The rightosphere is full of lots of stories, marginally documented, which aim to paint the entire OWS movement. You know what I mean… "There is a guy on Wall Street at the protesters shouting anti-Jewish slogans. Therefore, the whole movement is anti-Zionist and probably socialist and communist as well." (Interestingly, another meme from the right is that the whole movement … Read More
The Chutzpah Of Bank of America
(1) So let me get this straight. After being bailed out by the federal government — with our tax dollars – following their gross incompetence, Bank of America wants to start charging fees for use of debit cards? That is, they want to make customers pay for accessing their own money? By the way, Bank of America gets to use customers' money … Read More
One Marine Vs. Thirty NYPD Cops
Marine wins. He implores the police not to hurt innocent children who are protesting. This took place last night in Times Square (the Occupy Wall Street protesters have a satellite office now):
The Movement That Can’t Be Ignored
I have to admit — when I first heard of the Occupy Wall Street protests, I thought it was a two or three day story. But just the opposite has happened — the story grew and the protests grew. Although some in the media (Fox, I'm looking at you) still feign ignorance about what the movement is about, everyone else … Read More
Occupy Wall Street versus The Tea Party
Favorable Opinion of Tea Party: 27% Favorable Opinion of Occupy Wall Street: 54% – National Poll by Time magazine And when you factor in disfavorability, the Occupy Wall Street folks have a huge net positive, compared to the tea party. Oddly, there are reports that Tea Party organizations are trying to distance themselves from the Occupy Wall Street movement: “The left … Read More
Five Facts About The Wealthiest 1%
From Livescience.com: FACT #1: The wealthiest 1 percent of households own 34.6 percent of all privately held wealth, and 42.7 percent of all financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home). Meanwhile, according to the NYU economist Edward Wolff a 2010 report, the bottom 80 percent of the population holds just 15 percent of the total wealth … Read More
Three Ways That Wall Street Occupies Washington, DC
From Think Progress: 1. Wall Street Occupies Washington With Massive Campaign Contributions: On Nov. 12, 1999 President Bill Clinton signed into law the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, a Depression-era law that created a firewall between commercial and investment banking. Repealing this law was one of the top legislative goals of the financial industry. In the 1998 election cycle, commercial banks spent … Read More
Simple Minds Offer Simple Analysis
Once again, the crack bloggers at Patterico's Ponitification are showing their stupidity. It's Aaron "Not My Real Name" Worthing, touting this chart which is making the rounds on conservative blogs: and then writing this: So once again, we are shown that things are worse than they predicted if we did nothing. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating–over and over … Read More
Dumbest Slur Against Occupy Wall Street Evah
It started with a David Brooks column in the New York Times yesterday. Here's an excerpt: Unfortunately, the country has been wasting this winter of recuperation. Nothing of consequence has been achieved over the past two years. Instead, there have been a series of trivial sideshows. It’s as if people can’t keep their minds focused on the big things. They … Read More
Is Occupy Wall Street the Antithesis of the Tea Party?
A lot of comparisons are being made between these two movements. And if one were to watch the media, it certainly looks like the fault lines are drawn, i.e.,: Tea Party = loved by Fox News = conservativeOccupy Wall Street = treated with disdain by Fox News = liberal But some are noting that the OSW movement really isn't hippies … Read More
People Like Class Warfare
A new Washington Post/Bloomberg poll asked Americans whether they would support or oppose a variety of ideas to reduce the budget deficit. Unppoular ideas were pretty much what you expect: raising taxes on the middle class, reducing Social Security benefits, and reducing Medicare benefits. But a couple of ideas enjoyed broader support — most of the public approves of reducing military spending and … Read More
Elizabeth Warren on “Class Warfare”
(Extended) quote of the day: “I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever'. No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. “You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid … Read More
Pants On Fire!
I didn't see the GOP debate last night, but apparently it was a lie-fest. They lied about each other; they lied about Obama. But this has to take the prize: Rick Perry says the 2009 stimulus 'created zero jobs' Texas Gov. Rick Perry criticized President Barack Obama's new jobs plan during a Republican presidential debate Sept. 12, 2011, saying his … Read More
Country First? Nah….
So Obama rolled out a job program last week and urged Republicans to get behind it. There wasn't a lot to complain about relating to the jobs program. So Republicans should be behind it, right? Let's find out: House Republicans may pass bits and pieces of President Barack Obama's jobs plan, but behind the scenes, some Republicans are becoming worried about … Read More
A Different Idea — How To Fix The Housing Mess
Problem: The housing market is still a drag on the economy. But policymakers say we don't want to simply force the banks to eat homeowners' debts, because doing that would undermine the industry. They also don't want to have the government simply eat the losses, because it'd be a political problem — the feds would be "telling the people who are … Read More