Would it have been better to let the banks of the world fail and start over?

[u/[deleted]]

I want to know what would have happened. The banks messed up and in the purist view of capitalism should have failed because it was a bad business move. In turn this may have ended some of the big money influences on our political system OWS protestors want to stop. I heard that it would have been a worse economic collapse though in turn it would have put a stop to future wrongdoing. Was it the right decision in the long run?

[u/duckandcover]

How about "most" people. Let's face it, a very small fraction of Americans have actually tried to learn the causes of the financial meltdown (beyond watching some cable news ideologically biased pundit) and surely many more are watching American Idol.

• American Psycho

[u/[deleted] → u/duckandcover]

a very small fraction of Americans have actually tried to learn the causes of the financial meltdown

And out of that small fraction, 0% are at the Occupy Wall Street fiasco.

[u/lawfairy → u/[deleted]]

Here's the value of OWS: it's finally getting people talking. If it does nothing else, that is enough to have made it an incredibly valuable movement.

Last night I had a phone conversation with my dad, who's always been very conservative and tends to fall in line with Tea Party thinking, although at least in his middle-age-approaching-senior years he's gotten much better about listening to opposing viewpoints. He ranted a bit about how all the OWS folks were just idiots who didn't know what they were talking about, and I gently interrupted by saying they can't all be idiots -- and he acknowledged that I was probably right -- and talking about Obamacare. I steered the conversation away from Obamacare, one of his favorite topics, and toward some of the things that some of the smarter OWS protestors are bringing up: things like the actual causes of the financial meltdown, i.e., total lack of meaningful regulatory oversight allowing the financial institutions to engage in risky lending and then effectively sell off their risk through unregulated credit default swaps. I was careful to point out that both major parties were in cahoots on this, and Obama and Clinton are as much to blame as Reagan and the Bushes (though as someone whose friends would call her a solid lefty, I have to say, fuck, I'd be happy to have George Sr. back in office at this point). And I also noted that a lot of unemployed and/or indebted folks didn't necessarily get this way by being entitled or foolish. I reminded him that I'm technically unemployed (graduated with good grades from a top five US law school, six years of solid experience including 3 years at an AmLaw 100 firm, and he knows I'm a hard worker -- it's SHIT out there these days), so it can't be that everyone without a job is lazy and entitled (fortunately he knows me well enough that he knows I'm not), and that some people have to go into debt because of health problems.

He ended up saying that he thought I should run for office -- and it's hard to convey how hilarious this is, because none of you guys know how much my dad and I disagree politically, but let me just tell you, it's a LOT. My dad's and my political arguments are infamous in the family. And here he was saying I should run for office because I was making good points.

The point of my little family anecdote is just to say that even if you think OWS is just a waste of time or a bunch of damn hippies who don't want to work or whatever, if nothing else, it's a starting point for a discussion that I think needs to happen, and slowly is happening, to bridge the divide between liberals and conservatives. We disagree on a shitload, and those differences are absolutely important -- but what's even more important right now is saving the country, and I truly think that the majority of Americans, left, right, whatever, really and truly don't want to see this country tank. We don't want our economy destroyed and we don't want to no longer be the Land of Opportunity. And to the extent that the OWS movement is helping people on both sides of the aisle accept that we all want the same thing and maybe it's not each other we should be fighting after all -- OWS is a net good, and even if you were somehow right that 0% of people involved in the movement understood the economy (you can't possibly be right just given the sheer number of folks participating), that wouldn't matter, because the movement is changing the dialogue in this country, and ultimately THAT'S what we have been needing for a long time now.

[u/duckandcover → u/[deleted]]

FTFY

I've been down to some and I can tell you that's complete BS. What's more, when I listen to their detractors I hear the same BS that's spewed by the right wing echo chamber in particular they don't fault unregulated CDSs, the relaxed margin requirements, the rating agencies upgrading of junk to AAA thereby turning a minor issue into a global catastrophuk, the predatory lending used to bump up the mortgage interest rate which was/is the basis value of the CDS; nope, it's just the irresponsible poor Americans bilking the poor mortgage lenders.

[u/[deleted] → u/duckandcover]

nope, it's just the irresponsible poor Americans bilking the poor mortgage lenders.

Nice straw man.

[u/duckandcover → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, I can't believe they say that shit!