Who are the protesters behind Occupy Wall Street–and what do they want?

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louis91766 said:
They sold worthless derivatives.
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Who is “they”? What derivatives did “they” sell
They are expected to pay the price of no government handouts and fail on their own, because they are clamoring for less government regulation and interference.
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Pay what? Does this include the billions or so that went to the UAW? Do they have to pay “it” back?
 
gnjsdad said:
…Yes they did. Because they could sell these mortgages at a profit before the ink on the closings was dry…

…Reference has also been made to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. These are not government agencies, but quasi private corporations, complete with boards of directors and stock. Fannie and Freddy were allowed to join the frenzy when they saw all the money being made. If the government has any blame, it lies in allowing Fannie and Freddie to participate in the madness going on on Wall Street.
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Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were created by the government for the express purpose of buying mortgages, to expand the availability of mortgages.

The government pressured the banks to give mortgages to people who would not otherwise have qualified, and the banks could not have complied had not the two F M’s been available to buy them.

Because there were a lot of Boomers buying second homes in anticipation of their retirement (they bought the house and rented it out so it would pay for itself), when they started to retire and sell their first home, there was a glut on the market of houses. Bingo! The housing bubble caused by a massive but temporary double ownership was over.

And do not think that the tax structure which allowed people to take the interest off on their taxes had nothing to do with all this. Once the interest became a small enough percentage of their income to deduct on their taxes, the owners were in the market for a new mortgage so they could pay off their credit card bills, lower their interest, and end up with a smaller monthly payment.

This problem was not caused solely by Wall Street.
 
Where are all the protestors who are protesting Barney Frank, Fannie, and Freddie for forcing banks to make bad loans, then they stuck us to pay for the homes once they simply walked away from them?
 
Hannity did an awful job yesterday on his radio show when he was having a conversation with an OWS protestor. He failed to “remind” the caller that in order to pay substantially more to employees, the costs of those goods or services that the corporation provides MUST increase substantially in order to afford the pay increases, thus making the product or service dramatically more expensive. As cost goes up, it makes the product less affordable for people. It’s a shame that the caller wants to make life too expensive for people to live. Of course, that was the goal all along: to creates MORE people dependent on the govt., not independent. What happened to the cheers for independence?
 
Those who blame banks are clueless. Blame your savior Democrats who think everyone has some God given right to own a home. I don’t blame banks one whit for selling off the mortgages. They do it with all of their mortgages.
 
louis91766 said:
They sold worthless derivatives.

They are expected to pay the price of no government handouts and fail on their own, because they are clamoring for less government regulation and interference.
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When do “handouts” become “stimulus”. For instance should the UAW “pay the price” for the billions used to prop up their pension funds?
 
St_Francis said:
Because there were a lot of Boomers buying second homes in anticipation of their retirement (they bought the house and rented it out so it would pay for itself), when they started to retire and sell their first home, there was a glut on the market of houses. Bingo! The housing bubble caused by a massive but temporary double ownership was over.

.
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It wasn’t just buying second homes the caused a problem. The Congress in effect enforced racial quotas on mortgage lending. Loans were no longer made based on the ability repay, they were made to make sure they did not run afoul of government auditors claiming racial discrimination. , Fannie and Freddie propped up this scheme by buying the loans.

One of the best solutions I have seen offered to this problem is to require that banks and mortgage companies hold the loans they make or at least a large portion of them. . This was the norm back when I was a Bank auditor and back before Congress started looking upon homeownership as another “right” and began instituting racial quotas.

I think we all can agree that the solutions for the complex problems we face are not occupying private parks, shutting down museums, spitting on servicemen, and defecating on police cars.

OWS, again, offer no solutions, they dont even define what the problem is other than getting back at “them”.
 
Not only are they clueless, those who blame Wall-Street are clueless and their conversation and lack of understanding has become utterly boring.

Wall Street is a symptom of the problem, not the problem. There are SEVEN aspects one needs to control, to control a Government thus a Country. Money/Currency/Finance is but one, and its not controlled by Wall-Street.

Have corrupt individuals come along at Wall-Street? Its part of Americas History and its called GREED. Why do you suppose fools were jumpimg out windows there during the depression?

Obama’s desire to control all SEVEN is obvious with his hanging head last night when the Long Term Heath care was defeated. Of course he will appeal. However this is another of the Seven aspects…Health Care. Military is another. And America is divided over this which Obama “is” controlling.

Government and controlling these Seven aspects without a clear agenda and also not based on the founding fathers of this country is the concern. We don’t agree with Obamas agenda. Sorry thats the issue. Religion is another of the Seven. And on and on etc.

We want change here also. However we want total Govenment restoration based on the founding fathers of this country which provided a proven path to success. All we have to do is follow the path. And we are NOT. Wall street is only a gauge, an indication of Finance and Business/Stocks. One Aspect.

Republicans passed no government funded abortion, of course Obama is expected to Veto the bill. And on and on and around we go.

NY/Boston and the rest of OWS is unclear, and a unfocused campaign of pointing fingers and in the wrong direction. Your GOVERMENT is the issue!!! The fact were talking to adults and “college” students here is astounding. Your not getting the truth nor do you want to. Your minds are closed and you effort is incorrect and simply wrong. Though some of the concerns and fustration is understood. Your focused in the WRONG area.

Your a bowl of notes which make “No Music”.
 
St_Francis said:
Here is a summary of the findings by Wikipedia:

They don’t mention the fact that the “toxic mortgages” were taken out by individuals, some of whom committed fraud to get them.
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The Report goes into great detail documenting this. It’s much better to read the actual report rather than a Wikipedia summary. The summary information you posted is accurate enough, but the devil is in the details and the details need to be read.
St Francis:
they don’t mention Fannie and Freddie, two quasi-governmental operations set up to facilitate the mortgage-selling business and thus increase the amount of money available for mortgages.
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Again, Fannie and Freddie are discussed in great detail in the Report.

Here’s a quote from the outline of the conclusions of the Report, it its discussion of the role of Fannie and Freddy

These government-sponsored enterprises had a deeply flawed business model as publicly traded corporations with the implicit backing of and subsidies from the federal government and with a public mission. Their $5 trillion mortgage exposure and market position were significant. In 2005 and 2006, they decided to ramp up their purchase and guarantee of risky mortgages, **just as the housing market was peaking. **We conclude that these two entities contributed to the crisis, but were not a primary
*cause. *

***The GSEs participated in the expansion of subprime and other risky mortgages, *****but they followed rather than led Wall Street and other lenders in the rush for fool’s **gold. They purchased the highest rated non-GSE mortgage-backed securities and their participation in this market added helium to the housing balloon, but their purchases never represented a majority of the market

IOW, Fannie and Freddy were latecomers to the game already being played by Wall Street several years before the GSEs got involved.
St Francis:
So, yeah, greedy people on Wall Street were sucked into this whole thing,
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Wall Street was not “sucked into” anything that did not have its origins in excessive greed.

It’s also worth noting the Report’s findings on the imapct of Federal legislation such as the CRA, espicially in light of comments made by Newt Gingrich and other conservatives that politicians like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd deserve the lion’s share of the blame

We also studied at length how the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s
*(HUD’s) affordable housing goals for the GSEs affected their investment in **risky mortgages. Based on the evidence and interviews with dozens of individuals involved in this subject area, **we determined these goals only contributed marginally to ***Fannie’s and Freddie’s participation in those mortgages.

Finally, as to the matter of whether government housing policies were a primary
cause of the crisis: for decades, government policy has encouraged homeownership
*through a set of incentives, assistance programs, and mandates. **In conducting our inquiry, we took a careful look at HUD’s affordable housing goals, as noted above, and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The CRA was **enacted in 1977 to combat “redlining”by banks—the practice of denying credit to individuals and businesses in certain neighborhoods without regard to their creditworthiness. *

***The Commission concludes the CRA was not a significant factor in subprime lending ***or the crisis. Many subprime lenders were not subject to the CRA. Research indicates only 6% of high-cost loans— proxy for subprime loans—had any connection to the law. Loans made by CRA-regulated lenders in the neighborhoods in which they
were required to lend were half as likely to default as similar loans made in the same
neighborhoods by independent mortgage originators not subject to the law.
 
The way I’ve come to understand it, is that Wall Street is a “celebration” of the Free Trade Market.

…So the alternative would be a government controlled market…? But how can anyone believe that the latter would produce a perfect economy, and is it possible to create a mistake-proof economy…?

After all the posts on this thread, we should have come to an understanding on what it is that OWS is calling for… So what is it…?
 
There is a lot of projrction going on in socialism. As much as societies losers protest the greed and materialism of societies winner, they also covet the wealth of societies winners for themselves, They are no less grredy, but turn to big government to satisfy their appetites.
Not just greed then, but envy and sloth too.
 
None of the OWS people seem to be protesting the nation’s 14+ trillion dollar and continuously growing debt. That’s a much greater threat to the nation than anything else.

Taxing the rich, no matter how much, won’t solve that problem. Do the OWS people have any ideas?
 
estesbob said:
It wasn’t just buying second homes the caused a problem. The Congress in effect enforced racial quotas on mortgage lending. Loans were no longer made based on the ability repay, they were made to make sure they did not run afoul of government auditors claiming racial discrimination. , Fannie and Freddie propped up this scheme by buying the loans.

One of the best solutions I have seen offered to this problem is to require that banks and mortgage companies hold the loans they make or at least a large portion of them. . This was the norm back when I was a Bank auditor and back before Congress started looking upon homeownership as another “right” and began instituting racial quotas.

I think we all can agree that the solutions for the complex problems we face are not occupying private parks, shutting down museums, spitting on servicemen, and defecating on police cars.

OWS, again, offer no solutions, they dont even define what the problem is other than getting back at “them”.
Click to expand...
Funny thing is… bailing out the banks is NOT capitalism. Capitalism would have let them fail.
So the protesters are mad at Govt interferring with capitalism?
are they actually for Capitalism?
Do they not know what capitalism is?
 
JimG said:
None of the OWS people seem to be protesting the nation’s 14+ trillion dollar and continuously growing debt. That’s a much greater threat to the nation than anything else.

Taxing the rich, no matter how much, won’t solve that problem. Do the OWS people have any ideas?
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It seems what the protest mot cares about is that the stimulus packages racking up this debt was directed at Wall Street rather then at themselves. Irrationally, the crushing unsustainable debt and the almost exponential rate of its growth does not even register,

All that is of concern is that Wall Street cronies are getting it, and they are not.

Nobody will want to invest in a economy that is so threatened by unsustainable debt especially when so much of the society outsideof the teaparty is advocating policy that guarantees that the crushing level of debt is only going to continue to grow.

It is a viscious circle then. The more that the OWS protests for their fair share from government, the more that investors see too much risk in investing, and the less that there will be new jobs created for these youths,
 
Stjudeprayforus said:
Funny thing is… bailing out the banks is NOT capitalism. Capitalism would have let them fail.
So the protesters are mad at Govt interferring with capitalism?
are they actually for Capitalism?
Do they not know what capitalism is?
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They probably haven’t thought it through. They probably don’t learn too much about capitalism in their “gender studies and 3rd world oppression” classes they take. The average 8-year old running a kool-aid stand probably knows more about capitalism than these protesters.

Ishii
 
ishii said:
They probably haven’t thought it through. They probably don’t learn too much about capitalism in their “gender studies and 3rd world oppression” classes they take. The average 8-year old running a kool-aid stand probably knows more about capitalism than these protesters.

Ishii
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Susie gets it!

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
ishii said:
They probably haven’t thought it through. They probably don’t learn too much about capitalism in their “gender studies and 3rd world oppression” classes they take. The average 8-year old running a kool-aid stand probably knows more about capitalism than these protesters.

Ishii
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To spend 50k a year on an education that in no way prepares you for the problems and challenges that we all are facing now is perhaps the greatest crime of all here.

There is no higher reasoning or forethought going into what is being demanded or what is being protested. There is only the expectation that wealth is an American birthright.

It is not.
 
Stjudeprayforus said:
Do they not know what capitalism is?
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I’m pretty sure they know full well what capitalism is. Many of them have had first hand experience with it.

Lost homes
Lost jobs
Lost income
Crushing debt load
Unaffordable health care

And yet the apologists for the system which caused these problems are telling them they are to blame.

Plus the level of mockerey and condescension toward the protestors expressed by the
same apologists reminds me of nothing so much as the contempt for the lower classes expressed by the French nobility just prior to the French Revolution. Now, I am no fan of the French Revolution, which I consider an unmitigated disaster, but the attitude of the nobility (like the attitude of today’s 1%) was contemptible.
 
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