tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post4101933917568746423..comments2023-06-21T10:52:34.013-04:00Comments on Jeremy Rosen's Blog: The Wall Street ProtestsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17043970242427877089noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-40495301808429305002011-11-08T09:31:16.870-05:002011-11-08T09:31:16.870-05:00Ah, my earlier comment just got approved or someth...Ah, my earlier comment just got approved or something.<br /><br />RJR:<br /><br />Two things in my previous comment no longer make sense. Could you delete the bit about thanking DK rather than myself. Also could you remove the seifa wondering what happened to yesterday's post?<br /><br />If you can, please reject this post and do so. If you cannot, leaving this request up will allow people to make more sense out of what I wrote.michahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15903747662338530294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-4908471948049524292011-11-08T09:16:18.055-05:002011-11-08T09:16:18.055-05:00DK:
Yes I think thats an excellent idea. We can o...DK:<br /><br />Yes I think thats an excellent idea. We can only work on these micro levels but they will all add up. The main thing is to ensure our voice is heard (though a fat lot of good it did the Prophets in their time)!!!<br /><br />JeremyRabbi Jeremy Rosenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12723608669485173271noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-15010947770638507162011-11-08T09:05:26.093-05:002011-11-08T09:05:26.093-05:00I think you meant to thank "DK" for thei...I think you meant to thank "DK" for their suggestion. And it is a great suggestion.<br /><br />But...<br /><br />There is still an element of class warfare there which I think is destructive. The American Dream is all about the mobile society of the US, that Herman Cain can grow up in an Atlanta slum and rise to be CEO of a large corporation, and to gain national recognition as an (absurdly implausible) presidential candidate.<br /><br />Under Bush we split into Red vs Blue states. Mr Obama took that divisiveness and shifted it into class warfare, the haves vs the have-nots. That was part of my point in my previous post -- BofA "fatcats" are a minority of the bank, and the bank is busy making the little guy money. It's one economy, not two.<br /><br />Yesterday I wrote a long post about globalization, and how it will force us to tighten our belts. That the economic woes we're going through were in the cards for over a decade, and the housing bubble was all about delaying the inevitable, combined with a Democrat-Republican compramise that created an economy that doesn't follow any coherent model.<br /><br />I don't know where it went, because I don't see it on the comment chain now.michahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15903747662338530294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-33828396221651400272011-11-07T14:15:48.892-05:002011-11-07T14:15:48.892-05:00Jeremy,
My suggested cure is that instead of goin...Jeremy,<br /><br />My suggested cure is that instead of going for grand gestures, we all just try to do something helpful on our doorstep, even if this won't make headlines, good PR or give merchant bankers sleepless nights. Well, not immediately anyway.<br /><br />For example, suppose a shul website announced that on Sunday afternoons they'd be hosting a cookery lesson on how to make vegetable soup -- just bring any vegetables and a pot? I appreciate that this idea holds little to no attraction for people who prefer to get behind banners, with other people and their banners, and do lots of marching and revolutionary singing because all of that is much, much more fun than chopping up carrots and swedes. That must be the reason why I have never seen home-made soup making advertised on any shul website, notwithstanding there sometimes being rather lengthy messages about the impact of global economic difficulties on ordinary people. Cheap, communal cooking is just as anti-capitalist as any street demonstration.dknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-8045482384113812662011-11-07T10:45:05.945-05:002011-11-07T10:45:05.945-05:00I wouldn't mind suggesting a cure, as it would...I wouldn't mind suggesting a cure, as it would mean I knew of one...<br /><br />As I see it...<br /><br />Globalization is inevitable, a consequence of telecommunications, cheaper transportation and shipping, etc... This means that any country financially above the world mean will be pulled down toward the mean. If the US ran on natural resources, it would have wealth that would be safe from this trend. But America's greatest resource is its culture, which created the right atmosphere of entrepreneurial spirit and creative drive. Which it greatly exported. (Much to the dismay of people like Osama bin Laden y"sh, who lamented their youth's absorbing this culture.)<br /><br />Not that the US would be /at/ mean. Bangalore will never match Philly (to pick a city of similar size) in operating according to the American spirit. Just that the gap between the American standard of living and the world average would naturally shrink.<br /><br />So, back around 2001, before 9/11 we saw the markets starting to tank. 9/11 caused a major dip, but the truth is that by late Nov the market was about where the curve was heading in August. Enron, Parmalat, K-Mart were among the bigger companies that declared bankrupcy.<br /><br />Now, had we had a free market, the loss of wealth would have meant a tighter housing market. Instead, the Democrats forced banks to make loans to risk creditors. No one wants to tell their constituents that it was time for austerity. So we created a housing bubble.<br /><br />Now, had we had a more controlled economy, someone would have been watching what the banks did with the risk they were forced to swallow. But the Republicans resisted that, and the banks and Wall Street traders had free reign to sell each other their risk.<br /><br />This in itself isn't evil. I would gladly buy a risk in one area in order to make some profit. As long as I didn't have so much risk in any one market that it would take me down. But then it turned out that the products being used to package the risk and profit on home mortgages were all based on a flawed model, one that assumed the housing trend was real and would continue, rather than being a bubble.<br /><br />So, our legislative branch reached a compromise that by being a little of this and a little of that didn't actually follow any economic model. So that didn't work. And it created a situation Wall Streeters didn't see coming, so their tricks backfired.<br /><br />Now we're a decade later, the pull toward mean is still there -- and yet our bubble created a large gap that will collapse.michahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15903747662338530294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-54597769240153478982011-11-07T09:24:09.718-05:002011-11-07T09:24:09.718-05:00Micha:
Thats very interesting. Thank you Micha. Wo...Micha:<br />Thats very interesting. Thank you Micha. Would you mind expanding and suggesting a cure? <br />JeremyRabbi Jeremy Rosenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12723608669485173271noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-59370366694887220552011-11-04T09:46:50.967-04:002011-11-04T09:46:50.967-04:00Do they help the small elite at the expense of the...Do they help the small elite at the expense of the masses? Don't the masses have pensions, IRAs and 401(k)s that are comprised of funds that rely on such shenanigans?<br /><br />Very little of the common man's money is invested among the small traders compared to the money intrusted to professional investor firms.<br /><br />This error is the same shortsidedness that leads them to think that boycotting someone or making his business difficult will hurt the CEO of the firm more than the mailroom guys, security, and executive assistants. When BofA lays off thousands of people, we're talking middle managers downward. It's easier to convince yourself you can limp by with 75 programmers where you used to have 100 than to convince yourself you can have one manager running the projects that used to be handled by two.<br /><br />-michamichahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15903747662338530294noreply@blogger.com