10-09-2011, 11:24 PM
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Confirmed User
Join Date: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,901
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Krugmans post on #occupy was pretty good...
Quote:
Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point.
What can we say about the protests? First things first: The protesters? indictment of Wall Street as a destructive force, economically and politically, is completely right.
A weary cynicism, a belief that justice will never get served, has taken over much of our political debate ? and, yes, I myself have sometimes succumbed. In the process, it has been easy to forget just how outrageous the story of our economic woes really is. So, in case you?ve forgotten, it was a play in three acts.
In the first act, bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending. In the second act, the bubbles burst ? but bankers were bailed out by taxpayers, with remarkably few strings attached, even as ordinary workers continued to suffer the consequences of the bankers? sins. And, in the third act, bankers showed their gratitude by turning on the people who had saved them, throwing their support ? and the wealth they still possessed thanks to the bailouts ? behind politicians who promised to keep their taxes low and dismantle the mild regulations erected in the aftermath of the crisis.
Given this history, how can you not applaud the protesters for finally taking a stand?
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Confronting the Malefactors
If thats behind a paywall go to google news and type is Confronting The Malefactors.
Quote:
And there are real political opportunities here. Not, of course, for today?s Republicans, who instinctively side with those Theodore Roosevelt-dubbed ?malefactors of great wealth.? Mitt Romney, for example ? who, by the way, probably pays less of his income in taxes than many middle-class Americans ? was quick to condemn the protests as ?class warfare.?
But Democrats are being given what amounts to a second chance. The Obama administration squandered a lot of potential good will early on by adopting banker-friendly policies that failed to deliver economic recovery even as bankers repaid the favor by turning on the president. Now, however, Mr. Obama?s party has a chance for a do-over. All it has to do is take these protests as seriously as they deserve to be taken.
And if the protests goad some politicians into doing what they should have been doing all along, Occupy Wall Street will have been a smashing success.
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"Class warfare", oh yeah, I bet that will go over gangbusters in the election season. You guys should TOTALLY go with it. Sell it. |
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