We are being taken for a ride!
The type of banking that caused our crisis will not cause another recession because we have already enacted laws that will help prevent that. There will be another bubble of some sort that will not be the housing loan market though and whatever that is could cause another recession. .
The powers that be have not reined in the bankers....the bankers ARE THE POWERS THAT BE!
Though I don't consider profiting a bad thing or keeping profits in mind when running a business to be considered greedy, no matter how large the firm. That's the point of the system. If you want a pure form of socialism, good luck doing that. You won't be able to do in the States without ending the US altogether and starting over completely from scratch. Even if you did succeed, there would be people like me who would still live within the boundaries of the new country and develop something like a business without listening to what the government said because I do what I want.
There's a couple of points wrong with this as far as i see
Firstly you've said you see nothing wrong with keeping profits.......ok lets look at a hypothetical situation. Let's imagine a world where big corporations own pretty much everything. lets say that although they give companies different names to create an illusion of diversity to the consumer that actually the same small group of people own and run everything.
This small group is so rich and influential that they control the government. They are therefore able to use the government to protect themselves against the interests of the workers. They can get the government to pass laws that cut workers rights and curb the unions and they can use the state apparatus such as the police force, national guard, army and intelligence services to control any activist groups and quell any protests by the workers.
The 1% decide that to increase their profits they cut workers pay and make workers work longer hours. They also get rid of pensions which the workers have been paying into for generations so that workers will have to keep working until they die.
The workers aren't happy about this because they recognise that they are doing all the work whilst the 1% are getting all the profits! But what can they do about it because if they try to protest the 1% use force against them, or the law against them or they freeze them out of the goods and services which the 1% own.
This process i am describing here is actually happening right now. But hey why stop there, lets allow our imaginations to contemplate the full possibilities available to the 1%. Due to technological advances they now have surveilance capabilities....in my country the UK we now have more CCTV cameras per head then anywhere else in the world and new 'terror' laws have curbed the publics civil liberties.
The US government passed the misnomered 'Patriot Act' (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Patriot_Act) just 1 month after 9/11! Wow that's some pretty quick work if you ask me....its almost as if they had it prepared before hand! The act provides the government with increased powers to control their public.....very convenient before an economic crisis in which public unrest would be inevitable!
Meanwhile police numbers are being cut, which obviously means more people out of work. However to create an illusion of police presence the government has created 'community officers' who walk around in police uniforms but don't have the same training or powers that the police have. This means there are less police patrolling hotspots who can protect honest citizens against crime....something that will increase as the economy worsens.
Detectives are also being cut, but they are the people who actually solve crimes. There will however always be enough riot police to control protests by the workers!
On the london underground railway system you have to use a swipe card to get through barriers....this has been justified by the dangers of 'terrorism', despite the fcat that a large part of the terror felt by people in the underground has been caused by the police who ran onto a train and shot an unarmed man (Charles de Menezes) several times in the head on the possibility that he might be a 'terrorist'....it turns out he wasn't a terrorist after all. These cards allow the authorites to track your movements as do the process of 'pinging' which allow police to triangulate the position of peoples mobile phones. The police have been exposed as selling information about individuals whereabouts to reporters at the News of the World (owned by Rupert Murdoch)(
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/30/metropolitan-police-mobile-phone-surveillance?INTCMP=SRCH)
The government tried a while ago to roll out 'ID cards' which would have everything on them, your: banks card, travel card, drivers license, passport etc. All your information would be on a microchip. Lets say you protest against the 1% over your work conditions....they could cut off your microchip and you would have no access to any goods or services....heck you couldn't even buy food!
They are working on the technology to implant such microchips under your skin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VeriChip
Why stop there huh? I mean if they want total control why not implant a little bit of C4 into every babies brain once it is born...they could do it right after they inject it with vitamin K (manufactured by the 1%'s pharmaceutical companies). If the person then misbehaves...pow...blow their neural circuits!
The ways an means of controlling people are becoming increasingly advanced...we all have to ask ourselves if we want a small number of people (the 1%) having that sort of power over us.
The second problem is regarding you saying you 'do what you want'.....i think capitalism is pretty limiting regarding that. Also as the wealth is consolidated further into the hands of the 1% whatever enterprise you may try to create will be increasingly threatened by monopolistic corporations who will also ensure the courts rule in their favour and the governments legislate in their favour (there's a documentary called 'Food Inc' which explaisn how the food supply in the US is dominated by the coporations such as Monsanto to the point where farmers are being controlled by them)
You would have far more freedom to do what you want under libertarian socialism
One of the problems that I have with the Wall Street protesters is that I don't know where they get off the ride. What's the end game? And they reply with "Well, we haven't decided yet and I can't speak for the group so I won't say anything". Yeah, I can't speak for anyone else either, no shit sherlock. So speak for you. What are your opinions on what we should do. A lot of these kids are in college too, where they should be learning to think for themselves but when it comes down to it, they go with the crowd because they have nothing to say.
Ok... i went to college and although it was a great experience it generated debt and also one thing i've noticed about peoples training is that it creates a filter through which people see the world. For example business men see the world a certain way, lawyers see the world a certain way, nurses see the world a certain way etc. So colleges can be perception factories. Students now leave with massive debts which means they are in debt to the bankers from the get go which means they're easier to control and tie into the capitalist system of: work, interest payments, more work, interest payments, more work, interest payments, more work, interest payments, more work, no pensions so more work, interest payments, more work, death
The 'end game' is going to be different depending on who you talk to i guess. Some want reforms and some want system change.
Sure, some of the points are good. I don't want companies polluting and killing the environment either. But trying to fix that by saying the whole system is inherently evil is simply irresponsible and demonstrates a lack of knowledge of what is actually happening. From what I've heard, very few of these people actually know anything about Economics aka "our system". Would you try to fix a jet engine if you only knew how to change the oil in your car? No, cause people could die. If we continue with this analogy, some of these people don't even know how to change the wiper blades, yet they're ready to burn the jet engine because they think it causes problems that are unfixable. But they don't see that the jet engine can get you to the moon.
The protests are providing a rallying point for everyone who knows or feels that something is wrong. The people at the core of the movement know exactly what is wrong with the system (you can hear people interviewed online) have activists of long standing within their ranks and also know that appealing to the government is not going to work because the government is owned lock, stock and barrel by the bankers.
Therefore people who visit the protest camps can speak to people, read their literature, sign petitions, and become more educated about what is going on. Various activist groups also have web pages so people can learn more form them. The better informed people are the more able they will be to take the correct action. People can then get involved directly and/or they can donate money to the cause.
There are also websites which tell you about various activism in your area, here's an example of one for my area:
http://www.indymediascotland.org/
As you can see it has an 'upcoming events' section that people can post their events onto so that everyone knows what's going on in the area.
There are also groups online who fight campaigns for example avaaz:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/, which are a global group or more localised ones such as 38 degrees in the UK which has had notbale succeses against damaging legislation for example to sell off the forests or the Natiopnal Health Service. You can get involved by donating money, signing petitions, or writing letters to your local politicians who aren't always fully aware of whats going on!
Various protest groups around the world are beginning to coordinate their efforts and organise sometimes under umbrella organisations such as globalise resisitance:
http://www.resist.org.uk/
This process will allow more coordinated and effective strategies against the efforts of the 1%. Some protestors are unemployed or have given up their jobs to protest. The problem with that is that in terms of market forces it cuts down their clout a bit. So the movements need to coordinate with the unions who have real power to deliver financial hurt to the 1%. The French know how to protest, they often blockade roads which brings the entire countries industry to a standstill.
In the UK many unions, including my own, have joined together to protest against the governments attacks on their pensions....they're balloting at the moment but it is expected that up to 3 million workers may strike this month, which in a population of 60 million (many of which are young or retired) represents a significant chunk of the work force....now that's people power!
The Greek people are the first in Europe to really feel the neoliberal whip but each country in turn will be attacked by the bankers in an attempt to get the governments to sell off the countries assets to them at cheap prices. The government is threatening to accept a bailout from the IMF and European central Bank which would require massive attacks on the workers for example on Wages, pensions, healthcare, work hours etc. This 'debt' is not real anyway...its fiat currency that exists on computers....its numbers thats all it is, but the bankers will use it to justify a grab of resources. They don't want the vast amounts of money they hold, they want tangibles like: land, water, trees, buildings, energy etc.
The Greeks have the option to repudiate the debt, here's an article describing such a possible move by the workers:
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=26550
Before discussing anymore possible reforms i want to reiterate what the problem is. The problem is that the 1% hold all the money and control its supply and use it to their favour (to grab more money and resources) which causes hardship for the 99%
Therefore any reforms should aim to decentralise the power and the wealth of the 1% and to push power and wealth back down to the 99%
The protestors have realised that there is not the political will to bring about the necessary reforms because the politicians are working for Wall Street not mainstreet. This means they are protesting to make a democratic statement to the rest of the world. They are saying that they do not agree with the actions of the government and that the government does not represent them and is not carrying forward their mandate.
To protest therefore provides the workers with a moral justification to stop paying the crippling interest payments on the loans to the central bankers. That would then stop the process of selling off all the publicly owned assets. The workers did not create the debt, the government did and they are owned by Wall Street.
The legislation already exists in the US to tackle the fraudulent actions of the banks in the form of RICO (
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), but the political will does not exist to use it. The only way for the people to create the political will is through PROTEST!
One way to lessen the effect of wall street on the political system would be to find ways to take money out of the political process. For example the Democrats and republicans are predicted to spend a billion dollars each on their next presidential campaigns. The major donators of that money is Wall Street. I've already posted on he forum, months ago, articles about how the Conservative party in the UK is mainly funded by the financial sector. One suggestion put out there has been to cap donations or war chests for campaigning.
Deregulation such as the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 removed barriers between investment banks and depositary banks which has allowed the creating of financial monsters who are able to perfom many different functions at once, which can only boost insider trading, market manipulation and overall control....for example the 'credit ratings' agencies who are supposed to grade the safety of different financial products and institutions are owned by the same people who own the banks that they are supposed to be rating! For example look at all the functions carried out by Goldman Sachs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_sachs. So there is a need for legislation to break up the monopolies and for much more regulation of the financial sector, but the political will does not exist to do this effectively enough and won't unless enough people force their hand by PROTESTING!
Other ideas i've heard include things like:
- A 'Robin Hood' tax on the super rich. This would require consensus amongst global leaders to get rid of tax havens such as: Monaco, the City of London, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, the seychelles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_haven) so that the super rich couldn't just threaten governments to move their money if they're taxed. Protestors are currently putting this idea to global leaders at the G20 summit in Cannes
- A tax on financial transactions
- Democratise the City Of London (one demand of Occupy London)...perhaps US citizens could ask their government some questions about the status of the District of Columbia?
- Boycotts and voting with your feet...using your consumer choice to tackle corporate dominance
- Campaign for people to take their money out of banks and put them into credit unions that won't speculate with the money and fund things like the global arms trade
- Direct action eg UK uncutt or computer hacker group Anonymous
- Use your political vote to give a greater voice to non mainstream political partes....if you care about envioronmental issues why not vote for the Green party?
- 'End the fed' campaign to return to the gold standard....some disagree with this and suggest that instead of going back to the gold standard we should simply move the power to print money from the federal reserve to the government treasury department who could create a new form of currency to end 'fractional reserve banking'
- A seperation of depositary banks and investment banks so that taxpayers/workers money is safe whilst the wall street wannabes can play their casino games on their own, with their own money and not with peoples pensions
- Reforms to the democratic system to allow the public more say in things ie greater, truer democracy eg with referendums such as in switzerland or with peoples assemblies.
- Buy silver and crash JP Morgan campaign (google it)
- Legislate against the shadow banking system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banking_system
- When the next banking bailout comes for example following the bursting of the retail bubble or the commercial real estate bubble, the public need to REFUSE to bail out the banks
500 Dollar Silver
The Crash JP Morgan Buy Silver Manifesto or: How to Get Hedge Funds To Do Your Dirty Work For You And Drive the Price of Silver to $500
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