@DFT

One word: bank bailouts.

Second point: How exactly is our regulation of big banks working so well for us? Do we even have real regulation now?

That said, Ron Paul would probably be against campaign finance reform, so, you may have a point

I don't see this as a big deal. They've monkeyed around with campaign finance forever - coming at it in this oblique way isn't going to solve the problem. If people have money and they want to use it to make a point, they will be able to do so.

And what else is really at issue? I mean, tons of people have latched on to this as an aesthetic issue "I don't like corporations and how much power they have... so let's, uh... screw corporations?" This doesn't even do that.

If you're serious about limiting large corporations, then you need more regulation and labor laws and a whole panel of crap that's not politically viable in the states. Pissing around with something like this is a pointless distraction. All this stuff passes? Almost no functional difference.

Good talk NR. I'm not convinced.... there are cabinet appointments, etc. he's made that make me not trust him, but I am listening. Ob's speech a couple days ago has me wondering you've got a direct line to him or something.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
>> ^Truckchase:

I know where you're coming from and I don't disagree with your logic, but I'm not gonna get out there and campaign for or vocally support Obama because I do think his administration is still heavily corrupted by (mainly) the financial industry. As you point out he's not nearly as bad as the repubs, so unless by some miracle Buddy Roemer gets any real traction I'll most likely be voting for Obama and running from the polling place in a ankle length trench coat and hat like a family man from 1974 escaping the newsstand with a smut rag.

Oy, Buddy Roemer? The problem with Buddy Roemer is that he seems to think his becoming President is the only/main way to fix the problem with money in politics. Never mind that the biggest problem with campaign finance law is that a) Republicans always oppose it and b) the Supreme Court has deemed real campaign finance law unconstitutional.

The answer to that is a Constitutional Amendment, not giving Buddy Roemer the potential ability to appoint SCOTUS judges, especially since he'd only get to replace liberals in a 2013-2017 term, not roadblocks like Thomas, Scalia, or Roberts.

I personally don't think silent support is good enough. I'm gonna be out campaigning for Obama nice and loud. I'm especially going to be pushing back against what I see as crazy misinformation, like the story Cenk is pushing here.

Once you strip away the misinformation, the only legitimate liberal complaints I've heard about Obama boil down to "he didn't do enough to make things better" as opposed to "he made something worse". People seem to have rather quickly forgotten the width and breadth of the damage done by Bush and a Republican congress.

Most people just remember the wars, the Patriot Act, and the tax cuts. Fewer people remember the US Attorneys scandal, fewer people remember the way he gutted the SEC, put the EPA on hold, sabotaged the FEC, tried to gut the FCC, turned the NLRB into a union-busting department, and so on. It was a nonstop deluge of sabotage, fraud, and abuse that just went on and on relentlessly for eight fucking years.

It grates me that it's only partially and often only temporarily being undone by Obama, but now those low-publicity nitty-gritty detail stories are almost universally good ones.

The choice isn't really one of a "lesser of two evils" it's a choice between empowering an enemy who's sworn to destroy everything you hold dear, or empowering a friend who's let you down. I see this as a choice between feckless and imperfect good, or pure, ruthless evil.

>> ^Truckchase:

I know where you're coming from and I don't disagree with your logic, but I'm not gonna get out there and campaign for or vocally support Obama because I do think his administration is still heavily corrupted by (mainly) the financial industry. As you point out he's not nearly as bad as the repubs, so unless by some miracle Buddy Roemer gets any real traction I'll most likely be voting for Obama and running from the polling place in a ankle length trench coat and hat like a family man from 1974 escaping the newsstand with a smut rag.

Oy, Buddy Roemer? The problem with Buddy Roemer is that he seems to think his becoming President is the only/main way to fix the problem with money in politics. Never mind that the biggest problem with campaign finance law is that a) Republicans always oppose it and b) the Supreme Court has deemed real campaign finance law unconstitutional.

The answer to that is a Constitutional Amendment, not giving Buddy Roemer the potential ability to appoint SCOTUS judges, especially since he'd only get to replace liberals in a 2013-2017 term, not roadblocks like Thomas, Scalia, or Roberts.

I personally don't think silent support is good enough. I'm gonna be out campaigning for Obama nice and loud. I'm especially going to be pushing back against what I see as crazy misinformation, like the story Cenk is pushing here.

Once you strip away the misinformation, the only legitimate liberal complaints I've heard about Obama boil down to "he didn't do enough to make things better" as opposed to "he made something worse". People seem to have rather quickly forgotten the width and breadth of the damage done by Bush and a Republican congress.

Most people just remember the wars, the Patriot Act, and the tax cuts. Fewer people remember the US Attorneys scandal, fewer people remember the way he gutted the SEC, put the EPA on hold, sabotaged the FEC, tried to gut the FCC, turned the NLRB into a union-busting department, and so on. It was a nonstop deluge of sabotage, fraud, and abuse that just went on and on relentlessly for eight fucking years.

It grates me that it's only partially and often only temporarily being undone by Obama, but now those low-publicity nitty-gritty detail stories are almost universally good ones.

The choice isn't really one of a "lesser of two evils" it's a choice between empowering an enemy who's sworn to destroy everything you hold dear, or empowering a friend who's let you down. I see this as a choice between feckless and imperfect good, or pure, ruthless evil.

>> ^NetRunner:

@Truckchase I know I'm a week late in replying, but I've been sick as a dog, as well as tied up in holiday activities.
I think you and I are in agreement. I think money in politics is a bad thing, and OWS is a really good thing. I'm not throwing rocks at the movement, I'm throwing rocks at liberals saying something along the lines of "I'm never voting Democratic again, #OWS4eva!" as if the protests have somehow made the concept of traditional political action irrelevant.
I do worry that Occupy ends up becoming a movement largely led by people who've totally given up on participating in the election process, and are holding out for some sort of Tahrir Square-style revolution.
Basically, I agree with what Matt Yglesias says here. Who wins elections matters, a lot. OWS is gonna need to back somebody (or better yet, many somebodies) in the 2012 election, or nothing they want to see happen will happen.

Glad you're feeling better NR. I know where you're coming from and I don't disagree with your logic, but I'm not gonna get out there and campaign for or vocally support Obama because I do think his administration is still heavily corrupted by (mainly) the financial industry. As you point out he's not nearly as bad as the repubs, so unless by some miracle Buddy Roemer gets any real traction I'll most likely be voting for Obama and running from the polling place in a ankle length trench coat and hat like a family man from 1974 escaping the newsstand with a smut rag.


Or to cut to the chase:

I think it's important (at least for now) that we silently support whoever we may view as the "lesser of two evils" while maintaining our hopefully long term momentum to overhaul the entire campaign finance system. #rootsrikers

@MaxWilder: It would eliminate the cash for favors system that corrupts all levels of elected officials!

How so? Corporations control mainstream media and news content. If they control the information, campaign dollars don't really matter. Public campaign financing (ie tax payer financing) just saves them the expense.

Public campaign financing just gives Wall Street puppets campaign camouflage. Not that it matters if people know who sponsors their candidates anyway. Plenty of OWS protestors will be voting for Wall Street politicians in the coming elections.

Condorcet voting is certainly better than first past the post, but it's just as corruptible. Especially when you can manipulate voters with polls and biased news coverage.

As for the rest of your post you spend a paragraph trying to contort something I said in one sentence. I said roll back to it's original limitations, ie follow the Constitution. Yes, the same document that also protects our right to peacefully assemble and protest. But we want to pick and choose what parts we want to follow and THAT has everything to do with the "stranglehold that mega-corporations have over the political spectrum".
Furthermore, with more focus on local and state elections, people might actually have a part in "democracy" instead of feigning it on a national level.

>> ^marbles:

Good luck with that. Not that it's going to solve any problems.
I'd prefer we do away with the national theater of political campaigns all together and roll back the federal authority to it's original limitations.
And start attacking the shadow corporate government directly like ending it's continuous money tree called the Federal Reserve.>> ^MaxWilder:
I'd prefer to see some legislation put forward by citizens to enact public campaign financing, and some voting system reforms to end first-past-the-post.



Not going to solve any problems? It would eliminate the cash for favors system that corrupts all levels of elected officials!

And a Condorcet voting system would allow for elections of people who are rational centrists rather than extremists who block Congress from taking any action on any issues of substance!

I'm not opposed to returning some power to the states, but that does nothing to reduce the stranglehold that mega-corporations have over the political spectrum. And for the most part, "shrinking the role of Federal government" is just conservative doublespeak for ending social security, medicare, and every other useful thing the federal government does. I'd like to see the mess we would get into if the states all tried to provide their own defense! But that's not what you mean when you say "roll back the federal authority", is it?

Good luck with that. Not that it's going to solve any problems.

I'd prefer we do away with the national theater of political campaigns all together and roll back the federal authority to it's original limitations.

And start attacking the shadow corporate government directly like ending it's continuous money tree called the Federal Reserve.>> ^MaxWilder:
I'd prefer to see some legislation put forward by citizens to enact public campaign financing, and some voting system reforms to end first-past-the-post.

>> ^marbles:

>> ^MaxWilder:
It's time to Occupy the polls, and put the energy into publicly supported legislation.

And vote for the same Wall Street financed assholes that enable the fraud and corruption.


I'd prefer to see some legislation put forward by citizens to enact public campaign financing, and some voting system reforms to end first-past-the-post.

Campaign finance reform. All you guys need is your president and congress, which both derive their career and governmental authority from it to actively vote to curb it. Good luck guys!

transparency and money out of politics

in the day and age of the internet, do you really need $750,000,000 to run for government? and can you trust anyone that raises that much money in the first place? at best their good intentions get stalled, at worst they never had good intentions in the first place

for that amount of money, the infrastructure could be setup and maintained (for AWHILE) so that anyone who wanted to run could have an open forum and voters could have access to information regarding the candidates history, viewpoints and accomplishments

whose government is it when projections for campaign finance for the upcoming election are nearing (if not breaking) $1,000,000,000?

If you ask a conservative or liberal or left libertarian or right libertarian, they will all tell you they overwhelmingly support small business. The doctrines of these respective factions are also supportive of small business. If you could force our elected officials to all take lie detector tests, I'm certain that almost all of them support small business in their hearts too.

So, if everyone supports small business, then why does government seem to be a never ending stream of corporate wars, no bid contracts, bailouts, austerity, corporate tax giveaways and subsidies? If everyone supports the little guy, then why does he always get fucked over in favor of big money?

Because multinational corporations hold our government's balls (and ovaries) in a financial vice. Because multinational corporations fund our elections and control our media.

Step out of line and you find yourself with no election funds or bad press or a sex scandal or a real estate scandal, or perhaps a faulty engine on your campaign leer jet. Any dirt you may have on you in life is sitting in a filing cabinet, waiting for the day you fuck up, at which point you are booted from office and humiliated in front of friends, family, colleagues and constituents.

Time and again we see idealistic politicians full of hope and promises become corporate lackeys after they are sworn in. Does this have to happen to Ron Paul too before market libertarians figure out that our campaign finance system is fatally flawed? It's funny to see all of these anti-democracy, anti-two party system market libertarians all of a sudden hyping on a Republican candidate for the 2012 elections. It's funny because you seem to believe we live in a democracy - which you supposedly hate.

It's not the people. it's not the ideology. It's not even the politicians. It's the system. The system is fucked. There is no hope for the kind of serious change we need in this country until we unfuck it. And for it to be unfucked, we the people need to do it for ourselves. We can't sit around waiting for political surrogates to do this work for us. We need to demand it in large numbers, and to strike and protest for as long as it takes until it gets done.

And time is running out. The deficit grows. The temperature of the globe rises. Our jobs are being shipped off to the 3rd world. Our money is being shipped off to Caribbean tax shelters. We need to act soon. At some point it will be too late.

>> ^blankfist:

The American "right" doesn't like small government. It's a talking point, yes. But never is it put into practice.

@westy

Yes nearly every business tries to game the system that's the point of capitalism and that's why it will always fail ( im not on about simply ballencing your books and deprecaiting assets and playing that sytem , evan though that is gamed in the same way) I'm on about the system at large , surely you can see the difference between a butcher and a company that offers high interest loans to desperate people , when instead of offering the loan the ethical thing would be for them to tell them to contact citizens advice ?

I don't think capitalism (by which I mean a regulated but moderately free market) will fail as (at least so far) it's provided the best manner of funneling people's naturally selfish/nepotistic tendencies in a productive way.

Let's be clear here, generally brokers were responsible for writing subprime loans with botched (or outright false) assessments of income and capacity to pay. These brokers were essentially gaming the investment banks (like Bear Sterns) into buying fraudulent securitised loans. Bear Sterns along with Lehman Brothers didn't survive and many other banks got taken over. There was clear motivation for them to perform more due diligence and they paid for their mistakes by going bankrupt or being taken over. The credit rating agencies and the insurers who backed CDOs also had poor judgement. My point is, the people who benefited from writing these bad loans weren't the banks.

thats the piont im making , you can have companies that game the system but also privde a service but the people that have caused this economic crisis are people that are at the pinicale of gaming the system and do not care to provide a service and purely participate to game the system purely exist to make money at whatever cost to society.

They're not gaming the system if they're going bankrupt. You know as well as I do that banks borrow money from those with savings and selectively lend them out to generally good investments thus creating economic growth and jobs. Let's not get carried away with populism here.

luckily we have people that are ethical and don't just think of the profit bottom line , but in general you will see that a good proportion of those successful at business and profiting are ones that couldn't give a shit about other people or there effect on the environment.

The difference between the butcher and a large financial institution is size. If this was a national specialty chain business, you can bet that they would be lobbying their congressman and receiving favors and payouts. Don't get me wrong, I'm not for crony capitalism and I understand that banks weild considerable leverage over the economy and politicians. They should be more regulated commensurate to their significance and intractability with the economy, particularly shadow banking system (securitisation of loans and credit derivatives) should be regulated to prevent crises. This is a failure of regulation though, not a failure of banking in general. As I mentioned, every large industry/corporate body curries favors.

"Either way they are both pretty beneficial to a functioning economy"

so the bankers that turned a blind eye to the toxit assits were beneficail to the econimy ?

how about the lobiests and deregulation that made it possable ?
what about the real estate agents that knew the people they were selling the houses to could not maintain the mortgage?

What about the marketeers that designed the sales materail to obscure the mortgage rates to hide the fact that they would increase and specifcaly designed the brouchers and trained the sales teams to exploit unknowlageable people ?

No they weren't and many of their businesses went out of business. These are all issues of regulation. Corporations (as opposed to say partnerships) are by legal design geared towards maximising profit. If you come in with expectations that any corporation will not do this, you are making flawed assumptions.

"hedge funds don't gamble shares, they trade them based on discrepancies between actual price and fundamentals"

Defanitoin of Gambling from Wikipedia - "Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value (referred to as "the stakes") on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods."

something doesn't have to have unfavourable odds to be considered gambling for example there are many professional gamblers that make a living of horse betting , and in that exact same way there are many people that profestinaly gamble on the stock market , and I would argue that they are themselfs not providing a use to socity. I would however contrast that against sum-one that invests in a company because that company is doing good or employs many people or is developing beneficial technpligy.

the problem is in general capitalism in its current form is fucked , and i belive we need to move towards something that is what I would describe as a

"democratic socialist capitalist system" where we have as free a market as possable and that is achived through democratic regulation guided by socialist princapels. so you try to give every citizen as equal a chance as possible at having free will and succeeding in what they want to do.

the current system allows the top 10% fantastic freedom and chances but at the expense of the majorty of people.

It's not a wager of value, it's a transfer of value. Which is critically what makes it different from gambling. If you have agricultural produce and you want to hedge the risk that your harvest will go down in value when it comes to fruition, it's typically an investment bank/hedge fund/commercial bank that takes the counterparty position. Without someone taking that counterparty position, you couldn't eliminate your risk of a fall in prices. If someone buys a newly listed share of your company, they're contributing to your capacity to invest and pay wages. During the process of gambling before someone is declared the winner, there is no value being created. That's a pretty crucial difference. The main point is though that banking creates value, hopefully I've already illustrated that beforehand.

I don't disagree with what you're saying at the end, but as far as I'm concerned you should be resentful towards campaign finance rules. Instead, it's like trying to treat the symptom not the cause.

the thing about "personal responsibility", is that it is used in very misleading, and brainwashed ways

the brainwashed way is the whole "you shouldn't have had a kid if you can't afford it" schpeel...

first, its moronic because it reduces the subject to $ figures... raising a child goes WELL beyond money, let alone the questions posed morally and on the scale of society itself... should only the rich (and yes, its expensive to have a child, outrageous actually, in the US... i'm not talking about the cost of feeding/clothing/education/etc... simply the procedures up to and including birth, let alone any issues that may arise afterwards both in mother and child - glad I live in a country where this is covered socially, and that I more than happily contribute to - our future isn't regulated to have/have nots)

second, as part of a society, do you feel you have a personal responsibility to it? or other members of it (irrespective of your opinion as to whether or not a particular person is "contributing" or not)? do other's in your society have a personal responsibility in regards to you?... the debate in the US literally ALWAYS boils down to someone arguing "personal responsibility" yet assuming none in regards to the society they "LOVE SO MUCH" and "WOULD DIE FOR"... that, or that if you give people handouts, that's all they'd ever want; they'd never strive

WELL, that is EXACTLY describing the situation of your (and I mean YOU, yes YOU) parent's raising you... did they keep all the receipts and calculate the interest you owe on top regarding food they fed you, education they paid for, etc? are they sending collectors yet?

better yet, can you honestly say you have no drive or ambitions in life because of being raised like this (as is the general norm)?

it provides a foundation, a base from which to launch... its two swimmers racing, one with something to push off of, and the other starting with nothing to push off of... sure the outcome isn't decided completely... but you can make a REALLY accurate guess as to who has the better chance to win... no one is throwing them a dragline while they are swimming... its just the start of the race

if you had a family member who got ill, would you help them? if the swimmer got cramps and couldn't stay afloat would you want someone to pull their head up above the water?

why this doesn't translate from being a staple of family life, to society should make most American's go "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"

the honest truth... it is GREED
both personal GREED of the average citizen not wanting to spend a cent on a fellow citizen
and corporate GREED... they see social programs and free health care as either a pool of money they don't got but WANT or robbery from them... and they lobby and basically buy off politicians through campaign financing and lucrative job offers post office... meanwhile you are sold that this is in the interests of your freedom... when really all you are being sold is the freedom to be F_CKED

Government is there to protect the INTERESTS of it's citizens, not it's CORPORATIONS (most of whom are multinational btw)... and it's failing Americans... mainly because Americans are failing themselves... they'd rather drink the kool-aid than question what's in it... they'd rather get worked up about side issues that really only affect their life MINIMALLY (mainly because of religion) rather than care about issues that do... and they like to bite people who question the status quo... why? because WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!!! USA USA USA. (despite the OVERWHELMING evidence to the contrary)

its really elementary logic to deduce that a society that tries to elevate itself by uplifting all members of that society (or as many as possible) will have a better survival chance than a society where all individuals horde and fight over resources... i mean, which one do you think leads to feudal style systems? really?

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

@Lawdeedaw - Individual members of the legislative branch don't have anything approximating the power of a president. It is true that idealists such as Kucinich, Wellstone, Weiner, Paul and Obama have managed to find a place in the legislative branch, but never have these idealists held the numbers to ever be a credible threat against corporate domination. (What's even more disheartening is the current epidemic of moronic idealists like Santorum, Bachman and Palin, who have been empowered by a decade of Republican campaigning that targets the lowest common denominator.)
Once the idealists enter the Presidential ring, all bets are off. McCain is a great example of a highly principled republican who was basically forced to renounce everything he ever believed in (most prominently campaign finance reform) to get a shot at the golden ring. Obama also broke his promise to only except public funding because he realized it would put him at a severe disadvantage. As long as our current system is in place, no presidential candidate (not even Saint Paul) has a chance of subverting it. This is not an insult against this man, whom I respect despite the fact that he holds some extremely naive economic views. This is just a frank assessment of how fucked up our campaign finance system is.
If you don't think Ron Paul plays the game too, then ask him about Texas pork barrel spending. There is a video on the sift where he freely admits to playing the pork barrel game. I don't blame him for it - you do what you have to do in a fucked up system.
I'm not here to bash Paul. My point is that our current system will not allow him to be what you want him to be, just as the system won't allow Obama to be the President I want him to be.
Speaking as someone who has already suffered through hopey-changey delusions, I'm just trying to save you some grief. Been there. Done that. I guess maybe you have to experience it first hand before you can truly accept this cruel reality on your own terms.
Until this system works for the voters rather than the funders, we are all destined for disappointment. I'd love to see a conservative-liberal truce until we can throw these money changers out of the temple.


You think Keynesian economics got us out of the Great Depression yet Paul's the naive one? Paul's been saying to get rid of the money changers his whole political career. If we had actually been following the Austrian school of economics, none of this would've happen. You can't give a select group of people total control of your economy and then not expect them to take advantage of it.

And Paul always voted against pork spending. That's hardly playing the game.

Obama hasn't been neutered, he was a fraud from the beginning. He's not bombing civilians and waging wars to secure campaign donations. He's been a puppet and PR salesman for Wall Street and their war machine from day one. He's not prosecuting white-collar fraud, he's prosecuting government whistleblowers. He's arming drug cartels in Mexico. He's using flying robots to rain down hellfire missiles in sovereign countries on the other side of the world. He's a neocolonialist. Not because someone is twisting his arm, but because that's what he signed up to be.
Obama can't be the President you want him to be because he's not that guy and never was.