Both candidates are not the same based on their platforms which he equates to the be same which is a laughably naive notion. Beyond that, he fails to see the importance that the next president will seat at least 2 if not 3 judges on the supreme court. That isn't up for an election every 4 years. That is 30+ years. 1 supreme court vote made a difference between having Citizens United and not. Alito being dead has already had an influence on how some rulings went e.g. Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole and United States v. Texas.

Furthermore, his whole contention lies on the ability for the American people to vote people out of office. Well in 4 years George Bush managed to invade 2 nations and destroy relationships around the world and creating an even larger terrorist threat that Obama had to deal with drones because the American people wanted safety and didn't want troops deployed and you needed a third way. Then the economy tanked. I can't believe people have this view that we didn't need to bailout the banks, it was a difficult decision but the other choice was a complete collapse of the financial system. Obama just came into office. What would you have done?

I don't understand this bizarre view Americans have every 4 years that when a new president gets elected the whole thing resets like the fucking Matrix or something. A lot of what Obama had to do was to undo the damage of the previous administration. 2008 crash can be linked back directly to Bush's promise that every American deserves to have a home. All while the right and the GOP constantly undermined him. Tell me the last time the government was shut down by the GOP over a health care act meant to help Americans?

Nader got 2.74% of the popular vote in 2000, the people who voted for him might as well as burned their votes because there is no post for 2nd or 3rd place. You just lose. Nader was very well known among the American people. Who is Jill Stein or Gary Johnson?

We've all been here before. Last time it was Ron Paul. But Sanders did succeed in creating a new class of fired up people who I hope will focus on the actual battlegrounds of any progressive movement mayoral, state, senate and house races. Not just wake up every 4 years.

OMG...I was SOOOO hoping you would make that argument.
The 'blanket' minimum wage is the minimum we have decided that those living in the cheapest places to live should be paid. I agree, it should be based on cost of living...but the $15 an hour standard is what we've said should be the minimum in back woods Appalachia, and in larger cities it should be well over $20. Reduce the pay at the top to a reasonably high level and that won't cost most businesses another penny.

OK, bay area....you said ""those who choose to live there need to consider their income" ....ignoring the majority of people who are 'stuck' there without sufficient income; those who've lost financial stability, or those born there to poor parents who have never made any choice, and usually their parents who no longer have a choice to make at this point. They simply can't afford to move. The same goes for most low income people anywhere, they don't "choose" to live there, they don't have the luxury of a 'choice'. ...or are you lobbying for free moving and relocation services for the poor?

10 years ago, $15 an hour was not a living wage in many places, the bay area for one. I left there 20 years ago, and $15 an hour was pretty hard to live on as a single man sharing an apartment THEN, I can't imagine how it is now, especially for those with children.

No, you didn't say ONLY kids living at home have minimum wage jobs, but you did mention them as if they are a large percentage of minimum wage workers, and the group we should focus on, and implied that wages should be determined (at least in part) by THEIR needs. They are in fact the smallest group of minimum wage workers, and even they need more money to eventually move out.

Really? " those unwilling to put in the effort and gain the skill required to actually do a decent service to society." If you really believe a large percentage of people working for minimum wage are "unwilling to put in effort" to better themselves, I just don't know what to say. That's completely batshit insane, they work insanely hard for little compensation, with little respite, and absolutely no respect. Most are putting out more than a reasonable maximum effort just to go deeper into debt constantly, there is no amount of effort that makes more time to make more money to pay for training, or an amount of effort that makes tuition free. Also, who do you think will take over for them if they all put in the effort and gain the skill required to actually do a decent service to society"...(whatever the hell that insulting statement is supposed to mean besides implying they aren't decent or serving society today...by choice)?
What are you talking about "Complacency shouldn't be allowed to make life more difficult for all of us"? WHAT?!? OK, yes, so stop being so complacent about the horrendous way we treat those at the bottom of the financial system because that makes life more difficult for all of us by forcing those with 'more' (but not enough 'more' to avoid taxes) to pay higher taxes for welfare, prisons, policing, housing, etc....by making the nation more crime ridden because it's the only way to make a living for so many...by overtaxing our medical system because so many can't afford to be preemptive with their health and only accept medical help when it's at emergency stage...etc.

If the funds to raise the lowest wages don't come from the extravagant pay that goes to the top and are instead being transferred directly to consumers, yes, it's a vicious cycle. That's why you have to ALSO lower top compensation by law, like maybe tie it to the lowest paid worker in the company. That would stop inflation from being a feedback loop with wages.

We can't just make a blanket min wage. Some places cost unnecessarily a lot for cost of living. You mentioned the bay area. I would never live there first of all, but those who choose to live there need to consider their income. There are far cheaper places to live. Then, $15/hr becomes a lot more viable.

And 99 cent cigarettes and 79 cent gas was a lot less recent than the time to which I was referring, which was closer to just 10 years ago.

I also never stated that only kids work for minimum wage. Make assumptions on your own time. I don't agree that we all should be responsible for those who don't actually mean to work at their jobs. Meaning, those unwilling to put in the effort and gain the skill required to actually do a decent service to society. There needs to be a motivator for that--something worth reaching for. Complacency shouldn't be allowed to make life more difficult for all of us. Afterall, you know that when companies start raising prices, suddenly everyone's purchasing power drops. Then everyone needs a raise again. Etc. etc. It's a vicious cycle.

Curbing inflation should be a focus, if that's even possible, along with preventing megapowers from abusing the financial system. Getting corporations out of government would be a start.

Wall of text incoming. Again.

Sorry. Again.

tl;dr:

Debt relief right away was proposed, was neccessary, and was skipped to protect the European financial system.



You are 100% correct, we both are as convinced as one can be that a disorderly collapse would have been much worse for Greece. Might have turned it into a failed state, if things went really bad.

But the situation in Greece at the time the Troika got involved suggested a textbook approach would work just fine. Greece was insolvent, no two ways about it. A debt restructuring, including a haircut, was required to stabilise the system. Yet it was decided against it, thereby creating an enormous debt bubble that keeps growing to this day, destabilising everything.

Why?

People in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin knew in May of 2010 that Greece cannot service its current debt, nevermind pay it back. I remember rather vividly how it was presented to us, as it stirred up a lot of dust in Germany. They pretended as if the problem was a shortage of liquidity, even though they knew it was in fact an insolvency. And to provide an insolvent nation with the largest credit in history (€110-130b) is... well, we can all pick our favorite in accordance to our own bias: madness, idiocy, incompetence, a mistake, intent. They threw Greece into permanent indebtedness(?), and also played one people against another. People in Germany were pissed, still are. Not at the decision makers, but the Greek people.

Again, why?

Every European government, pre-crisis, drank the Cool Aid of deregulation, particularly with regards to the financial sector. When the crisis hit, they had to bail out the banks, a very unpopular decision in Germany, given the scandalous way it was done (different story). Like I pointed out before, when Greece was done for, German banks were on the hook for €17b+, and the French for €20b+. So no haircut for Greek debt.

It gets even better. The entity most experienced in these matters is, of course, the IMF. But IMF couldn't get involved. Its own regulations demand debt to be sustainable for it to become involved in any debt restructuring. Strauss-Kahn had the rules changed in a very hush-hush manner (hidden in a 146 page document) to allow the IMF to lend vast sums to Greece, even though they knew it would not be payed back. Former EC members are on record saying the Strauss-Kahn decided to protect French banks this way as a part of his race for President in France. So they changed IMF rules and ignored European law to bail out German and French banks, using the insolvent Greek government as a proxy.

Several members of the IMF's board were in open opposition. The representatives of India, Russia, Brazil and Switzerland are on record, saying this would merely replace private with public financing, that it would be a rescue package for the private creditors rather than the Greek state. They spoke out in favor of negotiations of a debt relief.

And if that wasn't bad enough, there's an IMF email, dated March 25th, 2010, that was published by Roumeliotis, formerly IMF. They put it very bluntly:

"Greece is a relatively closed economy, and the fiscal contraction implied by this adjustment path, will cause a sharp contraction in domestic demand and an attendant deep recession, severely stretching the social fabric."

Even the IMF, who chose parameters according to their own ideology, thought the European program to be too severe. That's saying something.

All that is just about the initial decision. The implementation is another story entirely, with unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats telling a democratically elected government what to do. There are former Greek ministers on record, telling how Troika officials basically wrote legislation for them. Blackmail was common, bailout money held as leverage. The Memorandum of Understanding was to be followed to the letter, and the Troika program was as detailed as a government program, so they really had their hand in just about everything.

The specifics of the program are a discussion of their own, with all the corruption going on. The Lagarde list (2000+ Greek tax dodgers) was held in secret by order of an IMF official – that alone should trigger major investigations. The nationalisation and sell-off of the four largest Greek banks, or the no-bid sale of the Hellenikon area to a Greek oligarch – all enforced by Troika officials.

The haircut of 2012, ~€110b wiped out, came two years late. As a result, it didn't hit any German or French institutions in a serious way. Most of the debt was in the hands of these four largest Greek banks -- NBG, Piraeus, Euro, Alpha – who subsequently had to be recapitalised by Greece to the tune of €50b. Cut by 110, up by 50 right away. Banks were nationalised and shares later sold again, at 2/3 the price. Lost another €15b, because the Troika demanded the sale to appease the markets.

The legal aspects of all this are nightmare-inducing as well. They violated numerous European laws, side-tracked parliaments, used governmental decrees, etc.

Let me just say this: when they forced Cyprus to give away two banks' branches in Greece for a fraction of their worth, Cyprus lost €3.5b, at a GDP of €17b, and those two banks went belly-up. It was pure blackmail, do it or you're out. Piraeus Bank received those €3.5b, and its head honcho had €150m of personal bad credit wiped clean right then and there, all at the command of the Troika. Those €3.5b had to be taken from ordinary folks by "suspending" the deposit insurance, perhaps the most stupid decision they had made so far.

Why did they do it? Because Greece was more important than Cyprus, and Cypriot banks were involved in shady deals with Russian oligarchs. Still illegal, and massively so.

Edit: I cut my post in half and it's still too long.

Unfortunatly, it's not just Merkel and her cabinet. It's the press, it's the economics departments at universities, it's politicians at all levels. Call it an economic nationalism, hell-bent to defend what they know to be the moral way of doing business. Everything left of this special flavour of market fundamentalism has been systematically attacked and suppressed for at least 30 years.

For instance, our socialist party, still referred to as the fringe of what is acceptable, runs on what is basically a carbon-copy of social-democrat programmes from the '70s. Similar to the British Green Party and Labour. Krugman, Stiglitz, Baker, Wolff, DeLong -- they'd all be on the fringe in Germany. Even the likes of Simon Johnson (IMF) or Willem Buiters (City Group).

If you speak out in favour of higher inflation (wage growth) to ease the pressure on our brothers and sisters in southern Europe, you'll be charged with waging a war against German saver. "You want to devalue what little savings a nurse can accrue? Don't you support blue collar workers?"

The same blue collar workers have been stripped of their savings by 15 years of wage suppression, the same blue collar workers are looking at poverty when they retire, because the PAYGO pension system was turned into a capital-based system that only works to your benefit if you never lose your job, always pay your dues and reach at least age 95. The previous system survived two world wars without a problem, yet was deemed flawed when they realized how much money could be channeled into the financial system – only to disappear at the first sight of a crisis, eg every five to ten years.

Similarly, you could point out that a focus on trade surpluses might not be the greatest of ideas, given the dependence it creates on foreign demand, a weak currency and restricted wage growth domestically. But they'll call you a looney. "The trade surplus is a result of just how industrious our workers, how creative our scientists and how skilled our engineers are. It's all innovation, mate! Are you saying we force the others to buy our stuff? That's madness."

You simply cannot have an open discussion about macroeconomics in Germany. Do I have to mention how schizophrenic it makes me feel to read contradictory descriptions of reality every day? It's bonkers and everyone's better off NOT reading both German and international sources on these matters.


Any compromise would have to work with this in mind. They'd have to package in a way that doesn't smell like debt relief of any kind. People know that stretching the payment out over 100 years equals debt relief, but it might just be enough of a lie to get beyond the level of self-deception that is simply part of politics. If they manage to paint Varoufakis' idea of growth-based levels of payment as the best way to get German funds back, people might go for it. Not sure if our government would, but you could sell it to the public. And with enough pressure from Greece, Spain, Italy, and France most of all, maybe Merkel could be "persuaded" to agree to a deal.

As for Syriza's domestic problems: it's a one-way ticket to hell. Undoing decades of nepotism under external pressure, with insolvency knocking on your door? Best of luck.

Italy is hard on Greece's heels in terms of institutional corruption. Southern Italy, in particular, is an absolute mess. Given the size of the Italian economy, Syriza better succeed, so their work can be used as a blueprint. Otherwise we're going to need a whole lot of popcorn in the next decade...


Edit: Case in point, German position paper, as described by Reuters. As if the elections in Greece never took place.

Clear, but I considered it unnecessary. Until the majority of alternative media starts speaking clearly as to the source of the disinformation disease that has created the world we live in, no news is real news.

Until the veil is lifted to expose the criminality of world governments and the families and complicit lackeys responsible for the amalgamation of power into a single world governing body all the endless banter over particular recent political and economic events without reaching farther back historically, for me negates all reasonable context for what's happening now.

It's the powers behind the puppets and pawns who need to have their shit scrutinized and reported upon, until they have nowhere to hide.

Follow the goddamn money, the entire collection of the world's ill's reside in monopolistic control by assholes, of the worldwide financial system.

Banks, insurance companies, lawyers, doctors, all work well when there is a healthy atmosphere of fear and dread, THIS is the only real power geopolitical manipulators have.

The world's fear they have and continue to instill. They do it by manipulating economies, enforcing laws with soldiers, and through complex and not-so-complex, continual distraction and disinformation.

Like Herbert said, "Fear is the mind-killer."

1. So you are suggesting people who live on 40p a day would give two squirty shits about a smartphone? That is a result of global economic issues of which one person smashing a phone (they presumably own) is negligible to the point of complete irrelevance. Non sequitur, if this is really a concern to you then you need to go after the corruptions and inequalities in our very financial system. Handing down a phone (which is likely near the end of its useful life anyway) is not going to change anything of significance here.

2. I'm suggesting you are making an entirely subjective value judgement about the pleasure and practical use one could derive from the same investment of money/material. Lets not forget he generated around $7000 of personal income from a £50-100 investment. But more than that, perhaps to some people the pleasure and entertainment of smashing that phone was comparable to other activities that might cost the same (e.g. a night of drinking or a weekend away could easily exceed the cost of that handset). Are you suggesting spending £50-100 on leisure activities etc. is morally reprehensible? Let's not forget "smartphones" don't do anything essential for most people, they are luxury items. If you have a problem with 1st world culture that's absolutely fine (laudible even) but you can't be singling out this guy for making a very successful comedy skit when there are people everywhere who's lifestyles could be politely described as "a decadent waste of atoms".

3. Absolutely nothing is stopping that smashed phone from being recycled, many shops would give you a £50-100 trade in on a new handset even in that state as they are typically just melted down anyway (and your new shiny phone contract is worth more to them than caring about the state of your bag of broken phone bits).

Besides as a matter of pedantry my point clearly stands, doing NOTHING in a drawer is clearly inferior to generating $7000, and providing 2mins of hillarity!?!?!?!? (the comparison was between hammer and drawer not drawer and charity) What you did there was called a "straw man" (i.e. twist my word's to make a different argument that helps make your own point)

4. The phone is old and they are not built to last (again feel free to rant on our disposable culture but leave this guy out of it) as @Payback pointed out it's probably knackered anyway.


Somewhere in your argument is some righteous and commendable rage about the inequalities of the global market but you're focusing it in the wrong direction here. Be angry at the CEO and shareholders of Samsung who profit from human death and suffering in the Coltan mines, the Corrupt banks that hold a fake debt over the poor populations of the world or the Complicit governments that support them. Or maybe go after the Ideologues and philosophers that conceived and spread the culture of consumer and corporate greed driven economics.


Basically anything but rage at this guy for making a IMHO pretty funny video on a budget that utterly pales into insignificance compared to just about anything else.



Could he have handed it down? Sure. Could he have traded it for a crate of jack Daniels, a half ounce of weed, an animatronic chicken alarm clock, a present for his wife etc. etc. etc.?

Your argument taken to its logical conclusion would condemn anyone that spends money or resources on anything other than practical necessities or charity. I'm not saying that's what you meant, but that's what your argument as stated invites.

She has about the level of understanding I would expect from a bright 12 year old. If her parents are feeding her this, they have a "bright 12 year old"'s understanding of the financial system. About the same as Ron Paul.

Canada has debt because it spends more than it takes in. Doing so in recent years has been mostly a good decision - and generally it's hard to argue with Canadian fiscal and bank-regulatory policy given its recent performance. We've weathered the recession better than most other places (partly this is due to the our natural resources and industry mix, but not completely).

Fractional reserve banking has a complicated effect on the economy. It's not easy to fit this into a 5 minute talk, but it allows for beneficial ways of managing and growing the economy.

If you think banks are just stealing money, go start a bank or invest in one. You'll find that they're businesses like any other, and that Canadian banks are mostly well regulated, and mostly make their money in responsible ways. Banks are not magic, and individuals can leverage money in many of the same ways they do.

On the flip side, there's been tremendous misbehavior by American financial companies (most of these aren't best described as banks) in the last decade, supported by bad laws. Some people got very rich while the economy got screwed to Hell. This had nothing to do with the basic ideas of fractional reserve banking, and everything to do with naked dishonesty, regulatory capture, and plain old corruption.

Many of the concepts she is describing and terms she uses are taught in advanced economics and finance courses. The international financial system is not something I would expect a 12 year old to be across. I'm sorry if this is ageist, but seriously.

Can you really understand the financial system? I mean the people playing and losing in it never seemed to quite understand it.

More and more I hear about it, I tend to believe the financial system behaves however makes them as much money as possible until it doesn't. And they may know it for the period of which they exploited it, but when it changes from the known to the unknown is what's concerning to everyone else. Too much relies on financial stuff, but financial stuff is all numbers in the nebulous environment until you can cash them out for stuff you can put your hands.

It seems to have a lot in common with online gaming, while you control what happens to your "stuff", you don't really ever own it until you can bring it into the "real world" via cashout or whatever.

I agree to some degree with that. TYT are blowhards. That's sorta the problem with the financial meltdown. Now everyone is looking at the financial system and making prescriptions on how to fix it, even those who don't understand the system.

>> ^lampishthing:

Maybe. I'd nonetheless like to see a breakdown before freaking out about it. Maybe they're all interest rate swaps and the 44 trillion is counting notionals. Saying 44 trillion without further details doesn't really mean that much and TYT are just being reactionary about a large number.>> ^heropsycho:
If we learned anything from AIG, the answer is probably so much in overleveraged securities and credit default swaps it doesn't matter.
>> ^lampishthing:
But how much of it is hedged?

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

when Republicans say we NEED to cut Social Security, if you're really listening they're actually saying we wish to liquidate Social Security
I would rephrase this, but only slightly. I wouldn't say "Republicans", because there's plenty of the GOP that are just fine with Social Security as long as they're in charge of it. I would instead say that "fiscal conservatives" wish to liquidate SS. If you phrase it that way, then it would be more accurate.
I'm one of them. The SS program, as well as Medicare and Medicaid, are New Deal boondoggles, and if I was "King For A Day" I would instantly abolish both of them and just let the chips fall where they may. They were terrible ideas when they first started, and they are only even more terrible today. All the arguments made against these programs when they were being debated have all come true with almost perfect accuracy, and if they are allowed to continue they will bankrupt the nation. It is not a matter of 'if', but 'when'. Staunching the bleeding with temporary measures is not going to solve the problem, but only postpones the day. Just eliminate them now. We got by just fine without them before, and we can do it again. Give the money back to the people in wages and lower taxes, and let people save up for thier own retirement and medical expenses. Let the states cook up their own solutions for those that are truly in need, and let's stop making disastrous Federal "One Size" programs that inevitably crash and burn. We aren't doing anyone any favors with these awful systems.


When you say "we got by just fine without" Social Security, who's the "we" you're referring to? There's very good evidence that SS is responsible for the significant drop in the rate of poverty among the elderly over the last half-century. The facts are that when social security spending (per capita) increases, the poverty rate among seniors reliably decreases, and vice versa. Opponents of SS may honestly believe that an increase in elderly poverty is a painful tradeoff that must be made in order to protect the financial future of the country. That is an honest position that can be debated. But at least acknowledge the existence of the tradeoff. The program has had a huge impact in the lives of some our most vulnerable fellow citizens.

The idea that abolishing SS will do no harm because people will be able to invest their own money to protect their future is ridiculous. First of all, investing wisely is psychologically difficult. We are not built to plan carefully for that far in the future. Second, even if you do make the decision to invest sensibly, it is not easy to do, given that the financial system has been set up to prey on small investors for short-term profit, with high fees and fraudulent advice. You just can't expect the average person, who has no idea how or why to invest in a suitably diversified portfolio of low-cost index funds, to successfully invest in the market.

So I think there is very good reason to think that getting rid of SS will have a significant cost attached. Of course, it is also true that SS faces a long-term financing problem, and we need to be having a discussion about how to deal with it. But it does neither side any good to just deny that there are any worthwhile arguments on the other side.

Obama: "Occupy Wall Street" reflects "broad-based frustration"

President Obama on Thursday called the "Occupy Wall Street" protests a reflection of a "broad-based frustration about how our financial system works" and pledged to continue fighting to protect American consumers.

The president, speaking at a press conference, said he had heard about and seen television reports on the recent protests on Wall Street, and noted that "I think it expresses the frustrations that the American people feel."

"We had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression - huge collateral damage throughout the country, all across main street. And yet, you are still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to crack down on abusive practices that got us in the situation in the first place," Mr. Obama told reporters. "I think people are frustrated.">> ^shagen454:

They are all bad. Democrap or Retardican. Its all the same shit bought by different... or the same, corporate greed. Obama has hardly even acknowledged Occupy and ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE. You voted for the change marketing strategy but you let corporate greed buy into even more Bushesque policy by believing that voting makes a difference. He doesnt want to publicize Occupy by even referring to it because he knows and the powers that be know that people are beginning to take note that it is all bullshit, its broken, its an illusion and it all fundamentally needs to be rebuilt... utilizing the constitution.
Instead of voting you should fucking protest a system that doesn't work on voting day!!!! Whether it is Romney, Paul or Obama its nearly the same shit. They strip you of liberties and steal from your coffers, deregulation for the corporate state, more police state, privatizing everything under the sun, raising the prices and gauging everyone who does not have a million dollars. Stop perpetuating the illusion.

The clips of Paul talking about newsletters? He describes how he writes articles on the economy and financial system. That's it.

If anything, that convinces me more that someone must have actively conspired to misappropriate the platform. Ron Paul sincerely believes he was putting out useful material, in a manner than only someone innocent would even approach.

He denies nothing except the lies. I like that.

also, "now"?

more like,
"still".

there was never much hope with this financial system