Wall Street Riots ... A Protest Against Unlimited Greed

[Joe Fulton]

I do not know how much news our readers outside of the US are seeing about the protests on Wall Street, the home of the US Stock Exchange.  Corrupt governments and establishments around the world have undergone a lot of turmoil this year because of the reactions of citizens.

In the last month, we have the example of Anna Hazare who stood up to the forces of corruption and started a massive protest...and concessions.

The evil and corruption perpetrated on the American people by greedy Wall Street brokers and banks, essentially turning our financial markets into casinos has gone largely unpunished.  In reality, the discussion about the death penalty elsewhere seems to fit these guys as well.  The real tragedy of this is that not only have the banks been bailed out by the government, but they have been allowed to consolidate so that "too big to fail" has gotten even bigger and reap larger profits than ever, all the while finding ways to shaft their customers.

And the really sad thing is that those who were/are in power have stood by and done nothing about it.  A good number of the characters are no better than Bernie Madoff and have wreaked hundreds, if not thousands of times the carnage on their fellow citizens and they get off scott free.

Is this a spiritual problem?  Yes it is.  Not only on the part of the leaders, but also among the rest of us.  The boards of directors, the officers and all of the top management of these corporations should have been held accountable to their degree of involvement and such punishment should have been dealt out as proportional to their crime and level of awareness.  It seems that several concurrent life sentences in a standard state prison would suffice for each of the worst of the perps.  AFter all, some dumb thug robbing a liquor store gets 20 - 30 years for stealing 20 bucks. 

One concept about the caste system that I like is the (theoretical) presumption that the greater the "responsibility the greater the crime.  Reality says different.

For more, see the following article from the New York Times.

More on this later, and if anyone has new news, please feel free to respond with an update.

[Capt. Anand Kumar]

I have often wondered where all the money has gone which has caused untold sufferings to not only the people in US and Europe but also in countries like India and other developing countries. Media needs to be held accountable too for their role in propagating lies on the people. No political party in the US or anywhere in the world is ready to address the problem of greed. Worst aspect is that these banks and financial institutions are again being supported on the public money while their CEO's are giving salary and perks raises to themselves.

 

Indeed it is a spiritual problem. Legal and political measures will not be able address this problem. Only invoking the conscience of the guilty will result in something tangible happeniing.

 

Perhaps US needs Anna Hazare too.

 

[bournemouthsoc]

I would agree with your comments Joe.I have followed the events in NY and some other cities of the US.The response of the NYPD has been brutal and heavy handed in some cases.Indeed it is a spiritual problem as resources are not shared among the people.

I know there are other "Occupy" movements in France and New Zealand -will these spread to other countries?

 

[Joe Fulton]

The greed should not be allowed to go unpunished.

[Jon Fergus]

Just jumping into this conversation. I would personally lean away from the notion of punishment. It seems to me that greed (as with all 'evil') cannot exist if not supported by 'good' people. What this means to me is that the vices on display in the world are vices we all share, in one way or another, and all contribute to, in one way or another.

One example of this idea in action: if you delve into the institutional ownership of the major corporations of the world - particularly the ones doing much damage to the world - you'll find that the 'owners' are largely holding companies and funds. Now, those companies are just the 'curtain' hiding the 'man'. And who is that man? Well, how many of us try to maximize the returns of our retirement funds? our children's education funds? etc.? We invest. Pull away the curtain and we see more than a group of wealthy individuals, we see also a mirror. Or, to put it another way, we see a group of wealthy individuals held aloft by our own, individual, if seemingly minor, greed. The power held over people begins to lose its effectiveness the moment the people shed the vice(s) underlying it.

What we see manifest in the world is a force composed of tiny bits of greed from each one of us. We also, undoubtedly see a select few in whom greed has become a way of life, and I won't refute that (a little research reveals several 'family' names standing only slightly veiled behind many 'control mechanisms' of the world's money - conspiracy theories aside). But, as Gandhi showed in his life, it is only when we stop supporting vice, both within ourselves and without, that we begin to take power away from the collective vice of humanity.

We will always have leaders and we will always have followers, and it will always be up to the followers to choose the leaders - and we do this by living our lives according to the principles we want our leaders to uphold. Our leaders will only ever be a reflection of the virtues or vices we choose to make important.

Simple questions: what is the attraction of money and commerce? do we deem it fundamentally necessary to 'life, liberty, etc.'? Can we imagine, as John Lennon did aloud, what a society without some of these seemingly basic building blocks would be like?

My 2 cents ;)

State Street

Vanguard

BlackRock

Capital*

Fidelity

Wellington

MFS

[Capt. Anand Kumar]

 

US economy may falter and Greece will have money only until mid-November.

 

Any stimulus package may only be based on just printing money without any basis.

What would it be like to live in Virtual Economy? How painful will be the transition?

[Capt. Anand Kumar]

Thank You Archon. A very precise analysis of what has gone wrong. I would rather simplify it as abscence of spirituality from all walks of life, be it social, political or economy. The unabashed justification of greed over all ethical and moral principles is at the heart of this crisis. But perhaps the humanity will learn its lessons and change its ways.

It was not the socialism that failed. It was the authoritarianism in the garb of socialism that failed. True socialism will have the spritual principles of unity and love as its core values. And, whenever that comes it will not fail. 

[Martin Euser]

One person who has analyzed this accurately is Dr. Jeff Eisen. In his Omnius Manifesto he describes how the accounting practices of companies should be changed to reflect the contribution they make to society or destruction they cause to social sphere and ecological domain. This manifesto must go viral.

In addition, the New Economy working group has defined nine action clusters that need to be worked on. 

Some people think that a new political party is needed which embraces the values sketched in the above documents. I think so too. Raising consciousness of the members of society is very difficult when the system that they live in constantly erodes positive, constructive human values, from birth on. The whole system of accounting in business has to change, in accordance with values that promote sustainability. People will have to organize themselves in large networks (maybe Avaaz can help in this regard) to effect change.

[Joe Fulton]

There are several realities.  First, and especially in the developed world, the basis of the economy is changing.  This change manifests itself in numerous ways.  Originally it was the change from foot-power to the use of animals, which kept things more or less stable until the early 19th Century when trains were introduced.  It accelerated in the early 20th Century when automobiles and airplanes came into existence.  The changes of the industrial revolution put a lot of people out of work as machinery increased industrial efficiency.  An entire industry in horse-based transportation created massive economic disruption as the transition to automobiles took place.  Workers were displaced and had to adapt or starve.  Today we are seeing a similar, but much more profound paradigm shift. 

The shift is way more than we can easily imagine.  We are at the beginning of an era where information is the product.  In a few short years data mining and technologies such as personal assistants (did you see the iPhone 4S launch?) and 3d printing will render much of what we have taken for granted.  Where we are so totally messed up is that we have had a paradigm of what constitutes an economy and now it's all changing.  The basis for providing a living now is having a job, helping to provide goods and services, but what when that goes away?  It will.  How do you create this ephemeral thing known as wealth when the whole mechanism ceases to exist?

But back to the topic.  The real core of the protests is over what kind of future we want.  Do we want a dystopia completely controlled by corporate socialists who have proven themselves worthy of Simon Legree from Uncle Tom's Cabin, a cruel, sociopathic slavemaster over us all?  Do we want to become as cattle or other livestock to folk who view the world in this manner?  They've raped the economy already and they wonder why we are mad.

Are there any organizations gathering funds for the protestors?  I'll be happy to post links to those who are.

[bournemouthsoc]

Link to Occupy Wall street:

 

https://occupywallst.org/

Livestream

http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

 

 

[Martin Euser]

It never ceases to amaze me how long deception and exploration of the majority of the world's population has been going on unchecked. The last decades has secured the top 1% of the wealthiest an amazing concentration of wealth, leaving the rest of us impoverished more and more every year. I guess that when the middle-class doesn't take this any longer, and organizes mass-protests long enough and on a large scale enough, that things may change for the better. The question is: will it take a revolution to change the morally corrupt institutions (banks, governments, big business) of this world? The failure of the so-called intellectual elite to address our problems is becoming fully visible now, for everyone.

[Joe Fulton]

Here in America the debate is over further cutting taxes for the top 1%.  One of the few rational voices is that of Warren Buffett who maintains that the top 1% should pay at least the same percentage as the "middle class".  I get to see it in my day job when accountants call up with corporate and high income taxpayers and to listen to all of the accountants get their millionaires of paying their share via manipulation of the tax code is sickening.

The problem is one of entitlement and Peter has it pretty well on the spot. We have become a country where everyone has rights but no one wants the attending responsibilities.  But even at that, there is hope.

For our part I would really like to move our (the wife's and my) bank accounts to a local credit union as a way to stop supporting the megabanks.

[David Melik]

As far as I know, the Wall St. protests are peaceful: I have not read about any riots. Is the title of this thread accurate, or misinformation? Perhaps it should be deleted and re-posted with a different title.