Truemors
is reporting from
Member
NP Rank:
NP Rank:
Consensus Financial Standard - 1st OWS Demand
Share: 
by DrMarty | October 26, 2011 at 03:34 am
195 views | 0 Recommendations | 7 comments
Photos
Yesterday, I attended a meeting that included a Board Member of the organization known as ASTM International. I learned about how the organization helps people, professionals, companies, and others to create a methodology for achieving a mutually beneficial outcome to a problem that each shares - often at odds with each other, but all agree that everyone wins when the game is fairly played.
My question was...are there any topics that are off the table? For example, how about I get a few youth from Occupy Wall Street, and others from Goldman Sachs, AARP, Bank of America, the Federal Reserve and the NYC public unions to arrive at how transparency can be a hallmark of American finance...you know, stop this greed thing.
The response was dead serious, to my utter appreciation, because I was dead serious.
There is a way. First thing to do is getting a manageable group to agree to do it...that is agree to work out a solution to this transparency problem...providing public value to financing the engine of American capitalism.
Is this a pipe dream? Who will take the first step?
Advertisement
What is NowPublic?
NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (7)
- Sign In or Join to post comments
"thirty-aught-six" (not verified)at 04:06 on October 26th, 2011
The first step would be to educate yourself on the economic system, it's function, and who makes the laws that govern it. Then wrap up your kiddies and take them over to the White House and have yourself a much more appropriate OWH camp in.
at 03:30 on October 27th, 2011
Dear 30-0-6,
I value your experience and knowledge. I'd like for you to provide the needed education, because, as you see, I just don't get it. Just like my professor once told me...economics, you'll never understand it...it's too complicated. You know, he's right. You, me, and all my friends must remain underlings to grownups who just know better. It is comforting to have my easy chair and a shoe to throw at the TV every now and then. I'll show them a thing or two.
Marty
- Sign In or Join to post comments
"thirty-aught-six" (not verified)at 04:37 on October 27th, 2011
While I fully understand the frustration with the 'system', I believe that there can be no other 'understanding' as long as those who obviously don't understand the system blame the system for what they don't understand.
Not surprisingly the OWS meme is, "we's don't gots to unnerstand. We's victims of the 1%."
Except they aren't the victims of the 1%. They are victims of Steve Lerner and the Public Service Unions who want direct access to economic controls.
Lerner said that unions and community organizations are, for all intents and purposes, dead. The only way to achieve their goals, therefore--the redistribution of wealth and the return of "$17 trillion" stolen from the middle class by Wall Street--is to "destabilize the country."
Lerner's plan is to organize a mass, coordinated "strike" on mortgage, student loan, and local government debt payments--thus bringing the banks to the edge of insolvency and forcing them to renegotiate the terms of the loans. This destabilization and turmoil, Lerner hopes, will also crash the stock market, isolating the banking class and allowing for a transfer of power.
"we's don't gots to unnerstand. We's victims of the 1%."
Lerner's plan starts by attacking JP Morgan Chase in early May, with demonstrations on Wall Street, protests at the annual shareholder meeting, and then calls for a coordinated mortgage strike.
Lerner also says explicitly that, although the attack will benefit labor unions, it cannot be seen as being organized by them. It must therefore be run by community organizations.
"we's don't gots to unnerstand. We's victims of the 1%."
Read more: articles.businessinsider.com/2011-03-22/news/30073732_1_stock-market-seiu-secret-plan#ixzz1bz9DcdJg
"we's don't gots to unnerstand. We's victims of the 1%."
Obama supports this thinking. Obama is supported by millions from the public service unions. Obama is taking steps to bring tuition loans and higher education under government control.
"we's don't gots to unnerstand. We's victims of the 1%."
at 02:51 on October 28th, 2011
Now I understand your point of view. I really appreciate having that insight. I am hearing of Steve Lerner for the first time, and I'm a member of a city labor union. I'll ask by colleagues at OWS to see if they know of him. Over the years I've had long conversations with anarchists. Their point of view is not chaos for the masses, but cooperation in the small. The problem I see with that point of view is how to turn it into a political movement for representative government. It is rare for a person to speak about an experience where a point of view is held on an individual level that conflicts with another point of view held at a community, state, and national level. Those kind of discussions with people who CAN hold contradictory points of view in the same brain are the ones we need to listen to. As you describe, we seem to have ended up as vicious rodents fighting over the same stale bread in a subway tunnel ready to be slammed by a train that doesn't give a fuck about any of us.
- Sign In or Join to post comments
"thirty-aught-six" (not verified)at 04:34 on October 28th, 2011
Just so you understand that MY point of view is; that if you don't understand you can not apply a moral righteousness to a emotional response to that lack of understanding or misunderstanding. Especially a emotional response that you are lead to by the exploitation of your ignorance on the subject.
As for the OWS mob. These people are supposed to represent our educated class. The next generation to contribute to the inventions and job creations to carry the nation until the following generation matures. These people are supposed to hold collegiate and university educations that bring with them an understanding of how our political and economic system functions. They are supposed to know how and who create our laws that govern us all. That includes Wall Street.
Wall Street didn't repeal the Glass Steagall Act and by extension the Bank Holding Company Act. These together being replaced by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which eliminated the GSA restrictions against affiliations between commercial and investment banks. Furthermore, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allowed banking institutions to provide a broader range of services, including underwriting and other dealing activities once restricted by the Bank Holding Company Act.
Occupy Wall Street is a misdirected political adventure. If the college and university educated OWS mob had honest representation in mind, they would be occupying the White House. They wouldn't be blaming Wall Street for a economic and mortgage crisis brought on by the policy decisions made by GOVERNment who dictate the rules and regulations Wall Street operates under.
at 14:20 on October 29th, 2011
30-0-6 Thanks for making your point of view clear. I find the OWS "mob" to be a predictable phenomenon that comes when the illusory social contract is breached. First the tea party got fed up with bank bailouts. Now the occupiers are fed up with bank bailouts. We are led to believe the right and left don't agree on anything, but the evidence is otherwise. Rather than a revolution which some say is imminent, I say, let's go back to an arrangement that at least was workable, such as an arrangement where the financial industry excesses were under control - Glass Steagall banking re-reforms. All it takes are 269 Congressmen and the President to say so. But that simple principle of common sense is at present off the table. It will be interesting to see how the occupiers handle the cold weather.
- Sign In or Join to post comments
"thirty-aught-six" (not verified)at 16:35 on October 29th, 2011
I use 'mob' in reference to the OWS because there is no unified goal. In interviews people say they are there to denounce Wall Street, others to protest their tuition, others to support green tech, others against the Tar Sands and the Keystone Pipeline, etc., etc..
The difference between the "occupiers" and the Tea Party is that while the Tea Party has had to face an onslaught of ridicule and demonization from liberals [including Obama and his administration] and the liberal press for holding government responsible, the same liberals[including Obama and his administration] and the liberal press have glorified the OWS for their shotgun attacks against institutions other than government. The one institution responsible for creating our economic policy and our laws.
While both the Tea Party and OWS may agree that government policy direction has gone wrong it is only the Tea Party who holds the government [Democrat and Republican] responsible for that economic policy, and it is only the Tea party who are engaging the old guard politicians and electing a younger generation of politicians into the system.
The liberal press has no problem blaming the Tea Party in Congress for obstructing Obama's corrupt, lobby paid for economic policy, while cheering on the OWS mob to bring down the system. Or that Obama is out there shouting go team go. And yes, I'm well aware that I'm of the minority who is willing to acknowledge this overt liberal hypocrisy.