More BS From the Anti-Occupy Backlash

[marmar]

from No More Mr. Nice Blog, via AlterNet:



More BS From the Anti-Occupy Backlash


In my last post, I mentioned an article in The New York Times today making the point that 1-percenters really, really aren't all that bad. I don't mean to pick on The New York Times -- it probably contains more pieces sympathetic to progressive arguments about the nature of contemporary capitalism (particularly from its editorial board and from Paul Krugman) than just about any national media outlet (though that's a fairly low bar to clear) -- but in today's Times Magazine there's yet another article, from Adam Davidson (who also works for NPR's "Planet Money&quot , in which the treatment of Occupy Wall Street's main argument is essentially "Well, this is a satisfying thing to say if you feel like venting, but really, you can't be serious":

Hating Wall Street is an American tradition that dates back even to the days when Thomas Jefferson cursed that money lover Alexander Hamilton. And for centuries, the complaints about it have largely stayed the same: It does nothing! It creates chaos! It's a parasite that sucks hardworking Americans dry! (Or something to that effect.) But these are distortions of a fundamentally beneficial business...

Davidson goes on to describe what Wall Street does as more than "fundamentally beneficial" -- he describes it as the reason life as we know it exists:

Perhaps the best way to really appreciate what Wall Street does is to imagine life without it.

THE POOR WOULD STAY POOR

In the U.S., we use credit cards, mortgages, credit scores, securitized loans and other Wall Street innovations to do the miraculous: to persuade some institution with a lot of money to hand it over to someone who doesn't have that much.... ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/763241/more_bs_from_the_anti-occupy_backlash/

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/763241/more_bs_from_the_anti-occupy_backlash/

[xchrom]

1. Du rec. Nt

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. If Jesus were here today, he'd work on Wall Street.

[hootinholler]

5. He'd work on WS all right!

With a chainsaw, or a jack hammer, or whatever other tools necessary to overturn the tables.

The article in the Times, does make some valid points, but totally ignores the need for regulation and more specifically the need for the general population to be involved in the regulation of WS.

My justification of that regulation is that it is ultimately the general population that shoulders the burden when profits are privatized and risk is not.

[Fire Walk With Me]

6. :)

And the attempt to sell WS as something we NEED is proof that we're winning.

[T S Justly]

3. K&R (nt)

[Aerows]

4. K & R n/t