BS: Wall Street Protesters...

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Oct 11 - 06:09 PM

Exactly, the money goes both ways... The corporations "cover themselves like bus station whores"...

OWSers are saying in general that all this is doing is preventing *US* from having a democracy... When 90% of candidates who spend the most $$$ win and there is no control over who contributes to whom, with no disclosure, then we will get nothing but corruption...

And, bb, what your blogger has done is narrowed the focus so much that if this were a submarine with a hole the size of Volkswagen and another the size of a pin hole your blogger is ignoring the VW hole and diverting attention away toward the pinhole... This is the tactic of the rigth... Never talk about the big picture... Always find some detail to make into the big picture...

The big picture is that we have BIG $$$ running out goevernment...

I don't give a rat's ass where this amount went or that amount... We saw billion$$$ of ads that were for this guy or that guy that we frankly have no idea who was buying them...

Do you agree that we don't want the Chinese to own our Congress???

Well, they can according to your Supreme Court...

We need to restore a workable democracy... If we can't do that then we are going to be a failed state...

Bob (OccupyCharlotte.com)

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Oct 11 - 06:37 PM

This morning, on my local NPR affiliate, I heard a discussion with Seattle's mayor Mike McGinn about "Occupy Seattle," the local mirror of "Occupy Wall Street." Steve Scher (an excellent interviewer) asked Mayor McGinn about some of the restrictions he had placed on the demonstrators who were gathering and camping at Westlake Park. The mayor responded that he was not allowing them to pitch tents and camp there overnight because that was a violation of long-standing city ordinances. He offered the demonstrators the alternative of camping on the large lawn next to City Hall, a few blocks South of Westlake Park.

As the interview progressed, Mayor McGinn indicated that he thoroughly understood what motivates the protesters and, fundamentally, is in agreement with them. He cited statistics about the inequitable distribution of wealth in this country and deplored the city services that he was forced to cut and the people he had to lay off due to budget constraints brought about by the country's sick economy. This, along with Seattle's stalled light rail system and the egregious traffic gridlock in and around the city because the city simply does not have the funds to fix it.

In the last half hour of the program (interrupted from time to time by the station's current ongoing "beg-a-thon"), as he usually does, Steve opened the phones and invited people who had questions or comments to call in. The first caller exploded all over the mayor, reading him out for his allowing anarchists and hooligans to use city facilities and accused him of being (oh, horrors!!) a Socialist!!

That, of course, is the ultimate curse. And like many of this caller's ilk, I'm quite sure that when he calls the city to bitch about the pot-hole in the street in front of his house, he's counting on certain "socialistic" practices to come out and fix it for him (rather than pay for it himself). There are a lot of really clueless people who, nevertheless, have the power of the vote.

The rest of the callers were generally saner and better informed.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 10 Oct 11 - 07:20 PM

Look carefully. OWS is not an Obama rally. BB's post is intended to start an argument on another topic. OWS is not about supporting Obama. He can choose for himself which side he is on. And, I will expect him to do so.

I suggest taht everyone and everyone go to their local Occupy gathering - judge for yourselves whether these people are puppets or frustrated *individuals*. Until you do that, you are talking out your arse.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Oct 11 - 07:27 PM

You notice, TIA, that my rebuttals to bb don't mention Obama once... Or anyone else for that matter...

I get OWS... It's about "democracy" in action... That's what scares the right... They hare democracy because it means that we elect people differently and people can't buy power... Purdy simple...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 10 Oct 11 - 07:40 PM

Yup. Everybody I am seeing and talking to is not getting any money from anyone to be there. Nobody is bought. And the 1% are scared shitless that we can't be bought. So they are trying to convince the Faux viewing sheep that we are a dangerous mob.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Oct 11 - 07:46 PM

BINGO, TIA!!!

They are scared shitless...

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: gnu
Date: 10 Oct 11 - 07:54 PM

It could become something... from "nothing". Hey... if all of the people who got fucked over by big business protest and shut things down, maybe big business will have to listen to them. Of course, let's hope big business have already fired off all their cruise missiles bombing people 8000 miles away.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 12:03 AM

I don't think OWS is about supporting Obama. I don't think it's about supporting any political party. It's about exposing and resisting the domination of our societies by a criminal financial elite which has been controlling ALL the major political parties through corporate funding of their campaigns and through lobbying politicians in office and through playing totally irresponsible financial games with the public's money.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 09:11 AM

Yeah, LH... Whereas most of the OWSers will either vote for Obama or not vote, this is kinda a sidebar movement... That's why I like it and will continue with the Charlotte group... This conversation is long overdue... The right wing has done everything in their power to change the conversation...

On the Washington Post discussions all the righties want to talk about is some guy who used a cop car as a bathroom... What the righties absolutely will not accept is that one thing that every group has in common is that the movement is non-violent... Everyone pledges in the "General Assembly" to abide to rules of non-violence toward other folks and ****property****... But the right gleefully says over and over and over (100s of times) the same mantra about OWSers pooping on cop cars... That is their entire response other than accusing the OWSers of wanting a handout...

No matter...

It's up to *US* to ignore the "ignor"ant and just keep pointing out that America needs to restore democracy and justice... If we do that, everything else is just details...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Suffet
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 09:36 AM

I have spent six days at Occupy Wall Street here in New York City, and I assure you that it is not a pro-Obama event. If anything, people are just as critical of Obama as they are of all the other politicians, Democrats as well as Republicans. Occupy Wall Street is about how corporate wealth and power have co-opted, subverted, bought off, twisted, undermined, thwarted, and dismembered American democracy. If anything, the Case of Barack Obama is Exhibit 1.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Sawzaw
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 09:37 AM

Chongo D. Chimp must be the mastermind behind all of this OWS stuff.

Don't watch alphabet television networks, but Adbuster ads promoting Occupy Wall Street will keep you safe from risk of mental illness.

The Canadian "Mental Environmentalists" Face behind Occupy Wall Street
canadafreepress.com October 6, 2011

If you are a factory owner or in the business of making widgets in today's America, you are a capitalist pig and Occupy Wall Street protesters will use you as an excuse for anarchy with violent signs that read: "Eat the Rich".

If you are a Michael Moore or a Susan Sarandon, making millions in the film world, Wall Street protesters will eat you up, sing your praises and bow forever at just the mention of your name.

As George Orwell penned long ago, "Some animals are more equal than others".

The face of the Occupy Wall Street protest is a Canadian one.

It's the face that belongs to AdBusters owner Kalle Lasn, but can't be found on AdBusters website. Canada Free Press (CFP) went to the Way Back Machine to bring Lasn forward today.

But Lasn takes full credit for the protests that started with Wall Street and are spreading across North America to other cities in today's Globe and Mail.

"This was all cooked up right here at Adbusters. It's a Canadian adventure," he said."

"Egypt and Tahrir Square proved that a few smart people on the Internet can call for something and, if it captures the public's imagination, it can get tens of thousands of people out on the streets."
Lasn collaborated on the book Design Anarchy (2006) with fellow social activists Michael Simons and Paul Shoebridge.

This is the biography written by Kalle Lasn revived from Way Back Machine: "I was born in Tallinn, Estonia, during the middle of World War II. In 1944, as the Russian army approached Tallinn, my family escaped to Germany. We lived in a displaced persons' camp for five years. When I was seven we immigrated to Australia where I received my education, graduating with a B.Sc. in pure and applied mathematics. My first job was with the Australian Defense Department where I played computer-simulated war games in the Pacific Ocean. At age 23 I headed for Europe, but my boat stopped in Yokohama for two days. I fell in love with Japan and was unable to get back on the boat. During the '60s I ran a market research company in Tokyo and made enough money to travel around the world for three years. Then I returned to Japan, married Masako Tominaga and we immigrated to Canada. I started a documentary film making company. Over the next 15 years, my documentaries were broadcast on PBS, CBC and around the world, winning over 15 international awards.

"In 1989 I produced a 30-second TV spot about the disappearing old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, but to my dismay, none of the commercial TV stations would sell me any airtime. The Media Foundation, Adbusters Magazine and Powershift Advertising Agency were all born out of this incident and the realization that there is no democracy on the airwaves. I've spent the last thirteen years editing and publishing Adbusters, launching social marketing campaigns like Buy Nothing Day and TV Turnoff Week, and fighting legal battles for the right to access the public airwaves."

According to Wikipedia, "Adbusters Media Foundation is a not-for-profit, anti-consumerist, pro-environment organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The foundation describes itself as a "global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age.

"The Adbusters Media Foundation publishes the reader-supported, advertising-free Adbusters, an activist magazine with an international circulation of 120,000 devoted to challenging consumerism. Notable past and present contributors to the magazine include Christopher Hedges, Matt Taibbi, Bill McKibben, Jim Munroe, Douglas Rushkoff, Jonathan Barnbrook, David Graeber and others."

Before starting off the North American protest movement based on the so-called "Arab Spring", Adbuster's main claim to fame was "Mental Environmentalism".

While Environment giant Greenpeace, (which also originates from Canada) campaigns against pollution and takes to the seas to "Save the Whales", AdBusters' self-professed "greenthink' aims to "clean up the toxic areas of our mind".

The pollution of invading the privacy of the human "mind" is not mentioned.

The Adbuster greenthink is on the record describing how "Mental environmentalists argue that a whole range of phenomenon from the BP oil spill to the emergency of crony-democracy to the mass extinction of animals to the significant increase in mental illnesses are directly caused by the three thousand advertisements that assault our minds each day", though this is tagged with a Wikipedia notation "citation needed"

Don't watch alphabet television networks, but Adbuster ads promoting Occupy Wall Street will keep you safe from risk of mental illness.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: GUEST,999 -- IMPORTANT READ, IMO.
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 09:51 AM

I have posted the article here rather than link to it. Paul Krugman was a Nobel Prize recipient (Economics) in 2008. He might be worth reading. It casts light on some recent rants against OWS.

Panic of the Plutocrats
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: October 9, 2011

It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America's direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.

And this reaction tells you something important — namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called "economic royalists," not the people camping in Zuccotti Park.

Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police — confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction — but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in the summer of 2009.

Nonetheless, Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has denounced "mobs" and "the pitting of Americans against Americans." The G.O.P. presidential candidates have weighed in, with Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging "class warfare," while Herman Cain calls them "anti-American." My favorite, however, is Senator Rand Paul, who for some reason worries that the protesters will start seizing iPads, because they believe rich people don't deserve to have them.

Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor and a financial-industry titan in his own right, was a bit more moderate, but still accused the protesters of trying to "take the jobs away from people working in this city," a statement that bears no resemblance to the movement's actual goals.

And if you were listening to talking heads on CNBC, you learned that the protesters "let their freak flags fly," and are "aligned with Lenin."

The way to understand all of this is to realize that it's part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.

Last year, you may recall, a number of financial-industry barons went wild over very mild criticism from President Obama. They denounced Mr. Obama as being almost a socialist for endorsing the so-called Volcker rule, which would simply prohibit banks backed by federal guarantees from engaging in risky speculation. And as for their reaction to proposals to close a loophole that lets some of them pay remarkably low taxes — well, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, compared it to Hitler's invasion of Poland.

And then there's the campaign of character assassination against Elizabeth Warren, the financial reformer now running for the Senate in Massachusetts. Not long ago a YouTube video of Ms. Warren making an eloquent, down-to-earth case for taxes on the rich went viral. Nothing about what she said was radical — it was no more than a modern riff on Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous dictum that "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society."

But listening to the reliable defenders of the wealthy, you'd think that Ms. Warren was the second coming of Leon Trotsky. George Will declared that she has a "collectivist agenda," that she believes that "individualism is a chimera." And Rush Limbaugh called her "a parasite who hates her host. Willing to destroy the host while she sucks the life out of it."

What's going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street's Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They're not John Galt; they're not even Steve Jobs. They're people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they're still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.

This special treatment can't bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.

So who's really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America's oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: GUEST,999
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 10:02 AM

That isn't news, Sawzaw. I mentioned it--although not with your degree of erudition--days back on this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Jeri
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 10:27 AM

Just another reason why I love Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 10:29 AM

Thanks for posting the Paul Krugman op-ed, bruceie... He fairly well sums up the situation...

And for "Exhibit A" all one has to do is go to washingtonpost.com and read the discussions... There are about 8 or 9 of the upper 1% who have literally camped out there 24/7 manning their front... It the same people who have tried 100s, maybe thousands, of times to change the conversation to "poo" or people wanting a "handout"...

They absolutely will not engage in any other conversation other than calling the folks who have something intelligent to say as socialists or morons!!! That, my friends, is the response of the super wealthy... Name calling and bogus stories about poo...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: GUEST,999
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 10:33 AM

Greenpeace started here? I wasn't aware of that. Makes one proud to be Canadian!

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Jeri
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 10:44 AM

Not likely. You guys still club seals, I think. Hey, I hear some greedy folks here have nice pelts. If we work things out right, we can send them way up north and you can get sloppy seconds on the furs.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Jeri
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 10:56 AM

Oops. Sorry- I missed the bit about Greenpeace. Zoned out by the time I hit that part.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: ollaimh
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 12:11 PM

i read a book by neil fergeson published before the
crash" called the ascent of money. he pointed out that over eighty percent of the financial instruments being traded and sold on wall street didn't exist in 1990. they made a lot of money creating stocks and bonds out of thin air, by packaging exisiting ones, then sold derivatives and derivitives on derivitives, and options on derivitivies, etc. with the cash they suddessfully lobbied congress to remove the already limp wristed regulations, and went to town! the result was a classic bubble.

now in canada we had a government that may have been too business oriented but ran surplusses for eleven years, and refused the banks permission to engage in the risky financial instruments being created in wall street, they were pilloried by the business community, but eureka! we had no bamk failures! we had no insurance company failures! no mortgage company failures ! no trust company conpany failres!

and or big five bankc are among the biggest in the world because we have bank consolidation--few or no mlocal banks, and our bankc play on the world stage, especially in the carribean, parts of south america and europe.

wow , regulation. what a concept. don't let the crooks from military capitaqlism steal all the money! they did it oin the eighties with the chicago mercantile exchange scandal where the largest commidities exchange in the world was a bucket shop with over a third of the people involved on the take, then the nineties the savings and loan five finger discount for the big corporations then the tech bubble then the great crash. they will steal all the money if you leave them unregulated. and calling any attempt at regulation socialism is just stupidity. there are fer instance no socialist governments in europe any more! but they regulate. canada's regulation was not socialism, the prime minister and finance minister who was the artichect of the whole regulatory system was a major corporate owner! but he was a canadian liberal who believed in corporate responsibility.

if you don't regylate they will strsl all the money!! it's that simple.

when your military has gifted you a whole un exploited continent, the biggest lottery win in mankinds history, if you caqn't make that work your system is totally screwed up! any body but idiots can make north america the wealthiest palces in the world. anybody but the american right wingnuts

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Stringsinger
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 12:12 PM

Hi Dick,



The actions that the protesters are looking for and hope to achieve is for the wealthy CEO's and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, for cut backs on the Military Industrial Complex and bring soldiers home from the failed wars. Congress as run by Republicans and wishy-washy Democrats will not listen to what the people are saying. They have too much invested economically in the status quo and are controlled by corporate purse strings. There is also a demand for a systemic change in the way our government functions by ridding of lobbying, developing regulations that have teeth, such as Glass Steagal, eliminating the ruse that "corporations are people" and are entitled to buy "free speech", which is not really free. The important aspect of this movement is that the dots are finally being connected, the exploitation of the American working and middle class, the prolonged wars, the control of government by corporations, the exploitation of insurance providers, the malfeasance of energy company polluters, the
disenfranchisement of the electorate, the takeover of congress by Republican special interest groups such as ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council) which seeks to promote bills by buying legislators, and the abject failure of Libertarianism, "trickle down" economics, and the trashing of government by those who game the system.

What's not to understand?

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Stringsinger
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 12:24 PM

Sawzaw, Adbusters didn't invent our economic problems, they found a way to describe them. These problems were there before Adbusters came on the scene. The Chongo Chimps are the ones who don't get it.

BB most people bend the facts to fit their perception of the world. There are no objective facts that are not open to interpretation. Even gravity is defied by air travel.

The important aspect of the OWS movement is that it reflects the views of the participants who come from all walks of life and are not, as the media deprecatingly refers to them, pot smoking hippies.

Otherwise the police wouldn't have to be so brutal in their crackdown.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 12:46 PM

Strings,

"BB most people bend the facts to fit their perception of the world"

Agreed, yet most here deny it when THEY are caught doing do.



"There are no objective facts that are not open to interpretation."

Agan, the majority HERE do NOT permit any interpretation that does not fit their agendas.




" Even gravity is defied by air travel."

Not a true statement. Air travel does not in any way defy gravity- The aerodynamic lift provides a counter to it, but planes will fall out of the sky when that does not counterbalance the force of gravity.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 01:29 PM

Actually, bruce, nothing that you have just said changes the facts on the ground about the OWS movement... Strings hit 'um pretty well with his 12:12 post...

As for "permitting" different opinions, that's not true... I don't believe that any of your posts have been deleted... Yeah, you do seem to camp out on the right side of the divide and it's true that most of the folks here are on the "other" side but, hey, this is a fold musicians web site... What would you expect??? Folk musicians tend to be more liberal than the general population... That's just simple reality... I mean, if I go to a Young Republican website with my ideas then I'm not going to find too many people who agree with me, if any... That's reality...

But I'd rather have a Mudcat with you as part of the community than one without you... It's not about permitting or not permitting but accepting someone who doesn't agree with the majority... No one here that I know of dislikes you for your views... You, for the most part, present them without malice...

BTW, how's that school coming???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 02:57 PM

"The Chongo Chimps are the ones who don't get it." - Stringsinger

What the heck are you talkin' about, Mister? I am 100% in favour of the Occupy Wall Street movement! I say more power to the protestors. The bankers and mega-corporates have robbed and impoverished this society and co-opted government. They are destroyin' the middle class and playin' pyramid schemes with money they made outta thin air. They are crooks! They oughta be arrested and put on trial for grand larceny from the public purse.

It is asinine to pretend, as Sawzaw does, that this movement is anti-capitalist. What a laugh. Corporatism is NOT capitalism! As a matter of fact, corporatism as it is practiced today destroys traditional capitalism, destroys local jobs, puts American out of work, sends the jobs overseas, and shuts down small businesses everywhere. Corporatism and international banking congolomerates are wiping traditional capitalism and the American middle class who used to benefit from traditional capitalism off the face of North America.

This is the real truth that the Republicans cannot face up to. Their policies are killing capitalism and replacing it with centralized rule by huge banks and huge corporations...and it ends up lookin' more like a new form of Stalinism with a big dollar sign stuck on its face to me.

Get this, Stringsinger: I AM a member of the 99%!

- Chongo

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 03:48 PM

Bruce, the Paul Krugman article you posted at 11 Oct 11-09:51 a.m.?

Excellent! Clear and very much to the point. Thank you for posting that!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: GUEST,999
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 04:02 PM

Thank you Don and Bobert.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 04:52 PM

A good column in the NY Times today.
The Milquetoast Radicals
David Brooks, Oct. 10, 2011

Nothing but trivial sideshows over the past two years (E. g., The Occupy Wall Street). Extracts-

"A group that divides the world between the pure 99 percent and the evil one percent will have nothing to say about education reform, Medicare reform, tax reform, wage stagnation or polarization. They will have nothing to say about the way Americans have overconsumed and over borrowed. These are problems that implicate a much broader swath of society than the top 1 percent."
"..... since the left no longer believes in the nationalization of industry, these "radicals" really have no systematic reforms to fall back on."
The article goes on to castigate the small thinkers, including both Obama and the Republicans.

See Matt Miller, The Third Party Stump Speech We Need.
".... slash corporate taxes and raise energy taxes, aggressively use market forces and public provisions to bring down health care costs; raise capital requirements for banks; require national service; balance the budget by 2018."
Matt Miller, Washington Post, published September 25, 2011.
The results will be a "more competitive, sustainable and just America."
Miller makes a strong case against "the Democrats' timid half- measures and the Republicans' mindless anti-government creed."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-third-party-stump-speech-we-need/2011/09/22/gIQAj8wK_story.html
(or google title of story)

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: akenaton
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 04:58 PM

From The Times "passionate, but pointless"

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 05:10 PM

That's right, Sawz... The chimp may have some real bad persoanl habits but his politics are right on...

Matt Miller is a loon, Q, with David Brooks not too far behind... What got the US to spending 17% of its GNP on health care in the first place was exactly what Miller now say is the solution... Kinda like leach therapy... Slashing corporate tax??? What's the difference if it's 35%, 3% of 10 million %... They won't pay any just like they don't pay any now... Matt Miller is a puppet without a real brain that thinks independent of what the Koch brothers stick in there every day... Not sure where David gets his looniness but I think he comes by it more honestly than Matt...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 05:30 PM

Not a true statement. Air travel does not in any way defy gravity...

You mean the THEORY of gravity, dontcha Beardie? Like the theory of evolution, the theory of global warming, etc?

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 05:38 PM

Exxonmobil 2009
Income - 35 billion
Income taxes - 15 billion
Net Income - 20 billion
(from which payments made to the many shareholders)

Total revenues - 311 billion
Total expenses - 276 billion
Earnings/common share - $3.98

2008
Income - 83 billion
Income taxes - 36.5 billion
2007
Income - 71.4 billion
Income taxes - 30 billion

Does not include sales taxes, etc.

I could do Microsoft and show a much larger percentage of profit-

The U.S. would be Slobovia without these generators of jobs and taxes.
The tax system needs reform, but claiming corporations pay no taxes is idiotic nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 05:40 PM

Above Exxonmobil data from 2009 Annual Report.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 05:54 PM

Those are not corporate tax figures ... Those are other tax figures... They include everything including the payroll taxes they pay their employees, the taxes they pay the state and localities for property owned... They are not based on the profits the corporation made... This is more corporate smoke and mirrors...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 06:20 PM

1. Source, Please?

2. Please break it down to specifics - state taxes, federal taxes local taxes & etc. & include profit figures, not just gross sales.

3. What about the other several thousand major corporations?

The U.S. would be Slobovia without these generators of jobs...

Problem being that the jobs they create are IN Slobovia, not the U.S.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 06:23 PM

Statement by Bobert incorrect. Sales taxes, etc. in the statement of income and expenses.
Read the summary annual report for 2009, especially the financial summary p. 38.
Total sales and operating revenus in 2009 was 301.5 billion, with total costs and deductions 276 billion, which included sales taxes, product purchases*, manufacturing and sales expenses, and other taxes incurred (foreign, etc.).
This leaves approx. 35 billion income before income taxes.

*Much of supply purchased from governments and producing companies around the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 06:28 PM

Like Paul Harvey used to say, "And now for the rest of the story...


http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2010/04/06/173215/exxon-zero-taxes/

Read 'um an' weep, Q-ball...lol...

B:~)

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 06:43 PM

Jobs have gone elsewhere because costs are lower and efficiency greater overseas.

U. S. infrastructure has gone downhill, salaries too high, unions backward in thinking, education levels low, more progressive education and rise of competition in Asia and strengthening EU, lack of foresight and incentives on the part of government- you name it. The only entrepreneurship has been on the part of the communications industry, but developments outside the U.S. quickly caught up and forged ahead.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 07:00 PM

If our political, ideological rocket scientists on here, would click on their names, and read posts, from TWO weeks ago, and on back....they would be finding they are arguing the other side of the same arguments that they are arguing now!

Now to the 'other' party...You like Mitt??..The Obama administration released, TODAY, that the 'model' for Obama Care, that was used to pattern Obama Care after...was modeled after Mitt's Massachusetts health care bill!

Big difference there, huh????

Joe Biden, was the architect of the Patriot Act, in the mid 1990's!!..BEFORE 911!!

When they FINALLY discover that Wall Street was a HUGE, excuse me, the BIGGEST, supporter of Obama's Presidency bid in '08..do you think your dim lights will grow brighter??

Then you squabble and bitch about what 'news' source I am 'deluding' myself with.....and throw 'party line talking points' at me, like I'm some sort of anti-human, right wing Bobert Basher and Donny Dowser,..only to find out, that I was telling you the TRUTH, all along..that the 'two parties' are really a masquerade, pandering to one side or the other, AT A TIME, all along!
You may even remember my analogy of the boxer in the ring, hitting you with a 'right' another 'right' a 'left' and a 'right' and a 'left' ..but behind it ALL, was the SAME boxer...out to knock you out! (or unconscious).
That analogy, used on here, was over THREE years ago, during the elections!!! (anybody home?).....

Now its Wall Street...and today announced that they are going into the area where the 'rich' guys pulling the financial/political strings live....guess who lives in that area?.....David Koch, George Soros, Murdoch,..and a host of others!....that Either/Both side THINKS are their 'heroes'......................

.............when all along...................................you heard it HERE, .................................first!

Weren't the earlier 'protest/folk' singers supposed to have some 'insight'?....and that made them 'hip'?....especially when they spoke out AGAINST the 'establishment'?

Guess what???................................except for a few on here....................................YOU are the establishment!

Happy Creative Moments........and Be Sane,

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 07:20 PM

Hmmmmm???

I though this thread was about the Wall Street protesters???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 08:02 PM

Jobs have gone elsewhere because costs are lower and efficiency greater overseas

No.

Jobs have gone elsewhere because a decent profit and a fair return on investment are no longer sufficient for the greedy bastards who pine for the days of The Gilded Age and wish they were J.P. Morgan - now they must make an obscene profit, and damn the consequences.

And also because these 'job producing patriots' don't really give a fuck about the USA or US workers as long as they keep making gobs of money - by any means necessary.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 08:05 PM

And also because they can cheerfully exploit workers in foreign, non-union environments and treat them even more like shit wythan they treat U.S. workers.

And tell your story (that it's all the fault of the Unions in the U.S.) walking.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 08:06 PM

Not to mention that India and China are building entire plants, turn key, and giving them to American corporations for free, land and all...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 08:40 PM

Get it through your thick skulls...the 'globalists' are NOT looking out for America, or American interests...just themselves! They don't want, or need to give a shit about you or me!..nor this country, other than using its military to attain their goals......and if using it, against us, will further THEIR goals, they will!
They only need a reason to make it LOOKED 'justified', and make it LOOK like 'it's for your own good'!
That is what is the goal of the Tea party, in conjunction with OWS, in conjunction with the Democraps, in conjunction with the Republicunts, your 'news' media, and EVERY thing they can exploit, to make divisions, hostile to each other....so they can 'quell', by force, and set up their agenda, that you will be compelled to comply with.....WITHOUT representation!
This is not rocket science, folks.
'Globalists'...you know, like 'World Dominators'! You will give up your freedoms WILLINGLY, some already have, to buy into their crap...and some of you are promoting just that.....on their behalf, because you believed them!...and still do!
It is YOU who they fear!...That is why the lies and secrecy! Now, either way you turn, you are caged in!

Have a wonderful practice session.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 08:51 PM

If ya' gonna talk the talk then ya gotta walk the walk... That means no more rant/lectures of a mix of Lyndon LaRouche/Ron Paul/ Wallie Wacko...

Join your local OWS and find out it ain't all about you...

Talk is cheap...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 09:55 PM

I think it's a shame that this much energy and enthusiasm still doesn't seem to be aimed at anything useful. A plan to organize and defeat congessmen (Repubs and Dems) who have filibustered the jopbs bill would be a meaningful step towards achieving the OWS avowed goals.
A successful grassroots movement should not support any political party---they should try to directly influence the members of any party that oppose their views.
To me, screaming at billionaires because they get government tax breaks is pointless; scream, instead, at the people who give them those breaks.Better yet, keep them from being elected. (note: observe Tea Party tactics)

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 09:58 PM

"Not to mention that India and China* are building entire plants...."
Now why didn't the Americans think of that?
*You forgot to add South Korea and Taiwan.

Overall profit margins for the whole of industry are meaningless.
Takes time to winkle them out, but a few figures-
2005 levels:
Internet companies- 21%; 1st Q 2011- 23.8%
Lumber companies - --; 18% 1st Q 2011
Major Banks- 16%; 1st Q 10.5% (money center banks)
Newspapers- 11%; 7% 2011 1st Q*
Multimedia- 9%
Oil and gas- 9% (1998- 7.4%); 1st Q 2011- 6.2% integrated majors, oil&gas expl. companies 10%)
Clothing- 5%
Auto- 3%
Groceries- 1.5%
* This places major integrated Oil & Gas companies at no 114 in the order of profitability. Size cannot be equated with profit margin.
-----------------
Closed end equity funds 2011 1st Q- 81% Yes, this sort of thing needs oversight and regulation. Closed end foreign- 38%

Of course the loonies who cannot read a balance sheet will continue to rant against corporations, without effect.

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 10:06 PM

Overall profit margins for the whole of industry are meaningless.

Tell it to industry.

Oh, and how about some figures that aren't 6 years old?

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 10:12 PM

Agreed, Q....

We should be building plants here... I'm all for that... Use tax money to compete... The right calls that socialism... I call it competing to keep Americans employed... That's why we need to pass a job bill..

Sorry, dick, but lotta these folks ain't where you want them to be and may never be where you want them to be... Some will get there but it's a process... We're kinda back to Square One and need a new look...

OWS is in its infant stage... Like to see you attend your closest OWS "General Assembly" and put your 2 cents worth in...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 11:06 PM

When someone starts a post with "Get it through your thick skulls..." I know that what follows is not going to be worth reading. Anyone with that attitude is nothing but a schoolyard bully and he's too concerned with his own ego to bother with facts and reason.

PHOOEY

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Wall Street Protesters...
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 11:55 PM

Horseshit!

GfS