Occupy Wall Street

[Dtrain323i]

[quote author=Dtrain323i link=topic=6040.msg228618#msg228618 date=1319738653]
As far as social mobility is concerned well I've seen it happen first hand. My father in law grew up in rural Iowa in a town of 400 people. Not exactly a prosperous upbringing. He went to Iowa State where he got his bachelors in Industrial Engineering all while raising his infant daughter (aka my wife). He's busted his ass and moved his family all over the country working for different companies in various roles. He's went from a peon at Quaker Oats up through the ranks and now he works for ConAgra Foods. He is 2 steps down the corporate ladder from the CEO and when you add up his stock portfolio, his properties, and his salary. He's worth around 3 million dollars. Is his situation typical? I have no idea. But it certainly shows that it's possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic

Also you are making a straw man if you think I'm trying to say corporations are evil. I actually support lowering the corporate tax to be more competitive worldwide. I also think that tax deductions and loopholes should be removed and that industries need smart regulation to survive.

What I'm trying to say is that power and wealth flows up, not down. If we are talking about wealth gain who is more likely to be able to accumulate wealth, those that have to spend most of their income each year or those that have massive surplus income year over year? I'm not faulting people for having, I'm faulting them for not being productive. If you really look at the wealth and income gains of the top 1% and the changes of those gains year to year what percentage would you attribute to changes in value added to the economy? What about the changes in productivity, education, and usefulness of the average american versus the changes in their salary? We had a general council from a major company speak to our class and he said two stiking things to me. #1 was that while he didn't think OWS was going to get anywhere he thought they had a legitimate reason to be pissed off. #2 was that a surprising number of company managers (CEOs, directors, etc.) were not very good at their jobs.

So here is my argument as simplified as I can make it, so please do not reinterpret it to be something else. I am pissed, I feel legitimately, because we have reached a tipping point where most of the wealthiest class of this country are not adding value or earning their wealth. They have their wealth either because their parents had wealth or because they have found loopholes and other ways to cheat money out of the system without adding a corresponding amount of value to the economy. This has a good chance of killing capitalism because the system depends on adding value and taking away profits. I believe in capitalism but not in free markets because of the tendency for this exact thing to happen over time without any sort of regulation or system of checking and balancing (I also think that a lot of regulation is counter-productive or manipulated by the wealthy, but in spite of that I still think we are better off with regulatory system in place). Because of this I believe that people in the rest of the wealth classes (99%) are being under-compensated for the value they are adding and are repeatedly saddled with the losses in value created by those in the rich and powerful class. I do not think they have much hope of improving their level of wealth without some luck or being in the right fields (computer/technology seems to be the easiest).

And for the record, my family is probably near the top 1% if not there. My family also came from humble beginnings and has a policy of not giving their children anything they didn't earn. For that reason I try not to let anyone know that my family has means so I can make my own way without relying on their wealth (which wouldn't be available to me anyways).

Edit: also my graphs showed a lot more than the fact that CEOs make more than laborers, they showed large gains in compensation for CEOs compared to laborers over time. If you can point me to what they are doing better to deserve these increases or what they are doing better than the CEOs of other countries that don't have nearly the same income disparity then maybe I'd agree with you.
[/quote]


you can't escape the market. Supply and Demand always wins. The simple fact of the matter is that there are a lot fewer CEOs on the planet then there are laborers. There's 7 billion people on this planet, I'd wager less than 2 million of them are qualified to run a company. If you want wages for unskilled labor to rise in this country, you can start by scrapping NAFTA.

[Surf314]

[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=6040.msg228625#msg228625 date=1319740597]
[quote author=Dtrain323i link=topic=6040.msg228618#msg228618 date=1319738653]
As far as social mobility is concerned well I've seen it happen first hand. My father in law grew up in rural Iowa in a town of 400 people. Not exactly a prosperous upbringing. He went to Iowa State where he got his bachelors in Industrial Engineering all while raising his infant daughter (aka my wife). He's busted his ass and moved his family all over the country working for different companies in various roles. He's went from a peon at Quaker Oats up through the ranks and now he works for ConAgra Foods. He is 2 steps down the corporate ladder from the CEO and when you add up his stock portfolio, his properties, and his salary. He's worth around 3 million dollars. Is his situation typical? I have no idea. But it certainly shows that it's possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic

Also you are making a straw man if you think I'm trying to say corporations are evil. I actually support lowering the corporate tax to be more competitive worldwide. I also think that tax deductions and loopholes should be removed and that industries need smart regulation to survive.

What I'm trying to say is that power and wealth flows up, not down. If we are talking about wealth gain who is more likely to be able to accumulate wealth, those that have to spend most of their income each year or those that have massive surplus income year over year? I'm not faulting people for having, I'm faulting them for not being productive. If you really look at the wealth and income gains of the top 1% and the changes of those gains year to year what percentage would you attribute to changes in value added to the economy? What about the changes in productivity, education, and usefulness of the average american versus the changes in their salary? We had a general council from a major company speak to our class and he said two stiking things to me. #1 was that while he didn't think OWS was going to get anywhere he thought they had a legitimate reason to be pissed off. #2 was that a surprising number of company managers (CEOs, directors, etc.) were not very good at their jobs.

So here is my argument as simplified as I can make it, so please do not reinterpret it to be something else. I am pissed, I feel legitimately, because we have reached a tipping point where most of the wealthiest class of this country are not adding value or earning their wealth. They have their wealth either because their parents had wealth or because they have found loopholes and other ways to cheat money out of the system without adding a corresponding amount of value to the economy. This has a good chance of killing capitalism because the system depends on adding value and taking away profits. I believe in capitalism but not in free markets because of the tendency for this exact thing to happen over time without any sort of regulation or system of checking and balancing (I also think that a lot of regulation is counter-productive or manipulated by the wealthy, but in spite of that I still think we are better off with regulatory system in place). Because of this I believe that people in the rest of the wealth classes (99%) are being under-compensated for the value they are adding and are repeatedly saddled with the losses in value created by those in the rich and powerful class. I do not think they have much hope of improving their level of wealth without some luck or being in the right fields (computer/technology seems to be the easiest).

And for the record, my family is probably near the top 1% if not there. My family also came from humble beginnings and has a policy of not giving their children anything they didn't earn. For that reason I try not to let anyone know that my family has means so I can make my own way without relying on their wealth (which wouldn't be available to me anyways).

Edit: also my graphs showed a lot more than the fact that CEOs make more than laborers, they showed large gains in compensation for CEOs compared to laborers over time. If you can point me to what they are doing better to deserve these increases or what they are doing better than the CEOs of other countries that don't have nearly the same income disparity then maybe I'd agree with you.
[/quote]


you can't escape the market. Supply and Demand always wins. The simple fact of the matter is that there are a lot fewer CEOs on the planet then there are laborers. There's 7 billion people on this planet, I'd wager less than 2 million of them are qualified to run a company. If you want wages for unskilled labor to rise in this country, you can start by scrapping NAFTA.
[/quote]

I keep getting the feeling you are ignoring 90% of what I'm saying and fixating on things I'm not saying.

[Vandamguy]

I keep getting the feeling you are ignoring 90% of what I'm saying and fixating on things I'm not saying.

you're having an internet argument with a republican. Duh.

[Dtrain323i]

[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=6040.msg228634#msg228634 date=1319744810]
I keep getting the feeling you are ignoring 90% of what I'm saying and fixating on things I'm not saying.

you're having an internet argument with a republican. Duh.


[/quote]

I'm not a Republican.

[Versus]

[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=6040.msg228634#msg228634 date=1319744810]
I keep getting the feeling you are ignoring 90% of what I'm saying and fixating on things I'm not saying.

you're having an internet argument with a republican. Duh.


[/quote]

in his own words, he's a libertarian, not a republican

[Dtrain323i]

[quote author=Dtrain323i link=topic=6040.msg228631#msg228631 date=1319743961]
[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=6040.msg228625#msg228625 date=1319740597]
[quote author=Dtrain323i link=topic=6040.msg228618#msg228618 date=1319738653]
As far as social mobility is concerned well I've seen it happen first hand. My father in law grew up in rural Iowa in a town of 400 people. Not exactly a prosperous upbringing. He went to Iowa State where he got his bachelors in Industrial Engineering all while raising his infant daughter (aka my wife). He's busted his ass and moved his family all over the country working for different companies in various roles. He's went from a peon at Quaker Oats up through the ranks and now he works for ConAgra Foods. He is 2 steps down the corporate ladder from the CEO and when you add up his stock portfolio, his properties, and his salary. He's worth around 3 million dollars. Is his situation typical? I have no idea. But it certainly shows that it's possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic

Also you are making a straw man if you think I'm trying to say corporations are evil. I actually support lowering the corporate tax to be more competitive worldwide. I also think that tax deductions and loopholes should be removed and that industries need smart regulation to survive.

What I'm trying to say is that power and wealth flows up, not down. If we are talking about wealth gain who is more likely to be able to accumulate wealth, those that have to spend most of their income each year or those that have massive surplus income year over year? I'm not faulting people for having, I'm faulting them for not being productive. If you really look at the wealth and income gains of the top 1% and the changes of those gains year to year what percentage would you attribute to changes in value added to the economy? What about the changes in productivity, education, and usefulness of the average american versus the changes in their salary? We had a general council from a major company speak to our class and he said two stiking things to me. #1 was that while he didn't think OWS was going to get anywhere he thought they had a legitimate reason to be pissed off. #2 was that a surprising number of company managers (CEOs, directors, etc.) were not very good at their jobs.

So here is my argument as simplified as I can make it, so please do not reinterpret it to be something else. I am pissed, I feel legitimately, because we have reached a tipping point where most of the wealthiest class of this country are not adding value or earning their wealth. They have their wealth either because their parents had wealth or because they have found loopholes and other ways to cheat money out of the system without adding a corresponding amount of value to the economy. This has a good chance of killing capitalism because the system depends on adding value and taking away profits. I believe in capitalism but not in free markets because of the tendency for this exact thing to happen over time without any sort of regulation or system of checking and balancing (I also think that a lot of regulation is counter-productive or manipulated by the wealthy, but in spite of that I still think we are better off with regulatory system in place). Because of this I believe that people in the rest of the wealth classes (99%) are being under-compensated for the value they are adding and are repeatedly saddled with the losses in value created by those in the rich and powerful class. I do not think they have much hope of improving their level of wealth without some luck or being in the right fields (computer/technology seems to be the easiest).

And for the record, my family is probably near the top 1% if not there. My family also came from humble beginnings and has a policy of not giving their children anything they didn't earn. For that reason I try not to let anyone know that my family has means so I can make my own way without relying on their wealth (which wouldn't be available to me anyways).

Edit: also my graphs showed a lot more than the fact that CEOs make more than laborers, they showed large gains in compensation for CEOs compared to laborers over time. If you can point me to what they are doing better to deserve these increases or what they are doing better than the CEOs of other countries that don't have nearly the same income disparity then maybe I'd agree with you.
[/quote]


you can't escape the market. Supply and Demand always wins. The simple fact of the matter is that there are a lot fewer CEOs on the planet then there are laborers. There's 7 billion people on this planet, I'd wager less than 2 million of them are qualified to run a company. If you want wages for unskilled labor to rise in this country, you can start by scrapping NAFTA.
[/quote]

I keep getting the feeling you are ignoring 90% of what I'm saying and fixating on things I'm not saying.
[/quote]


I'm not disagreeing with you. I don't purport to have all the answers. Maybe the extra pay is deserved, maybe it isn't. And I have no doubts that there are CEOs out there that are bad at their jobs. Some took extremely stupid risks and got bit (namely the banks and automakers) but still made out like bandits in the end. Yes, I agree that all that happened. Whether it was right or wrong, it happened. All I'm saying is that the reason wages are where they are is because that it what the market will bear. I'd say consumer and voter APATHY is the root of a lot of this. There needs to be more "voting with your dollar" happening. Another idea would be to buy stock in some of these companies and go the the shareholder meetings and voice your opinion. They're obliged to listen to you as a shareholder of their company, not so much if you sit at their front door with a sign and some drums.


tl;dr- I agree with you, I just think there's a different way to go about changing things.

[Surf314]

I'm not disagreeing with you. I don't purport to have all the answers. Maybe the extra pay is deserved, maybe it isn't. And I have no doubts that there are CEOs out there that are bad at their jobs. Some took extremely stupid risks and got bit (namely the banks and automakers) but still made out like bandits in the end. Yes, I agree that all that happened. Whether it was right or wrong, it happened. All I'm saying is that the reason wages are where they are is because that it what the market will bear. I'd say consumer and voter APATHY is the root of a lot of this. There needs to be more "voting with your dollar" happening. Another idea would be to buy stock in some of these companies and go the the shareholder meetings and voice your opinion. They're obliged to listen to you as a shareholder of their company, not so much if you sit at their front door with a sign and some drums.


tl;dr- I agree with you, I just think there's a different way to go about changing things.

My problem is I don't have complete faith in the free market anymore because it has no way to deal with externalities. BP makes a fortune drilling oil but ruins the fishing industry in the gulf in the process? There is no way to deal with that. You can pretend the market or the law punished them but as far as I know they are approved for new drilling while their last well is probably still leaking. And the fishing industry in the gulf is probably getting worse, not better. Have enough people stopped buying BP products to compensate? Voting with your dollars is a joke because in the end people will just buy what they think benefits themselves the most. Pollution is just one externality the free market doesn't seem to be able to address. The other is the simple fact that our economy needs consumers. You can have companies cut employees like Chainsaw Al all day, and ship jobs overseas to become leaner and more profitable. But then you lose consumers to buy the products in the US. Maintaining a soft labor market is great for companies now because they can get cheap labor and take increases in productivity as profits instead of sharing it with the employee who made the company more profitable. But without those people able to consume then the companies can't truly grow, they can only decrease expenses to make more money.

We are stuck in a weak market because of how poorly the free market deals with externalities and free riders. Cutting/underpaying employees is great for the bottom line but bad for the market as a whole because the market needs consumers. Companies won't hire new employees or pay them more just because if everyone does it it will make their company grow with more consumption. So where in your model do things get better? When everyone looks after themselves it works great until you face a problem that you have to work together with others to solve.

[CaffeinePowered]

To add to what Surf said, no market will ever truly be "free", there's so many factors that go into any given market, the best you are going to get is a theoretical model.

Public goods and externalities are just the tip of the iceberg (this is also where government comes in to provide services or regulate)

[Vandamguy]

while its still relevant i think this video encapsulates both sides of the discussion here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w[url=http://][/url]

skip to the 47 minute marker and at least watch it to 49:30, or as much as you can watch.

[Surf314]

To add to what Surf said, no market will ever truly be "free", there's so many factors that go into any given market, the best you are going to get is a theoretical model.

Public goods and externalities are just the tip of the iceberg (this is also where government comes in to provide services or regulate)

Yea, I had a guy high up in a railroad company tell me that high speed rail will never make economic sense and the government should not be promising that it is going to break even or make money. But immediately after that he was like but I don't know that that means we shouldn't build them. He was saying that the benefits of lowering pollution and making it convenient for people to quickly travel might make up for the loss, depending on what the loss might be. That really made me think, because I was in that mindset of profit good/loss bad and here was a guy that was more or less apolitical basically saying that people should be able to talk about whether positive external benefits that can't be monetized but do improve social welfare are worth "x" cost.

[rumsfald]

Sorry I haven't responded sooner - I'm entertaining company.

@Dtrain: Ok, so we agree that the bailouts, while maybe debatable in theory, have been a disaster in practice and both incumbent parties hold some blame. As well as the recipients.

Glass Steagall did not do anything to ensure our financial success in the 20th century. It was the fact that the United States was essentially the only game in town when it came to manufacturing after World War 2 that was the true driver of our success. Europe was a crater, Russia was enjoying their time as a Stalinist dictatorship, and China was enjoying their own internal struggles.

A small point - I never claimed that Glass-Steagall was the "true driver" (your words) only that it "helped re-install faith" in banks, "played a role" in getting out of the Great Depression, and "helped underpin" the latter period of prosperity. To be sure, the industrial capacity that the US built during WW2 was the engine that drove us into the great 50s and 60s.

But Glass-Steagall can't be dismissed as having no effect. The crash of 1929 was directly related to corporate banks dicking around with the stock market. Some banks didn't have the cash on hand to service withdraws, panic ensued and lead to a run on banks, which further starved them for operating cash. (longer synopsis here: http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/referen...index.html)

One of the benefits I mentioned was depository insurance. Keeping cash in paper bags or mason jars might be something paranoid individuals do, but would never work well for small businesses. By stepping in to back deposits, the Fed helped to reinstall faith in banks when there was none. When average Joe felt comfortable enough to let the bank hold his money again, the bank then had money on-hand to issue small-business loans. Not every (or even most) post-war-boom business was financed purely from cash.

One of other the benefits of Glass-Steagall, as I mentioned, was to prevent banks from dicking around in the stock market with other people's money. Moral Hazard is a pretty well established phenomenon:"a situation in which a party insulated from risk behaves differently from how it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk." Otherwise known as Other People's Money (which lies at the core of many libertarian criticisms of the government).

---

You bring up NAFTA and say that the increased supply of labor led to decreased US wages - but I don't see how you tie this into the economic problems of the 2000s+.

As for the causes of the current Recession - a big part of that is the building and collapse of the housing bubble. I go with two Nobel-prize winning economists in attributing the GLB repeal of parts of Glass-Steagall contributed significantly to the housing-market crash.

This leads me into the graph on salaries. I don't find that graph to be particularly helpful since it's comparing the securities industry, a single traditionally lucrative industry, to every other industry available. It's comparing a stock broker in one of the worlds main financial centers to a cab driver or a school teacher. The demand for financial jobs is higher in NYC thus their wages are much higher. I'm willing to bet a stock broker here in Omaha, Nebraska doesn't make as much as a similar job in NYC.

Ok, let's look at it again. Only this time maybe we should compare it to something. But what would we compare it to that would be MORE reflective of the value that stock brokers contribute to society? If only there was some sort of average....

Oh, I know, the Dow Jones!
(tool for DJIA graph

So, prior to GLB removing the protections of Glass-Steagall, we see the stock broker wages continue to increase on pace (largely) with the Dow. Then, in 1999 (what a coincidence, the year GLB passed), we see stock broker wages continue to increase - while the Dow remains largely flat. So, for the past 10 years, while the value of the top 30 companies has largely been flat, and the wage for the average NYC worker has remained flat (already an exclusive worker population due to the high cost of living)....during this time the wage for the average stock broker has almost doubled. To me, it is clear who is getting PAID and who isn't.

I'll give you an analogy that to show that wealth can be created.

....an invention (it can be GM seeds, a new farming implement or process)....

Others have already pointed out some weaknesses in this analogy, I will not re-walk that ground. I would point out though, in your analogy, you have an INVENTION of a TANGIBLE GOOD at the core of wealth-creation. I love inventions, and am pro-entrepreneur. When I say tangible good - I mean both something that is a good (it can be traded) and it's gooood (it's better than we had before).

However, I am hard-pressed to think of the last time a Bank, or Brokerage Firm, or a Credit Card Issuer came up with a new invention that warranted the runaway profits they have (probably Visa creating the Check Card allowing people to have a card that withdrew from their account instead of credit....15 years ago).

When Valve made STEAM a super-convinent, and user-friendly way to buy games digitally - so totally entitled to massive profits.
When Apple created the iPhone - so totally entitled to massive profits (even if you like Android, you have to thank Apple for creating mass demand for handheld computers that also make calls).
When Nintendo made the DS (not 3DS), same.
Bank of America?....not so much.

As far as Citizens United and corporate personhood in general is concerned, it's a double edged sword. If you take that concept away you're going to run into many unintended consequences. Namely liability issues. If a corporation does not exist as a legal entity just like a person then there is nobody to sue when that corporation does something wrong. That is the whole point of an LLC, the corporate "person" takes on the liability vs. the owner. If you take that protection away then you'll see a lot of business owners essentially take their ball and go home since the personal risk will become too great.

For one, I don't see how limiting political action does not need to equate to personal liability. Please point me in the direction of something that argues that if Citizen's United was decided in the opposite direction it would lead to that (I tried googling a little). Even if it did, I might be inclined to argue the converse - for people like Rupert Murdoch, and BP,  and Enron, and Madoff, maybe the personal risk should be greater. If the personal risk was greater - maybe they would take greater care to not fuck people over.

[rumsfald]

Three other articles for general interest:

It's not that we don't want Wall Street to be Winners - We just don't like Cheaters

***************************************************************************************
And we hate the rich? Come on. Success is the national religion, and almost everyone is a believer. Americans love winners.  But that's just the problem. These guys on Wall Street are not winning – they're cheating. And as much as we love the self-made success story, we hate the cheater that much more.

In this country, we cheer for people who hit their own home runs – not shortcut-chasing juicers like Bonds and McGwire, Blankfein and Dimon.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blo...g-20111025
***************************************************************************************
Occupy Wall Street is not a movement without a message. It’s a movement that has wisely shunned the one-note, pre-chewed, simple-minded messaging required for cable television as it now exists. It’s a movement that feels no need to explain anything to the powers that be, although it is deftly changing the way we explain ourselves to one another.

(snip)
Mark your calendars: The corporate media died when it announced it was too sophisticated to understand simple declarative sentences. While the mainstream media expresses puzzlement and fear at these incomprehensible “protesters” with their oddly well-worded “signs,” the rest of us see our own concerns reflected back at us and understand perfectly. Turning off mindless programming might be the best thing that ever happens to this polity. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_p...lass_.html

***************************************************************************************

Occupy Wall Street has already achieved a stunning victory — a victory that is easy to overlook, but impossible to overstate. In just one month, the protesters have shifted the national dialogue from a relentless focus on the deficit to a discussion of the real issues facing Main Street: the lack of jobs — and especially jobs with decent benefits — spiraling inequality, cash-strapped American families’ debt loads, and the pernicious influence of money in politics that led us to this point.

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/27/the_vict...singleton/

[CaffeinePowered]

Rummy, you sorely make me want to go back into academia for a PhD  :-\

[Versus]

Rummy, you sorely make me want to go back into academia for a PhD  :-\

Dr. D

[rumsfald]

uh, thanks, uh, I guess. though I didn't study any of this sort of content in school - rather - I've just follow the news and find digging behind the headlines leads to more of a personal understanding.

[rumsfald]

assholes. Where's basic human empathy?

[Surf314]

assholes. Where's basic human empathy?

Please login

[k0ala]

[quote author=rumsfald link=topic=6040.msg228905#msg228905 date=1319927967]
assholes. Where's basic human empathy?

Please login
[/quote]

http://imgur.com/ciRiG,ayiXV,JRE07,mhtnR,Z2qHa,ArSKg

From the article, describing last year's Halloween party at a law firm which represents the banks in mortgage proceedings:

Let me describe a few of the photos. In one, two Baum employees are dressed like homeless people. One is holding a bottle of liquor. The other has a sign around her neck that reads: “3rd party squatter. I lost my home and I was never served.” My source said that “I was never served” is meant to mock “the typical excuse” of the homeowner trying to evade a foreclosure proceeding.

A second picture shows a coffin with a picture of a woman whose eyes have been cut out. A sign on the coffin reads: “Rest in Peace. Crazy Susie.” The reference is to Susan Chana Lask, a lawyer who had filed a class-action suit against Steven J. Baum — and had posted a YouTube video denouncing the firm’s foreclosure practices. “She was a thorn in their side,” said my source.

A third photograph shows a corner of Baum’s office decorated to look like a row of foreclosed homes. Another shows a sign that reads, “Baum Estates” — needless to say, it’s also full of foreclosed houses. Most of the other pictures show either mock homeless camps or mock foreclosure signs — or both. My source told me that not every Baum department used the party to make fun of the troubled homeowners they made their living suing. But some clearly did. The adjective she’d used when she sent them to me — “appalling” — struck me as exactly right.

These pictures are hardly the first piece of evidence that the Baum firm treats homeowners shabbily — or that it uses dubious legal practices to do so. It is under investigation by the New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman. It recently agreed to pay $2 million to resolve an investigation by the Department of Justice into whether the firm had “filed misleading pleadings, affidavits, and mortgage assignments in the state and federal courts in New York.” (In the press release announcing the settlement, Baum acknowledged only that “it occasionally made inadvertent errors.”)

...Like Rumsfald said. Assholes.

[Dtrain323i]

Sorry I haven't responded sooner - I'm entertaining company.

@Dtrain: Ok, so we agree that the bailouts, while maybe debatable in theory, have been a disaster in practice and both incumbent parties hold some blame. As well as the recipients.

yes, we most certainly do agree on that point.

One of other the benefits of Glass-Steagall, as I mentioned, was to prevent banks from dicking around in the stock market with other people's money. Moral Hazard is a pretty well established phenomenon:"a situation in which a party insulated from risk behaves differently from how it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk." Otherwise known as Other People's Money (which lies at the core of many libertarian criticisms of the government).

And in that sense. I would agree with you. It helped maintain "moral hazard" within the system as it stands. That is, fractional reserve banking within a central banking system. My argument would be that the entire banking system as it stands today is the problem. But that's a whole other debate.

You bring up NAFTA and say that the increased supply of labor led to decreased US wages - but I don't see how you tie this into the economic problems of the 2000s+.

I'm not saying NAFTA is the cause of the 2007 collapse, I'm saying it's a cause. The increased competition for jobs caused wages to stagnante. When you combine that with inflation over the past 20 years and 2 bubbles, you have a ripe environment for economic collapse.

As for the causes of the current Recession - a big part of that is the building and collapse of the housing bubble. I go with two Nobel-prize winning economists in attributing the GLB repeal of parts of Glass-Steagall contributed significantly to the housing-market crash.

And here is why we disagree on economic issues. You follow Keynesian economists while I follow Austrian ones.

This leads me into the graph on salaries. I don't find that graph to be particularly helpful since it's comparing the securities industry, a single traditionally lucrative industry, to every other industry available. It's comparing a stock broker in one of the worlds main financial centers to a cab driver or a school teacher. The demand for financial jobs is higher in NYC thus their wages are much higher. I'm willing to bet a stock broker here in Omaha, Nebraska doesn't make as much as a similar job in NYC.

Ok, let's look at it again. Only this time maybe we should compare it to something. But what would we compare it to that would be MORE reflective of the value that stock brokers contribute to society? If only there was some sort of average....

Oh, I know, the Dow Jones!
(tool for DJIA graph

So, prior to GLB removing the protections of Glass-Steagall, we see the stock broker wages continue to increase on pace (largely) with the Dow. Then, in 1999 (what a coincidence, the year GLB passed), we see stock broker wages continue to increase - while the Dow remains largely flat. So, for the past 10 years, while the value of the top 30 companies has largely been flat, and the wage for the average NYC worker has remained flat (already an exclusive worker population due to the high cost of living)....during this time the wage for the average stock broker has almost doubled. To me, it is clear who is getting PAID and who isn't.

I'll give you an analogy that to show that wealth can be created.

....an invention (it can be GM seeds, a new farming implement or process)....

Others have already pointed out some weaknesses in this analogy, I will not re-walk that ground. I would point out though, in your analogy, you have an INVENTION of a TANGIBLE GOOD at the core of wealth-creation. I love inventions, and am pro-entrepreneur. When I say tangible good - I mean both something that is a good (it can be traded) and it's gooood (it's better than we had before).

However, I am hard-pressed to think of the last time a Bank, or Brokerage Firm, or a Credit Card Issuer came up with a new invention that warranted the runaway profits they have (probably Visa creating the Check Card allowing people to have a card that withdrew from their account instead of credit....15 years ago).

When Valve made STEAM a super-convinent, and user-friendly way to buy games digitally - so totally entitled to massive profits.
When Apple created the iPhone - so totally entitled to massive profits (even if you like Android, you have to thank Apple for creating mass demand for handheld computers that also make calls).
When Nintendo made the DS (not 3DS), same.
Bank of America?....not so much.

As far as Citizens United and corporate personhood in general is concerned, it's a double edged sword. If you take that concept away you're going to run into many unintended consequences. Namely liability issues. If a corporation does not exist as a legal entity just like a person then there is nobody to sue when that corporation does something wrong. That is the whole point of an LLC, the corporate "person" takes on the liability vs. the owner. If you take that protection away then you'll see a lot of business owners essentially take their ball and go home since the personal risk will become too great.

For one, I don't see how limiting political action does not need to equate to personal liability. Please point me in the direction of something that argues that if Citizen's United was decided in the opposite direction it would lead to that (I tried googling a little). Even if it did, I might be inclined to argue the converse - for people like Rupert Murdoch, and BP,  and Enron, and Madoff, maybe the personal risk should be greater. If the personal risk was greater - maybe they would take greater care to not fuck people over.

If the personal risk was greater, then you defeat the whole purpose of an LLC. Without that key protection of personal liability, people will take no risks. If Steve Jobs' fortune hinged on the success or failure of the Iphone, he wouldn't have released the iphone. I'm not saying that corporate money in politics is necessarily a good thing, I'm just saying that eliminating corporate personhood altogether is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Put it another way, if the corporate "person" doesn't exist, who do you sue for the deepwater horizon spill?
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[rumsfald]

And here is why we disagree on economic issues. You follow Keynesian economists while I follow Austrian ones.

I would not ascribe to Keynsian economics on all issues. But even a broken clock is right twice a day, and on the issue of the subprime/housing bubble/collapse and the GLB act, the data is pretty compelling.

Put it another way, if the corporate "person" doesn't exist, who do you sue for the deepwater horizon spill?

I will counter your rhetorical query with my own: If every corporation has a right to exercise free speech (in the form of political campaigns), then why don't we give "corporate persons" a voter registration card when they pick up their corporate tax ID?

There is no reason that I see, consitutionally, why a.) limited liability for corporations, and b.) free speech for corporations, and c.) voting rights for corporations all have to be tied together. I'm perfectly fine with granting (a.) while limiting (b.) and denying (c.).

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In other news, even though most spineless MSM outlets are not reporting it this way, I attribute to #OWS the retraction of debit card fees that a number of banks have done, like this: http://news.businessweek.com/article.asp...517LR0BBIO . For me, telling how this comes right in advance of Bank Transfer Day.

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related old tune Lou Rawls - For What It's Worth