Students have been blocking the streets, donning masks, brandishing banners, and going toe to toe with police. Sound familiar? It’s been happening almost daily in Europe for the last year and half.
Today in Greece dozens of students blocked a major avenue in central Athens, causing motorists to be delayed and tempers to erupt. It’s become routine, almost, for Athens, which has seen a large-scale people’s movement flaring since May 5th of last year. Keep in mind, Greece is the birthplace of democracy.
The movement in Greece, which includes demonstrations, strike action, sit-ins, occupations, civil disobedience and, in some cases, rioting, is escalating precisely because the situation is worsening. They do not have a single message; they have shed that constraint.
In Greece, the movement’s participants have been met with police brutality, according to BBC, New York Times, Amnesty International, CNN, and a host of others, just like OWS participants and others around the country will surely continue to be kettled, pepper-sprayed and likely worse.
Reports from Greece read like those of a bleak American future if our problems go uncorrected. From AP:
Several rounds of spending cuts and tax hikes have cut deep into the incomes of average Greeks as the country struggles through its third year of recession, with the economy projected to contract 5.5 percent of gross domestic product this year. Unemployment has spiraled to above 16 percent, with the young most severely affected.
Among the Greek direct actors are desolate students whose loans are unfeasible, dejected families whose taxes keep increasing, in part because of evasion, disquieted citizens who see corruption in government, and those who cannot stand for impossibly large bailouts. Again, sound familiar?
Their causes are diverse, as are the people, which works for them, and can work for Occupy movements, too. The point is to speak out, be heard, and shed frustration in public, where the powers that be can digest it, where police can misbehave: that is part of the non-violent strategy’s power.
The moral high-ground is a tenuous place, but once one reaches it history is on your side.
The situation in Greece is different, but related. The European Union’s struggle against default is being caused by a precarious linking of economies that experts have been warning for years would cause trouble.
For years, experts warned that a debt crisis in America was bound to happen. Warnings against credit default swaps and the over the counter derivative market fell on deaf ears until it was too late.
Both societies failed to correct the problem before calamity occurred, and both have yet to fix it. In the U.S. we still have not successfully eliminated credit default swaps, and the derivative market is still at play, and as hazardous as ever.
Those are two huge problems.
The movement that Occupy Wall Street has promulgated didn’t begin in Zuccotti Park. It has been happening for years, and it’s finally catching on. Demonstrations held at the Republican National Convention in 2008, and at G8 summits for at least a decade, have echoed the same general demands: the leaders have lost sight of the people, the environment, the point of war.
These instances, however, failed to become strong national movements. That is where OWS has succeeded, and continues to succeed. It’s going to take longer than three weeks, though. That’s where Occupy Wall Street is at right now, and for every day there is another person to stand up for, another reason to let the people’s voices be heard.
I quoted it before, but you can never have enough Mark Twain: “Temper is what gets most of us into trouble. Pride is what keeps us there.”
The world isn’t fair, just, or verdant. Nothing we can do will change that. But whether you’re in Barcelona, New York, London, Athens, Milan, Cairo, Tokyo, or the myriad cities who have it worse off than these relatively well-off places but rarely get any attention, it’s up to each individual to say something. For a long time the world has been shaving off the bottom 99%.
It’s about damn time we got together. That is why, after years, we are standing up.
October 08, 2011 at 5:14 am, Klaus Vorman said:
Legalize, Tax, and Regulate Marijuan! NOW!
October 08, 2011 at 4:50 pm, Alyssa Dupree said:
Bravo, Kevin. You’ve done it again. Keep up the great articles!
October 09, 2011 at 6:03 pm, Pete said:
How special that now the commie left has their own version of a Tea Party. Never mind the two main differences between the protesters are the payment of taxes and soap, they are exactly the same. The Tea Party could never occupy a location more than a few hours since those people have to go to work and earn the money so the occupier thugs can whine and complain they don’t receive enough welfare. These unemployed occupiers are pretty much a perfect symbol for the commiecrats and their leeching constituents.
The liberal establishment is rallying behind these out of work hippy throw backs like they are some sort of romantic counter culture when in reality they represent the establishment. These are the same people who were crying and fainting when their messiah was elected and now they are protesting and blaming the tired old bank villains. These are the same banks the Tea Party was screaming to allow to file bankruptcy while these liberals were calling them Teabaggers for protesting the bailouts. This was the same Tea Party that was yelling for the gummit to investigate and reform Fannie Mae and was called racist for their protests. Now the street urchins drag out the same tired clichés they have been dragging for nearly a hundred years to hate the bankers because they are wealthy while these unemployed sociology graduates have been brainwashed by a bunch of Marxist professors are surprisingly broke.
There couldn’t be a better representation between the two major movements in this country then the God Fearing hard working Tea Party and the lazy earth worshiping occupiers. These people have spent their entire lives living in the atheistic cult of liberalism which calls for the worship of the earth and the destruction of capitalism. They are fundamental Darwinists who believe man is the top of the evolutionary chain and liberalism is an evolved intelligence making them godlike beings. The only thing higher than liberal intelligence is a group of them combined into a government. Government is their god on earth which is why they are willing to give their lives and freedom over to that entity and since they are smarter than you they know you should too. Only that god in their eyes can make the world equitable for all of the oppressed in this world. Only an all powerful divine gummit can make all things right for everybody.
These braindead occupiers have been taught since birth all of the clichés and dogma the liberal cult indoctrinates the followers with. They are no more a free thinking group than the Jim Jones cult, their politics is their religion which they follow from the moment they wake up til the minute their drug addled head hits the pillow or rock in this case. They have no concept of the free market or how it has to make profits to make jobs and pay taxes. They have been indoctrinated from kindergarten by their commie teachers and professors that profits are evil and taxes simply are a necessary penalty to punish corporations for their exploitation of the poor oppressed working class.
So we have this clueless human debris which is a combination of Social Science students who are going to Columbia and Yale on their parents Wall Street college funds protesting to make them feel like they are accomplishing something by protesting rather than going to classes. The remainders are street people who will show up for anything that resemble a protest or a free beer so when you boil it down a couple hundred people is a pathetic turnout in a city of 20 million.
Now Old Media has a protest they can agree with and understand. After spending the past three years calling the Tea Party racist, sexist and hate mongers they are putting these unwashed commie anarchists on their pedestal. There is no surprise since most of the dinosaur press come from the same schools and have been brainwashed by the same teachers and professors their entire lives. Add to that the Marxist bubble they live in as they write and talk to each other promoting the benefits of bigger gummit to further spread the wealth and destroy capitalism. Of course they are going to agree with the same group that agrees with them as these dirty hippies represent their successes. These are the kids who have no future they have been trying to create over the past fifty years and they get to have a look at their brainwashed handiwork.
We are heading for an election of historic proportions. As the entire DNC empire lines up behind these hate filled kids who want the destruction of Wall Street, capitalism and America the entire country is being disgusted. Outside of the most radical 25% how could any taxpaying American appreciate what these thugs are trying to do with some hard working people who they have found guilty of the crime of making too much money? Does the DNC and obozo really believe that when it is all said and done the average Americans hate their country and want to deepen class envy into warfare? Americans are getting as tired of that as they are the race war and in the next election will punish them accordingly. So here’s hoping the union goons and the rest of the liberal Astroturf continue to fan the flames of group hate so we can all show them next November it is time for a new direction. Then America will give them something to protest about, if they can get the time off for good behavior.
Indie Pete
October 09, 2011 at 11:49 pm, Alyssa Dupree said:
I find it slightly ironic that you posted this on the website of print
magazine that had to go to an online-only format, most likely due to
insufficient funding.
While I respect that you, Indie Pete, do go
to work and continue to earn your living while paying taxes, I hope
that next weekend you can take the time to go out to your local Occupy
Wall Street protest and speak with people that are there. What you will
find might surprise you. That is, if you take the time to have a
conversation with the people you meet instead of calling them
“commicrats” and other degrading words – not everybody at the Occupy
Wall Street protests are Democrats or Liberals just like not all of the
Tea Partyers were Republicans and Conservatives. Hell, I’m from Texas
and I know of four Occupy Wall Street protests occurring in my home
state, alone. Point being, you cannot and should not assume to know
anybody’s political or religious affiliation, nor should you group every
person of any affiliation into one group.
I admire that you are
fired up and protesting in the way you seem fit, Pete. I admire that you
fought against the same banks as those on OWS, but where you lose me is
when you suggest that any American citizen fighting for their rights
should be equated to Jim Jones and his cult. Remember that the same
tongue you use to fight for your freedom is the same tongue you are
using to lash out at those different than you, and by calling teachers,
students, and your fellow American citizen anything other than
“protestor”, you are degrading their right to stand up and fight.
The
occupants of OWS are not just “thugs” and “commicrats”, but are men and
women of every age, size, color, gender, religion, party and
tax-bracket. Many, even, are men and women that have tried to become
entrepreneurs under our American system, only to have to shut their
doors when their bank and government had no words for them past
“rejected” and “apologize”. Perhaps you can take a step back and think
to yourself what you would be doing right now if you lost everything –
your business, your home, your car, your well-being and possibly your
ability to support your family – trying to play your hand in our current
economy, in our current government. I’ve heard so many stories from so
many families across the country about how that happened to them. So if
you’re unable to work and you have no home, where else would you turn
to? You’d turn to the streets to fight for justice and answers.
As
an American citizen, I have every right to stand up and say that I have
a problem with our government spending trillions of dollars to send our
military over to fight wars and give other nations freedoms, but at the
cost of who? Americans. Tax-payers.
Of course, I’m sure you know
the infamous first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.
However, it is what comes after that I hope you are briefed upon. I
respectfully ask you to read it, if you aren’t. It’s always nice to see
my fellow American ready to fight for their rights, Pete, and I ask that
you continue to do so in whatever means you see fit. However, please
reconsider how you speak to and about other Americans and remember that
at the end of the day, we are ALL fighting against the banks and NOT
each other as your dialogue would suggest. If we divide ourselves into
parties on the issue of bettering our government, nothing will get done.
“[...]That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That
whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is
the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments
long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it
is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards
for their future security.”
October 10, 2011 at 2:16 am, Msgdw said:
Which organization is paying you to make these comments and betray our country in order to enrich Wall Street. The Koch brothers, the Repubs, Tea Party Express, etc.? Pete, you are nothing but a coward, and a liar. Your unreasoning hate and bigotry are as transparent as your corruption and misguided ignorance. You, like most other Tea Partiers, are probably “Welfare Republicans”- collecting SSI and Medicare while condemning everyone else. I’ve been working since I was 11. Paid for my college education. Served my country (something most Tea Baggers have never done) as a grunt and fought on 3 separate continents. Lost both knees and I still go to work everyday. Who are you to call me a “dirty commie”. I support this movement, wish I could be there everyday, and only regret that it didn’t start sooner. I only hope these kids don’t sell-out like they did in the ’60s. This movement is more reminiscent of the 1930s (just add Woodie Guthry). Our youth are our future, not our clones. We should respect and support their indignent oubursts at our corruption; respect their demands for social and moral justice, because they are only reflecting the ideals that we taught them and then betrayed in order to acheive self-gratification, selfish desires, and laziness.
October 11, 2011 at 8:37 am, Foreordained_corruption said:
The last part of your post is the most amazing piece of writing I have seen in a long time. I wish -everyone- could see it. It is very profound.
October 10, 2011 at 7:08 pm, At said:
Dumbass
October 10, 2011 at 7:08 pm, At said:
Dumbass
October 10, 2011 at 7:08 pm, At said:
Dumbass
October 10, 2011 at 7:27 pm, Anonymous said:
I kind of sympathized with your argument until you started ranting about religious mumbo jumbo and speaking of Liberals as if they’re the Illuminati or something.
Have you considered that maybe *you’re* the one who has been brainwashed into thinking that the only way to run the world is by way of capitalism an corporate action?
October 10, 2011 at 7:27 pm, Anonymous said:
I kind of sympathized with your argument until you started ranting about religious mumbo jumbo and speaking of Liberals as if they’re the Illuminati or something.
Have you considered that maybe *you’re* the one who has been brainwashed into thinking that the only way to run the world is by way of capitalism an corporate action?
October 10, 2011 at 9:08 pm, Thinking Allbymyself said:
Pete, you are unconscious. Come back when you wake up. Thanks.
October 10, 2011 at 9:08 pm, Thinking Allbymyself said:
Pete, you are unconscious. Come back when you wake up. Thanks.
October 10, 2011 at 9:08 pm, Thinking Allbymyself said:
Pete, you are unconscious. Come back when you wake up. Thanks.
October 10, 2011 at 9:08 pm, Thinking Allbymyself said:
Pete, you are unconscious. Come back when you wake up. Thanks.
October 10, 2011 at 10:03 pm, William Brooks said:
I go down to the protest on my days off from work. Many of us do.
October 09, 2011 at 11:48 pm, Alyssa Dupree said:
I find it slightly ironic that you posted this on the website of print magazine that had to go to an online-only format, most likely due to insufficient funding.
While I respect that you, Indie Pete, do go to work and continue to earn your living while paying taxes, I hope that next weekend you can take the time to go out to your local Occupy Wall Street protest and speak with people that are there. What you will find might surprise you. That is, if you take the time to have a conversation with the people you meet instead of calling them “commicrats” and other degrading words – not everybody at the Occupy Wall Street protests are Democrats or Liberals just like not all of the Tea Partyers were Republicans and Conservatives. Hell, I’m from Texas and I know of four Occupy Wall Street protests occurring in my home state, alone. Point being, you cannot and should not assume to know anybody’s political or religious affiliation, nor should you group every person of any affiliation into one group.
I admire that you are fired up and protesting in the way you seem fit, Pete. I admire that you fought against the same banks as those on OWS, but where you lose me is when you suggest that any American citizen fighting for their rights should be equated to Jim Jones and his cult. Remember that the same tongue you use to fight for your freedom is the same tongue you are using to lash out at those different than you, and by calling teachers, students, and your fellow American citizen anything other than “protestor”, you are degrading their right to stand up and fight.
The occupants of OWS are not just “thugs” and “commicrats”, but are men and women of every age, size, color, gender, religion, party and tax-bracket. Many, even, are men and women that have tried to become entrepreneurs under our American system, only to have to shut their doors when their bank and government had no words for them past “rejected” and “apologize”. Perhaps you can take a step back and think to yourself what you would be doing right now if you lost everything – your business, your home, your car, your well-being and possibly your ability to support your family – trying to play your hand in our current economy, in our current government. I’ve heard so many stories from so many families across the country about how that happened to them. So if you’re unable to work and you have no home, where else would you turn to? You’d turn to the streets to fight for justice and answers.
As an American citizen, I have every right to stand up and say that I have a problem with our government spending trillions of dollars to send our military over to fight wars and give other nations freedoms, but at the cost of who? Americans. Tax-payers.
Of course, I’m sure you know the infamous first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. However, it is what comes after that I hope you are briefed upon. I respectfully ask you to read it, if you aren’t. It’s always nice to see my fellow American ready to fight for their rights, Pete, and I ask that you continue to do so in whatever means you see fit. However, please reconsider how you speak to and about other Americans and remember that at the end of the day, we are ALL fighting against the banks and NOT each other as your dialogue would suggest. If we divide ourselves into parties on the issue of bettering our government, nothing will get done.
“[...]That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That
whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is
the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments
long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it
is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards
for their future security.”
October 13, 2011 at 7:23 pm, Anonymous said:
I find (it rhymes with ironic) that you are posting an introductory comment that this site is online only because of insufficient funding, when that is nothing more than your unsubstantiated opinion. What is the reason for mentioning it??
The last paragraph of your comment is one that you may not understand yourself. There is a change in government happening, to be able to physically remove and detain disruptive persons without ever charging them. I like the Occupy Movements because for those involved they are providing the means to take action against them that they have no rights and none should be granted.
Civil disobedience is not a guaranteed right and will give our government the authority in needs to protect our legal rights against the imagined rights of the disruptive dissident malcontent.
October 27, 2011 at 7:37 pm, Breedj said:
Sir as a person w/ several degrees and a long career in computer science I beleve myself educated enough to remind you our founding fathers were ALL people of a kind that if they were alive today they would be protesters.todayur goverment pays lip service to democracy. the freedom to assemble is granteed whether we agree withthe cause or not.
October 13, 2011 at 7:23 pm, Anonymous said:
I find (it rhymes with ironic) that you are posting an introductory comment that this site is online only because of insufficient funding, when that is nothing more than your unsubstantiated opinion. What is the reason for mentioning it??
The last paragraph of your comment is one that you may not understand yourself. There is a change in government happening, to be able to physically remove and detain disruptive persons without ever charging them. I like the Occupy Movements because for those involved they are providing the means to take action against them that they have no rights and none should be granted.
Civil disobedience is not a guaranteed right and will give our government the authority in needs to protect our legal rights against the imagined rights of the disruptive dissident malcontent.
October 10, 2011 at 4:26 am, Pete said:
An analogy to explain derivitives:
Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit.
She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.
To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.
Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).
Word gets around about Heidi’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit .
By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.
Consequently, Heidi’s gross sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi’s borrowing limit.
He sees no reason for any undue concern because he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!
At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS.
These “securities” then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.
Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as “AAA Secured Bonds” really are debts of unemployed alcoholics.
Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb – and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar. He so informs Heidi.
Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons. But, being unemployed alcoholics — they cannot pay back their drinking debts.
Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi’s 11 employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%.
The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank’s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.
The suppliers of Heidi’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the BOND securities.
They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.
Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings cash infusion from the government.
The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Heidi’s bar.
Now do you understand?
October 10, 2011 at 4:26 am, Pete said:
An analogy to explain derivitives:
Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit.
She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.
To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.
Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).
Word gets around about Heidi’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit .
By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.
Consequently, Heidi’s gross sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi’s borrowing limit.
He sees no reason for any undue concern because he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!
At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS.
These “securities” then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.
Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as “AAA Secured Bonds” really are debts of unemployed alcoholics.
Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb – and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar. He so informs Heidi.
Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons. But, being unemployed alcoholics — they cannot pay back their drinking debts.
Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi’s 11 employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%.
The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank’s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.
The suppliers of Heidi’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the BOND securities.
They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.
Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings cash infusion from the government.
The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Heidi’s bar.
Now do you understand?
October 10, 2011 at 4:49 am, Pete said:
Here’s the people that think they can run the country better…………
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZlp3eGMNI
October 10, 2011 at 4:51 am, Pete said:
An analogy to explain derivitives:
Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit.
She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.
To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.
Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).
Word gets around about Heidi’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit .
By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.
Consequently, Heidi’s gross sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi’s borrowing limit.
He sees no reason for any undue concern because he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!
At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS.
These “securities” then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.
Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as “AAA Secured Bonds” really are debts of unemployed alcoholics.
Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb – and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar. He so informs Heidi.
Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons. But, being unemployed alcoholics — they cannot pay back their drinking debts.
Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi’s 11 employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%.
The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank’s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.
The suppliers of Heidi’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the BOND securities.
They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.
Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings cash infusion from the government.
The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Heidi’s bar.
Now do you understand?
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 13, 2011 at 6:39 pm, Anonymous said:
It’s a beautiful analogy Pete but there is an omission,Was Heidi’s debt insured by her or any of the other ‘participants’ It would have to be. Naive is the focal point here whether it’s the naive investor or naive readership, people that don’t understand anything cause problems by ‘believing’ they have the intelligence and also the right to become involved.
October 10, 2011 at 11:09 pm, Pete said:
Sex and drugs on tap, who says it’s not a political partaaay? Occupy Wall Street protesters make love as well as class warOccupy Wall Street protesters make love as well as class war with sex and drugs on tap
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047168/Occupy-Wall-Street-protesters-make-love-class-war-sex-drugs-tap.html
October 10, 2011 at 11:09 pm, Pete said:
Sex and drugs on tap, who says it’s not a political partaaay? Occupy Wall Street protesters make love as well as class warOccupy Wall Street protesters make love as well as class war with sex and drugs on tap
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047168/Occupy-Wall-Street-protesters-make-love-class-war-sex-drugs-tap.html
October 10, 2011 at 11:09 pm, Pete said:
Sex and drugs on tap, who says it’s not a political partaaay? Occupy Wall Street protesters make love as well as class warOccupy Wall Street protesters make love as well as class war with sex and drugs on tap
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047168/Occupy-Wall-Street-protesters-make-love-class-war-sex-drugs-tap.html