Archive | October, 2011

‘How to Occupy an Abstraction’

15 Oct

How can you occupy an abstraction? Perhaps only with another abstraction. Occupy Wall Street took over a more or less public park nestled in the downtown landscape of tower blocks, not too far from the old World Trade Center site, and set up camp. It is an occupation which, almost uniquely, does not have demands. It has at its core a suggestion: what if people came together and found a way to structure a conversation which might come up with a better way to run the world? Could they do any worse than the way it is run by the combined efforts of Wall Street as rentier class and Wall Street as computerized vectors trading intangible assets?

via VersoBooks.com.

Around the World, Protests Against Economic Policies – NYTimes.com

15 Oct

In Rome, a protest thick with tension spread over several miles. Protesters set fire to at least one building and clashed violently with the police, who responded with water cannons and tear gas.

In other European cities, including Berlin and London, the demonstrations were largely peaceful, with thousands of people marching past ancient monuments and many gathering in front of capitalist symbols like the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. Elsewhere, the turnout was more modest, but rallies of a few hundred people were held in several cities, including Sydney, Australia, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Protests were also held in New York and several other cities in the United States and Canada.

via Around the World, Protests Against Economic Policies – NYTimes.com.

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We’re not a leaderless movement, we’re a movement of leaders – aaroncynic – Open Salon

15 Oct

“I’ve been telling a lot of people – this movement is bigger than any one of us…for any reason somebody has to leave, someone will step up. We’re not a leaderless movement, we’re a movement of leaders.”

Though the crowd may have amounted to two dozen or so activists the moment I arrived, that soon changed. A stream of marchers poured onto the corner, returning from passing through the Loop spreading their message. Plenty of new faces were among them, but Sarah, a 26-year-old legal secretary, has been there, like Micah, since the beginning. She too, felt that the movement has made strides in the past two weeks and seemed undeterred by the changes.

via We’re not a leaderless movement, we’re a movement of leaders – aaroncynic – Open Salon.

The Bankers Don’t Get It!

15 Oct

The alpha monkeys are playing dumb. If they’d studied evolutionary psychology they’d know that equality is in our blood. The protests are not going to stop.

Writing for The New York Times, Nelson Schwartz and Eric Dash report:

“Most people view it as a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll,” said one top hedge fund manager.

“It’s not a middle-class uprising,” adds another veteran bank executive. “It’s fringe groups. It’s people who have the time to do this.”

Well of course they have time, you fool, you destroyed their jobs playing king of the hill with their pension fund money, their 401K money, and their mortgages! Here’s another one of these self-deluded buffoons!

“Who do you think pays the taxes?” said one longtime money manager. “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it. If you want to keep having jobs outsourced, keep attacking financial services. This is just disgruntled people.”

Well, do YOU pay taxes? Warren Buffett says he pays at a lower rate than his secretary. What about you? And just what do you mean this country does financial services well? You guys just blew up the WELL three years ago! What you do well, very well, is get the government to pay you for all the destruction you’ve wrought!

This Midas goes on to say:

He added that he was disappointed that members of Congress from New York, especially Senator Charles E. Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, had not come out swinging for an industry that donates heavily to their campaigns. “They need to understand who their constituency is,” he said.

Yep, that’s it! He bought the government and he wants it to stay bought. And I’ll just bet that Schumer and Gillibrand want to stay bought, too. Maybe that’s why this chump was talking to a Times reporter, so he could get in a shout out to his homies/lackies in Congress, reminding them to keep in their place and mind their betters.

“Wall Street continues to underestimate the degree of anger among citizens and voters,” said Douglas J. Elliott, a former investment banker who is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution. For the most part, bankers say that they see the protests as a reaction to the high unemployment and slow growth that has plagued the American economy since the recession and the financial crisis of 2008. Despite all the placards and chants plainly indicating otherwise, some bankers suggest that deep down, the protesters are not really all that mad at them.

Well, of course they’re mad about not having jobs. But anger over jobs has reminded us of something that goes deeper than that, much much deeper.  These guys are out of touch; they don’t have a clue. Continue reading →

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Hydraulic Fracturing Brings Money, and Problems, to Pennsylvania – NYTimes.com

15 Oct

Is fracking a boom that’s doomed to bust?

But the boom — brought on by an advanced drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking — has brought problems too. While the gas companies have created numerous high-paying drilling jobs, many residents lack the skills for them. Some people’s drinking water has been contaminated. Narrow country roads are crumbling under the weight of heavy trucks. With housing scarce and expensive, more residents are becoming homeless. Local services and infrastructure are strained.

“Very little tax revenue goes to local governments to help them share in the benefits of the economic development,” said Sharon Ward, executive director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, an independent policy research organization.

And some are asking whether short-term gains have obscured the long-term view of an industry marked by boom-bust cycles.

via Hydraulic Fracturing Brings Money, and Problems, to Pennsylvania – NYTimes.com.

John Paulson’s Golden Touch Turns Leaden – NYTimes.com

15 Oct

Paulson  personally made $4.9B in his best year.

No wonder Occupy Wall Street took its protest this week to East 86th Street and the 28,500-square-foot limestone mansion owned by the billionaire hedge fund manager John A. Paulson. What better symbol of the excesses of Wall Street than Mr. Paulson, who made billions betting on the real estate collapse and whose opulent surroundings stand in such contrast to the million of Americans who have lost their homes?…

What’s surprising isn’t that Mr. Paulson’s returns have crashed to earth, or even that his reasoning this year has so far proved so spectacularly and consistently wrong. It’s that in lionizing Mr. Paulson and handing their money over to him, so many people succumbed to the enduring myth of the financial genius, ignoring the boilerplate that appears on every prospectus: “Past results are no guarantee of future returns.”

via John Paulson’s Golden Touch Turns Leaden – NYTimes.com.

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Public Support Saves Occupy Wall Street – NYTimes.com

15 Oct

Is this a tipping point in US politics? First the Tea Party, now Occupy Wall Street?

The abrupt and unexpected reversal, loudly cheered by rain-soaked demonstrators in the early morning darkness, averted a dangerous clash at the southern tip of Manhattan and seemed to give the unfolding protests against corporate greed, once dismissed as aimless and ephemeral, a growing air of credibility and endurance.

Behind the scenes, interviews suggested, the change in course was fueled by an intensifying sense of alarm within city government, shared even among some of those who work for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, that sending scores of police officers into the park would set off an ugly, public showdown that might damage the reputation of the city as well as its mayor.

via Occupy Wall Street Protesters Remain in Zuccotti Park as Cleanup Is Canceled – NYTimes.com.

Welcome to the food justice movement – Grist – Salon.com

14 Oct

Consciously modeled on the Freedom Rides of the 1960s civil rights movement, the Food Rides aim to shine a light on issues of “food justice” — a catchall term that focuses on “ecological and community revitalization and reorganization” as it relates to diet and agriculture. Julio’s workplace travails represented a kind of food injustice — part of a larger system that deepens racial and class divisions, contributes to surging rates of obesity and diabetes, and weakens the traditional relationship between farmers and the land across the globe.

via Welcome to the food justice movement – Grist – Salon.com.

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Radioactive Hot Spots in Tokyo Point to Wider Problems – NYTimes.com

14 Oct

But reports that substantial amounts of cesium had accumulated as far away as Tokyo have raised new concerns about how far the contamination had spread, possibly settling in areas where the government has not even considered looking.

The government’s failure to act quickly, a growing chorus of scientists say, may be exposing many more people than originally believed to potentially harmful radiation. It is also part of a pattern: Japan’s leaders have continually insisted that the fallout from Fukushima will not spread far, or pose a health threat to residents, or contaminate the food chain. And officials have repeatedly been proved wrong by independent experts and citizens’ groups that conduct testing on their own.

via Radioactive Hot Spots in Tokyo Point to Wider Problems – NYTimes.com.

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Percentiles — Crooked Timber

14 Oct

I’m now much more sympathetic to the ‘99 per cent’ analysis. First, a closer look at income growth figures suggests that, while the 19 per cent have enjoyed rising incomes, they’ve only barely maintained their share of national income. The redistribution of the past three decades has gone from the bottom 80 per cent to the top 1 per cent.

That suggests the possibility of a policy response in which the main redistributive thrust would be to reverse this process. This would almost certainly involve higher tax payments, but this would be offset by the restoration of public services, which are in economic terms a ‘superior good’, valued more as income rises. The top 1 per cent can buy their own services, and are largely unaffected by public sector cutbacks, but that’s not true of the 19 per cent.

Another important factor is the growth of economic insecurity. The myth of the US as a land of opportunity for upward mobility has been replaced by Barbara Ehrenreich’s Fear of Falling (another good source on this is High Wire by Peter Gosselin). Even if people in the top 19 per cent are doing well, they are less secure than at any time since the 1930s, and their children face even more uncertain prospects.

via Percentiles — Crooked Timber.

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