Quote of the day
Yup:
The Tea Party wants to remove the Crony from Crony Capitalism.
OWS wants to remove Capitalism from Crony Capitalism.
22 Responses to “Quote of the day”
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October 28th, 2011 at 8:55 am
Yeah, they’re talking about the workers seizing the means of production and an end to financial markets.
Oh wait, no they’re not.
This persistent effort to misrepresent OWS is starting to get a little sad–and it is quite transparently obvious what’s behind it. The religious belief that all regulation is bad and what caused the problem was too much regulation is, when you examine what these folks are talking about, exposed for the fraud that it is, and so now it’s time to kick a bunch of sand over that and do some hand waiving to distract people from this.
So far you guys are being roundly uncreative and using the “you hate money and rich people and are anti-capitalist” stuff, like rolling out last year’s Xmas specials. It’s pretty tired.
This is a much better explanation than your QOTD:
http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2011/10/21/sig99-_custom.jpg?t=1319212498&s=4
I can’t even think of a nice way to put it: if you can listen to this guy and see him as “anti-capitalist”, it’s also obvious you’re not quite sure what that word means.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:01 am
Quite a lot of them are talking about everyone else paying for their free shit. So, yeah, that.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:13 am
Like I was saying, kicking sand is pretty pathetic.
If you’re equally upset about the college kid griping about his student loans as you are about Goldman Sachs, you’re either willfully ignorant or pushing a bullshit agenda.
There is no third option.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:15 am
Another day, another false dichotomy.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:21 am
“Hand waiving”: the ultimate Up-Twinkle? Incur a big house worth of debt before you can afford a first car, then have The One waive it — with his hand. Right, that’s not anti-capital at all. It just demands the capital of others, a subtle line of difference.
Hating money and rich people is indeed “pretty tired,” tired as Lili Von Shtupp. One would think yall’d have gotten over it by now. But, sadly, no: the New, Improved left is still beating poor old Boxer’s corpse.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:21 am
Like I was saying–the OWS vs TP thing is a false dichotomy. The capitalism vs people angry about cronyism one is a another (which seems to be the vortex that’s absorbed you).
But my point is this–it’s no false dichotomy to point out that you, in fact, are incorrectly suggesting that OWS is about people wanting shit for free.
That is a blatant misrepresentation of what’s keeping people in Zucotti park, and like I said, to be engaging in it is either carrying water for the “all regulation is bad” religion, or a willful ignorance of what people are saying.
Pointing out that the bank shell game took a fifth of our economy and flushed it down the toilet and made what would normally have been a prudent investment (education) not so worthwhile after the fact, and that the folks who did it got the Fed to print them a bunch of money so they could still have bonuses isn’t “wanting shit for free”.
But I see why, if you’re married to a virulent deregulatory philosophy, you’d want to think that. It’s simpler to put that on a bumper sticker than to actually consider what these people are saying.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:27 am
Not all regulation is bad. But most of the current regulations are. Anyone who says the markets are unregulated is a fool.
When I see these people on the TeeVee, they’re usually saying they’re entitled to free stuff.
And you know I was not a fan of the bank bailouts either. They should have failed.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:35 am
Anyone who says the markets are unregulated is a fool.
But anyone says that financial markets are under-regulated, and more specifically that derivatives, CDOs, and CDSes are almost completely unregulated is correct.
Say, which financial instruments were central to the 2008 collapse again?
Never mind that, I’ll just go back to worshiping that goddamn Commie, Adam Smith.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:38 am
I’m gonna disagree a little there. They are regulated quite a bit. it’s just that the guys in the business are smarter than the guys doing the regulating and making the laws.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:51 am
Yeah, writing each other CDO insurance and then asking the Fed to cover it, or moving toxic mortgage assets from an investment house like Merrill Lynch to a banking house like Bank of America so it gets covered by bailout funds is pretty damn smart.
Seriously, how hard are you working to defend banks that took literally a fifth of our economy and flushed it on YOUR dime and then paid themselves handsome bonuses?
Why carry water for these people? If you’re even wasting half a second of your day worrying about the bratty college kid in a park, it’s a half second you’re ignoring the real commie crooks here.
And please don’t waste our time with nonsense about “I opposed the bailouts”. We get it. It’s not relevant.
Most rational people recognize them for what they were, so don’t expect a cookie for being one of them. But if you’re bitching about kids wanting their student loans bailed out instead of that, you’re reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally badly missing the point.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:54 am
Who is defending banks? Or carrying their water? Put the bong down. Puff, puff, give.
October 28th, 2011 at 10:08 am
It’s simple Unc.
You either agree with OWS or you’re a shill for the big banks.
There is no third option.
Unless your point of agreement is deemed not relevant, then who cares that you’re right.
Also there’s a mite of difference about complaining about your debt and demanding that the goverment pay it off for you.
October 28th, 2011 at 10:23 am
Like it or not, arguing that the chicanery they were engaged in was happening because of/in spite of regulation (when clearly it wasn’t) and that the regulations (nonexistent as they were, as TJ points out) are bad or were the problem is EXACTLY the nonsense the banks are hoping you’ll keep clinging to.
You might think because you were anti-TARP you’re no friend to the banks, but you sure seem to want keep their enabling mythology in circulation.
Puff that buddy. 🙂
Jack–Ibid.
October 28th, 2011 at 10:24 am
Also, watch this student loan mess. Bailouts galore coming soon.
October 28th, 2011 at 10:32 am
You’re arguing against additional regulations that they don’t want. You may not be “defending” them, but you’re certainly taking their side in the regulation debate.
And if one views OWS through the prism of the people vs. the banks, by bashing one, you’re inherently taking the side of the other. You may not share that view, but how many posts do you have bashing OWS protesters vs. how many posts do you have critical of, say, Goldman?
October 28th, 2011 at 10:34 am
No, I haven’t. But I probably would. The issue for me is that folks get bogged down in ‘we must do something’ even if it’s not the right way to go about it. Go thumb trough the SEC regulations, for instance. A convoluted mess that no one can keep up with.
October 28th, 2011 at 10:56 am
“When I see these people on the TeeVee,” that’s the main problem I have with with people arguing against OWS. I get the feeling that the Dems are trying to co-opt the OWS, the same way the Repubs co-opted the tea partiers.
I figure that a lot of the OWS don’t understand the whole collusion between the banks and government. Most tea partiers don’t understand it either.
Both groups in the “mainstream” want free stuff. Tea partiers haven’t wanted to give up social security and medicare. The OWS need to understand that government is what makes the big bad banks possible.
October 28th, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Actually, fannie and freddie fucked everything more than anyone else.
October 28th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
Wow, a troll from Zero Hedge!
When 100 million + people are murdered outright by out-of-control banks, then idiots like Sebastani will have only pulled to even in the evidence department.
In the picture of collusion between wealth and government, it is and has always been the government which was and is the initiator, driver and termsetter. Bribes always get more expensive, not less — ever wonder why? Hint: when one side has a sack of money and the other has a gun, which one do you think will end up with both?
It’s been that way throughout thousands of years of history, and yet these idiots insist against all reason that banks and corporations are the biggest threat we face. Apparently 150+ financial regulatory agencies (that’s before the crash) is not enough, we need more of that which did not work before, at best — more government!
And yet, it is precisely this sort of anti-capitalist railing against “moneyed interests” that has formed a key part of the ideological soil from which *every one* of the 20th century holocausts grew.
Most OWS folks are not totalitarians, this is true. That was true of the earlier instances of this phenomenon. It doesn’t matter: just because the road leads to hell doesn’t mean the pavement actually travels there — or that the “pavement” does not share in the responsibility for leading us there.
Bankers are easy scapegoats; that’s why they have always been targeted early and often in these things. But I’ll take $5 debit card fees over late night one way train rides any day.
October 29th, 2011 at 9:12 am
Yeah boys, Quit feeding the trolls.
Excellent QOTD Unk.
October 29th, 2011 at 7:02 pm
The most hilarious thing I saw was an interview on CBC that featured a Manhattan Inst fellow and a OWS spokesman where the OWS spokesman stated that OWS wanted to see the reinstatement of the “Glass-Steengold tax … whatever that was …”
OWS has no coherent “solutions” because they are, as the same OWS spokesman said “beyond policy”.
OWS has no clue how to address any of the problems they whine about and no intention of attempting any solutions. Because that is real work.
October 30th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
I’d say that the Tea Party and OWS are both big fans of Crony Capitalism. Each group just wants to make sure they’re the cronies.