Wall Street protesters: We're in for the long haul

[garbon]

Kinda fun when the unions jump on - as if their hands are clean.

http://news.yahoo.com/unions-join-occupy-wall-street-031500781.html

Unions Join Occupy Wall Street

On Monday afternoon, the Transport Workers Union, Local 100 went to court to ask for an injunction to stop the New York Police Department from compelling city bus drivers to transport arrested Occupy Wall Street demonstrators. "We're a pretty mainstream blue collar union," says spokesman Jim Gannon. "We view the protests as young people who are articulating the same kind of things that we've been trying to articulate."

Gannon's union was one of the first to throw its support behind the demonstrators, and members will be marching with them in a protest Wednesday afternoon. He sees, in the anarchic Wall Street encampment, a sign of a grassroots revolt again austerity economics. "They've really thrown a spotlight on issues that are bothering people, especially bothering workers like our members," he says. "Right now, we're discussing how we're going to give them material support, what we should do for them."

A couple of weeks ago, Occupy Wall Street seemed destined for marginality. In July, when the Canadian anti-corporate organization AdBusters put out the call for demonstrators to camp out in the heart of American finance, it envisioned 90,000 participants, but only about a thousand showed up. For the first week, there was hardly any mainstream media coverage at all. But now, helped in part by publicity from police brutality and mass arrests, the demonstrations are mushrooming, capturing the attention of people all over the country. More and more people are turning up in New York's Zuccotti Park, while similar protests are breaking out in dozens of cities nationwide. Suddenly, mainstream progressives are wondering if this could be the beginning of the left-wing populist uprising they've been waiting for.

"It's so thrilling," says Van Jones. The former Obama adviser is a founder of the American Dream Movement, whose inaugural conference kicked off Monday in Washington, D.C., with a live feed from the demonstrations. The protesters, he says, "are calling the conscience of America back to this economic catastrophe. Nobody has been able to do that."

On Wednesday, several unions, including TWU, the United Federation of Teachers, and the Service Employees International Union, will be participating in an Occupy Wall Street march. MoveOn.org sent out its first email blast about the protests on Sunday. "We have been focused for much of the summer and fall on the need to make Wall Street and corporations pay their fair share," says Justin Ruben, MoveOn's executive director. "When this sprung up, we were watching with interest. As it grew last week, and as similar protests started springing up around the country, we thought it was important to bring it to our members' attention and to make it clear that the concerns these folks are raising are broadly shared, certainly by our members and I think by the majority of the American people."

It remains an open question whether the Occupy Wall Street movement can attain the same sort of national resonance as the Tea Party. Both are subcultures, but only Occupy Wall Street presents itself that way. The movement is steeped in the rhetoric, aesthetics, and folkways of an international, anarchist-inflected protest movement that can be alienating to people on the outside. Describing Occupy Wall Street's decision-making body, the General Assembly, Nathan Schneider writes, "Get ready for jargon: the General Assembly is a horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, modified-consensus-based system with roots in anarchist thought." Few people who aren't already committed to the movement are likely to have patience for this sort of thing. Meanwhile, drum circles and clusters of earnest incense-burning meditators ensure that stereotypes about the hippie left remain alive.

Some Occupiers are so alienated from politics of any sort that they see their encampment as its own goal. "We're creating our own self-sustaining community here," says Jeff M., a 25-year-old musician who declined to provide his last name. As he spoke, he unpacked boxes of donated clothes, underwear, and blankets sent from all over the country, all of which are being handed out for free. "We're showing other people that 'Listen, we don't need to rely on big corporations. We can work together.' I know there are a lot of people here who are working on setting up classes on how to provide your own shelter, to sew your own clothes." Whatever the value of this sort of freegan survivalism, its appeal is probably limited.

But it's really easy to overstate this side of Occupy Wall Street. Some of what's going on is utopian and self-indulgent, but many of the protesters have clear-cut political agendas and serious demands. One sign on Monday read: NO MORE CARRIED INTEREST LOOPHOLES TAX BREAKS FOR BONUSES & STOCK OPTIONS CEO PAY INFLATION BRING BACK GLASS STEALGAL!

It doesn't get much more concrete than that.

Thus unions have recognized that despite some stylistic differences, Occupy Wall Street shares many of their goals. For progressives, this alliance is a tremendously encouraging sign. After all, one of the iconic moments from the 1970s was a bloody brawl on Wall Street between hippies and construction workers; as Rick Perlstein wrote in Nixonland: "Workers singled out for beating boys with the longest hair. The weapons of choice were their orange and yellow hard hats." This time around, there's visible solidarity between blue-collar workers and the counterculture.

"This really started in Wisconsin," with the protests against Gov. Scott Walker's attacks on unions there, says Gannon of the nascent movement. "I'm old enough to remember the Vietnam antiwar movement. It definitely feels like that—young kids, college kids, who see something they don't like, they're stepping up."

Also the bolded bit...

[Ideologue]

The problem I see with your reasoning is that you seem to think that a degree should grant you financial security.  The degree is just the beginning.  The rest is what you do with the degree.  That is up to you. No University can guarrantee that you will use the benefit you have obtained wisely.

I don't.  I don't think a degree should automatically equate to cash or stable employment (although in a perfectly efficient market, it would, with the only losses eaten being untimely death), but there's a difference between financial insecurity and a massive, unpayable debt that cannot even be routinely discharged by a bankruptcy procedure, based on a loan that never should have been offered in the first place.  The problem I'm seeing here is: disincentivizing sober risk managemant + foolish borrowers + social expectation of college education + inflated requirements + university overproduction + lack of ordinary legal recourse = creating an army of destitute young adults.

The higher education system in the U.S. involves the poor allocation of resources, one driven by unchecked market forces validated by a technically inept government,.

Fuck, there's a name for that: an investment bubble.

[crazy canuck]

Ide, in a perfectly efficient market educated people will still fail.  Again you are assuming that education alone is enough.  It is not.   

[Barrister]

The problem I see with your reasoning is that you seem to think that a degree should grant you financial security.  The degree is just the beginning.  The rest is what you do with the degree.  That is up to you. No University can guarrantee that you will use the benefit you have obtained wisely.

I don't.  I don't think a degree should automatically equate to cash or stable employment (although in a perfectly efficient market, it would, with the only losses eaten being untimely death), but there's a difference between financial insecurity and a massive, unpayable debt that cannot even be routinely discharged by a bankruptcy procedure, based on a loan that never should have been offered in the first place.  The problem I'm seeing here is: disincentivizing sober risk managemant + foolish borrowers + social expectation of college education + inflated requirements + university overproduction + lack of ordinary legal recourse = creating an army of destitute young adults.

The higher education system in the U.S. involves the poor allocation of resources, one driven by unchecked market forces validated by a technically inept government,.

Fuck, there's a name for that: an investment bubble.

Beware what you ask for though.

Under your system in might make post-secondary education unavailable to a large number of young people if they're not deemed to be a good credit risk.  So sorry really bright kid from the trailer park...

[Ideologue]

Ide, in a perfectly efficient market educated people will still fail.  Again you are assuming that education alone is enough.  It is not.   

A perfectly efficient market would assume rational, flexible actors ensuring that supply of graduates meets demands for graduates in any given field.  Realistically, a perfectly efficient market does not and cannot exist.  But I'm not hanging my entire argument on that one aside...

P.S. garbon--that hippie shit is pretty lame.  70 years ago it took tanks to disperse people.  Now they'll wander off when they realize sewing clothes is 1)hard, 2)stupid and 3)smelly.

[Grey Fox]

The problem I see with your reasoning is that you seem to think that a degree should grant you financial security.  The degree is just the beginning.  The rest is what you do with the degree.  That is up to you. No University can guarrantee that you will use the benefit you have obtained wisely.

I don't.  I don't think a degree should automatically equate to cash or stable employment (although in a perfectly efficient market, it would, with the only losses eaten being untimely death), but there's a difference between financial insecurity and a massive, unpayable debt that cannot even be routinely discharged by a bankruptcy procedure, based on a loan that never should have been offered in the first place.  The problem I'm seeing here is: disincentivizing sober risk managemant + foolish borrowers + social expectation of college education + inflated requirements + university overproduction + lack of ordinary legal recourse = creating an army of destitute young adults.

The higher education system in the U.S. involves the poor allocation of resources, one driven by unchecked market forces validated by a technically inept government,.

Fuck, there's a name for that: an investment bubble.

Beware what you ask for though.

Under your system in might make post-secondary education unavailable to a large number of young people if they're not deemed to be a good credit risk.  So sorry really bright kid from the trailer park...

Under the current system he gets a scholarship, would he get one under Ide's system?

Or he can learn to tackle.

[Ideologue]

The problem I see with your reasoning is that you seem to think that a degree should grant you financial security.  The degree is just the beginning.  The rest is what you do with the degree.  That is up to you. No University can guarrantee that you will use the benefit you have obtained wisely.

I don't.  I don't think a degree should automatically equate to cash or stable employment (although in a perfectly efficient market, it would, with the only losses eaten being untimely death), but there's a difference between financial insecurity and a massive, unpayable debt that cannot even be routinely discharged by a bankruptcy procedure, based on a loan that never should have been offered in the first place.  The problem I'm seeing here is: disincentivizing sober risk managemant + foolish borrowers + social expectation of college education + inflated requirements + university overproduction + lack of ordinary legal recourse = creating an army of destitute young adults.

The higher education system in the U.S. involves the poor allocation of resources, one driven by unchecked market forces validated by a technically inept government,.

Fuck, there's a name for that: an investment bubble.

Beware what you ask for though.

Under your system in might make post-secondary education unavailable to a large number of young people if they're not deemed to be a good credit risk.  So sorry really bright kid from the trailer park...

My argument is that it's stuck in this hybrid between capitalism and socialism that evidences the worst traits of both.  Do you think my system would involve freer markets?

[Barrister]

The problem I see with your reasoning is that you seem to think that a degree should grant you financial security.  The degree is just the beginning.  The rest is what you do with the degree.  That is up to you. No University can guarrantee that you will use the benefit you have obtained wisely.

I don't.  I don't think a degree should automatically equate to cash or stable employment (although in a perfectly efficient market, it would, with the only losses eaten being untimely death), but there's a difference between financial insecurity and a massive, unpayable debt that cannot even be routinely discharged by a bankruptcy procedure, based on a loan that never should have been offered in the first place.  The problem I'm seeing here is: disincentivizing sober risk managemant + foolish borrowers + social expectation of college education + inflated requirements + university overproduction + lack of ordinary legal recourse = creating an army of destitute young adults.

The higher education system in the U.S. involves the poor allocation of resources, one driven by unchecked market forces validated by a technically inept government,.

Fuck, there's a name for that: an investment bubble.

Beware what you ask for though.

Under your system in might make post-secondary education unavailable to a large number of young people if they're not deemed to be a good credit risk.  So sorry really bright kid from the trailer park...

Under the current system he gets a scholarship, would he get one under Ide's system?

Or he can learn to tackle.

Well the really bright kid would get a scholarship.

But not the kid who is merely bright - who has the ability to succeed in post secondary.

[Grey Fox]

Tackling it is!

[Valmy]

But not the kid who is merely bright - who has the ability to succeed in post secondary.

Hey!  Any kid who can defend the post in the secondary is going to get a scholarship.

[Jacob]

The problem I see with your reasoning is that you seem to think that a degree should grant you financial security.  The degree is just the beginning.  The rest is what you do with the degree.  That is up to you. No University can guarrantee that you will use the benefit you have obtained wisely.

This.

Yeah. The only real guarantee that your degree will be put to a good use is nepotism.

Hard work and a bit of luck will do the trick too, but it appears that the 99%-ers are arguing that hard work is not enough on its own and that even a little bit of luck is impossible to come by in the current set up.

[crazy canuck]

If you have nepotism you dont really need a degree...

[Ideologue]

If you have nepotism you dont really need a degree...

Depends.  I mean, if your dad runs a private practice or is a partner, he can't just hire you as a new associate because he wants to.  You still need the J.D. and bar certification.  Same deal with a doctor's practice, and a lot of learned professions.

I guess if you own a widget factory it wouldn't matter.

[Jacob]

If you have nepotism you dont really need a degree...

For some forms of nepotism, yeah, but in many cases it still matters.

[crazy canuck]

If you have nepotism you dont really need a degree...

Depends.  I mean, if your dad runs a private practice or is a partner, he can't just hire you as a new associate because he wants to.  You still need the J.D. and bar certification.  Same deal with a doctor's practice, and a lot of learned professions.

I guess if you own a widget factory it wouldn't matter.

If you have professional qualifications you really dont need nepotism