The Silver Lining of the Occupy Wall Street Movement

[jordan179]

Yesterday the Occupy San Francisco Movement attempted to block shoppers from going to sales on Black Friday. This worked about as well as one would expect -- the naivete they demonstrated in trying to prevent Black Friday sales from happening is hilarious in and of itself. But they did manage to get Union Square, and by extension the upscale

Comments

[tara_li]

Funny thing is - these Occupy people are acting closer to what the original Boston Tea Party people did, than anything the Tea Party has done so far. Admitted, they're not dressing up as Indians, and they're doing it for different reasons in many ways, but they're using direct interference in trade, unlike the current Tea Party which is mostly propaganda moves. But when you get down to the core - it's not such a different reason, really - they just don't think it through and realize that it's a centralized fiat currency and the federal bank itself that's allowing the BigWig bankers & stock brokers to cause problems

[jordan179]

It's the stockbrokers, the stock & bond instruments bankers, and their CEOs who are the problem - they commit fraud every time they make claims on how risky an investment is. And it needs to be treated as fraud - no fancy names for the charges, put them in the same cells as you put the three-card monty players, and make their sentences proportional to the amount stolen. Three-card monty player makes a few hundred dollars by fraud - and gets a few months. CEO makes $50M by fraud - going to be in there a long long time!

Historically, stocks are a good long-term investment -- if you put your money in a randomly-selected portfolio of stocks over any 30-year period (even the one starting right before the Crash of 1929) you would enjoy greater profits than you would in (say) a bank account or purchase of bonds. The caveat, of course, is that if a company collapses completely, its stock is generally worthless. Are you saying that most investors don't get this last point?

[tara_li]

In a lot of ways - yes, investors don't get that point

[jordan179]

And the people *MOST* responsible? The same parents who decided they could put that TV on the credit card, or that vacation trip, or whatever - and pay it back later. The same parents who looked at that variable mortgage, and never dreamed that the payments on it could double or triple, even if they acknowledged that the initial rate was lower than it really should be.

Actually, the people most responsible for our national debt, both public and private, are those who decided that "government money" came from some magic fairyland source and that therefore voting for any and all amounts to be spent on any purpose of any merit whatsoever constituted "generosity," while refusing to spend constituted "stinginess." This gave politicians absolutely no reason not to push for as much spending as possible, save insofar as in said politicians retained contact with reality and loved their country more than themselves -- and such intelligent patriots will always be a minority, in all times and places

[gothelittle]

"And the people *MOST* responsible? The same parents who decided they could put that TV on the credit card, or that vacation trip, or whatever - and pay it back later. The same parents who looked at that variable mortgage, and never dreamed that the payments on it could double or triple, even if they acknowledged that the initial rate was lower than it really should be."

Oh, you're talking about the Occupy crowd. :)

[cutelildrow]

XD Winning statement right there.

[tara_li]

The Occupiers claim likewise. Said gripe and remedy changes from occupier to occupier, but ...

[jordan179]

A vague set of lists, each of which contains numerous demands, many of which are impractical and some of which are contradictory, does not constitute "a specific gripe" nor "a specific remedy." This being the case, the Occupiers are best appreciated purely as a threat to public order, and have neither moral nor even pragmatic claim to have their demands taken seriously, or even listened to.

The reason why is that an inchoate and changing group of "demands" not only does not constitute a program, it by definition cannot be appeased. Since it cannot be appeased, it is futile and even counterproductive to try to do so. Better to send in the riot squads as soon as possible, disperse the mobs, and break their spirits so that they cease to constitute a nuisance to citizens trying to live lawful and productive lives.

[gothelittle]

The Boston Tea Party people left money to pay for the damage they had done in their protest. OWS has not.

And seeing as the current Tea Party has managed to put several candidates in office so far, I wouldn't be too quick to say it's nothing but 'propaganda'. It's just that the Tea Party seeks to work within the system to meet their goals, while the OWS crowd is just throwing a huge temper tantrum that hurts worst the very people they claim to champion.

[schpydurx]

The Boston Tea Party people left money to pay for the damage they had done in their protest.
I have never been made aware of this. Can you provide source(s)?

[gothelittle]

Sure

[schpydurx]

Thank you for this missing piece to the puzzle of my incomplete knowledge.

[gothelittle]

Anytime. :) Always a pleasure.

[rowyn]

Well. They paid for the damages done EXCEPT for the cost of the tea, which was pretty substantial.

[gothelittle]

But what made it substantial was an illegal tax, so... *shrugs* :) YMMV. They did try to be gentlemanly about it, though!

There was a town in Maine, I forgot its name, but it made itself partly famous when a ship arrived full of supplies for the town. The supplies had been paid-for ahead of time, but the captain decided to be clever and impose an impromptu extra tax on the supplies.

The townspeople stormed the ship, subdued the captain and crew, tied them up, unloaded the supplies and only the supplies, then cut the captain and crew loose and let them go.