Occupy Wall Street better defend its identity

[Skeptic Ginger]

Bill Maher's take of OWS....

That was great. Thanks for sharing.

Real estate losses depend on the location. I bought my current house in 1991 for $162,000 and invested $99,000 over the years adding on and remodeling. If I sold now I'd probably get $500,000 at the low end and maybe more considering the house backs to over 100 acres of woods and next to that is a 53 acre botanical garden. I'm about 2 miles as the crow flies from the city center. But if I bought this house 5 years ago, it would have cost over $800,000 and I'd be down a considerable amount in equity.

CA real estate has been way up and way down over the same period of time. It depends where you live and when you bought.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I agree that some/many borrowers were deceived. Was it criminal? I've read investigations that say both yes and no. What I have not seen is any evidence of criminal behavior on the part of the CEOs of the big banks. If there was criminal behavior, it seems to be on the part of the mortgage brokers. Oh noes, they are part of the 99%!

This came up before and I bowed out. It's too much work to document the facts. The execs in the biggest financial institutions knew full well they were playing a shell game with asset reports and the big auditor companies were involved and aware.The federal government (aka the Obama admin) has so far refused to investigate. The claim has been made that is because no laws were in place preventing the behavior. Ayn Rand idoler Greenspan pushed to let the markets self regulate and then admitted to being shocked it didn't work the way he thought it would.

However, some states attorneys general are taking action and pursuing the criminal charges the Federal Justice Department is ignoring. Only time will sort this out.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yes you can and I think it would be considered at least grand larceny in the fourth degree under the NYC penal code (section 155.30), a E non-violent felony.

Why can't anyone identify what NYC penal code section was broken by these evil Wall Street bankers?

California creating mortgage fraud task force

The team of 17 lawyers and eight special agents from the state Department of Justice will pursue corporate fraud, scams and fraudulent lending practices, Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris says.

Apparently it is at least triggering big law firms to market their defense services: Corporate Investigations & White Collar Defense


Like I said, time will tell.

 

[Brainster]

Dude, homes selling for $400,000 here were going for less than $100,000. That's a fact. Here's a chart for Irvine CA, my mother's home was in Palmdale CA.

Dude, what I see is homes peaking at about $687,000, then declining to about $418,000 at the bottom. That's not a 75% decline; it's not even a 50% dip. What's more, the chart only shows peak to trough; what was the runup in values prior to 2007? I'm going to bet it was substantial enough that even the current depressed values are better than they were in, say 2000.

 

[Neally]

Yet politicians are standing up and taking notice and beginning to change their attitudes about them.

Everyone and their brother is trying to jump on the bandwagon and direct the protesters voices including celebs, communists, anarchists, unions, etc.

They are doing just fine.

I'm sure they think so too.

Yeah, that's really understanding that they are angry for their govt bending over for the rich fat cats that screwed them.You see what you want to see. But that's fine. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. They are changing the discussion and people are taking notice. They really don't need your approval.

And you see what you want to see. No discussions are changing. Politics aren't changing. You are right about people taking notice. Their juvenile protests and ongoing internal bickering and anti-social behavior is reality TV at its finest.

People who did nothing wrong have been #$%@ and all you can do is be dismissive of them. That takes chutzpa.

I'm not being dismissive of people hurting in this economy. I'm dismissing the juvenile retards in drumming circles thinking that they are somehow doing something productive that will help them from their current circumstance to get to a better place.

if the white house was really in charge, perhaps they would protest there.
money controls the country. wall street controls the money.

And BO is more then happy to take that money. BO is going to protest against himself?

 

[JihadJane]

Wow, your reading comprehension is very poor. I made reference to Alice Paul, not Ron Paul.

No, my reading comprehension is generally very good. Once again you are confusing the particular with the general.

Someone like Alice Paul.

Good, but you only answered half the question.

What are someone like Alice Paul's solutions and what are they doing now that contributes towards sorting out the train wreck illustrated by the charts I linked to?

They don't poop in their own water, it's the pigeons that do.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/health_expert_condemns_park_rats_Vk7kl3EMepB4d2DkeFNmFL

The water in your toilet is drinking water.

I think what was done was irresponsible, unethical and immoral but not criminal. Exactly what illegal activities did the CEOs and executives of any of the big banks do? What specific part of the criminal code of a muncipality, state or the federal government was broken? Which individuals, by name, did it?

The experiences of fraud investigator, Eileen Foster, give a flavor of what will be uncovered if any comprehensive investigations are ever allowed to happen (it would be a massive undertaking).

"""... the investigators were able to uncover what they believed was evidence that branch employees had used scissors, tape and Wite-Out to create fake bank statements, inflated property appraisals and other phony paperwork. Inside the heaps of paper, for example, they found mock-ups that indicated to investigators that workers had, as a matter of routine, literally cut and pasted the address for one home onto an appraisal for a completely different piece of property.

...

By early 2008, she claims, she’d concluded that many in Countrywide’s chain of command were working to cover up massive fraud within the company — outing and then firing whistleblowers who tried to report forgery and other misconduct. People who spoke up, she says, were “taken out.”

By the fall of 2008, she was out of a job too. Countrywide’s new owner, Bank of America Corp., told her it was firing her for “unprofessional conduct.”"""


'How Bank of America Covered Up Fraud by Silencing Whistleblowers'

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

'How credit crisis revealed weakness in US approach to epidemic of fraud'

by William K. Black

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

'How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico’s murderous drug gangs'

by Ed Vulliamy

 

[Virus]

What are someone like Alice Paul's solutions and what are they doing now that contributes towards sorting out the train wreck illustrated by the charts I linked to?

What's your solution to sorting out those charts?

 

[JihadJane]

'Why a Majority of Americans Are Getting Behind Occupy Wall Street'

 

[Alt+F4]

'Why a Majority of Americans Are Getting Behind Occupy Wall Street'

Nope, not even all the protestors are behind Occupy Wall Street.

Even in Zuccotti Park, greed is good.
Occupy Wall Street’s Finance Committee has nearly $500,000 in the bank, and donations continue to pour in -- but its reluctance to share the wealth with other protestors is fraying tempers.
Some drummers -- incensed they got no money to replace or safeguard their drums after a midnight vandal destroyed their instruments Wednesday -- are threatening to splinter off.
“F--k Finance. I hope Mayor Bloomberg gets an injunction and demands to see the movement’s books. We need to know how much money we really have and where it’s going,” said a frustrated Bryan Smith, 45,...

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/...occu_pie_9xKCxcI4aectFYkafMb8UJ#ixzz1bbvKzC1Y

The poll from your link was taken on October 9, I think a poll taken today would be very different. People are getting sick of these folks. It's chilly and overcast in NYC today. I predict by Christmas the park will totally occuppied by the homeless and assorted criminal with a few do-gooders still feeding and clothing them.

Zuccotti Park has become a haven for the homeless.
Enticed by the allure of free food and a community of open-minded people, increasing numbers are leaving New York's shelters to join the Occupy Wall Street protestors.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local...here_vagrants_excons__takers_find_a_home.html

 

[Virus]

According to Douglass Schoen the protests are mostly made up of the various ideological factions of the hard left:

The protesters have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies. On Oct. 10 and 11, Arielle Alter Confino, a senior researcher at my polling firm, interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York's Zuccotti Park. Our findings probably represent the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion.

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.

The vast majority of demonstrators are actually employed, and the proportion of protesters unemployed (15%) is within single digits of the national unemployment rate (9.1%).

An overwhelming majority of demonstrators supported Barack Obama in 2008. Now 51% disapprove of the president while 44% approve, and only 48% say they will vote to re-elect him in 2012, while at least a quarter won't vote.

Fewer than one in three (32%) call themselves Democrats, while roughly the same proportion (33%) say they aren't represented by any political party.

What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.

Most ordinary people do not go and camp out in a park with homeless people. But a diehard leftist would. Then again, maybe Schoen is sort of Jew that needs to be run out of the country.

 

[Checkmite]

Oh please, I stepped up and defended the tea party protestors and made it clear that it was unfair to judge them all on a few crack pots. I was no fan o of the Tea Party but I stood up for their right to protest and not be dismissed out of hand. Jeez.

Yeah but the Tea Party also actively disowned (or attempted to disown) the obvious crack pots who came to light during its infancy, and those here who ignored their disclaimers were in essence denying the Tea Party's right, as a group, to define itself, imposing their own definition instead.

OWS refuses to define itself. Anyone and everyone who comes along is pointedly accepted as long as they are "mad at wall street"; literally nothing else matters - including, oddly enough, income, since millionaire film industry icons are celebrated there. It makes no sense to accuse those who point out the crack pots as employing "confirmation bias" because the crack pots are explicitly encouraged to participate in OWS just as much as any "non" crack pot.

 

[Ziggurat]

Yeah but the Tea Party also actively disowned (or attempted to disown) the obvious crack pots who came to light during its infancy, and those here who ignored their disclaimers were in essence denying the Tea Party's right, as a group, to define itself, imposing their own definition instead.

Indeed. As a reminder for those who forgot, or to inform those who weren't paying attention in the first place, this is the sort of thing he's talking about:

That's a tea party protester on the left, pointedly disowning a Larouche nutbag.

 

[Alt+F4]

I just looked at the photo and before I scrolled down to your description I couldn't be sure if it was taken at a Tea Party protest or a OWS protest.

 

[RandFan]

Why can't anyone identify what NYC penal code section was broken by these evil Wall Street bankers?

Argument from ignorance.

 

[Ziggurat]

I just looked at the photo and before I scrolled down to your description I couldn't be sure if it was taken at a Tea Party protest or a OWS protest.

Really? That should have been easy. Everyone looks clean, there are no dreadlocks, drums, or giant papier-mache puppets, and there's no detritus strewn about. Definitely not OWS.

 

[RandFan]

Name the law, name an individual and prove they broke it then.

Argument from ignorance. That I don't know about a law of physics or any other law doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'm asking for an investigation. But, for sake of argument, if there is no law then it's time to make one. Why should it be so easy for people to harm so many other people?

 

[Ziggurat]

Argument from ignorance.

Uh, no. That was a challenge to support a claim that somebody should be prosecuted. But unless you're advocating discarding the rule of law, then the only way (and the only reason) to charge someone with a crime is if they broke the law. So the burden of proof is on those who actually want anyone prosecuted to support their claim. Which... hasn't happened.

So you're wrong. Demanding that someone support their claims is not an argument from ignorance.

 

[RandFan]

Dude, what I see is homes peaking at about $687,000, then declining to about $418,000 at the bottom. That's not a 75% decline; it's not even a 50% dip. What's more, the chart only shows peak to trough; what was the runup in values prior to 2007? I'm going to bet it was substantial enough that even the current depressed values are better than they were in, say 2000.

A loss of $300,000 is no big deal to you? Dude? 687 / 418 = 60% What you bet isn't really in evidence is it? But I will concede there was a spike before the collapse. End story my mother purchased her home for $100,000 and sold it for $120,000. That's a fact. It's an anecdote but it's a fact. The loss of value is real harm no matter how you try to spin it.

BTW: I'm always amazed with this kind of apologetics. It's as if we are in the twilight zone and all the misery we thought went through we didn't, it was minor... oh, but blame Obama anyway... odd.

 

[Minoosh]

Most ordinary people do not go and camp out in a park with homeless people. But a diehard leftist would. Then again, maybe Schoen is sort of Jew that needs to be run out of the country.

What on earth are you going on about?

Dang, ya know "ordinary people" and "homeless people" are not mutually exclusive.

I've got nothing against viruses, even parasites have to live.

 

[RandFan]

Everything The Media Told You About Occupy Wall Street Is Wrong

Good analysis.

Keith Boykin

After 10 days out of town, I finally made it to Occupy Wall Street on Tuesday and had a chance to see for myself what's going on. My conclusion: almost everything the media told me about the protest is wrong.