialist. No those types of arguments are for you guys to have.

The jrod be severely hating on people who refer to themselves in third person.

You need to be fair to Bill Maher. He is the ONLY filthy rich guy I've heard come out and say he should be more heavily taxed. He takes ownership of the unfairness of it all and, he's been known to hang with the hip hop crowd and blaze up too:)

Instead of talking about it, why doesn't he just do it himself? Simply pay more yourself. Be a leader, maybe others will follow.

You seen his tax records? How do you know he doesn't do this?

I don't know this anymore then you know if he really gives a rats asse about the poor. All we can do is take a guess based on the evidence. I do know that he spends an awful lot of time at the Playboy mansion. That's about it.

By nature of my job and some family membres I've been in this world. I've been around these people. I've heard the ranting about the plight of the poor as I watch the person order a $1000 bottle of wine that doesn't get finished. It's made me very cynical and I admit that. But I don't think there are a huge amount of people that prove me wrong.

Bonn1997 wrote:

Bippity10 wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Bippity10 wrote:

DurzoBlint wrote:

jrodmc wrote:

Bippity10 wrote:

Silverfuel wrote:

martin wrote:

Bippity10 wrote:I can't stand when really rich actors, mucisians and athletes like Bill Maher etc try to pretend that they are not part of the really rich. That they are one of us schleps fighting the power. All Maher does is play to his crowd, whip them in to a frenzy, get them on his side and then waltz on home to count his money. These guys care as much about us and our plight as the politicians do.

because you have been successful you can't empathize or understand or have a voice?

I guess I don't watch Maher, is he pretending to be poor or not part of the really rich?

No man, he doesn't act like he is poor at all. This is just a way to discredit what he is saying. If he was a poor person saying it, then people would say he is a socialist asking for a hand out.

Yeah, because that's the way the Bip handles things. Running around calling people socialist. No those types of arguments are for you guys to have.

The jrod be severely hating on people who refer to themselves in third person.

You need to be fair to Bill Maher. He is the ONLY filthy rich guy I've heard come out and say he should be more heavily taxed. He takes ownership of the unfairness of it all and, he's been known to hang with the hip hop crowd and blaze up too:)

Instead of talking about it, why doesn't he just do it himself? Simply pay more yourself. Be a leader, maybe others will follow.

You seen his tax records? How do you know he doesn't do this?

I don't know this anymore then you know if he really gives a rats asse about the poor. All we can do is take a guess based on the evidence. I do know that he spends an awful lot of time at the Playboy mansion. That's about it.

By nature of my job and some family membres I've been in this world. I've been around these people. I've heard the ranting about the plight of the poor as I watch the person order a $1000 bottle of wine that doesn't get finished. It's made me very cynical and I admit that. But I don't think there are a huge amount of people that prove me wrong.

But you're calling him hypocritical without any evidence. You're talking about how he should be doing X, Y, and Z with no evidence that he isn't. That seems inherently unfair.
[/

In my view anyone who screams about the plight of the poor but walks around with a net worth of over 15 million dollars is a hypocrite. If you really believe what you say stop living the high life. Buy a humble shack, take a bus to work. Why is it fair for you me or bill maher to blow money at bars and the playboy mansion when some kid is going to starve to death. If you really believe life is unfair do what the monks do. Give up your material wealth. Give up your mansion. Give up your cars. But no one will or ever does.

And when you ask for me to be fair to Bill Maher do you also ask people to be fair to the tea parties or Sara Palin or to all those corporate execs who we know nothing about?

Bippity10 wrote:

jrodmc wrote:

Bippity10 wrote:

jrodmc wrote:

Bippity10 wrote:I understand the protestors frustration and agree that there is some craziness happening on Wall Street that someone needs to pay for (Bear Stearns,Naked short selling etc). That being said, I'm not sure how you have a legitimate protest, without a focused message. If you are a "fat cat banker" with a heart how can you fight to change a system for people when you have no idea what they are complaining about. "Corporate Greed", "fat cat bankers", "lazy protestors", "college slackers", "throw wall streeters in jail". It's basically just people whining about each other. It doesn't get to the heart of the problem at all. Without a focused message how are the "corporate fat cats" going to get any type of message?

Personally I think the protests should start on wall street and finish at the white house (not just Obama, but all the politicians in power) who talk a great game but continue their alliance. Democrats, Republicans and Big business all work together to keep each other in power and in the money. Republicans have been great about communicating to the upper middle class and making them believe that they are out for them, when in reality their decisions are being made by the super rich. Democrats have done a wonderful job of communicating to the middle class and below and making them believe that they are out for them. In the end, no matter who is in power, our standard of living decreases. One day, we will all get this, stop believing these two parties, become an independent and make both parties earn our votes.

-The new and improved, kinder and genter, sweeter and less sarcastic, Bipman

Amen Bipster! You're probably still throwing rocks at small baby animals though.

You didn't appear to finish your sentence on Democrats, however. Who's really making the decisions for the Democrats. Hmmmmmm.
I actually voted independent in the last two elections, by the way. Unfortunately, we are as pragmatic a society as they come. Nobody wants to "waste their vote" on someone "who won't win".

The Democrats are the exact same. If you really follow the trail of money they are no differetn then the Republicans. They're just good at throwing a bone our way every now and then to make it look like they are affecting change for us. Meanwhile some really odd stuff went down with Bear Stearns that played a part in our collapse and yet neither Republican or Democrat has done anything about it. Some odd stuff went on with Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac yet they continue to operate as usual, losing billions. Our home values have all gone in the crapper because of our actions. Yet, little has changed for them. The common thread in all this, is that government did nothing to regulate, stop, fix or prevent. Yet we all take our Republican/Democrat sides, root for "our team" to win, defend "our team" regardless of their actions/inactions, blast the "opposing team" at all costs, and they just laugh at us. They all go back to the safety of Washington and count their own money, all the while your life gets no better. But you do get to have fun arguing in chat rooms about which "team" the Republicans or Democrats are going to win the title next election.

I lived inside the market collapse...I had friends at Bear Stearns...I was working at Merrill when all the sheehit finally hit the fan. Market greed and the fact that hundreds of thousands of people (if not millions) got into mortgages they could not possibly afford, created the CDO nightmare. Was Bear Stearns and Merrill and Lehman and all those big evil CEO's at fault? You're damn right they were. The Merrill CEO was unabashedly proud of the revenue stream that essentially unsecured paper was bringing in. But how do you regulate people getting into mortgages they should never be in to begin with? How much regulation do you want telling you what you can and can't afford? Without balloon mortgages and insane sliding rates and all these other idiotic transactions backing all this illegitimate paper, where do you propose starting the legislation/regulation enema? Blaming government for not stopping, fixing and preventing people's greed and idiocy is a pipe dream. I was unemployed for over a year, living on canned corn and the hope that I would somehow get to keep my house. I'm lower middle class white amuhrica. I don't live in a McMansion community. I live in a one level ranch home and work in IT. I took a huge paycut just to have a job. My 401K is gone. I've voted Republican/anti-Democrat basically on the abortion issue, but I've also voted independent several times. I have little tolerance for people stomping their feet and demanding their rights and entitlements (opportunities) when they have no plan, no ideas, just some old reheated '60's rhetoric about the Great Society and stopping the war and hating the establishment. It didn't work then, and it won't work now. What's amazing to me, is I wonder if the same people who are eulogizing Steve Jobs are the same people supporting OWS?

So what is the accomplishment? A million tweets? A billion hits on a Facebook page? Comparing this to Egyptians overthrowing their government is silly. What are these people going to overthrow? The same infrastructure and network and society that allows them to stand around protesting and tweeting and posting? To beget what?

Please, give me a plan or give me death, but don't tell me about a billion people messaging each other about nothing.

I agree with you. You can't regulate stupid. Many people got into bad mortgages and have only themselves to blame. That being said it was Fanny and Freddie that laid the ground work and created the incentives that encouraged the corporate greedy fools to go out and purse these fools. Without the incentives our problem does not get as bad as it did.

I'm a small government guy. large centralized power has never turned out well for the people I don't believe we need more regulation, I think we simply need comensical(is that a word) regulation. Then we need that regulation to be inforced. Instead we have a govt that looks the other way when specific donors are involved. This just encourages the "corporate greed" that we continue to see.

No the ground work was done by Reagan. His administration worked directly with Lewis Ranieri (Salomon Brothers) to help create a market of mortgage backed securities. Without a mortgage backed securities market this mess never happens. Not saying Reagan did it alone he had plenty of help from all the politicians and bankers that followed and Fannie and Freddie played a big part. But he started making the changes that moved us from one of the most stable banking systems this country ever had to what we have now - a casino with bankers betting with our money - private gain - public risk.

My favorite example of how ridicules it has gotten is the fact that you can do a credit default swap (insure against a default) on a loan you don't own. So multiple entities can basically bet a loan will default and multiply the cost of the default many times over.

I understand the mistrust of government but I fear big corporations just as much we need the government to regulate the corporations - once we can get them out of bed with them.

SupremeCommander wrote:My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street ProtestersHit bankers where it hurts
By Matt Taibbi

I've been down to "Occupy Wall Street" twice now, and I love it. The protests building at Liberty Square and spreading over Lower Manhattan are a great thing, the logical answer to the Tea Party and a long-overdue middle finger to the financial elite. The protesters picked the right target and, through their refusal to disband after just one day, the right tactic, showing the public at large that the movement against Wall Street has stamina, resolve and growing popular appeal.

But... there's a but. And for me this is a deeply personal thing, because this issue of how to combat Wall Street corruption has consumed my life for years now, and it's hard for me not to see where Occupy Wall Street could be better and more dangerous. I'm guessing, for instance, that the banks were secretly thrilled in the early going of the protests, sure they'd won round one of the messaging war.

Why? Because after a decade of unparalleled thievery and corruption, with tens of millions entering the ranks of the hungry thanks to artificially inflated commodity prices, and millions more displaced from their homes by corruption in the mortgage markets, the headline from the first week of protests against the financial-services sector was an old cop macing a quartet of college girls.

That, to me, speaks volumes about the primary challenge of opposing the 50-headed hydra of Wall Street corruption, which is that it's extremely difficult to explain the crimes of the modern financial elite in a simple visual. The essence of this particular sort of oligarchic power is its complexity and day-to-day invisibility: Its worst crimes, from bribery and insider trading and market manipulation, to backroom dominance of government and the usurping of the regulatory structure from within, simply can't be seen by the public or put on TV. There just isn't going to be an iconic "Running Girl" photo with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup or Bank of America – just 62 million Americans with zero or negative net worth, scratching their heads and wondering where the hell all their money went and why their votes seem to count less and less each and every year.

No matter what, I'll be supporting Occupy Wall Street. And I think the movement's basic strategy – to build numbers and stay in the fight, rather than tying itself to any particular set of principles – makes a lot of sense early on. But the time is rapidly approaching when the movement is going to have to offer concrete solutions to the problems posed by Wall Street. To do that, it will need a short but powerful list of demands. There are thousands one could make, but I'd suggest focusing on five:

1. Break up the monopolies. The so-called "Too Big to Fail" financial companies – now sometimes called by the more accurate term "Systemically Dangerous Institutions" – are a direct threat to national security. They are above the law and above market consequence, making them more dangerous and unaccountable than a thousand mafias combined. There are about 20 such firms in America, and they need to be dismantled; a good start would be to repeal the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and mandate the separation of insurance companies, investment banks and commercial banks.

2. Pay for your own bailouts. A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about. It would also deter the endless chase for instant profits through computerized insider-trading schemes like High Frequency Trading, and force Wall Street to go back to the job it's supposed to be doing, i.e., making sober investments in job-creating businesses and watching them grow.

3. No public money for private lobbying. A company that receives a public bailout should not be allowed to use the taxpayer's own money to lobby against him. You can either suck on the public teat or influence the next presidential race, but you can't do both. Butt out for once and let the people choose the next president and Congress.

4. Tax hedge-fund gamblers. For starters, we need an immediate repeal of the preposterous and indefensible carried-interest tax break, which allows hedge-fund titans like Stevie Cohen and John Paulson to pay taxes of only 15 percent on their billions in gambling income, while ordinary Americans pay twice that for teaching kids and putting out fires. I defy any politician to stand up and defend that loophole during an election year.

5. Change the way bankers get paid. We need new laws preventing Wall Street executives from getting bonuses upfront for deals that might blow up in all of our faces later. It should be: You make a deal today, you get company stock you can redeem two or three years from now. That forces everyone to be invested in his own company's long-term health – no more Joe Cassanos pocketing multimillion-dollar bonuses for destroying the AIGs of the world.

To quote the immortal political philosopher Matt Damon from Rounders, "The key to No Limit poker is to put a man to a decision for all his chips." The only reason the Lloyd Blankfeins and Jamie Dimons of the world survive is that they're never forced, by the media or anyone else, to put all their cards on the table. If Occupy Wall Street can do that – if it can speak to the millions of people the banks have driven into foreclosure and joblessness – it has a chance to build a massive grassroots movement. All it has to do is light a match in the right place, and the overwhelming public support for real reform – not later, but right now – will be there in an instant.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/my-advice-to-the-occupy-wall-street-protesters-20111012

Unlike that other "grass roots" movement this one won't be funded by billionaires, while you lay out nice goals, an organic movement will never have the focus required to carry out something like that. Movements can either die out or they can end in violent change. I am not entirely convinced this movement will gather enough steam to produce anything, if like the TEA party it ends up being a political group then it's already just as useless as the TEA party. One thing we need even less than Wall Street Scumbags is politicians. Phuck them all. --- actually I take that back, them Republican Debates are the most incredibly hilarious things I have seen in a while. If they were running for court jesters I would vote for all of them, twice on Sundays. Between the twelve or so idiots running to be the nominee they haven't come up with one original idea to fix anything, all they care about is creating more ways to further polarize wealth and plunder even more natural resources by destroying what's left of this planet.

Then they need to widdle down their list to 3-4 things they want to change and offer up some solutions. I think their list is great but they are trying to include every voice who wants to dissent and it doesn't work. They can also solve a lot on that list by starting with items that can change the system enough for the other issues to be dealt with.

I think getting rid of lobbying and private/corporate campaign donations would be a great first step. Campaigns should all be publicly funded with a cap on spending, not sure how to implement it but get rid of corporate money and donations from the rich.

I would also put in term limits for all members of congress, being a politician should not be a career.

I believe this is essentially cutting off the head of the dragon and then you can begin dealing with flash trading, healthcare, civil rights etc. I would add 2-3 more well thought out issues and solutions to make sure the movement does t die with just 1 issue but they need to do a much better job of defining what they stand for and how they want to fix it.

Once they have done that the silent majority may begin to buy in.

DurzoBlint wrote:

jrodmc wrote:

Bippity10 wrote:

Silverfuel wrote:

martin wrote:

Bippity10 wrote:I can't stand when really rich actors, mucisians and athletes like Bill Maher etc try to pretend that they are not part of the really rich. That they are one of us schleps fighting the power. All Maher does is play to his crowd, whip them in to a frenzy, get them on his side and then waltz on home to count his money. These guys care as much about us and our plight as the politicians do.

because you have been successful you can't empathize or understand or have a voice?

I guess I don't watch Maher, is he pretending to be poor or not part of the really rich?

No man, he doesn't act like he is poor at all. This is just a way to discredit what he is saying. If he was a poor person saying it, then people would say he is a socialist asking for a hand out.

Yeah, because that's the way the Bip handles things. Running around calling people socialist. No those types of arguments are for you guys to have.

The jrod be severely hating on people who refer to themselves in third person.

You need to be fair to Bill Maher. He is the ONLY filthy rich guy I've heard come out and say he should be more heavily taxed. He takes ownership of the unfairness of it all and, he's been known to hang with the hip hop crowd and blaze up too:)

He's far from the only one... ever heard of that dude from Omaha? His name sounds like "lunch buffet"? There's also Soros, and many others. Just because a mofo is wealthy doesn't mean he no longer understands what's "fair".

jrodmc wrote:

OldFan wrote:"The real criticism is that America's oligarch's are rich." The real problem is the US is suppose to be a democracy. Do you know what Oligarchy means? You're either admitting that a few rich people run the country or you don't know the meaning of the word.

2) Your second statement (in bold) is the main hue and cry of OWS, isn't it? I don't agree or disagree with them, I just would like to hear what they would propose to do about it.

Then they need to widdle down their list to 3-4 things they want to change and offer up some solutions. I think their list is great but they are trying to include every voice who wants to dissent and it doesn't work. They can also solve a lot on that list by starting with items that can change the system enough for the other issues to be dealt with.

I've been down to the site a few times, and this is true. There are people down there with many different agendas on a multitude of different topics. Coming up with a small number of things that must happen would be key, because then nearly everyone down there could harp on those 3-4 items and then rant on their side issues. Since the 99%/1% chiefly should be how the democratic process has turned into a ogligarchy (or kleptocracy) that should be the key issue. We all should have an equal say in government, instead of a choice few throwing their money/influence around to implement policy.

Side note/shameless plug: We went down there the other day & mixed OWS/NBA for a (hopefully) funny video: http://knickerblogger.net/robertandjimandmikegotowallstreet/

jrodmc wrote:You really don't want to hear my "proposal". It's not going to do anything for your curiosity.

I'm not putting OWS'ers down, per se, just their lack of a clear purpose. I'm all for peaceful and even non-peaceful revolution, if the conditions call for it, but what's the point?

The OWS'ers point to the power of the rich and the inequality of the distribution of wealth. Funny, as I've pointed out several times, nobody was congregating in the streets protesting when the market was booming 8-10 years ago and you could make an insane amount of money doing things like daytrading. Life was good then, apparently. Unfortunately, the same breed of CEO's and rich folk were in place then that were in place when the whole house of cards came tumbling down. Now, all of a sudden, the system and the rich and the government are broken. I just find it a bit disingenuous, but hey, that's my opinion.

When a market is booming and jobs are good and deficit was very low, you expect an uprising? That's asking a lot from society. Today unemployment is sky high, unnecessary wars are burdening out budgets, Citizens United decision has changed our political system significantly and there is a Congress that does not seem to want to address anything more than Abortion rights and funding DOMA. So yes, a LOT has changed over the past decade and finally there is enough momentum to get people acting on it.

jrodmc wrote:The chickens have come home to roost. My "proposal" isn't so much a fix as it is a diagnosis. We are a society in a classic, historical decline. We are now a country based almost solely on market econmomics, relative morality, situational ethics and a consumer mentality. When these ideas coalesce, the apparent unsatisfactory results for the majority are now in question. So what happens? Do people look to the underlying reasons for the collapse? That all these CEO's and wealthy folk have just bought into the system, and they happen to have rode the system to apparent material success? Stan O'Neal of Merrill rode off into his platinum sunset with a 170 million balloons for engineering and propagating a revenue stream that partially drove stock prices through the roof, underlying stupidity of the system be damned. No, folks like OWS stand and scream and yell and tweet and facebook. And in the background, they light candles for visionaries like Steve Jobs, who by the way, died with an estimated net worth of 8.3 billion, which started in the proverbial garage. Apparently, the system wasn't broken for him.

The problems with the US economy are a direct result of the problems with the US in general. We are a federal republic in the midst of a long, slow decline into oblivion. We are society based on TV morals and the ethics of Madison Avenue. Or do the OWS'ers and anyone else dismiss that fact?

Change the channel. Figure out why we are teaching what we teach in the universities that have bred all these CEO's and rich folk. Figure out why and how wealth should/or ought to be distributed fairly. What are the underlying moral implications of government-sponsored, government-directed redistribution? Why is this country constantly inflating balloons that they think will never pop, and when the balloon inevitably does pop, they don't think, "wow, maybe we should stop depending on the blowing up of balloons", they curse the people who provided the balloon to begin with. I think that exercise would do more towards establishing a direction than blocking traffic in midtown Manhattan and screaming at rich people. Is it possible to even propose the "small is beautiful" plan, with quiet, calm distribution of assets, when we are so far down this road to megalamania?

But like they said on M*A*S*H all those years ago, "Yeah Frank, let's do anything!"

Maybe you're right. Maybe standing around causing gridlock and trying to get a signal on my Iphone would be better than sitting here on my fat ass typing about it. I doubt it would pay as well, though.

[And the jrod doesn't actually possess an Iphone]

There sure a lot of moral problems in the USA, but that's turning a pretty obvious blind eye to some other very real structural flaws in our society.

jrodmc wrote:

Markji wrote:

jrodmc wrote:

OldFan wrote:"The real criticism is that America's oligarch's are rich." The real problem is the US is suppose to be a democracy. Do you know what Oligarchy means? You're either admitting that a few rich people run the country or you don't know the meaning of the word.

2) Your second statement (in bold) is the main hue and cry of OWS, isn't it? I don't agree or disagree with them, I just would like to hear what they would propose to do about it.

Well jrod, I am curious to hear what you propose. All I have read is you putting down the OWS protesters. Yet you seem to acknowledge that there might be some problems with the U.S. economy which was exacerbated by the financial collapse in 2008.

You really don't want to hear my "proposal". It's not going to do anything for your curiosity.

I'm not putting OWS'ers down, per se, just their lack of a clear purpose. I'm all for peaceful and even non-peaceful revolution, if the conditions call for it, but what's the point?

The OWS'ers point to the power of the rich and the inequality of the distribution of wealth.
Their point is not the redistribution of wealth but the redistribution of the opportunities to gain wealth. BIG difference.

Funny, as I've pointed out several times, nobody was congregating in the streets protesting when the market was booming 8-10 years ago and you could make an insane amount of money doing things like daytrading. Life was good then, apparently. Unfortunately, the same breed of CEO's and rich folk were in place then that were in place when the whole house of cards came tumbling down. Now, all of a sudden, the system and the rich and the government are broken. I just find it a bit disingenuous, but hey, that's my opinion.
People didn't understand the system or the possible impending castasrophy it would cause. The average person felt secure and was constantly reassured by all the gov't leaders and the leaders of Wall Street. People believed the leaders then. Now they have finally woken up and realize they were lied to.

The chickens have come home to roost. My "proposal" isn't so much a fix as it is a diagnosis. We are a society in a classic, historical decline.
Agree. Just like you say the OWS are just protesting but don't give a plan of action, same with your statement. So what should we do?

We are now a country based almost solely on market econmomics, relative morality, situational ethics and a consumer mentality. When these ideas coalesce, the apparent unsatisfactory results for the majority are now in question. So what happens? Do people look to the underlying reasons for the collapse? That all these CEO's and wealthy folk have just bought into the system, and they happen to have rode the system to apparent material success? Stan O'Neal of Merrill rode off into his platinum sunset with a 170 million balloons for engineering and propagating a revenue stream that partially drove stock prices through the roof, underlying stupidity of the system be damned. No, folks like OWS stand and scream and yell and tweet and facebook. And in the background, they light candles for visionaries like Steve Jobs, who by the way, died with an estimated net worth of 8.3 billion, which started in the proverbial garage. Apparently, the system wasn't broken for him.

The problems with the US economy are a direct result of the problems with the US in general. We are a federal republic in the midst of a long, slow decline into oblivion. We are society based on TV morals and the ethics of Madison Avenue. Or do the OWS'ers and anyone else dismiss that fact?

Change the channel. Figure out why we are teaching what we teach in the universities that have bred all these CEO's and rich folk.
I agree - but it really starts in the family. Parents are the ones most responsible for shaping the values of their children. Schools are important, but are perhaps #2.

Figure out why and how wealth should/or ought to be distributed fairly. What are the underlying moral implications of government-sponsored, government-directed redistribution? Why is this country constantly inflating balloons that they think will never pop, and when the balloon inevitably does pop, they don't think, "wow, maybe we should stop depending on the blowing up of balloons", they curse the people who provided the balloon to begin with.
If I am understanding you correctly, this is what the protests are about. They are bringing awareness to the fact that the ballon popped and we need to change the people in charge who are blowing up the balloons. The politicians and the Big money that gets them into power.

I think that exercise would do more towards establishing a direction than blocking traffic in midtown Manhattan and screaming at rich people. Is it possible to even propose the "small is beautiful" plan, with quiet, calm distribution of assets, when we are so far down this road to megalamania?

But like they said on M*A*S*H all those years ago, "Yeah Frank, let's do anything!"

Maybe you're right. Maybe standing around causing gridlock and trying to get a signal on my Iphone would be better than sitting here on my fat ass typing about it. I doubt it would pay as well, though.

[And the jrod doesn't actually possess an Iphone]

The reason for the protests and their goal is to change the system; level the playing field. People are frustrated and feel helpless because Wall Street has gamed the system for their own profit and screwed the average person. They have all 3 branches of Gov't in their pockets; and the people feel hopeless. They feel there is no way to get the change that is needed.

I'll repeat Alan Grayson's comment. It says it all.

Alan Grayson - "They’re complaining that Wall Street wrecked the economy three years ago and nobody’s held responsible for that. Not a single person’s been indicted or convicted for destroying twenty percent of our national net worth accumulated over two centuries.

They’re upset about the fact that Wall Street has iron control over the economic policies of this country, and that one party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street, and the other party caters to them as well.”[