I’m going to make a point to see this soon….
Inspired by true events (think Bear Sterns? Merrill Lynch?) and with an all-star cast including Jeremy Irons, Kevin Spacey, Stanley Tucci, Paul Bettany, Demi Moore, Penn Badley, Zachary Quinto, Simon Baker….
It was also just named “Best First Feature” by the New York Film Critics…
I’ll let you know more once I see it….
Filed under Occupy Wall Street, Politics, The Economy
Interesting timing on this one…
I can’t help but think that Mayor Bloomberg is trying to take some focus off his gestapo tactics against Occupy Wall Street last week….
Seems like the real goal is to make Bloomberg and the NYPD look like good guys again….
If they have been watching this guy- who sounds like another lone wolf lunatic- for 2 years, why did they decide to arrest him now? No mention of an imminent threat….
Also, I love Bloomberg’s comments about people taking away freedoms. Didn’t he just do that?
Call me cynical….
From NPR:
An “al-Qaida sympathizer” who plotted to bomb police and post offices in New York City as well as U.S. troops returning home has been arrested on numerous terrorism-related charges, city officials said Sunday.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced at a news conference the Saturday arrest of Jose Pimentel of Manhattan, “a 27-year-old al-Qaida sympathizer” who the mayor said was motivated by terrorist propaganda and resentment of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As a general matter, law enforcement officials categorize terrorist plots by determining if they are “aspirational” or “inspirational.” Aspirational plots involve someone wishing or wanting to do something; inspirational are plots when a suspect actually acts.
Officials say Pimentel was in the second category.
The mayor said Pimentel, a U.S. citizen originally from the Dominican Republic, was “plotting to bomb police patrol cars and also postal facilities as well as targeted members of our armed services returning from abroad.”
Authorities have no evidence that Pimentel was working with anyone else, the mayor added.
“He appears to be a total lone wolf,” the mayor said. “He was not part of a larger conspiracy emanating from abroad.”
Instead, Bloomberg said, Pimentel represents the type of threat FBI Director Robert Mueller has warned about as U.S. forces erode the ability of terrorists to carry out large scale attacks.
Pimentel, also known as Muhammad Yusuf, is accused of having an explosive substance Saturday when he was arrested that he planned to use against others and property to terrorize the public.
The charges accuse him of conspiracy going back at least to October 2010, and include first-degree criminal possession of a weapon as a crime of terrorism, and soliciting support for a terrorist act. He was to be arraigned later Sunday and would face state terror charges.
“This is just another example of New York City because we are an iconic city … this is a city that people would want to take away our freedoms gravitate to and focus on,” Bloomberg said.
Filed under Occupy Wall Street
It seems the Ruling Class is more afraid of Occupy Wall Street than they want to let on in public….
This lobby firm memo outlines their plans to fight back- and they wouldn’t be wasting time and effort to fight them if they weren’t afraid of Occupy Wall Street….
The 1% have a lot of money and media resources, but I’m hoping Occupy Wall Street has grown big enough to withstand their plans.
Things are just too far out of sync in the country right now for me to believe they can beat all this back with a PR campaign…
Mayor Bloomberg couldn’t do it with the NYPD…..
Great scoop from Chris Hayes at MSNBC….
A well-known Washington lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests, according to a memo obtained by the MSNBC program “Up w/ Chris Hayes.”
The proposal was written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association.
CLGC’s memo proposes that the ABA pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” about the protests and allied politicians. The memo also asserts that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and targets specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead.
According to the memo, if Democrats embrace OWS, “This would mean more than just short-term political discomfort for Wall Street. … It has the potential to have very long-lasting political, policy and financial impacts on the companies in the center of the bullseye.”
The memo also suggests that Democratic victories in 2012 should not be the ABA’s biggest concern. “… (T)he bigger concern,” the memo says, “should be that Republicans will no longer defend Wall Street companies.”
AND:
The CLGC memo raises another issue that it says should be of concern to the financial industry — that OWS might find common cause with the Tea Party. “Well-known Wall Street companies stand at the nexus of where OWS protestors and the Tea Party overlap on angered populism,” the memo says. “…This combination has the potential to be explosive later in the year when media reports cover the next round of bonuses and contrast it with stories of millions of Americans making do with less this holiday season.”
The memo outlines a 60-day plan to conduct surveys and research on OWS and its supporters so that Wall Street companies will be prepared to conduct a media campaign in response to OWS. Wall Street companies “likely will not be the best spokespeople for their own cause,” according to the memo. “A big challenge is to demonstrate that these companies still have political strength and that making them a political target will carry a severe political cost.”
Part of the plan CLGC proposes is to do “statewide surveys in at least eight states that are shaping up to be the most important of the 2012 cycle.”
Specific races listed in the memo are U.S. Senate races in Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Mexico and Nevada as well as the gubernatorial race in North Carolina.
Filed under Occupy Wall Street, Politics
Okay, I’ve published enough fluff for today.
Let’s get back to Politics….
This is one of the biggest issues associated with income inequality. And it’s frequently overlooked.
The ridiculous salaries on Wall Street are creating a Brain Drain that draws young people, fresh out of College and many with large student loans, to go to Wall Street to try chase the dream to slave for ten years or so and retire billionaires at 40.
All these ridiculous, complex new financial instruments, like Credit Default Swaps, Hedge funds, etc. are really legalized gambling, market manipulation and frankly, fraud, created by super smart people to make a quick buck. The old, staid Wall Street of yore would never have thought these things up or known what to do with them.
Face it, the guys who used to run Wall Street weren’t that smart…
Now young people who should be attracted to jobs that might make Society better, be more fulfilling and create something positive are all running to Wall Street to try to think up the next ridiculously complex financial instrument to make themselves rich- no matter who it hurts or that it adds nothing to society.
Let’s get back to the basics:
It’s all out of whack….priorities, salaries, creativity and risk.
It shouldn’t all be about a quick and easy buck-like today’s system encourages….
From Huffington Post:
But what if top students didn’t go to Wall Street? What if, rather than creating complex financial products that collapsed the global economy, they were building bridges and creating new technologies instead?
As America struggles to create jobs and get back on its feet after the recession — caused largely by the financial industry’s recklessness — the country is in desperate need of more entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists and other professionals, a complaint regularly made by non-Wall Street business leaders and members of both major political parties.
Lee Jackson is a senior economics major at Stanford who edits a financial newsletter called The Opportune Time. He has interned on Wall Street and plans to work in finance after graduation, but admits the profession needs reform.
“I think the emphasis is more on making money and making a profit, and there’s been less emphasis … on what the greater societal implications of that are,” he said, pointing to fields like law and medicine that focus on the needs of the client or patient and have outreach programs to help low-income individuals. During the debate over Wall Street reform, meanwhile, bank lobbyists fought a provision in the Dodd-Frank legislation that would require financial companies to operate in the best interests of their clients.
“Over the past few years in the mainstream American culture, the bad side of American finance has come out time and time again,” he added. “But my fear is that the good side of finance and the side that can help people save for retirement, build their own wealth and be able to support themselves [will be lost].”
Yet without a cultural shift and reforms that rein in the financial industry’s sky-high profits and salaries, a disproportionate number of the best and the brightest will continue to head to Wall Street.
“Our financial system remains out of whack in terms of regulation, compensation, and until our economy is stronger, it’s not surprising that young people will be attracted to the place where the money and jobs are,” Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senate candidate and creator of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told The Huffington Post. “In a sense … it’s a demand problem, [as well as] the fact there is not enough demand in the rest of the economy. It’s both problems.”
via America’s ‘Brain Drain’: Best And Brightest College Grads Head For Wall Street.
Filed under Occupy Wall Street, Politics, Uncategorized
Priceless….
He says just what I was thinking: Michael Bloomberg is now in the same league as George Wallace, Senator Joseph McCarthy and others of that ilk….
I’ll let Keith say it as only Keith can:
Filed under Justice System, Law Enforcement, Occupy Wall Street, Politics, Uncategorized
Seems he’s in the minority on this- at least among the GOP.
Mayor Bloomberg certainly doesn’t seem to agree with this opinion…
The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are “as American as apple pie,” former Secretary of State Colin Powell said during a recent interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan. According to Powell, there is plenty of justification for the movement’s outrage, but also some reason for concern over its direction.
Powell began by recalling his upbringing in Harlem and the Bronx at a time when his parents didn’t make much, but were at least able to find stable employment.
“I don’t think either of them ever made more than 50 or 60 dollars a week,” Powell said. “Both my parents worked for as long as I can remember, they always worked, they always had work.”
But this sort of job stability is no longer present, the retired four-star Army general said, a fact that is now serving as a catalyzing force for the Occupy movement.
“People are concerned now that there is not that source of an income, there isn’t that work source that I remember,” Powell continued. “What you’re seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they’re directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.”
via Colin Powell: Occupy Wall Street Demonstrations Are ‘As American As Apple Pie’.
Filed under Occupy Wall Street, Politics, Uncategorized
I’ve been trying to follow the news about the eviction of Occupy Wall Street from Zucotti Park.
The problem is, there isn’t any. Or at least not much….
That is because New York Mayor Bloomberg is acting more like he runs Cairo than New York.
I still can’t quite believe he actually implied Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Assembly are situational, not intrinsic American Rights.
I still can’t believe he actually stopped the Media from covering the eviction by arresting journalists.
I can believe the mainstream media is not covering this as it is all Corporate owned now…
This is simply not the way things are supposed to work in America….
The actions of the Mayor of New York and the NYPD under his direction make Zucotti Park look like Cairo during the Arab spring or a potential Tiananmen Square.
These were not actions consistent with respect for Democracy and peaceful protest and assembly.
These were the actions of an oligarch protecting the assets of the 1%. He moved against the many to protect the interests of the few.
He just proved the Occupy Wall Street movement is right- and very necessary…
Hopefully, this will only make the Occupy Wall Street movement grow stronger.
I’ll be watching nervously and hopefully.
This is scary stuff when Americans are treated this way by the Police and the agents of the Ruling Class….
Here is a report from reporter Josh Harkinson at Mother Jones. I’m just trying to do my bit to spread the news, since the mainstream media sure isn’t.
“Can I help you?” an burly officer asked me, his helpfulness belied by his scowl.
“I’m a reporter,” I told him.
“This is a frozen zone, all right?” he said, using a term I’d never heard before. “Just like them, you have to leave the area. If you do not, you will be subject to arrest.”
By then, riot police were moving in, indiscriminately dousing the peaceful protesters with what looked like pepper spray or some sort of gas. As people yelled and screamed and cried, I tried to stay calm.
“I promise to leave once the arrests are done,” I replied.
“This is a frozen zone,” one cop insisted. “You could be injured.” His meaning was clear.
“No, you are going to leave now.”
He grabbed my arm and began dragging me off. My shoes skidded across the park’s slimy granite floor. All around me, zip-cuffed occupiers writhed on the ground beneath a fog of chemicals.
“I just want to witness what is going on here,” I yelped.
“You can witness it with the rest of the press,” he said. Which, of course, meant not witnessing it.
“Why are you excluding the press from observing this?” I asked.
“Because this is a frozen zone. It’s a police action going on. You could be injured.”
His meaning was clear. I let myself be hustled across the street to the press pen.
“What’s your name?”
His reply came as fast as he could turn away: “Watch your back.”
via Exclusive Video: Inside Police Lines at the Occupy Wall Street Eviction | Mother Jones.
Filed under Journalism, Occupy Wall Street, Uncategorized
Brilliant article in “Rolling Stone” by Matt Taibbi. Finally, someone truly both gets and can articulate the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Here is a very brief excerpt and a link to the full article. I strongly encourage you to click the link and read the entire article.
It’s not very long, so don’t be afraid….
…Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance. It’s about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything. This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire direction of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, short-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American mass society has become. If there is such a thing as going on strike from one’s own culture, this is it. And by being so broad in scope and so elemental in its motivation, it’s flown over the heads of many on both the right and the left.
via How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the OWS Protests | Politics News | Rolling Stone.
Filed under Occupy Wall Street, Politics
Well, there is some comfort here….
Occupy Wall Street is a serious, grass-roots uprising of normal citizens try to force society into recognizing and dealing with income inequality and the Corporate ownership of our government.
I guess that’s a little more important than some no-talent, plastic pre-pubescent “entertainer” who is a manufactured product of the very mass-produced culture generated by these corporations, strictly to make money from gullible Americans, and forced down their throats via distribution, broadcast and media empires owned by said Corporations…
Besides, I’m still not convinced Justin Bieber isn’t really a 24 year-old Lesbian being marketed by the Corporations as a teenage boy.
Call me cynical, but remember Milli Vanilli…
From Huffington Post:
The Occupy Wall Street movement topped Justin Bieber as the most popular story on Twitter, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Despite the teen heart-throb’s over 14 million Twitter followers, Occupy Wall Street was the top story on Twitter between October 24 and 28, followed by Bieber, who has made the New Media Index charts three times in the last five weeks. Steve Job’s death, the news of which broke October 6, came in third and the 2012 presidential elections ranked fourth.
The Occupy Wall Street movement was the third most popular news story on blogs (Bieber didn’t make the cut!) and the New Media Index notes that the protests “inspired very different conversations on blogs and Twitter.”
“On Twitter, the tone was markedly pro-protestor, with Twitter users sharing images and videos of police using tear gasduring protests in Oakland,” wrote the New Media Index in its report.
Recent analysis by Google found that search interest in Occupy Wall Street had waned slightly from its peak on October 15.
An NMIncite study released October 19 concluded that social media “buzz” about Occupy Wall Street “reached its peak on October 6th with 13,133 messages being posted in one day,” though the New Media Index’s findings suggest conversations about the movement are up again on Twitter.
Bieber enjoys such high popularity on Twitter that employees at the social media company have joked that the star has his own servers.
“At any moment, Justin Bieber uses 3% of our infrastructure. Racks of servers are dedicated to him. – A guy who works at Twitter,” tweeted Dustin Curtis last year.
via Justin Bieber Less Popular Than Occupy Wall Street On Twitter.
Filed under Media, Music, Occupy Wall Street, Uncategorized
This is great news! As a happy Credit Union Member for over 20 years, all I can say is welcome! You will be very happy here.
I’ve said it again and again: I don’t understand why anyone wants to bank with the big national banks. They will screw you on fees and treat you like dirt. Take your money to a Credit Union where you are one of the owners helping other owners and community members.
From ThinkProgress.org:
One of the tactics the 99 Percenters are using to take back the country from the 1 percent is to move their money from big banks to credit unions, community banks, and other smaller financial unions that aren’t gambling with our nation’s future.
Now, the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) reports that a whopping 650,000 Americans have joined credit unions since Sept. 29 — the date that Bank of America announced it would start charging a $5 monthly debit fee, a move it backed down on this week.
To put that in perspective, there were only 600,000 new members for credit unions in all of 2010. “These results indicate that consumers are clearly making a smarter choice by moving to credit unions where, on average, they will save about $70 a year in fewer or no fees, lower rates on loans and higher return on savings,” said CUNA President Bill Cheney.
This Saturday, 99 Percenters are calling on Americans to move their money from big banks to credit unions and community banks on what is being called “Bank Transfer Day.” If you want to stand with the 99 Percent and take part in this action, use the Move Your Money project’s community bank and credit union finder tool to find out how.
Filed under Occupy Wall Street
Lost in the 21st Century 