Al Guardian of Palestine and Wall Street

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Originally Posted by GGT

And yes, as Loki said....let's be honest here. As our Information and Technological Age has gone so far, it's easier to replace teachers first. But who's next down the line....when Watson is being used as a replacement for human actuarial and physician input at health insurance companies? Robotic surgery can replace plenty of ancillary staff, too. Para-legals and attorneys can also be replaced by Watson or other super-computers, or their labor sent across oceans to Asia. Even our Financial Industry is using super-computer math quants and algorithms to replace the human element. Maybe firefighters are next, using smoke detectors and automatic distinguishing chemicals, or non-human devices. Drones, anyone? The same kind of war-fighting-unmanned-military-drones that are capable of assassinating terrorists?

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That's amazing about your examples is that almost all of them lead to more employment, not less. Robotic surgery? Requires a great number of skilled people to perform the surgery (no difference there, it just makes some things easier in the surgery), and on top of that you need the people to design, build, and maintain the robots. Prove to me you can replace the fairly complex skills of an attorney with a computer and you might have something to talk about - though of course you'd need someone to provide correct inputs to the computer, someone to design, build, and maintain it, someone to design the algorithms and update them with changing legal circumstances, etc. I've already covered you mathematical finance and algorithmic trading adds jobs rather than takes them away. If we could replace the incredibly dangerous job of firefighters with machines of some sort, that would probably be great! But they'd still need someone to direct them, someone to make split-second judgment calls about the stability of a building, someone to maintain/repair/etc. the systems, blah blah blah. Drones may have removed one person from the loop - the pilot in the plane - but there's still an army of people who keep each UAV up in the air, and there's still a pilot, albeit sitting in a room in Nevada or whatever instead of the cockpit. On top of that you've added all of the jobs involved in manufacturing and designing the drones!

These jobs aren't going to disappear overnight, and even if they did, you'd still need that knowledge set and skills to direct the machines/robots on what to do. This is exactly the same issue with xenophobic ranting about immigration: jobs are not a zero sum game.

GGT's problem is that she sees a specific job at time x lost and automatically assumes that this means a net negative for the overall job market. The reality is, as you mention, that any job lost through innovation, is generally replaced by jobs elsewhere in the economy, and these jobs generally require more skill (and are therefore higher paying).

Some friends went to the Occupy Ground Zero rally today and were mighty disappointed. I'll find out details when I see them tomorrow, but when I asked what happened the texts I got here, "Apparently democracy smells funny" and "Ironic that protesters fighting for 'rights' don't know about the first amendment."

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Originally Posted by wiggin

[...]These jobs aren't going to disappear overnight, and even if they did, you'd still need that knowledge set and skills to direct the machines/robots on what to do. This is exactly the same issue with xenophobic ranting about immigration: jobs are not a zero sum game.

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I'm talking about the fundamental shifts in employment, with gaps in skills and education during the Transition. Same things paper newspapers and Border's faced with websites and Kindles, secretaries replaced by Blackberries, retail stores closing as buying on-line exploded, the ability to use legalzoom.com to draft wills and contracts, software programs to do our taxes. Those are great things, I don't dispute that! But the jobs needed will be for high-tech engineers, designers and repair/maintenance with advanced degrees. That's great, too, but during the Transition there are millions of people in the gaps without the education or training, maybe without the ability (or capacity) to get that degree, or return to school and change careers. There are supposedly 3 million open job positions, many in IT and engineering, without enough people to fill those spots (except by H1B visa workers).

The switch to computerized work has been faster the last decade (also great thing) but there's still the practical question of....what do the people who've been replaced do now? As those surgical assistants and para-legals are replaced by robotics engineers, they'll still need a job. Back to school and/or find a job waiting tables (underemployed), sounds different to a 23 yr old than a 60 yr old, or a parent or homeowner. Our schools haven't done a very good job of keeping students well educated or competitive. (There are still career counselors encouraging Fine Arts degrees and taking out massive loans.) These are the facts on the ground.

Of course this is how innovation and progress works, I've never disputed that (Loki), but the Information Age / Digital Age creates one job that can destroy ten. Economists call it creative destruction, okay. The dilemma is for those ten displaced workers. In addition to people delaying retirement, or retirees needing to find work again because their retirement funds tanked, and 25% unemployment for youth 17-25 yrs old.

Would idiots be too nice a term?

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Originally Posted by Loki

Would idiots be too nice a term?

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Was there something factually incorrect in what they wrote, or were there just too many complaints?

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Marcher Goldie Petkov, a 92-year-old Center City resident, told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "They should've been marching months ago."

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"Unemployment is overwhelming," the petite retiree said, "and they're spending all this money on wars instead of building bridges, schools and positive things."

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44829459.../#.TpD8Z822BUM

I rest my case.

I might go to this today.

Hope to see this guy:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLSvK2eIoBs

It's hard to see that this is any different than any old anti-capitalist protest. Used the military to prevent freedom of the press?

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

I might go to this today.

Hope to see this guy:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLSvK2eIoBs

It's hard to see that this is any different than any old anti-capitalist protest. Used the military to prevent freedom of the press?

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What does his sign say? Something about Nazi's?

Something about "Nazi Wanker Wall Street"

Taking odds on the media using this to cast the protesters as being racist, as they did to the Tea Partyers?

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Originally Posted by Loki

cast the protesters as being racist, as they did to the Tea Partyers?

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They are trying, but they just aren't very good with their photo evidence :p

http://i.imgur.com/ZmnWU.jpg

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

I might go to this today.

Hope to see this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLSvK2eIoBs

It's hard to see that this is any different than any old anti-capitalist protest. Used the military to prevent freedom of the press?

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What I love about his little diatribe is that he suggests people use Google's services to find out information on his pet topic, despite the fact that they are an evil mega-corporation financed by Wall Street that controls all of our media. It's also founded and run by two Jews!

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Originally Posted by Loki

Would idiots be too nice a term?

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Originally Posted by GGT

Was there something factually incorrect in what they wrote, or were there just too many complaints?

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Originally Posted by Loki

I rest my case.

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You can call them idiots if you want, but that didn't answer my question.

My sister went down to Occupy Chicago today; I'll be getting the full report on Wednesday to see what she thought.

Spent a solid hour or so there with a friend. I could go into a lot of detail, but I walked away with a couple of four points points:

1) This is basically a garden-variety anti-capitalist protest. It's far larger as an Internet meme than an actual protest. Had this happened anywhere else besides Ground Zero/"Wall Street" it would just be a regular university campus demonstration.

2) 40% tourists and spectators. Almost all white people.

3) As with all anti-capitalist protests, these people want to change the fundamentals of our society. However, given that we live in a democracy, it's generally recommended to use those things called "elections" to advance your goals.

4) The two main beneficiaries of this protest are the food trucks which were (coincidentally?) in Zucotti Square and the police nearby. Both are making serious cash on this.

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Originally Posted by wiggin

What I love about his little diatribe is that he suggests people use Google's services to find out information on his pet topic, despite the fact that they are an evil mega-corporation financed by Wall Street that controls all of our media. It's also founded and run by two Jews!

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I saw a bunch of pamphlets imploring people to "Google" something. It was sort of weird for that very reason. They must think Google is just some kind of robot that exists in the ether.

My son went to Occupy Philly yesterday before going to a show. He went went a few friends and they're his ride home. :eek:

Dread, what do you mean by "as with all anti-capitalist protests"? Have we had those since the '60s?

I've also read one of their complaints IS how our "elections" aren't advancing their goals, because of lobbyists and corporate special interests (seen as the 1% that do).

There are anti-capitalist protests all the time. Not even including the anti-G7 protests in Seattle a decade ago, the posters here aren't anything I haven't seen before at college or at Union Square in NYC.

And, once again, the idea that 99% of people have the same beefs or outlook as any given group of a few hundred people is silly.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

There are anti-capitalist protests all the time. Not even including the anti-G7 protests in Seattle a decade ago, the posters here aren't anything I haven't seen before at college or at Union Square in NYC.

And, once again, the idea that 99% of people have the same beefs or outlook as any given group of a few hundred people is silly.

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I don't consider this an anti-capitalist protest, just because there are a few people holding placards saying End Capitalism. I don't consider it the same as college campus protests or NYC protests during global summits, either. Totally different "animals".

No doubt their 99% or Occupy XYZ names aren't the greatest, but that's how grass-roots social movements start, and it's early in the process. You're confusing the early protesters (a few hundred) with everyone else (several thousands in many states) because of the initial title.

I also don't think it's "silly" when people exercise their rights to assemble and protest, even if there are a bunch of "beefs" and beliefs mixed in together. That's a very American tradition.

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Originally Posted by GGT

I don't consider this an anti-capitalist protest, just because there are a few people holding placards saying End Capitalism. I don't consider it the same as college campus protests or NYC protests during global summits, either. Totally different "animals".

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How? Why?

I'm also curious, because the longer this goes the more it seems like a run-of-the-mill anti-capitalist protest.

Anti-capitalist protests aren't explicitly socialist. Usually the protesters are unwilling or unable to articulate a cohesive idea of the principles they want society to operate under, beyond "justice" of some sort. But they can list any number of things about our capitalist society that they find extremely objectionable.

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Originally Posted by coinich

How? Why?

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Because of how it started, the way it's spread, and because there's no clear agenda the media or on-lookers can point to. (If it had been up to me, I'd have called it Mad as Hell, or Rebuild America, or something like that.)

I think its roots go back to at least 2001, the post 9/11 recession, the dot com bubble having burst, a policy of "go shopping" to fix the economy, getting involved in Wars based on false intelligence, spending billions of tax payer money with tax cuts at the same time. It hit a wall in 2007, when Lehman went under and the financial melt-down began, bank debt was exposed, the housing bubble burst, and we bled jobs by hundreds of thousands monthly. By '08 we had QE and massive bail-outs to "save" the whole financial industry, by '09 Obama was continuing Bush's failed policies.

Banks did pretty well and continued to pay humongous bonii to CEOs who "failed", because they had no strings attached, no accountability, and no one's gone to jail. The Ron Paul Revolution, the Tea Party movement, and the 2010 elections were meant to flush the bums out, but now there's gridlock. The top 1% have continued to gain wealth and power, while mostly other people have lost either [housing or retirement] wealth, their job, their home, or healthcare. That's quite a loss of power, too.

Being against that type of thing isn't being anti-capitalism, because it's not capitalism in the first place.

The fun thing about mushy anti-capitalist protests is discontented people can project just about anything onto them. Sort of like like Obama allowed people to project their ideals onto him.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

The fun thing about mushy anti-capitalist protests is discontented people can project just about anything onto them.

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Maybe that's why they called it the 99%...because so many people are discontented?

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Sort of like like Obama allowed people to project their ideals onto him.

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Perhaps, but you're still convinced this is a political movement, where I see it as a social movement.

I wonder if you'd hung around long enough at Ground Zero Occupy Wall Street protests, if you wouldn't have found anti-union people to commiserate with? Smart and well-informed people willing to have a discussion with you about why we even had Unions in the first place, or why they still hold some "power" today, even though less than 6% of our workers belong to a public union?

:hmm:

The difference is 99% of the whole fracking country is not discontented at the same people for the same reasons and share the same ideals.

I'm discontented with the economy for entirely different reasons than the people in Zucotti park who have some serious BO issues. I'm not alone in feeling that every Keynesian trick (plus a trillion-dollar healthcare entitlement and massive new banking regulations) has been pulled out of the bag to no avail.

So far the logic seems to be:

1) Bad economy. People are unhappy.
2) ???
3) Left-wing utopia with high taxes, free healthcare and unlimited welfare for all!

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

The difference is 99% of the whole fracking country is not discontented at the same people for the same reasons and share the same ideals.

I'm discontented with the economy for entirely different reasons than the people in Zucotti park who have some serious BO issues. I'm not alone in feeling that every Keynesian trick (plus a trillion-dollar healthcare entitlement and massive new banking regulations) has been pulled out of the bag to no avail.

So far the logic seems to be:

1) Bad economy. People are unhappy.
2) ???
3) Left-wing utopia with high taxes, free healthcare and unlimited welfare for all!

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Dread, I'm not sure how you can say that since the NYC "occupiers" do not have all the same complaints, with all the same reasons and ideals....there's no one among them that does share your discontent? I'll bet they're there, just not sussed out yet. How can you conclude they want high taxes and free healthcare and unlimited welfare for all, when also saying you don't really know what they want? :confused:

#3 is your achilles: plenty are young people very angry at the Baby Boomer generation that's saddled them with high taxes to pay for current Medicare, when they don't have healthcare for themselves, but also can't qualify for Medicaid. It's part of the broader question about healthcare in the US, that not even congress has been able to solve.

Again, why would you have such high standards for a new group of social protestors, not knowing "what the hell they want"...when part of what they're protesting are things like our broken healthcare/taxation/legislation processes that have been dysfunctional for years?

:think:

I'm curious how you can on one hand lambast them for being "disorganized and murky" when that's how our policy leaders have been operating for decades.

"Disorganized and murky" doesn't mean we can't guess at the outlines of the kind of society they want.

The "tax the 1%" signs didn't suggest they share my ideal of a low-tax, smartly-regulated business environment with no government unions. Partially because some of the signs were paid-for by government unions, who co-opting this thing a bit.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

"Disorganized and murky" doesn't mean we can't guess at the outlines of the kind of society they want.

The "tax the 1%" signs didn't suggest they share my ideal of a low-tax, smartly-regulated business environment with no government unions. Partially because some of the signs were paid-for by government unions, who co-opting this thing a bit.

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:haha: Public unions only joined this movement a few days ago. You're starting to sound like [Herman] Cain a bit now, seeing some vast left wing conspiracy at the root.

Ah, yes, you ARE the same Dreadnaught that called the early Ron Paul "Revolution" people Paul-Nuts and Wing-Nuts, after all. Or they were part of some sort of right wing conspiracy theory, because it's outrageous to demand an audit of our Federal Reserve.

:rolleyes:

I'm not talking about a conspiracy. I'm just addressing the simple fact that public employee unions have brought the largest turnout so far, earlier this week. Some have even requested that the city not compel them to perform their duties around this "protest" (link).

They aren't the prime movers here, but they are certainly tiptoeing around this and co-opting it to some extent.

This doesn't have much to do with Ron Paul. Auditing the fed remains as much of a waste of time in 2011 as it was in 2008. Rolling your eyes at my skepticism about Ron Paul is sort of funny.

Sorry, Dread, but the protests aren't limited to NYC or "union influence".

I rolled my eyes at your attitude toward Herman Cain, calling him "eminently reasonable", since it's so different from your initial attitude toward Ron Paul.

Let me be clear, I don't think Cain is reasonable or an especially viable candidate. He's a compelling speaker with a knack for talking about the issues, but otherwise he's math nerd with one medium-level corporate success.

But the protests remain primarily (though not exclusively) centered in NY, as it's our center for Ziocapital. And so far the unions have driven the most turnout. I'm not saying this to suggest that they wouldn't exist without the unions, just that these protests aren't that far away from the same-old-same-old left wing protests.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

Let me be clear, I don't think Cain is reasonable or an especially viable candidate. He's a compelling speaker with a knack for talking about the issues, but otherwise he's math nerd with one medium-level corporate success.

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But in the Herman Cain thread, you said he sounded "eminently reasonable" when saying he didn't understand the Occupy Wall Street crowd. :confused:

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But the protests remain primarily (though not exclusively) centered in NY, as it's our center for Ziocapital. And so far the unions have driven the most turnout. I'm not saying this to suggest that they wouldn't exist without the unions, just that these protests aren't that far away from the same-old-same-old left wing protests.

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Ah, Ziocapital! Same fall-back inflammatory language CitizenCain uses when anyone dare question the financial industry. :rolleyes:

Ironically, the protests didn't move directly from NYC to Greenwich, CT where the wealthy NYC financiers and bankers live. It didn't even move to Chicago next in line, where other crucial boards of trade or the mercantile exchange operates.

The protesters have more in common with the Tea Party people. ANGER AND DISAPPOINTMENT. They're just using a different way to organize, instead of inserting themselves into the same old status quo political process, using big corporate money.

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Originally Posted by GGT

But in the Herman Cain thread, you said he sounded "eminently reasonable" when saying he didn't understand the Occupy Wall Street crowd. :confused:

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Even you and Lewk sound reasonable every now and then.

Well, the kid came home and sounded disappointed at the rally he attended. It wasn't the Philly center protest, but the one gathered around Temple University.

He said he tried to engage a few of the student "protestors" and came away thinking they were there for the free food, because they couldn't discuss things beyond a high school level of....well, a bunch of people think something's important, so we showed up. :rolleyes:



Tidy edit there, Fuzzy. Gee, thanks? :donkey:

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Originally Posted by GGT

Tidy edit there, Fuzzy. Gee, thanks? :donkey:

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I felt I wasn't being fair, singling just the one poster out.

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Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

I felt I wasn't being fair, singling just the one poster out.

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Okay. But you could just as well have said even a stopped clock is right twice a day, without any names at all. ;)

...am I the only poster here who thinks these "Occupy" protests are not only relevant and important, but long over due?

:eek:

Hasn't this forum had members spending page after page, year after year, complaining and debating about things that were not working? Or trying to claim what would work, even after earlier iterations did not work? Or proclamations beginning with IF ONLY.....and concluding that's how things should work? Seriously?

The whole world is facing hard facts and long denied truths. Credit and Debt are not profits, no matter how hard the financial experts or government lackeys have tried to convince us otherwise. Even while they sucked out profits by chopping debt into CDOs, that turned out to be based on usury, or fuzzy accounting, or bankruptcy...with government help or government denial....those who hurt and suffer are NOT the financial experts or government lackeys, but regular people. Indeed, the revolving door between academics, corporatists, legislators and regulators is alive and well.

It's crazy.

:mad:

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Originally Posted by GGT

Okay. But you could just as well have said even a stopped clock is right twice a day, without any names at all. ;)

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I could have and I thought about it but I didn't like the connotations and taste of it. I have paid absolutely no attention to the candidate because he's even less relevant as a candidate than Kucinich has ever been and in light of that general ignorance on my part I didn't like the suggestion implied by the metaphor, that the man was or could only be right very rarely. I'm not familiar enough with him or what he says to feel comfortable implying that. But I know you and Lewk, we've been talking with or at each other for years :D

[OT] This may be a touch pedantic but I feel I must point out that some broken clocks are right twice a day but only because the day is structured and the clock isn't doing anything. It's quite possible for a living person to miss all the right answers, esp. if he chooses to do so :downcast: sorry, carry on [/OT]

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Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

I could have and I thought about it but I didn't like the connotations and taste of it. I have paid absolutely no attention to the candidate because he's even less relevant as a candidate than Kucinich has ever been and in light of that general ignorance on my part I didn't like the suggestion implied by the metaphor, that the man was or could only be right very rarely. I'm not familiar enough with him or what he says to feel comfortable implying that. But I know you and Lewk, we've been talking with or at each other for years :D

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Yes, we have, at that. :heart: I'd prefer to think my views are seen differently than Lewk's, because I'm not an ideologue. And I hope you think you're talking with me and not at me. But I concede, it's understandable when I'm not understandable. In this format, anyway. It's a flaw of mine that needs tweaking.

I've only been following the ever-changing GOP candidates because it's so damn interesting. Like reality TV interesting, which isn't saying much. I used to affiliate myself with many GOP principles, but it's gotten out of hand and very strange lately. Like these religious tests and social values that come first, in order to gain Republican party support. It's a bad way to elect our leaders, when we have this two party system.

Drives me nuts. :sour: How about you, Fuzzy, what do you think about our process? Do you think it's "working"?