I thought more-highly of SkepticBlog until this showed up...
When I posted some pics I snapped with my iPhone on twitter and made a couple of snide remarks, many of my fellow skeptics chided me for my insensitivity or berated me for my libertarian blindness to real social injustices being protested at the various “Occupy X” events. I call them events (or “shindigs”) because my general impression is that although there are some real issues being mentioned here and there in a desultory manner, for the most part I think most people I saw were in one of two categories: (1) onlookers such as myself snapping pictures and taking in the scene; (2) participants wanting to be part of what might turn out to be this generation’s (a) Woodstock or (b) Montgomery bus boycott. In my opinion it is neither.
I believe Michael is missing the point. It's pretty easy to do though when you proceed from a false premise, which he documents literally within seconds hereafter:
Why has no one from Wall Street gone to jail for the financial meltdown? Bill Maher has asked this question several times on his HBO show Real Time. I have asked many experts myself, including economists, lawyers, and Wall Street traders. Answer: no one went to jail because they didn’t break any laws.
Uh, wrong.
Let's just start with the laws that have been broken and admitted to or where a guilty verdict was handed down:
● Citifinancial's chief risk officer testified under oath that by 2007 80% of the loans they handled and sold did not meet their quality guidelines. The same quality guidelines that they were representing to investors, and investors were relying on. This is identical to selling you a box of "chocolates" that turns out to have eight dog turds painted with a bit of chocolate and two actual chocolates -- unknown to you until you try to eat one. Then you wind up with an eight-in-ten chance that you bite into a load of crap - literally.
● Wachovia pled guilty to money laundering for mexican drug cartels. They admitted it. And we're not talking about a few dollars either -- this was hundreds of millions of dollars. Nobody went to jail, however -- they got a "deferred prosecution agreement."
● Several people went to prison in Jefferson County Alabama for bribery and other offenses related to the now-infamous sewer deal. None of them were bankers who make a bunch of money from that crooked process. The last time I checked in order to receive a bribe someone has to give one, and it would be impossible for a business unit to make ridiculously outsized profits without knowing about it (and incidentally, derivatives work like that -- if someone takes a ridiculously outsized loss, someone else makes a ridiculously outsized profit.) In this case we know there was crooked dealing involved because there were actual convictions -- of the "little guys."
● Both Goldman and Citibank got caught structuring CDOs that were intended to fail, yet were sold to customers as "good investments." Both paid fines while "not admitting or denying fault." Ooook. It's commonplace to pay a $200 million fine if you did nothing wrong, yes? I would think that $200 million would buy an awful lot of lawyer hours defending yourself if you're right... What's the downside if you did nothing wrong when looked at against this sort of monetary penalty?
There's much more, if you bother to look. But that's the problem -- Michael doesn't want to look. You see none of the crimes that occur when you close your eyes on purpose, right?
Michael gives the protesters credit in point #3, in which he says:
The Wall Streeters accepted bailout money that they shouldn’t have gotten. Yeah, well, whose fault is that? What did you think they would do? Turn the money down? Heck no! You offer someone a handout and they’ll take it, whether it is a main street worker or a Wall Street CEO. The problem is that they should never have been bailed out in the first place. That happened because of crony capitalism, which is nothing like the libertarian vision of real capitalism. So here I’m sympathetic with the Occupy X protestors: no “in profits we’re capitalists, in losses we’re socialists.” Sorry. If you want to play the game of Risk you have to accept the losses as well as the gains.
Right. Now let's remember the truth about these bailouts: The American public said NO by a ratio of somewhere between 100:1 and 300:1, depending on which Congressional office you were talking to at the time.
Does Michael remember that "consent of the governed" is the gating factor for all government legitimacy? Where is the consent when government is instructed on a matter like this to a degree that is not just consensus, it is not a majority, it is nearly-unanimous opinion, and yet that demand is ignored?
I'm amazed we haven't had a crippling series of general strikes intended to deprive the government of tax revenue and thus force its collapse.
Oh wait - that's what November 2nd was about, right?
Hmmmm.... well, it only took three years, but at least well-placed anger, peacefully and lawfully expressed, has finally shown up.
Credit where due please.
Will anything come of the Occupy This protests? Probably not. If the President of the United States can’t institute changes, who can? Congress? Yeah, right, there’s no corporate money tainting those jobs now is there? So here’s one man’s simplistic answer: no more government bail outs for anyone for anything, either on Main Street or Wall Street. Bail out money corrupts, and government bail out money corrupts absolutely.
Oh there I absolutely disagree.
"Occupy This" is a warning and a demand: Cut that crap out.
The next step is the enforcement. And here we will find out what this "movement" is about. There are two widely-divergent views: It's all a bunch of anarchists and It's a bunch of fed-up ordinary people who have had it with being financially raped for decades.
IF it proves to be #1 as many on the right have charged, we'll find out soon enough. My support will instantly evaporate as will the rest of the "99%", leaving the "Occupy" folks holding their bottles full of gasoline threatening to throw them while 50 million Americans are holding their rifles, telling them "are you really sure you want to throw that?" I'll be standing with the 50 million, incidentally, while the other 270 million (roughly) Americans will be cowering under their desks or swilling beers. And that will be the end of that.
IF, however, it proves to be #2 then the game's over for the so-called 1% and the incessant screwing that the people have taken over the last three decades. The next step is an extended and concerted version of November 2nd on a national basis. All governments exist by and with the consent of the governed, and the people can withdraw that consent through peaceful and lawful means should they choose to do so at any point. The first means by which one tries to demand change is and should be the ballot box. But when, as we have evidenced, you can vote for a different path and not get it, getting buttsexed irrespective of who you voted for or who won, then the next peaceful and lawful means of redress is to withdraw consent through general strikes, thereby depriving the government of tax revenue and making clear that you're simply not going to put up with the treatment you're being subjected to any longer.
I'm not certain that the "Occupy" folks are in the second group, but the evidence thus far is that they indeed do hold this as their premise, and are not bomb-throwing anarchists at their core.
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong -- they'll prove it on their own with no help or hindrance from myself and others. But if I'm right, then the only question remaining is whether the people have truly had it with the maltreatment, or whether they're simply looking for an excuse to go "hang out" for a while.
There are many who would put the entire Millennial Generation and Gen Y in the latter category, and this is not unique to this day. I remember my youth when the music I liked (Genesis and Pink Floyd, among others) was called "monkey music" and other similar slurs. Remember too that Boomers were all called "pot-smoking hippies" not all that long ago, and yet those "pot-smoking hippies" are now the people doing the screaming about promises made to them by the "Greatest Generation" (that was doing the name-calling) which the "Greatest Generation" knew were frauds and could not be provided.
Let's call a spade a spade, and give credit where it's due. So far, it's due.
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