Wall Street-where's the threads

There is no "if". The financial industry was built on fraud, and the entire edifice has been propped and continues to exist only because it raided (and continues to raid) the public purse. Your equivocation on this plain fact is in stark contract to your self-righteous nostrums where ordinary people are concerned.

I'm making it my business if I hear awestruck claims about hard work, toil and the glorious realisation of the American dream where these things do not apply.

Credibility. You has none.

Is she only talking about bankers? Her statement seemed all-inclusive. How about people who actually worked their way to the top? The idea people, the talented people - did Steve Jobs "steal" his fortune? Did Paul McCartney "steal" his fortune?

I'm thinking you're employing a creative definition of "fraud" to make a blanket statement like that.

Maybe you've got a better word for when a bank pays a rating agency to rate their subprime junk as AAA. Or when a bank advises investors to buy its CDO's in the morning before betting that they'll fail in the evening.

At least you're acknowledging individual situations now. But that doesn't indict the entire banking industry, and you know damned well nobody here would defend bailing them out or sheltering them from the consequences of those actions.

Is anyone else seeing the raving contradictions inherent in this post?

Ringo deserved a bigger cut.

It doesn't mean that every individual was directly involved in the fraud, which I did not claim. It remains that the industry as a whole was built on it.

Your mealy-mouthed criticism says otherwise, particularly contrasted with your palpable, hectoring rage at anyone who dares protest against them.

Part of the problem is an industry build on fraud, but a larger part of the problem is an industry built on arbitrage.

Arbitrage used to serve a very real and important purpose in financial markets. Very few people had access to financial markets globally or even to reliable information about financial markets globally. It really did quite frequently take third party intervention to move assets from a party that valued them relatively lowly to a party that valued them relatively highly in any kind of reasonable timeframe.

Today, however, the big investment banks make arbitrage profits pretty much exclusively by high speed computerized trading that lets them skim money as middle men out of transactions that would have taken place milliseconds later anyway without the intervention of the investment banks. They no longer actually perform any kind of service in the way of linking sellers up with buyers; they're just leeches skimming money away from pension funds and other investors.

A 100% capital gains tax on very short term capital gains would be a major improvement and would start forcing the leeches out.

I still say most of those whiny pissants are protesting against everything but a free lunch in Nerf world.

and as usual, you wouldn't have a clue nor care to find one until they ship your cubicle to some place even shittier than Nebraska.

And to add a little humor to this thread, here are pics from occupy Sesame Street!




http://www.tauntr.com/blog/occupy-sesame-street-gets-violent

Those of you who support these guys..can you explain why they have to make such a fucking mess leaving trash and waste everywhere without cleaning up after themselves?....I'm guessing there also environmentalist so you think they be concern about all the pollution their making.

No corporate sponsors providing logistical supports?

Because that's somebody else's job. The world is their playpen, and society is there to change their fucking diapers.

And then there's this.

But enough about the bankers.

So let's see, we give jobs to everybody, bring manufacturing back to the US, destroy big corporations and arrest their executives for daring to be successful, grant blanket immunity to illegals, and raise the minimum wage to $20.

And this will make the country solvent.

Thanks for the update from Motorhead.

My IRA and 401(k) are assets that are appreciating as we speak. While I agree that it doesn't involve any work on my part -- I just tell a computer to reroute part of my paycheck -- are you arguing that I'm a thief?

Or is it legitimate as long as the balance is below an arbitrary threshold, and theft when it crosses it?

I've heard the unions are taking care of that...though I suppose they are not spending money on clean-up crews.

Do so. Why not have it spread around a bit, after the work I put into it? But make sure it is credited: It is a modification of a William Warren cartoon originally entitled "The MEDIA'S guide to protestors."

In fact, it might be better to just use this one. I made another one with the credits right on it. That way, if someone else copies it and it gets spread around, it still will not appear to be original when it is not.

File under: Winning Hearts and Minds


Occupy Boston protesters spit on Coast Guard member



Picking on the Coast Guard? The fucking Coast Guard? Who hates on the Coast Guard for science sake?

We know who these people are now. They're not the "99%" they're the same old useless leftist bottom dwelling scum that's been plaguing this nation since the '60's.

You're going to need to amend it now buddy.

Quebec?

Might be too late, but I'll change it.

I do not understand what you mean. Please clarify.

You need to add something about spitting on service members.

you really are a simple minded dolt who lacks any clue that isnt fed to him, aren't you?