How is it that public assets being sold off to private firms makes services more expensive? Seems a bit broad. Here in Washington state, liquor sales have been through the state for almost 80 years. We just voted on a bill that will privatize the sale of liquor, which will make it cheaper. Is that what you meant?
Yeah liquer got cheaper here as well despite the fact that bulk deals have been banned in supermarkets.
The drinks lobby is a very powerful group. In my country Scotland we have a drink problem due to the rapid destruction of our manufacturing base. A nationalist party has got into power....it doesn't have full power it just has devolved power from the UK government in London.
The SNP wanted to tackle the drink problem in Scotland to improve the health of the nation so it created a bill to create a minimum price for alcohol to stop people pickling themselves with cheap moonshine. However the 3 mainstream parties all blocked this move.
So what is liquer? Liquer is a depressant.
Alcohol is a drug right? What does liquer do? Liquer makes people forget.
When people are stressed they often reach for the bottle as a copig strategy. It soaks up their negative feelings and can when used socially be used to soak up energy as people drink and then go out and dance, fight, shag (sometimes all in the same evening) and collapse in a stupor having spent more money into the economy.
Here's a quote from Queen Victoria: "Give my people plenty of beer, good beer and cheap beer, and you will have no revolution"
Here's a quote from that famous American philospher Homer Simpson: 'All right, brain, I don't like you and you don't like me - so let's just do this and I'll get back to killing you with beer'
Gin was made very available and very cheap in the UK following the 'glorious revolution' when William of Orange took over the thrown. No doubt it helped to calm the people and keep the peace during the transition to new royalty. It lead to the 'gin craze' and william hogarths famous 'gin lane' engraving showing the havoc wreaked on people by cheap alcohol.
So yeah i think that alcohol might be one example where privatisation might bring prices down. I think it is a political move to provide the people with a consolation for the tough times ahead....you know like 'soma' in a 'Brave New World' (Aldous Huxley)
The government is very selective about what drugs it will let you put into your body. Tobacco and alcohol are ok as they calm the nerves and won't open up your mind. Psychadelics and marijuana they are a big no no. They are known to give people new perspectives on things which is why they have been taken as libations for spiritual purposes for millenia...Rastafarians believe ganja to be the tree of life.
The government does not want you taking any drugs that may make you see things in a different way....you might start getting funny ideas and you might start seeing through the perseption they have worked so hard to create through the various media that they control.
The 1% are the 'power elite'. They own shares in companies and they overlap each other in various ways. In the same way that the 99% organise themselves into groups such as unions or activist groups the 1% has groups aimed at protecting their interests...they often call these 'think tanks'...but there are more secretive groups as well that are all well documented and no doubt some that aren't so well documented.
To get back to your original question though privatisation doesn't drive prices down as textbooks claim (through competition) because we're talking about monopolies aren't we?
That's why there is so much insider trading and price fixing because the interests of the 1% all overlap each other.
Nobody owns the federal reserve. It's independent from the hill. It works to control interest rates and inflation by putting money into the economy as well as taking it out. And anybody can hold stakes in it, they're called federal reserve bonds. But that doesn't make them privately owned by any stretch.
Please research this more deeply and you will find that the Federal Reserve is privately owned. Heck even wikipedia will admit as much...go check it out.
Not sure why banks would be buying up resource unless they're trying to increase physical capital. True, banks were bailed out with our tax dollars, which squeezes us. But I'm not sure how buying resources and bailouts are connected when talking about banks. And what's wrong with cheap resources?
Forget the banks....banks or corporations are just vehicles. They are devices which the 1% use to maintain their positions of power. Yes corporations do provide services such as food, clothes, electrical goods etc but they do so in ways that are often harmful to the environment, the workers involved in the process and sometimes even on the consumer.
The public of the west has bought off with a degree of comfort. But the 1% have an agenda. they have been centralising their power over hundreds of years....i'm taking about particular groups and families.
I mean look at your political leaders....you have a population of over 300 million people. You have exceptionally talented, generous, well meaning and intelligent people within that 300 million. You could pick anyone you want to be your leader. They claim its an open field and that anyone can be president....yet you've had numerous political dynasties. For example: the bushes, the Roosevelts, the Clintons (hilary had a pop at the presidency!), the kennedies (who knows what Bobby might have achieved if he wasn't murdered), the Adamses here have a look at all these political families on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_political_families
Time and time again people are picked from the same circles. These people form the respectable face of the 1% and are funded by the same groups and corporations. Various corporations are associated openly with the families behind them for example Rockefeller Standard Oil.
What i'm saying is that it is not banks buying up resources it is the people behind the banks.
You ask what is wrong with cheap resources? There is nothing wrong with cheap resources if you are the buyer. If you are the seller however you wan to get the best price possible....you don't want to sell your resources cheaply!
Our governments, who are part of the 1%, are currently sellling off the resources of our nations really cheaply and justifying it by saying we are in an economic crisis. But the people who they are selling the resources to are the people who have orchestrated the econimc crisis! The government is complicit and knows what it is doing...it knows it is not getting a good deal for the public, it is getting a good deal for the 1% who are buying up the resources and will now control access to them.
That's what privatisation is...it is about controlling access to things. For example lets say i am friendly with some politicians. I went to cool and college with them and i have funded their political career. I get them to sell me the rights to the water supply. I can then charge people what i want for the water. If someone tries to take the water my political friends will use state apparatus eg police and law courts to enforce my rights against that person.
This has actually happened; US corporation Bechtel bought the rights to water supply in Cochabamba by getting the Bolivian government to privatise the water supply first. This is easy to do you just bribe the right people. If they don't comply then you send 'jackals' to threaten or kill leaders who don't comply with your demands. US corporate interest are often backed up by the US government eg when Arbenz was overthrown by the CIA because he was bringing in land reforms which would benefit the Guatamalan people but would affect the United Fruit Company of the USA profits as they had ownership of various resources within Guatamala.
Once Bechtel had bought the privatised water supply rights from the corrupt Bolivian government the price of water went up 50% and the law banned people from collecting rain water! The people protested and managed to get Bechtel out.
When a company has a monopoly it will charge what the market will bear to maximise profits. The 1% are not interested in competition they are all interlinked....their interests and their grip on power are all interdependant....like the patrician families of Rome; they knew to give 'the mob' circus and bread to keep them from rebelling and to distract them from politics.
In the UK our Chancellor of the Exchequer who later became Prime Minister, Gordon Brown oversaw the selling off of a large part of Britains Gold Reserves at a time when gold prices were at their lowest in 20 years. Why did he do that? He aid he wanted to diversify our reserve currencies but in reality i think he was told from above to do it because it would make the UK more dependant on the global economy. The move is estimated to have cost the UK taxpayer billions of pounds and the price of gold is soaring at the moment because it will hold value through a depression. I've heard that the IMF is now one of the largest holders of Gold. I think he was instructed by global bankers to do it as part of a wider plan. But he sold our resources cheaply. he has since sold more resources cheaply in 'firesales'.
Once owned privately companies will be able to charge people what they want for their services. Our National Health Service which most people believe is a fantastic thing is under attack from the current conservative government (approx 13 of the govts 20 cabinet all went to the same elitist school 'Eton' which educates members of the global elite. Most of them probably went to Oxford or Cambridge universities which also educates members of the global elite....these institutions provide some of the glue that bind the 1% together). What they want to do is privatise certain parts of the NHS. All the quick and simple operations will be carried out by private health corporations whilst the slow, complicated operations will be carried out by the rump of the NHS, with the public taxpayers footing the bill.
Also privatised services creates a two tier system where the 1% can get the best of everything because they are the only people who can afford it; which is why there are student protests in the UK at the moment against rising tuition fees for university which will threaten to price many people out of education.
If you think that the United States will ever manufacture the same amount of goods that we used to then checkmate. We cannot compete with China in that type of manufacturing. We still are the most productive economy in the world when you put it into dollars, which is what is important. It's about how much you produce as well as what you produce.
The US has frightening levels of debt. The only reason the US gets away with this is because the dollar is the worlds main reserve currency. That means the US is in a privaleged position. But other countries are looking to challenge that. many people have suggested that the aggressive foreign policy of the US has been driven by fact that certain countries have been trying to trade commodities such as oil in other currencies such as the euro. Iraq tried that and the US invaded. Iran is doing it and is now being threatened by the US. The US press had a story recently about a supposed plot by the Iranians to assassinate a Saudi diplomat within the US. The plot has basically been dreamt up as a justification for sabre rattling by the US. Iran has nothing to gain by such a plot except a world of trouble!The US client state Israel which is funded by the US to the tune of $6 billion dollars a year is now threatening military strikes against the Iranians.
The US has tried to block moves by the palestinians to be recognised as a nation by the UN...it has removed its funding because the other countries of the world voted to recognise Palestine. Which kind of exposes US govenment claims to be seeking a peceful resolution in the middle east as a pack of lies.....the US is not a peacekeeper it is stoking the fires! If there is a threat from 'radical islam' it is because the US keeps attacking islamic countries and housing troops on the arabian peninsula. The US pretty much flipped out when the Russians tried to station troops in Cuba...it brought the world to the brink of nuclear destruction in the 'cuban missile crisis' but apparently it is ok for the US to put its troops wherever it likes!
That might sound like a diggression but it is all relevant. The 1% profit from war and from accessing the resources of other countries. This can be done violently or it can be done peacefully by getting countries indebted to the IMF and then squeezing them for payments either in money or resources (see John Pilgers film 'War by other Means' about how they did this with Indonesia)
The real problem of the US is your trade deficit. During the great depression you had surpluses! Now you have deficits. This is what Warren Buffet said in 2006: "The U.S trade deficit is a bigger threat to the domestic economy than either the federal budget deficit or consumer debt and could lead to political turmoil... Right now, the rest of the world owns $3 trillion more of us than we own of them."
Seems like it is a protest against the wealthy in general. Your lumping the 1% all into one basket. And that's fine but have the balls to own up to it and don't say you're not protesting against them in general when you use the 1% and 99% sayings. If you want to say you're only protesting wall street, then say that.
I'm not just protesting wall street, most the personel on wall street are probably just bank workers, traders etc who are trying to make quick money. I'm not fussed about them....millionaires are small fry...i'm talking about the people who use wall street as a way of increasing their global influence.
I mean the big players! The people that actually affect the economy though their actions. I mean the 'power elite':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_elite
Sure some of the protestors might not be as bothered as i am about the power elite because they might not want system change. many people probably just want reform....they probably just want the 1% to cut them some economic slack.
Personally i think the 1% have another agenda....i don't think they want to compromise anymore. I hope i'm wrong.
Now i've said a lot of stuff on this forum at the risk of ridicule and insult (both of which i've had) so how about giving me some credit and not suggesting i'm a eunuch?
Finally, this is the agenda. Nobody's jut going to hand it to you. Government can tax and regulate but that's the closest you're going to get. If you want their money, you got to sell it to them that it's in their self interest that you walk away with some of their money.
No they are not interested in handing it to us they are interested in taking. In doing so they must be expecting social unrest from the populace...which they are now getting. What will be their reaction....what have they got in store for us?
Concerning me personally i'm very proactive in sorting my shit out.
There are literally like four companies that own the majority of media outlets in the United States. None of those companies are owned by banks. And you bet that the fact they don't have a leader is disconcerting. The only unity they have is a feeling of unity. They will start to break up and the movement will eventually consume itself.
No they are not owned by banks they are owned by people....members of the power elite, who are also financially tied up in the banks. Doesn't that centralisation of mainstream sources of information worry you? The power elite basically have a monopolistic grasp on the flow of information to the public. The internet offers an alternative for those that look....but you've got to be switched on enought to look in the first place....if someones perceptions are shaped by those 4 media outlet they are probably not switched on enough to know that they should be looking outside the mainstream to get other perceptions. They will probably just accept everything they are told without ever questioning it.
I think that these movements have evolved past the need for a leader. They have learnt lessons form previous movements and they know that people power is their real strength. It will annoy the 1% because they want to know who they should attack. The spirit of the movement globally is one of unity among people so it makes sense that peoples assemblies are used to decide things within the movements. These ideas are spreading for example through these guys:
http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/
The movement is part of a larger awakening of consciousness....a growing awareness. Even if the movement were violently crushed it will have created certain links that will flower in other ways. They can kill people, but they can't kill an idea. Once an idea is born that the people of the world should have more say in the running of their world, that idea isn't just going to go away. The protest movements around the world are all communicating with each and everything is becoming more coordinated. Change of some sort has to come. The 1% have their vision of what that change will be, the 99% is saying they have their own vision which is that they are not children and can make decisions for themselves without a shadowy elite controlling things from behind institutions.
Factions of the 99% are already starting to feel underrepresented. Where I go to school, the Queer People of Color Club is trying to organize a rally that represents People of Color and illegal workers (of which there are a lot of in Washington) better because they feel they are not represented enough in the 99% rallies.
There was a South Park episode about this last week. We are the 83%!
The 1% will use every propaganda technique to try and drive a wedge between people and to ridicule or discredit the movement. Remember that occupy wall street is part of a global movement which is growing organically. Its a pretty amazing thing to see and exciting as well. As the economic climate gets tougher more and more people will be radicalised.
Some will seek solace in the bottle and some will want to fight back.
If it were true that murdering the leader would end the movement, it probably is not a worth movement.
Violence is part of the art of control. When manipulation, intimidation and character assassination fail then they fall back on violence. There is a saying attributed to Gandhi: 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.'
It was also used in a 1918 US trade union address by Nicholas Klein: 'And, my friends, in this story you have a history of this entire movement. First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you. And that, is what is going to happen to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.'
A deal with who? The government? The 1%?
The government is part of the 1% and is in constant discussions with wall Street and big business. Have a scroll down of this membership list of the think tank the 'Council On Foreign Relations' (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_Council_on_Foreign_Relations ) and have a look at all the political individuals involved and all the corporations involved....there are many such groups.
There was a bubble and people did dangerous shit. My parents are both real estate agents, I know what happened. People will always do risky things to make money. The problem was the default in the loan market when growth started slowing in the real estate market. People with high leverage loans all the sudden couldn't flip their houses and were stuck with high interest loans that they couldn't pay even if the interest was 0%. These loans were also split up and sold to investors in the stock market (I'm a little fuzzy on what happened in the investments because I'm not sure how you would invest in loans) and when the loans went sour, the investors lost big as well. But the banks could just repossess their properties and the only losses they record are the ones due do decreasing property values. .
The bankers engineered the crisis and they hoovered up the properties. Any loses made by the banks were passed onto the taxpayers in the 'bailouts'
The 1% made off like bandits and left us carrying the can
If the debts were profitable as the 1% claim then they would have been bought up privately but they weren't....they were toxic...so they were dumped on the taxpayer
The point was that he's not whinging and is trying to make it work. He's down with the 99% but he's not complaining, he's working on getting to a better place.
The protesters are working on getting us all to a better place.
That soldier is, as Kissinger would say, just 'a pawn'. The soldiers used to grab resources abroad are the 'collateral damage' in the schemes of the 1%. They make the profits, the taxpayers pay in money and blood
