>> ^Spacedog79:

It's funny that we actually have loads of easily accessible rare earth minerals in Monozite sands, but we don't use it because there is so much Thorium in it. A Thorium reactor also produces a significant amount of rare earths as a byproduct. Problem solved QED.


Except it's not about what makes sense for the nation or even the world. It's about what makes bankers more MONEY.

Nb. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/mar/14/goldman-sachs-director-quits-morally-bankrupt

If our government was truely interested in generating income,the simplest way would be to tax the profits of stock transactions to start,and tarrifs for all these imported goods we no longer generate to make sending manufacturing overseas less attractive. Taxing the rich at a comparable rate to the working class will help tremendously as well. Taxes are on PROFITS-that's what is left over once the expenses of creating that profit are paid-so no whining how the poor billionaire is getting robbed. The difference can be made up in volume...more people capeable of spending money because they have jobs means more profits in any case...China may have super cheap labour,but they pay their taxes to China,not America. Eroding the middle class tax base seems as clever to me as Wile E Cyote sawing away at the cliff holding him up,and pointing this out to him makes him saw defiantly faster. Until he falls.

Capitalism could work if our government's corporate masters realize they have a vested interest in providing livings for their workforces. A worker who appreciates a good job will go that extra mile to promote that company willingly,to the benifit of all. This short term nonsense of using bailout money to reward the top tier of executives with incentive money is rank madness,high treachery and ultimately self destructive. A pity whatever puppet we elect will just continue the sad dance whomever gets in.

Its why I'm voting for Goldman Sachs in November. They are already running the place,and they may value me as an exploitable resource even after I cast my vote. They can't be worse than these clowns running about now.

@doogle
and if the US Army held a similar protest at Goldman Sachs and Exxon/Mobile (with US issued assault rifles), I would approve as well.

I think Cenk's missed the boat on this one. He's blinded by the almighty "Racist" trump card.

As horrible as racism and homophobia and sexism are, IMO, corruption is worse. Why? Because if the corruption reduces the value of your vote, and your freedoms of speech and assembly are legislated away, then it doesn't matter what you think about bigotry because if Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Time Warner want to make it worse, they will do so with their campaign contributions.

I'd vote for an openly racist president who acknowledges his biases and shows he understands the difference between his biases and his duty to the country, if he is going to deal a serious blow to corruption.

I can already hear people saying this is a ridiculous statement, that it's impossible. So to you, consider your own biases: if you're on VS, you probably vote liberal and are anti-religion. If you were in power, and openly acknowledged these biases, would you use your power to make laws unequal for conservatives and the religious? Would you ignore problems they had?

To bring it back to Ron Paul, to my limited knowledge, he has never shown that racism or homophobia are politically motivating factors for him.

So yeah, Cenk's missing the forest for the trees.

Nice segment! I like the fact that he kept it non-partisan, i.e. he mentioned Obama's highest contributor as being Goldman Sach's, rather than trying to blame it all on the Republicans.

I hope you choke on a chicken bone or something this christmas..

But refuse the help of the marxist EMTs who were spent by NObama the socialist kenyan and the rest of the taxocrats in order to increase spending on hard working Corporate Persons like Goldman Sachs.

>> ^quantumushroom:

taxocrats are hoping Paul will get the nomination (he won't) so the marxist could run easy, deceptive ads about what a kook Paul is.
I'd vote for Kook Paul over the marxist.

Your video, The People vs. Goldman Sachs, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Hedges was arrested along with 15 other protesters following the “people’s trial” when they staged a sit-in outside the headquarters of Goldman Sachs.

The Gothamist reports:

Over a dozen Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested today outside Goldman Sachs, where they had marched with 300 others after holding a mock trial of CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Among those arrested were performance artist gadfly Reverend Billy and author and columnist Chris Hedges, who is a senior fellow at The Nation Institute. Hedges and the Rev joined several others in a direct action protest outside the firm, sitting down on the sidewalk, linking arms, and refusing to leave. It seems clear the activists intended to be arrested; earlier today Reverend Billy tweeted, “I’ll spend the afternoon in a police van with Chris Hedges and come out ten times more READY for the miracle! Revolujah!”

http://youtu.be/MOiUOkNj0L4

Dude, Schiff is the one spewing the most ridiculous things from a historical perspective I've ever heard, not West. Are you saying right now that Schiff is right that child labor was ended by the free market, not gov't regulation?! That's just patently absurd!

He's saying that a guarantee of deposits by the FDIC fueled speculation. Okay, so when and why was it instituted? In *1933*, it was instituted *after* massive stock speculation among other causes triggered the Stock Market Crash of 1929, which triggered the Great Depression. As banks had invested in stocks, etc themselves (outlawed by Glass-Steagall), made bad loans, including to allow people to buy stocks on credit, etc. etc. people made runs on the banks to get their deposits out before the banks went belly up, regardless of if individual banks themselves participated in the speculation because no one knew which banks were actually in trouble. Some Depression era people put their money "under their mattresses" and a few kept that attitude up until their deaths because of those runs on the banks. The FDIC was instituted to get people to put money back into banks to rebuild on hand deposits, so banks would be able to lend again and actually stay in business. We had the FDIC for almost 80 years now, and the banking system has remarkably MORE stable than it was before the FDIC without any doubt, and this clown says it fuels speculation?! You know what you didn't see in the last recession when the market tanked? MASSIVE RUNS ON MOST BANKS! That's precisely why we have it! And it's logically ridiculous on the surface of it. Just think about it. The FDIC guarantees that I get MY money back if I deposit it to a bank that is FDIC insured, and the bank goes belly up. What happens to the bank if it makes bad decisions? It goes belly up. So why would the bank speculate in that situation due specifically to the FDIC?! THEY STILL GO BELLY UP! You can say the bank bailouts had something to do with it because now the Goldman Sachs of the world know that gov't won't let too big to fails fail. I'm sympathetic to that argument, but the FDIC's insurance on deposits?! RIDICULOUS!

Peter Schiff is not correct here. It's some of the most patently ridiculous things I've heard yet about the economy. If you've read my posts, I'm as pragmatic as one could possibly be, and I'm without a doubt a moderate. I don't give a crap whether specific gov't regulations work or not, but I don't attempt to blind myself with ideology, but this clown is going to great lengths to fundamentally rewrite historical record that's basic freaking fact about the US prior, during, and after the Great Depression that even a basic historical understanding would allow anyone to realize he's an idiot, or is at best making a disingenuous argument to trumpet free market economics for the sake of itself.

>> ^bobknight33:

Peter Schiff is correct. Cornell West foolishly wrong. He teaches African studies which teaches jack about how economies work.

>> ^rougy:

@bcglorf,
You're right that it has to be looked at more closely. If you find anything concrete, please feel free to share the link with me if you feel like it.
Regarding the "social spending" angle, I'm curious to know how much of that had to do with investing in some of the more trashy gizmos that Goldman et al had to offer.
We know that here in the states, a number of pension funds took a major hit when Wall Street tanked. They had invested heavily in the CDO scam (AAA rated). Wall Street was bailed out, they weren't.
I'm curious to know how much of Greece's damage was caused by similar investments.
I'm betting it was substantial.

P.S. - G.S. has been behind a lot of really dirty financial shit and they always seem to get away with it. A number of municipalities in the USA have suffered gravely thanks to G.S. They were basically looted. Matt Taibi wrote a great article about it in Rolling Stone, but I can't find the link just now. Worth a read if you feel like Googling for it.
This is worth a read, but I don't think it's the same article I was thinking of.


No love of GS here .

I find the worst part of it though is the bailing out of massive corps like them, while their CEO's and top dogs pocket billions in profits while the companies were taking the massive risks that led to the companies collapse. In my opinion it's criminal to not demand that the ridiculous profits made taking the risks aren't the funds being used to payoff the debts from those very same risks turning out poorly later on.

For the record, in America a very big part of the wealth that was lost wasn't just pocketed by the ultra-wealthy. There were also all the middle class chaps refinancing homes they couldn't afford every two years and pocketing $30k-$60k a year for doing nothing but holding onto a home for two years. Some of those folks put that money away and came out fine. Most however bought RV's, electronics, multiple vehicles to fill their three car garages, and any other toys they wanted. After all, they were earning $30k a year for doing virtually nothing and had the money to burn. Of course after they had burnt that money, their backs were up against the wall when they bought that last fateful home before the market dropped out and found themselves with a $750k mortgage for home now worth $200k and payments they could only make in a world were they sold their home next year for $900k. Again, not everyone was doing this, but the numbers were very high. Over the 15 or so years this madness was going on, the guys really milking it had burnt through almost a half million dollars each buying stuff they really didn't need and with a method that had left them indebted for that same half mill with no way to pay it off. With 10s of thousands of people all having run after this, the value of the bad decisions of even the middle class was utterly massive. It wasn't only Goldman Sachs laughing all the way to the bank with free money, they were just doing it at a bigger scale, taking their 10% cut off the excess of thousands of similarly greedy middle class folk.

@bcglorf,

You're right that it has to be looked at more closely. If you find anything concrete, please feel free to share the link with me if you feel like it.

Regarding the "social spending" angle, I'm curious to know how much of that had to do with investing in some of the more trashy gizmos that Goldman et al had to offer.

We know that here in the states, a number of pension funds took a major hit when Wall Street tanked. They had invested heavily in the CDO scam (AAA rated). Wall Street was bailed out, they weren't.

I'm curious to know how much of Greece's damage was caused by similar investments.

I'm betting it was substantial.



P.S. - G.S. has been behind a lot of really dirty financial shit and they always seem to get away with it. A number of municipalities in the USA have suffered gravely thanks to G.S. They were basically looted. Matt Taibi wrote a great article about it in Rolling Stone, but I can't find the link just now. Worth a read if you feel like Googling for it.

This is worth a read, but I don't think it's the same article I was thinking of.

Obama's message is sponsored by Goldman Sachs. Are you kidding me?

I went to a private high school for a couple of years where both middle school and the upper school watched a gay play. Eleven years ago or so, the word faggot was yelled many times to show abuse thrown towards lgbt people. The kid who was in my class wrote it and played the main roles... ended up on Broadway.

A lot of those kids at that school were the the types of douchebags who ended up at Goldman Sachs but they all gave their respect momentarily. Always surprised me.

>> ^rougy:

>> ^bcglorf:
Can someone explain the Greek riots to me? I've only followed far enough to have picked up that they are in opposition to the austerity measures being enacted by government? What I've heard sounds like the government spent so much on social services that it went bankrupt, and the protesters are angry that the government is now attempting to cut back it's social services.
I'm not of strong opinion on this like I am in many other situations, but the balance of what I've heard sounds like the anti-austerity protests are so much whining that everyone wants their free money and maybe if we shoot the messenger the economy will recover.

The brunt of it is that Greece is in trouble, and the majority of people who will have to pay for it, or endure "austerity" as the fatcats like to say, had nothing, zero, to do with the trouble.
I've been trying to find out what went wrong there, but I see a lot of smoke and few specifics.
Naturally, any time the blame can be laid on social programs, then that narrative will be most promoted among America's mainstream media.
Frankly I think it was a combination of things, and some of it may have been related to the same CDO swindle that bankrupted Iceland.
But I'm sure you'll agree that if Greece went nuclear, all of their problems would be solved...just like Japan's....

EDIT:
Two words: Goldman Sachs.
Goldman was criticized for its involvement in the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis. Goldman Sachs is reported to have systematically helped the Greek government mask the true facts concerning its national debt between the years 1998 and 2009.[76] In September 2009, Goldman Sachs, among others, created a special credit default swap (CDS) index to cover of high risk of Greece's national debt.[77] The interest-rates of Greek national bonds have soared to a very high level, leading the Greek economy very close to bankruptcy in March and May 2010 and again in June 2011.
(Wikipedia)


Thanks Rougy, that's the kind of starting point I was looking for. I was hoping getting the opinions of few folks on here who'd already researched the matter was a faster place to start than wading through the sea of information out there blindly.

Still sounds as though Sachs role in this was to help the Greek government irresponsibly spend itself into oblivion. I'm still curious, and will have to dig, what that money was spent on. I know even in my country(Canada) our social services are scaled well back from Greece's, and ours are already at the breaking point of what our tax revenues can bear. Added into that is our taxes are generally higher than those in Greece and it seems that Sachs helped them postpone the inevitable, and made it worse. None the less, it also sounds like the population were the recipients or targets of the majority of the money and are now more angry at the slowing of the spending than at the debt load.

Again I'll have to look at it further. As one poster tried to call me out, I am not strongly convicted and convinced my opinion on this is correct or accurate, I have merely expressed without hedging or hiding what I hold to based on what I admit as my limited information and am asking to be proven wrong to speed my process of correcting my opinion should it be based on wrong assumptions. Rougy's pointed a big path I wasn't aware of. Anyone else have some more? Particularly around where Greece's government revenues come from and were they are spent? My perception that most of it is going right back to public services is pretty central to my opinion and I'd love to know if I'm wrong on it.

>> ^bcglorf:

Can someone explain the Greek riots to me? I've only followed far enough to have picked up that they are in opposition to the austerity measures being enacted by government? What I've heard sounds like the government spent so much on social services that it went bankrupt, and the protesters are angry that the government is now attempting to cut back it's social services.
I'm not of strong opinion on this like I am in many other situations, but the balance of what I've heard sounds like the anti-austerity protests are so much whining that everyone wants their free money and maybe if we shoot the messenger the economy will recover.


The brunt of it is that Greece is in trouble, and the majority of people who will have to pay for it, or endure "austerity" as the fatcats like to say, had nothing, zero, to do with the trouble.

I've been trying to find out what went wrong there, but I see a lot of smoke and few specifics.

Naturally, any time the blame can be laid on social programs, then that narrative will be most promoted among America's mainstream media.

Frankly I think it was a combination of things, and some of it may have been related to the same CDO swindle that bankrupted Iceland.

But I'm sure you'll agree that if Greece went nuclear, all of their problems would be solved...just like Japan's....



EDIT:

Two words: Goldman Sachs.

Goldman was criticized for its involvement in the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis. Goldman Sachs is reported to have systematically helped the Greek government mask the true facts concerning its national debt between the years 1998 and 2009.[76] In September 2009, Goldman Sachs, among others, created a special credit default swap (CDS) index to cover of high risk of Greece's national debt.[77] The interest-rates of Greek national bonds have soared to a very high level, leading the Greek economy very close to bankruptcy in March and May 2010 and again in June 2011.

(Wikipedia)