"Can you hear me now?"

[Eamonn]

While of course those of us who are on the right are not going to be swayed. They have their way of seeing things and think that what they believe to be best or right is just that.

Others like myself who might be a little more to the left? Are also not going to change course, we think that we are in the right and our thinking and ways of dealing with things are for the best.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing.

To my mind offering a clear choice is a good thing.

I'm a little fed up with this middle of the road course that elected politicians seem to want to take.

Sure I'd hate to see an extreme right wing government gain power. But I'm willing to accept whatever the majority goes for. (Yes I'll whine, complain and moan a bit.)

 

While I dislike the Tea Party and just about everything it stands for or thinks it might stand for??

Others see the guys and girls who are camping out and demonstrating in Wall Street as a group of left wing nutters who might riot at the drop of a check book.

I think the one thing both groups have in common is that they came to be because people felt that they weren't being heard and that their needs weren't being addressed.

Sure the needs might be completely different and at odds. But the fact that no one seemed to care or be listening is for me the big thing that both groups have in common.

The last few elections seem to have been more about "Get rid of and kick the bums out!" Than anything else.

Sad thing is that the bums who replaced the bums who got kicked out don't seem that much different.

The buzz word the last time we had a presidential election was "Change".

From where I sit while these has been a few changes, for the most part it's been the same old same old.

Joe the plumber, John Doe and the average Joe are fed u with the way things get done or don't get done in Washington DC, Wall Street and in our State Capitals.

If there is a common cry from the Tea Party and the OWS groups it has to be "Can You Hear Me Now?"

Ea.

 

[Basementdweller]

Hey may hear the noise......

 

 

But we the people don't have the stomach for change, what needs done is going to hurt a large number of people financially.

 

 

The folks in power really could careless about us, The bankers care less about us even less than the elected officials.

 

Nothing will change with out another revolution or violent civil disobedience.

 

But the rich suburbs are busy cutting themselves off from the city....closing roads and blocking new ones. Increasing the police force and harassing those of us not from their town.

[packsaddle]

Basement, what planet....never mind. There is nothing about the market that CARES about anything...other than optimizing the efficiency of transactions. The market is amoral. It has no sense of future or purpose or decency outside its own existence, driven by selfish interest. There is no reason to expect bankers or 'systems' to 'care' about anyone or anything other than their own self interest. That is the American economic system. It is the unseen hand and the magic of the marketplace and it doesn't 'care'. And anyone who EXPECTS 'caring' is delusional.

[Beavah]

Yah, lighten up there, Francis. I mean packsaddle.

 

Bankers are human beings, not systems. I reckon it's just fine to expect 'em to behave like ethical ones.

 

A similar thing for boards of directors and brokers and such, eh? Da proper ethics is not to maximize short term shareholder value. It's to represent da shareholders as their agent, and to do only things they would approve of as though they were there representing themselves.

 

So that means that as a board member, you should not screw your workers or dump toxic sludge in ds river even though it enhances short-term shareholder value - because the majority of your shareholders would not approve. It is just da same old question of honor and fiduciary responsibility that we try to teach the scouts.

 

And that kind of honor, common sense, and good judgment can indeed be present in economic systems of all sorts. In fact, it's vital to their successful functioning. Models of economic systems are cold and impersonal in da way you describe. That's a fun game for economists and earns 'em tenure. But in da real world there are real people, not cogs.

 

I agree with Eamonn, eh? It's very clear that both da Tea Party and da OWS people are frustrated, and for some good reasons, but neither has da education or training to actually understand what's goin' on and how things work. So they don't have any idea how to focus their frustration into productive action. Instead they latch onto favorite media soundbites or a single facet of da issue and become a tool for some of the very things they would oppose if they had a clue.

 

Yah, da TPers are frustrated by the deficits and Fed interventions run up in da effort to prevent Great Depression II, and blame them on President Obama. But da alternative really was Great Depression II, eh? Cascading bank collapses. Deflationary contraction. 2 to 3 times as many people out of work. Just da wind down of the stimulus program has nearly put us back into recession and caused serious political fallout in a number of states.

 

What they should be upset about is da complete lack of follow-up with criminal probes and re-regulation, because we're most of da way to setting up the house of cards again. Do yeh know that da 4 biggest banks in da U.S. Are currently exposed to over $400 trillion dollars of notional derivatives? Yah, yah, they claim to be hedged, but they are once again ignoring da counterparty risk. They think they're too big to fail, and that they're free to gamble on this scale knowin' the taxpayer will back them up. So while the Tea Party whines about deficits, their representatives sit and allow da Mother of All MegaDeficit Bailouts to build without challenge. Good people, being completely duped.

 

I expect it will be no different for da OWS crowd. They'll be co-opted by the left and promised unending benefits that aren't sustainable, and so they'll spend on short term benefits instead of spending on ds infrastructure and investments that will lead to the long-term growth that lifts all boats.

 

Beavah

[packsaddle]

THAT brought a smile to my face! Thanks.

Yes, individual persons and even groups of people can make moral decisions and act in moral ways. I agree.

On the other hand, markets, as you described later (re: $400x10**12 in exposure), continue to demonstrate the lack of any kind of moral compass. As for the question as to whether or not they're too big to allow to fail? That experiment was carried out already and we proved that they have good reason to think they're too big to allow to fail. Bush and Obama demonstrated that principle empirically a couple of years ago.

 

Even later, your description of the TPers approach tends to support my contention that their plan (witness how unlikely the NEW debt commission is to decide anything whatsoever) IS not to have a plan (think of them as uber-anarchists). Now I don't think they have decided this consciously. I think this is one of the 'emergent properties' that is the outcome of 'irreducibly complex' systems, regardless of how smart or stupid the individual components are. (wasn't that nice, the way I attached the Intelligent Design thing to the TP?)

Viola! The Tea Party is here by divine mandate to provide divine intervention! Or so my Confederate Flag waving, Christian racist neighbor claims.

And who am I to question his claim? Just the guy who works on Sunday and I suppose conforms to HIS model of a person who has no moral compass. And that's 'closure', whatever that is.

[vol_scouter]

Eamon,

 

I agree with your conclusions. Even though we disagree on the best method to address the country's problems, I have no doubt that we both want the same end points and would enjoy a cup of coffee around a campfire in the woods.

 

Packsaddle,

 

Remember, it is both sides that appointed folks with extreme views to the budget committee. The democrats are as much to blame as the republicans. It would appear that the democrat and republican leadership wants the committee to fail and have the mandatory cuts to medicare and the Department of Defense. Those cuts will do real harm to the DoD and the 20% cuts to medicare providers (doctors and hospitals) will result in chaos and the closure of hospitals in a few months. Hospitals are working typically on 1-3% profit margins and for most, ~60% of their business is medicare. They will all collapse it is just a matter of how long that their reserves last. I cannot fathom why the leadership of both parties find this to be acceptable.

[packsaddle]

Vol, you misunderstand me. To me the Tea Party is a symptom. WE are the ones who are avoiding a plan so WE have 'manufactured' the Tea Party to deliver this fate. WE already had a truly bipartisan debt commission which WE have simply ignored. WE have decided instead to create a 'new' commission, only this time we'll get it RIGHT and this commission, this time, will fail to create a plan - which IS the plan.

The only real obstacle left is to figure out a way to circumvent those across-the-board cuts that are supposed to happen as a result. 9.8m/sec**2.

[shortridge]

It's very clear that both da Tea Party and da OWS people are frustrated, and for some good reasons, but neither has da education or training to actually understand what's goin' on and how things work.

 

An alternative reading of both critiques is that the system has become far too complicated and complex. If it can't be understood by the average person who lacks a decade or more of financial experience or higher education, then shouldn't it be simplified? Why does it *have* to be so confusing?

 

Not saying I agree with that - just that's another way of looking at it.