Occupy Wall Street better defend its identity

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daredelvis said:
ACORN (alleged ACORN since ACORN does not exist anymore) is not the SEC. Alleged ACORN shredding its own documents is not the same as an investigative body shredding documents created during an investigation. Unless the documents shredded by Alleged ACORN are in some way related to a government investigation. Is that the accusation??

Daredelvis
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Alleged Acorn... in the same offices, with many of the same people, who according to the accounts are now "putting away the ACORN" stuff in their own offices...

alleged... yup.

but the point is that a group is shredding documents... oh no.. heaven forbid.
 
Brainster said:
This article on the plight of an aspiring Gepetto does not seem to be a joke, yet it sure reads like one:



Joe had a job as a teacher, but was frustrated, so he:



Yep, he spent $35 grand to get an advanced degree in puppetology. Sounds like a natural fit for the Obamaville Occutards, and that's where the story ends up:


Good lord!
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dude...he spent the price of a new truck or car on his BFA....big deal, eh?
when you put it in perspective it is not nearly as 'alarming' as you wish it to be.
 
stilicho said:
Have you read "his" whole speech?
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Yes, many times. I provided a link BTW in case you wanted to actually make a case that his words were taken out of context rather than just stating assertions. I quoted his actual words and not the oft repeating paraphrase ("beware the military industrial complex). BTW, I was a bit of a student of WWII and I was never a liberal so I'm not coming into this cold or with a bias for seeing something there that is not there. You simply have not made a case. Instead you've offered some "sort of ad hoc apologetic relying on a CT narrative and the assumption that Ike was feeble minded or something. And let me hasten to add, I'm not saying your wrong. I'm saying I've been around the block a time or two and I know something about the history of Ike and WWII and I know something about this speech. Patting me on the head and telling me that "history is wrong and I'm going to learn me right" without any documentation or citations is a bit disappointing.

During the 1950s, there was a strong current of belief that the Cold War was an illegitimate construct erected by infiltrators from Soviet Russia who had perverted the legitimate goal of rebuilding the global economy. It was a direct descendent of the "armaments conspiracy" and Red Scares of the 1920s and 1930s where your country's chief executives were called to answer to Congress for their alleged contribution to the outbreak of both world wars. Ike was talking nonsense as he was on his way out and had obliviously failed to say anything about this "complex" during the entire eight years he'd held office. They wrote it for him as a gigantic finger aimed at his critics who knew--as we do--that he was an awesome war hero but a pretty average president.

"His" exact words were subsequently hijacked in the 1960s by radicals to "prove" that Ike was somehow prescient whereas his speechwriters were really referring to the opposite of what they thought. Ike's writers were looking backwards and not forwards, since they thought that the US was about to get involved in yet another global conflict that they thought was purely the result of industrialists and had nothing to do with the ideological and military threats posed by the purveyors of fascism or communism.

You need to understand the context of the words and not just the spin put on them by subsequent interpreters.
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Word salad. There's no mystery as to his point. It speaks for itself. You on the other hand don't speak for it. I don't mind you questioning the speech or Ike's intent. I do mind that you just make assertion without any reference to anything Ike said or to the speech. I know what the context was. It doesn't change anything. So, please, stop. I resent the long winded patronizing crafted out of whole cloth. If you want to make your case you are going to have to something other than tell me not to trust my lying eyes.

And FTR: Even if I were to give you more credit than you deserve for your "analysis". It's really just weak stitched together points that don't lead via inference to your conclusion. Not that you are entirely wrong but that in the end you simply have not made a case. If you want to at least be compelling your premises need to offer something other than bald assertions. Demonstrate that Ike was an incompetent reading words he didn't believe in, written by speech writers with a conflicting ideology. And by "demonstrate" I don't mean to weave a narrative based on supposition or rumor.

To do otherwise is to bear me contempt.
 
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Brainster said:
This article on the plight of an aspiring Gepetto does not seem to be a joke, yet it sure reads like one:



Joe had a job as a teacher, but was frustrated, so he:



Yep, he spent $35 grand to get an advanced degree in puppetology. Sounds like a natural fit for the Obamaville Occutards, and that's where the story ends up:


Good lord!
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I could not believe there was such a thing as a Masters Degree in Puppetry so I went to the U Conn website and became amazed.
I liked this line from their information.
Every student who leaves our program goes to a different career, and each of these careers change frequently.
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Don't misunderstand me I could enjoy a puppet show but I am amazed that such a program exists. This man should probably try to get his doctorate now and maybe some post graduate studies.

This is just my bias showing but this is the type of person I would not at all be surprised to find at the OWS park.
 
respect said:
Thank you for acknowledging that.
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You bet.

If Taibbi or anyone else has evidence that banks were defrauding customers they should bring it to the attention of proper authorities.
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Argument ad nauseam. Point made and responded to. A.) One does not need hard evidence to have cause for an investigation. B.) Evidence has been brought to the authorities.

But hedging, and even trading securities they only bet against, are not evidence of that.
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They are the ones who packaged the derivatives.

For sake of argument:

  • Let's assume that NFL coaches were paid based on team performance.
  • Let's assume that NFL coaches were allowed to hedge their teams performance (bet that their teams would lose).
  • The return for winning team performance has an upper limit.
  • The return for losing team performance has has no limit.
  • What is more likely to net a higher return for the coaches? Playing to win or playing to lose?

In fact, both would be meaningless in principle to deliberately misleading customers about a security, that would be fraud even if they took the same position their customer did.
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No. While it is not evidence in and of itself, because there is a strong monetary incentative to package losers and bet on losers, if it can be demonstrated that the investments were known to be likely losers then that is strong evidence of fraud. Using my NFL example. If the coach sent in his third string without any obvious reason (no injuries) then that would be strong evidence that the coach was defrauding his clients.
 
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respect said:
I think that Taibbi is an idiot or deliberately dishonest because his articles are routinely full of such errors and/or half stories.

For instance, he will allege that so and so Wall Street firm committed so and so crime then ask why no one is in prison. This is pretty much all any of his readers will see. If they take the time to look farther they will find that Taibbi's assertions are being investigated or have been, but he doesn't bother to tell his readers that.
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That's not true. He actually wrote about the investigations and documented A) that there is a very serious conflict of interest (investigators go on to get jobs with the firms they investigate). B.) That the investigators destroyed the documents of the preliminary investigation and then asked the firms investigated to resolve the problems in house.

For example, he cries a lot in one article about Lehman Brothers and their Repo 105 accounting trick and wants to know why no one is in prison. He can't be bothered to tell his readers that it was extensively investigated and authorities felt they could not make a successful criminal case. However distasteful it may have been, they can't successfully bring charges when it was legal.
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You are just asserting your case. A bit of calling the kettle black.
 
respect said:
Right, Taibbi thinks that loans are welfare.
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How are they, in this instance, not welfare. If someone gave me a $220M loan that had little to no risk how is that not a form of welfare? What exactly is the difference? How many people (including poor people) would love that sweatheart deal? Hey I WOULD WANT IT. And I would consider it a windfall.

Asserting it's not a form of welfare and therefore Taibbi is an idiot is just more ad hominem.
 
TruthersLie said:
and yet you are quoting a nazi to dismiss valid criticisms of this "movement." Seems like a step in Godwins direction to me.
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Riiiight. Let's assume for a moment that this is true. Godwin ISN'T fallacy. It isn't an error in logic. Look, if you are going to make that point then ALSO deal with the other points. You know, the salient ones. Otherwise you are just being absurd.

As to your assertion of using a nazi quote to dismiss valid criticism. What valid criticism? My claim is that brainster continues to post misleading and fallacious anecdotes with the hope of making his narrative true.
 
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TruthersLie said:
Alleged Acorn... in the same offices, with many of the same people, who according to the accounts are now "putting away the ACORN" stuff in their own offices...

alleged... yup.

but the point is that a group is shredding documents... oh no.. heaven forbid.
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Could you please actually write something without relying on fallacy?

  • The guilt or innocence of one group has nothing to do with another (Tu Quoque).
  • If there were ACORN members who were guilty of anything that doesn't make them all guilty (guilt by association).
 
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TruthersLie said:
I was taking glee in how hard randfan is railing on the SEC for document shredding that occurred when they decided they were not going to do an investigation. It is called hoisted on own petard...
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You should hold off on your celebration until you figure out what fallacy, irrelevancy and non sequiturs are.

Good luck with that.
 
RandFan said:
You bet.

Argument ad nauseam. Point made and responded to. A.) One does not need hard evidence to have cause for an investigation. B.) Evidence has been brought to the authorities.

They are the ones who packaged the derivatives.

For sake of argument:

  • Let's assume that NFL coaches were paid based on team performance.
  • Let's assume that NFL coaches were allowed to hedge their teams performance (bet that their teams would lose).
  • The return for winning team performance has an upper limit.
  • The return for losing team performance has has no limit.
  • What is more likely to net a higher return for the coaches? Playing to win or playing to lose?

No. While it is not evidence in and of itself, because there is a strong monetary incentative to package losers and bet on losers, if it can be demonstrated that the investments were known to be likely losers then that is strong evidence of fraud. Using my NFL example. If the coach sent in his third string without any obvious reason (no injuries) then that would be strong evidence that the coach was defrauding his clients.
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There is a suit going on now. This is one of many civil suits over the mortgages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/business/bank-suits-over-mortgages-are-filed.html

A bruising legal fight pitting the country’s most powerful banks against the full force of the United States government began Friday, as federal regulators filed suits against 17 financial institutions that sold the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nearly $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities that later soured.
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Here is part of a reply from Bank of America in the same article

In a statement, Bank of America said Fannie and Freddie “claimed to understand the risks inherent in investing in subprime securities and continued to invest heavily in those securities even after their regulator told them they did not have the risk management capabilities to do so.”
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eeyore1954 said:
There is a suit going on now. This is one of many civil suits over the mortgages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/business/bank-suits-over-mortgages-are-filed.html
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There's not just a single suit, there have been a number of them and there have also been settlements. Not sure what you think this proves.

Here is part of a reply from Bank of America in the same article
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What is it that you think this proves? If an NFL coach were being investigated for fraud I'm sure he would mount a defense. He may very well blame the owners or his assistant coaches. And he might be innocent. I'm sorry but the facts just don't pass the smell test. No one needed to rely on freddie mac or fannie mae to figure out that the loans were toxic. Warren Buffet was warning everyone before the fall that they were worthless.
 
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RandFan said:
How are they, in this instance, not welfare. If someone gave me a $220M loan that had little to no risk how is that not a form of welfare? What exactly is the difference? How many people (including poor people) would love that sweatheart deal? Hey I WOULD WANT IT. And I would consider it a windfall.

Asserting it's not a form of welfare and therefore Taibbi is an idiot is just more ad hominem.
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They did have risk. Would you be willing to put several millions of dollars of your own "haircut" money on the line first.
Remember at the time this was brought up the economy was in dire straight and it was very likely a lot of these loans would become non performing and there was not a good market for them.
 
RandFan said:
There's not just a single suit, there have been a number of them and there have also been settlements. Not sure what you think this proves.

What is it that you think this proves?
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It shows they are being investigated and the second part shows there are two sides to many stories.
 
RandFan said:
How are they, in this instance, not welfare. If someone gave me a $220M loan that had little to no risk how is that not a form of welfare? What exactly is the difference? How many people (including poor people) would love that sweatheart deal? Hey I WOULD WANT IT. And I would consider it a windfall.

Asserting it's not a form of welfare and therefore Taibbi is an idiot is just more ad hominem.
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You keep ignoring the fact that the people who got the $220 million loan had to put $15 million of their own money in the deal as well, that they had to use it to buy specific polls of problem loans, and that they had to leave the loans with the Fed as collateral. Still think it's a sweetheart deal that you would love to take?
 
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eeyore1954 said:
They did have risk. Would you be willing to put several millions of dollars of your own "haircut" money on the line first.
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HELL YES! Jesus would I.

Remember at the time this was brought up the economy was in dire straight and it was very likely a lot of these loans would become non performing and there was not a good market for them.
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Dude, I understand the logic behind the program. It was asinine. The American public were picking up the tab to clean up the investments. So you take trash, wash it and then find people you can give it to. You are arguing that the program wasn't the fault of the two women. Granted. That doesn't change the facts that they benefited from this BS program.
 
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