@kevingrr

I understand times are tight. That's bankers being responsible, whether voluntarily or at the government's request. They were broke and need to rein in the lending. Tighter standards means it's expected that projects once referred to as "good" are no longer viewed that way. It's tough, but you adapt. If everything is right with the deal, someone will finance. Where there is profit, there is a businessman.

I feel for the laid off construction workers, but frankly there was a bubble. We have HUGE housing developments that are sitting empty and going for 40k a house. We have a glut of empty shopping malls. We don't need more right now. If there is construction to be done right now I firmly believe it is public infrastructure investment we need. Rail, road, bridges, power, etc. That'll put people back to work.

Jamie Dimon has a good rolodex. In todays world, being a good banker means being a good insider trader, and lobbyist. I have about zero patience for their manipulation of our democracy let alone our markets.

Trader.... Mac's? lol lol

Just because one clip focuses on it doesn't mean that the entire movement is fixated on one stat.

All I ever see from the liberal left's ProgLibDytes are clips that focus on the 'wealth disparity' between the rich and poor. I've never seen the ProgLibDyte clip that focuses on something like median income. That's because focusing on median income tells a completely opposing story. The point is that ProgLibDytes and and left as a whole focus only on a narrow band of stats that drives thier agenda-based narrative. They ignore huge vistas of other facts, studies, research, thought, and evidence because it cuts the legs out from under thier world view and makes them look like idiots.

Barak Obama himself is a CLASSIC example of this narrow-minded kind of agenda-driven cherry-picking of reality. Every time that specimen opens his mouth it is to say, "The experts I have spoken to agree with me..." And what about the bazillions of experts he DIDN'T speak to which all disagree with him, or contradict him? Of course is his empty noggin such people don't exist - or don't matter. The same issue plagues neolib leftists across whole spectrums. Global Warming, Abortion, Economics - you name it - the left picks a tiny slice of carefully selected grain of sand to tell a story, and ignores whole beaches of sand that says the opposite.

Not that the right doesn't suffer from the same problem. It is not an issue limited to only the left. However, the left is more aggressively self-important, pious, and arrogant about their narrative - and far more inclined to try to base bad legislation on it.

How is raising the marginal tax rate on the super rich a few percentage points "communist" or even "socialist" on an objective scale?

The US tax rate (both corporate and private) is already one of the highest in the world. I counter your question with another. "What good is raising the marginal tax rate on the super rich a few percentage points going to do?" You could confiscate every penny the top 10% of America has and it would not get America's government out of the red even for one year - let alone for the 15 trillion we have in debts - and the SIXTY-FOUR TRILLION we have in 'unfunded liabilities' such as Social Security. There isn't enough money in the entire economy to pay for all the spending the government is doing and/or proposing with its leftist big-government agendas. The economic problem is one of spending - not taxation.

But you're pretending that the income gap between super rich and poor is static, which misses the entire point. It's not static. It fluctuates.

Irrelevant. The gap between the top 1% and the bottom 5% means nothing. It is immaterial statisitically speaking. If I earn a million a year compared to a guy that earns 30K then he makes 3% of what I do. A year later I am earning 1,050,000 a year and he is earning 28K for a new adjusted difference of 2.66% of what I earn. Head for the hills, Ma Barker! Since when is this -0.34% shift of any value. Or let's go the other way and now I'm only earning 950,000 and he's earning 32,000 for a 3.25% How is that helping either the rich guy OR the poor guy? Or let's take the real world situation that Barak Obama brought us and BOTH of them go down while the government's income skyrockets. Wow - that's really benefiting society isn't it?

The wealth gap is utterly irrelevant - static or dynamic. And for the record - I never assume ANY economic stat is static except for one. Government growth. Government baseline budgeting has created an untenable economic drag on the nation because it continues to grow at 8% to 10% Year over Year no matter what the economy is doing. That's the only static economic stat out there - and it is not a good one.

(BTW, what a good person you are to say whose jobs are of value and whose aren't!)

Right back at you Clyde. Who are you to decide what an inside-trader's job should or shouldn't be worth? The IT generates real profit for his company, and they compensate him to keep him doing it. Who are you - or Cunk - or any other ProgLibDyte to come along with the cheek to say they don't deserve it?

I'm advocating the gov't make it moderately more equal by raising the rich's taxes, and ease up on the poor and middle class.

The mistake you and the left make is that for some reason you think that 'taxes' make things 'more equal'. They don't except in one way... Taxes make everyone equally miserable. Money goes into government and dissappears. Taxing the rich doesn't make things better for the poor or the middle class. It only gives government more power - which is the last thing our bloated federal system needs right now. The poor pay virtually no income taxes - so it is quite impossible to 'ease up' on them except at the state & sales tax level. The middle class? Hey - anything helps but in the average budget we're talking a few hundred bucks a year. I don't have a problem with the rich paying thier 'fair share' (as leftists so vaguely love to put it). But the rich already ARE paying thier fair share and then some. If they jacked 'the rich' tax rate up to 90% it wouldn't do jack-squat for 'the poor' or the middle class.

Tax capital gains like it's income, subject to the same brackets, etc.

America's captial gains taxes are already the #2 highest in the world. Gapital gains are treated differently for a reason. This is another thing that most leftists prove themselves woefully ignorant about whenever they talk about it. And again - even if we did that how exactly is that going to 'help' anyone? All that does is provide you lefties with an ephemeral, meaningless sense of shadenfruede which you can suckle on as you trudge back to your government-mandated hovels - properly pacified with the meaningless knowledge that a rich guy is getting taxed some more. That is until you realize he's still rich, you're still poor, and only the government got something out of the deal. How leftists can be so stupid on the subject of economics I will never know, but I can only tip my hat to the depths of human gullibility.

They're not just focusing on income inequality or ownership of resources. Just because one clip focuses on it doesn't mean that the entire movement is fixated on one stat. There are a lot of stats the left are focused on, such as unemployment to name another. And it's not a stupid statistic to focus on. If there is too much stratification of wealth, and there is such a thing, then what other statistic would illustrate that it's gotten out of hand?! For the good of the economy, for everyone across the income range, if the rich possess too much wealth, there won't be enough people with money to purchase goods and services being produced. This hasn't a thing to do with the little orphans you helped in Mexico.

Is it being trumped to the point it's being played like an emotional dagger instead of being analyzed rationally? Of course. But come on, if you're gonna sit there and say that only the left is guilty of that, then you're being partisan. How is raising the marginal tax rate on the super rich a few percentage points "communist" or even "socialist" on an objective scale? Or even using those words to elicit a knee jerk reaction by people to say it's bad just because of the word instead of rationally discussing the policy? Or when anyone suggests raising taxes on the rich, it's automatically "class warfare"? Or you using derogatory terms like "NeoProgLibNaziCommunistSocialist" blah? Give me a break.

And yes, some wealth stratification is good. You want the people who work hard or are more talented to have more income. It keeps incentives in the system. I have no problem with that. But you're pretending that the income gap between super rich and poor is static, which misses the entire point. It's not static. It fluctuates. We're too the point now where it's getting absurd to the point that it's hurting the economy. You're also pretending that the stats only illustrate the gap between the super-rich and the poor, and that's not the case. The stats are showing the gap between the rich and everyone else, including middle class, which is being decimated.

You have very little patience when you hear a college-age son's of yuppies whining about they only earn $30K/yr for their liberal art major degree? What about me, the son of a solid middle class family who got one of those horrible liberal art degrees (Master's in Education, Bachelor's in History, Minor in International Studies) and got a "fake job" as a history teacher in a public school? Are you kidding me with this? (BTW, what a good person you are to say whose jobs are of value and whose aren't!) What I did for a living for four years combined produced less value than a commodities trader did in one year, whose job is essentially speculation that artificially drives up prices on the things they trade? You don't find something extremely absurd about that?

Let's do the math. At those salaries, a public school teacher is producing less than 10% of the value of what a commodities trader does, and a commodities trader isn't even required to have a college degree, and we're not even including the better benefits and bonuses. I'm not naive enough to think a public school teacher would ever be paid that well, but when the gap is getting wider, and wider, and wider, and you're seeing a public school teacher's benefits getting reduced, particularly retirement, I'm sorry, but something is horribly wrong here. The market is failing to address a basic societal problem. I'm not advocating a state controlled economy (aka Communism) to even it out. I'm advocating the gov't make it moderately more equal by raising the rich's taxes, and ease up on the poor and middle class. Tax capital gains like it's income, subject to the same brackets, etc.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Or is that a typo for "ProgLibDytes"
As with "neolibs" it is a word of my own creation which I used to describe the crazed, hardcore, insane left-wing liberal denizens of the world. Neolib was my default for a long time, but lately the vitriol of the left has gotten so prone to hate, anger, and insanity that I have moved to defaulting with "ProgLibDyte" to describe them. It is perfect because it is so close to "Troglidyte" (cave dweller) and covers "Progressives" and "Liberals" together. ProgLibDytes. Cave dwelling political liberals and progressives. Brevity is the soul of wit.
Which one should we obsess over?
How about not picking just one, and looking at all of them - or at least a LOT of them? Regardless, examining only the gap between the ultra-rich and the poor is about one of the stupidest metrics one could examine when it comes to economics. It means absolutely nothing in terms of either real income, economic trending, or any other meaningful metric. Such a myopic stat serves only one purpose, and that is to angry up the blood of the lower class.
There are always going to be really rich people who have so much money that they could eat gold bricks and crap diamonds. These guys are always going to exist in the same nation as people so poor they scrape the very bottom of the economic barrel. The difference between the top 0.1% and the bottom 5% is utterly meaningless. It is pure nonsense to get mad about the difference between Bill Gates and the guy who pumps gas. It tells nothing about anything.
I personally donate my time to help the poor. I've helped the poorest of the poor in US cities and I thought I knew what 'poor' was. Then I volunteered to help little towns in Mexico. When kids and widows weep in your arms just because you came to them with a few bags of cement to put a small concrete slab in thier one room dirt-shanty then you know you've hit the real thing.
In the US, even those who live in so-called 'poverty' have cars, TVs, homes, cable, internet, clothes, and money to spend at McDonalds on a lark. So I have very little patience when I hear college-age son's-of-yuppies whining about the fact that they only earn $30K a year (with benefits) for thier liberal-art's major compared to Wall-Street guys (who are actually performing a real job) earning 300K plus cash bonuses. Boo-freaking-hoo.

Wow, AC is so bitter. It seems that he's oblivious to the scale of inequity and its exponential growth in recent years. If he would really examine the balance of equality in the "good old days," he would realize that it was much more equitable.

Goods used to be American made and today's globalization has seen manufacturing almost disappear and replaced by outsourcing and child labour. From a purely business standpoint, this makes sense. There is no law against foreign investment, so it's not economical to be patriotic.

And here we are today, with the balance so skewed that it makes sense to pay a few hundred million to buy a senator, republican or a judge. A few years down the road, you'll be paid back by sidestepping that environmental restriction or class-action lawsuit or anything else that might hurt your business.

And if you're an investment banker or bis securities trader, you provide very little to society other than a higher tax rate that you can comfortably afford. But even then, you can weasel your way out of most of that with creative deductions and perfectly legal loopholes. Remember what Warren Buffet said about his cleaning lady? Do you think he was talking out of his ass?

I hope the OWS crowd doesn't count her as one of them. It would mean the message is "I made a bunch of bad financial decisions and now I don't want to deal with the consequences".

Taking out student loans you can't pay off is as much the fault of your underpaid HS teachers that told you University was the best way to go as any Wall Street trader. Mostly though, it was your own decision, take responsibility for it.

Buying an overpriced home you couldn't afford was as much the fault of your real estate agent as any Wall Street trader. Mostly though, it was your own decision, take responsibility for it.

Seriously, the Wall Street upper class have done an awful lot to create an uneven playing field to enrich themselves at the expense of others. They have made an environment were people who have made GOOD financial decisions, paid off their debts, and started investing are the ones getting hurt. Their investments are getting devalued, or more often just growing much slower than that of the ultra rich.

I'm sorry, but people like this reporter are flattering themselves to try and claim their lot in life is Wall Street getting them down. People like her have failed themselves, no help from Wall Street required.

what I said was sarcastic.
What "money throwers" are you referring to and why are you picking a fight?>> ^Mashiki:

Considering what you said is akin to the money throwers. I'd say that you're pretty close to the rabbit hole yourself.
>> ^Trancecoach:

If thats how you interpreted what I said, then you're pretty far well down the rabbit hole.>> ^Mashiki:
>> ^Trancecoach:
Hundreds of Millions of people are unemployed and losing their homes?
Short-sell the mutherfucker and take shirt of his back!

(Makes me sick!)

P.S. Are you sure this isn't a hoax like YesMen?

And let me guess? The best solution would be to continue to throw money at it, in turn drawing out the inevitable failure of long term fiscal problems. Instead of forcing a collapse and ensuring that they get their fiscal house in order right.
No wonder europe is fucked, along with the US. Throwing money at a problem does not fix it, it only delays the inevitable unless drastic steps are taken.

Considering what you said is akin to the money throwers. I'd say that you're pretty close to the rabbit hole yourself.

>> ^Trancecoach:


If thats how you interpreted what I said, then you're pretty far well down the rabbit hole.>> ^Mashiki:
>> ^Trancecoach:
Hundreds of Millions of people are unemployed and losing their homes?
Short-sell the mutherfucker and take shirt of his back!

(Makes me sick!)

P.S. Are you sure this isn't a hoax like YesMen?

And let me guess? The best solution would be to continue to throw money at it, in turn drawing out the inevitable failure of long term fiscal problems. Instead of forcing a collapse and ensuring that they get their fiscal house in order right.
No wonder europe is fucked, along with the US. Throwing money at a problem does not fix it, it only delays the inevitable unless drastic steps are taken.

If thats how you interpreted what I said, then you're pretty far well down the rabbit hole.>> ^Mashiki:

>> ^Trancecoach:
Hundreds of Millions of people are unemployed and losing their homes?
Short-sell the mutherfucker and take shirt of his back!

(Makes me sick!)

P.S. Are you sure this isn't a hoax like YesMen?

And let me guess? The best solution would be to continue to throw money at it, in turn drawing out the inevitable failure of long term fiscal problems. Instead of forcing a collapse and ensuring that they get their fiscal house in order right.
No wonder europe is fucked, along with the US. Throwing money at a problem does not fix it, it only delays the inevitable unless drastic steps are taken.

>> ^Trancecoach:

Hundreds of Millions of people are unemployed and losing their homes?
Short-sell the mutherfucker and take shirt of his back!

(Makes me sick!)

P.S. Are you sure this isn't a hoax like YesMen?


And let me guess? The best solution would be to continue to throw money at it, in turn drawing out the inevitable failure of long term fiscal problems. Instead of forcing a collapse and ensuring that they get their fiscal house in order right.

No wonder europe is fucked, along with the US. Throwing money at a problem does not fix it, it only delays the inevitable unless drastic steps are taken.

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

just fyi: he is not a trader. he is an attention whore (self description by the way) who in fact gives expensive lessons on "how to make money in a downward economy". surprised that someone with this background promotes an economic meltdown? this is nothing but a PR stunt for his stupid courses. the only scandal here is the fact that the BBC provided airtime for him.

"So he's more of a talker than a trader. A man who doesn't own the house he lives in, but can sum up the financial crisis in just three minutes – a knack that escapes many financial commentators."

This guy has been outed as a bullshitter, with no background in financial trading:
See here.

"He is a business owner, a 99pc shareholder in public speaking venture Santoro Projects. Its most recent accounts show cash in the bank of £985. After four years trading net assets are £10,048 - in the red."