The interesting Occupy Wall Street protests are growing since their inception on the 17th of Sept. The news media has either trivialized it (NY Times) or suppressed coverage (CNN, etc.) on behalf of unstated special interests. One can assume that bankers and the city government of NYC does not want to give anyone any ideas. That said a scan of out-of-state Craigslist postings for ride sharing to NYC for the sole purpose of joining these protests is increasing. Episodes of police brutality on otherwise friendly and non-violent protesters will make matters worse as the NYC city officials grows inpatient with the crowd. The on the ground crowd estimates vary widely but the number of protesters in not insignificant. This could be the final straw that kills big media if they do not step up and cover this story immediately.
There are good home brew videos available that are being taken down for no apparent reason by You Tube.
What we have left are a lot of unedited and random videos that need to be consolidated into a real narrative,
Didn’t the protest take place on a day when the stock market was closed?
Funny, its okay in Egypt, but it’s illegal here.
Maybe its because neither HRH Queen-in-waiting Hillary and/or HRR King-in-waiting Boehner don’t approve of the message.
I know! I’m a Canadian with a sense of history (or is that irony.) Lets set Washington on fire again. 🙂
Don’t bother setting downtown LA or The Bronx in New York, or all of Detroit, or most Kansas City, or most of Portland Ore, or most any other US cities on fire. That’s just called urban renewal.
Oh, the horror!
Dvorak Headline: Occupy Wall Street News Suppressed
It’s not suppressed. It’s just that no one gives a flying F about the “alleged” protestors. It reminds me of the nutcases in San Francisco who got so upset about the lifestyle of Spotted Owl.
The only coverage of the Wall Street protest is from the comedians:
http://goo.gl/Edzgw
This stupidity might have a slight chance of being relevant if a single one of these idiots had a job and a 401k, instead of stupid haircuts.
The Obama reelection team does not want protests to be the headline. It would be like 1968 and sink his reelection. Joe Biden is a passable imitation of Hubert Humphrey.
In #4 Faxon said: This stupidity might have a slight chance of being relevant…
You know… you’re right…
The next flash mob of people to come down to Wall street should:
• come up from nearby subway stations wearing cheap dark blue suits (a Wall street uniform of sorts,)
and instead of writing some stupid message like LOVE in chalk on the street, they should
• spray paint through masked sheets of 8’1/2×11 saying “Bernie Madoff was an amateur compared to the people on Wall street.“.
The flash mob can all carry the same message but lots of different colors of paint.
All you risk is a fine since there is no inconveniencing people and there is no destruction of property.
You can also have targets throughout the city, not just Wall street. That would be a lot easier and harder to stop. You can also target the buildings of the media corporations. NBC, MSNBC, ABC, Fox, CBS, PBS.
Have the mob descend at 07:00, put on latex gloves, spray their one message on lots of buildings, alert the media, but not wait around, strip off the latex gloves, too ’em into the trrash and be gone almost immediately.
That would shake the Wall street elite a shit load more.
You come up from the ground, use the infrastructure, strike in lots of places anonymously and they’ll absolutely plotz!.
Wall street people absolutely hate anonymity when its used by somebody else.
Oh you’ll have to use YouTube to video yourselves (all unrecognizable, wearing blue suits,) to get any mention other than “Vandals struck all over the city this morning. until the third or fourth time you organize the flash mob before the message itself gets picked up by the media, but rest assured, it will terrify them.
That’s why they hate anonymity. It makes them feel as powerless as we feel before the facelessness of the brokers on Wall street.
JCD: Behold the comments on this thread (or lack thereof so far) which by and large back up my belief that 90% of this country deserve every god damned bit of misery that is about to come upon them. It can’t be stopped now. It’s a simple function of math. The can-kicking is quickly coming to an end. There is little road to kick it down and the amount of wall street/washington fraud has increased the mass of the can to where it’s creating it’s own gravity well.
Sure, those fucktards will blame the D’s, they’ll blame the R’s, they’ll even blame the people who told them the collapse was coming. Screw them. They were warned.
Most anti-establishment news is uncovered in an attempt to squelch it/doesn’t fit the lame steam media model of conflict.
Conflict is covered when it fits into the two party conflict model so that both sides can raise money to fight the other side. When the conflict is against both sides (the establishment which includes the lame stream media) then its seen as “dangerous” and should not be covered.
FREEEEEEEEDOM is indeed dangerous. It demands justice, fairness==in summary a CHANGE from the status quo.
I note the current uptick in the Pukes getting actually upsent that over 50% of the public has the gaul to not pay Fed Income Tax. Imagine that? Teabaggers are all upset that a family of four earning 20 K per year is not paying taxes==as Backman says: even a dollar!
Now, just exactly why isn’t that class warfare? Like the sign says: Its only called class warfare when we complain.
There would be no crowds in the streets if there was any LAW ENFORCEMENT!!!!! But there isn’t and our Big Money OverLords continue to get funds channeled their way so that the Politicians know where to get their share. Yes, it is that direct and corrupt.
VOTE ALL “NO NEW TAXES” CRIMINALS OUT OF OFFICE.
Why don’t they protest the progressive liberals that forced banks to make loans to people who couldn’t afford it in order to push their “equal outcomes” social agenda?
#9 Username
I keep hearing this talking point. Can you back it up? Do you know the name of the legislation that forced banks to make bad loans? Can you show me the section that covers that? Can you show me where banks were forced to push these time bomb ARM loans on everyone? Can you tell me where they were forced to bundle them together, resell them, and make a new and risky investment instrument, that they then bet *against* ? Can you show me where they were forced to over leverage themselves to the point where they got into trouble the only solution was taxpayer bailout?
Please, explain in more detail.
#10–tcc3==of course, he can’t back it up because it isn’t true. Just another big lie from the long list of Teabagging BS. Not that the Freddies aren’t culpable for seeing thru the liars loans and stopping the Wallstreet Rape of the American Public. But it was a failure to act to stop corruption rather than an affirmative command for our innocent Wallstreet Banker to be corrupt themselves.
But TeaBaggers are like that: if you can’t stop me from lying and cheating, and you don’t put me in jail after I am found out, then you forced me to do it.
Ipso Dipso.
#11 Yeah, I’m really shaking in my boots over a few maggot-infested long-haired hippies who can’t get any media coverage over a non-issue.
It’s too bad the cops haven’t already done their “stupid shit” on these losers.
#14: Don’t worry, the cops will get to their stupid shit on those “losers” soon enough. Of course that’s just practice for when they get to you or someone you care about. Because eventually being a good little sheep and doing as you’re told won’t be enough for them and their stupid shit.
A little education for tcc3 and Bobbo
It was the Community Reinvestment Act passed by the Democrats and signed into law by President Carter in 1977. It required banks and thrifts to offer credit throughout their entire market area. It gave incentives to help low-income borrowers get a home.
In 1995 the Clinton Administration gave new subprime authorization to lenders with massive additional provisions in the Community Reinvestment Act. Questionable home loans skyrocketed.
Fannie Mae added fuel to the fire when on Oct. 30, 2000, it announced plans to purchase $2 billion of “My Community Mortgage” loans. Soon subprime mortgages started to take off like a rocket.
Part of the increase in home loans was due to lenders, like Countrywide, which did not mitigate loan risk… by using the new government mandated subprime authorization the revisions allowed the securitization of CRA loans containing subprime mortgages which forced banks to issue $1 trillion in new subprime loans and brought the subprime mortgage debacle to the breaking point.
The banks were required by the CRA to issue sub-prime mortgages or pay big penalties.
Now, how were these sub-prime mortgages kept “affordable”?
Answer:NO money down, interest only, low variable rates, no income verification, no attention was paid to credit or bad credit risks.
Fannie told the banks..go ahead , make the loans..we will guarantee them.
* Some borrowers stopped paying, so banks stopped lending.
* The subprime market was collapsing.
* Foreclosures started piling up.
* Buyers were in short supply, so sellers had to lowere home prices.
* More borrowers stopped paying.
* Fannie mae “guarantees” became worthless because they kept overstating their assets.
* Banks collapsed due to worthless government sponsored securities issued by Fannie Mae.
* Jobs disappeared and here we are today in this financial crisis.
#17 – Time for you to go back to school. Your BDS is affecting your grasp of reality.
Bush wanted to tighten oversight with a new regulatory board for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other government recipients for the express purpose of addressing bad loan practices — and Democrats blocked it.
The New York Times reported this five years ago:
The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.
Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.
The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.
This should have been a no-brainer, right? With hindsight, we can see that the Bush administration had accurately diagnosed the problem in the lending market and had a plan to address it. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reluctantly supported the plan. However, Democrats objected.
It was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street’s most revered institutions.
Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.
Sounds a little like the Democratic denial of problems in Social Security, doesn’t it? Nothing to see here, no crisis on the horizon. Everybody just move along, now. The Democrats had forced lenders to assume more risk at lower interest rates in the 1990s
#16 I thought you might say that. You go ahead and show me where the CRA forced banks to make bad loans.
CRA was passed in 1977, modified in 1995, and you mention Fannie’s actions in 2000. Most home loans are for 30 years. Seems like the CRA should have tanked the econony long before now, if it was the culprit.
Most ARM initial rate periods are 4 years. If the modification in 1995 and 2000 worsened the situation, why no meltdown in 1999 or 2004.
If banks were “forced” then why, post crisis, is it double hard to get a loan? CRA wasn’t repealed.
See here:
http://www.businessweek.com/investing/insights/blog/archives/2008/09/community_reinvestment_act_had_nothing_to_do_with_subprime_crisis.html
Here are some gems:
“most subprime loans were made by firms that aren’t subject to the CRA”
“Not surprisingly given the higher degree of supervision, loans made under the CRA program were made in a more responsible way than other subprime loans.”
“It was only after the Bush administration cut back on CRA enforcement that problems arose”
http://youtu.be/63siCHvuGFg
this sad excuse for a protest is brought to you by a canadian corporation. http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns thank you, now go home.
#6 Don’t tell me. Let me guess.
Those fucking Guy Fawkes masks, is that what you like?
Those things just make people hate whoever is wearing the smarmy obnoxious looking things, and react that way to whatever message or cause they espouse.
Jbenson2- #16, #18
The problem with your theory is the timeline. Those funky mortgages usually reset to higher interest rates in 3-4 years. A massive increase in mortgage delinquencies started in 2006. That means that the bulk of the problem loans were of 2002-2003 vintage: way too late to blame Clinton for the institutional attitude of the regulatory bodies.
The distinction is important. We don’t need to change the laws all the time. It’s a lot more about enforcement.
I don’t even blame Bush II. He was engaged elsewhere. The blame really goes right to the philosophy that markets can police themselves without government supervision.
Massive compensation and job short-termism in banking make that view invalid. Terrorism, the mob, and drugs have never done the kind of damage the ’08 market crisis did. It doesn’t even require new laws. Fraud is a perfectly good description.
I would blame the philosophy of Reagan. Government is not the problem. Government is also not the solution, but it is an unavoidable element in the solution.
jbenson don’t forget the ACORN lawsuits that added to the mix. I’m forgetting the name of the bank that was very confident in their lending practices were not discriminatory, but couldn’t handle the ACORN thuggishness.
Regarding the ORIGINAL issue of the post, DrudgeReport now has links to 3 different items on the protests.
Regarding the subprime loans, from what I learned several things were in play.
1) Dems were leaning hard on banks to issue more loans to “high risk” minority people, often through administrative / bureaucratic arm twisting (e.g., if they want to merge or buy out another bank, they have to promise to loan to high risk applicants in order for the government to approve the merger/purchase in the highly regulated banking sector). Since they were pushing so hard under the table to force banks to make these high risk loans, these same government agencies functionally didn’t bother to actually keep an eye on the administration of these loans. All they cared was that the loans were being made, since that kept the Dem politicos off their bureaucratic asses on the issue.
2) Another was that functionally being government entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could be successfully coerced into buying / backing these high risk loans from banks for loans of $350K? or less they they legally administered. This made banks MUCH more willing to make high risk loans in that price range since the risk could be foisted on to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
3) The last major item as the creation of convoluted financial schemes that bundled a bunch of money from different sources together that could be used to finance home purchases above the FM $350L limit normally shouldered on the bank’s dime. Since private investors rather than the banks were shouldering the bulk of the financial risk, this had the same “liberating” effect on more expensive loans as the FMs’ assumption of risk on smaller loans.
4) Add a shitload of percentage commission greed and the whole subprime loan mess grew uncontrolled until the whole thing imploded.
5) Shortly after the bail out of the banks by both the Bush and Obama administrations, some of the Dems were pushing banks to resume making high risk loans to minorities…
Hm. The right is now as boring and whiny as the left.
#17 While much of this did happen while Bush was in office the power of the purse belongs to Congress. The Congress has oversight over Fannie and Freddie.
The two people most at fault are Dodds in the Senate and Frank in the house because they ran the oversight committees and they are on video saying all is well, don’t worry, we have everything under control and going the way we want it.
When it blew up they blamed Bush even though this was one stupid bleep up he actually said was being mismanaged. Astounding as this may seem he actually got one right.
Given the apparent name of the protesting Org, I would be more concerned about what might soom happen to the electronic trading system that Wall Street is now so dependent on.
Why DO Americans worship Wall Street? Why do they vote against their best interests in favor of the wealthy?
Well, its pretty simple really. Americans REFUSE to believe they’re poor. They think their poverty is simply a temporary state on their way to vast riches. Why would you vote for a pro-Union or soak-the-rich law if you planned to become rich someday?
Americans don’t want to be associated with the Blue Collar class, despite the fact that the vast majority are blue collar and never will achieve even a smidgen of the wealth they will dream of.
There will be no lottery ticket, no Stock Market trade, no inheritance from that long lost Uncle. They will die poor, but they will die believing that they will be rich.
Capitalism has brainwashed us into believing all can be rich, which is as silly a concept as Communism making everybody equal.
So the next time you criticize a Union for that mythical job loss, think….was that job destined for China anyway? Why do you honestly think you will someday draw a $15 million dollar CEO salary?
The future is pretty depressing, its time we came to terms with our real futures, not our faraway fantasy dream futures.
Hey John, There’s an independent 24/7 live stream of Occupy Wall St. if you want to keep up what’s going on there —> http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/occupywallstreet
Peace, See you and Adam at Camp.
Bank Bonuses ??? That’s why we need to SOAK THE RICH !!! Bring back the 90% top tax bracket for MILLIONAIRES AND BILLIONAIRES !!! Even after being SOAKED, they will STILL BE RICH !!!
Assuming anybody’s still reading the replies to this post…
noname said,
“# 30 Drive By Poster
Regarding your pnt#1, nice try at re-writing history!
From Bush’s earliest days in office, …”
That actually started way back either during the end of Bush Sr’s Presidency or during the 1st term of the Clinton administration. It was pushed by congressional democrats on the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae side.
Frankly, it’s getting seriously tiresome how the Political Left functionally insist that American history began with the G W Bush’s Presidency just so you can make him out to be the source of all of the world’s Ills that Obama “inherited”.
#39 DriveByPoster
Nice, try to slip in the last word when you think no one is looking. Living up to your pseudonym.
So you’re getting tired of the left blaming bush, then you finish up with an implication that its Clinton and/or Obamas fault. As long as the blame rests with the left, it doesn’t even have to make sense, right?
Bottom line, blaming the CRA is exactly the partisan fear-mongering blame you claim to abhor. Not only was it not the issue, it doesn’t even make sense.