We Are the 99.9%!

Same old tune tater, no matter how many times you repeat the fallacy it won't become true.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Same old tune tater, no matter how many times you repeat the fallacy it won't become true.

Indeed. I've given up. Apparently the macroeconomic costs that everyone is paying in this recession caused by the financial industry don't count in tater's world.

I don't worry bout money, I don't have any to worry about.

[Blood_splat]

Nothing to see here everything is just fine.

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by sidslotm

I don't worry bout money, I don't have any to worry about.

No problem, in other words,

[tater]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Indeed. I've given up. Apparently the macroeconomic costs that everyone is paying in this recession caused by the financial industry don't count in tater's world.

We were talking about bail outs. That's government money (taken form people that actually pay taxes—or borrowed (to be paid back later by... people who actually pay taxes)) given to wall street, et al.

The bail outs were supposed to mitigate macroeconomic effects on others, that was the point of democratic support for them (and so-called "stimulus").

I'm for letting wall street crash and burn, as I said, not bail outs. Regardless, the price of bail outs is paid for by net taxpayers, and in proportion to the amount they actually pay. The number of OWS protesters that paid as much in bail-outs over the last few years than they've paid for Apple products, or even lattes is likely small to nonexistent.

Show me again how people that don't pay enough taxes to cover their familys' per capita share are making a meaningful contribution to things like bail outs. You cannot, because they don't. Real conservatives hate the bail outs because they think the market should work, and bad choices should result in wall street idiots jumping out of windows. Liberals hate bail outs because they know that it is a wealth transfer of money from the rich back to the rich (since they are well aware who pays for everything), when they'd prefer it being transferred to a larger voting block.

The US already puts a a couple trillion a year into wealth transfer from the top down (entitlements, which are ~2/3 of all federal spending). TARP, etc is chump change by comparison (and again, I'm against wealth transfer, period, to rich or poor—least I'm consistent).

[Gerald]

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by tater

We were talking about bail outs. That's government money (taken form people that actually pay taxes***8212;or borrowed (to be paid back later by... people who actually pay taxes)) given to wall street, et al.

I know very well what we're talking about, and there's no need to get patronizing. And I repeat, you ignore the greater macro repercussions of the bailouts. You're so myopically focused on this "the poor don't pay taxes" canard that you fail to recognize the moral hazard implications of bailouts, how it makes the playing field uneven for community banks and how keeping zombie banks going prolongs the inevitable deleveraging that's necessary for the economy to recover. So yes, the bailouts are a tremendous transfer of wealth upwards, not sideways as you argue.

[Gerald]

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by tater

We were talking about bail outs.

What might help this discussion is if we stop using terms like "bail outs" and use the actual term for the program being discussed e.g., TARP. That way we can focus the discussion on actual facts and not emotional nebulous terms.

There are several programs that were part of the recovery strategy. Not all of them were good and not all of them were bad. Any discussion lumping all the programs together is sophistry as it brings the argument down to an emotional level.

[geetrue]

Anybody really know who these people are?

The news media doesn't go far enough in reporting who they are.

Anyone can see that they are twenties to thirties, dirty, angry, cold, willing to lose (what looks like to me) everything they own just to make a point.

But ... who is responcible for such a large world wide outpouring of human souls?

Who is behind all of this?

Who is funding them?

I see food being distributed, tents set up as libraries, alcohol, drugs, social meetings taking place along with some kind of unexplained agenda, at least on my TV, to change what Wall Street does and thinks.

In fact why don't we invite them to the congress to explain their actions and what they hope to achieve. Congress goes after sports stars that use dope and rich televison evangelist, right?

Why not ask them to voice it in Congress ... all I hear is correct the problem with our votes, but I've been hearing that for fifty years.