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On Wall Street, Some Insiders Express Quiet Outrage


By davidswanson - Posted on 02 December 2011

Police cleared the Occupy Los Angeles camp early Wednesday, arresting about 300 protesters.Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPolice cleared the Occupy Los Angeles camp early Wednesday, arresting about 300 protesters. Raids in Philadelphia led to 52 arrests.

Last week, I had a conversation with a man who runs his own trading firm. In the process of fuming about competition from Goldman Sachs, he said with resignation and exasperation: “The fact that they were bailed out and can borrow for free — it’s pretty sickening.”

Though the sentiment is commonplace these days, I later found myself thinking about his outrage. Here is someone who is in the thick of the business, trading every day, and he is being sickened by the inequities and corruption on Wall Street and utterly persuaded that nothing has changed in the years since the financial crisis of 2008.

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I might be misaken, but it seems to me that someone saying, “The fact that they were bailed out and can borrow for free — it’s pretty sickening”, isn't someone I'ld consider truly outraged; disturbed, discomforted, but not what I'ld consider as being outraged.  The man's opposed to Wall Street et al bs, but his quoted words seem relatively mild.  So, I wouldn't say that he's outraged.  I'ld only say that he disagrees with Wall Street and Washington politics and that those politics affect him or her; without being able to say that the same person or persons would care, if they weren't affected by Wall St. et al bs.  Maybe they wouldn't care, if they weren't personally affected in ways other than profitable to them.

That should be a great relief: Some of them are just like us! Just because you are deranged doesn’t mean you are irrational, after all. Wall Street is already occupied — from within.

That doesn't make much sense to me, for isn't being deranged an irrational state of being?  Pretty much the whole economic system, here, is both deranged and irrational, but in a case like this, I don't know of a significant difference between the two terms.

And of course there'll be some insiders who're negatively affected with the racket that's being played out against us all. It's all about the "big boys" seeking profit for themselves, so any or many small-time players will suffer; expectably.

The insiders have a critique similar to that of the outsiders. The financial industry has strayed far from being an intermediary between companies that want to raise capital so they can sell people things they want. Instead, it is a machine to enrich itself, fleecing customers and widening income inequality. When it goes off the rails, it impoverishes the rest of us. When the crises come, as they inevitably do, banks hold the economy hostage, warning that they will shoot us in the head if we don’t bail them out.

That's a situation to avoid. Gulp.  We don't want these elites, ie, elite morons, to be shooting us in the head; not a good idea at all!

I won’t pretend this is a widespread view in finance — or even a large minority. You don’t hear this from the executives running the big Wall Street firms; you don’t hear it from the average trader or investment banker. From them, we get self-pity.

And expensive Lamborghinis. I came across an article that I didn't read, but nevertheless came across some months ago, and the title was about there being more of these hugely expensive cars in the USA, now, than there were in the past; and, I assume that the understandably outraged activist writer is right.

Perhaps a major reason so few in this secret confederacy speak out is that they are as flummoxed about practical solutions as the rest of us. They don’t know where to begin.

They could start by adhering to the US Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence, plus international laws, etc. we're co-signatory to and which, according to the US Constitution, are part of the "supreme law of the land" in and for the USA; plus sound common sense, which is to never be forgotten or undeveloped.  We already have a fine enough guideline to follow, to adhere to, so it's not "rocket science" that's required to get us out of this mess.  "Rocket science" won't eliminate or stop greed; many or most RS experts work for the destroyers of this world, anyway.

The British Commons comes to mind.  From the little I've learned about that history, lands were made available to the general population. People didn't have to financially or personally own land to have access to land to do farming or gardening, fe.  Or, well, it's what I thought to be able to understand about the British Commons, anyway.  If I'm not mistaken about that, then it's a great concept.  Everyone should be able to have free access to land to work to grow food, raise small animals, etc.

It seems that whenever we have any real good, it becomes "disappeared" very quickly.

The moron ruling elites clearly don't even care about the future generations of their own families, so how are we supposed to believe that we shouldn't resist against such people?  King Moron is King Ass.  Give the person a trophy so that they finally accept to withdraw.  They're brats of the highest order and need to be contented a little in order to calm down, a little, so give them trophies and send them home or packing, to go wherever they won't be obstructions to the rest of us.  Give them medals of honor, for them to finally quit, contented with being treated as honorable, when they're really the complete opposite.  We don't have to tell them the latter part of the story and can just pretend that they're most honorable, to try to get them to relax and give humanity a real break.  Heh,  they constantly try to deceive us, and if the dance partner wants to try to fool us, then fool the idiot partner, in return; and, hopefully, succeed.

Wishful dreaming doesn't constitute reality for us.  An individual can have dreams, like the above eg, fe, but it doesn't change reality for the rest of this world.  Sometimes, what's needed is individual, personal justice, but what this article is about is of mass concern, a mass issue, and it reaches beyond national boundaries.  All of humanity is being very adversely affected with this  racketeer economic system and its control of our governments.

There's nothing wrong with fooling or trying to fool charlatans and racketeers.  It's not likely to happen, but when caught in a "tight spot", then we can certainly try go get out of it unscathed; even if it requires lying to pathological liars.  There's nothing wrong with fooling or trying to fool them.  Hypothetically, we could work on fooling them into believing that we're with them, meanwhile working on trying to end their ways.  That's purely hypothetical, but they need to be stopped and any peaceful, nonviolent means is acceptable for achieving this end (dreamfully).

They don't care about this world; don't even care about their own children, grandchildren, and so on. 

Interesting picture, but what are the gas masks for?  Are they only for symbolic purpose, or have the police forces been making a lot of use of gasses against peaceful demonstrators? 

I know pepper spray has been used and masks would surely be very helpful in these cases, but haven't yet heard or read of pepper spray being used in more than a few instances in the USA, against activist demonstrators..  I vaguely recall the details about the US Iraq war vet. who was hit in the head with some sort of gas cannister, tear gas I think, and he had to be hospitalized, apparently for considerable time, too.  I think he was still hospitalized just two weeks ago, or so.  But, I haven't read or heard of tear gas being used more than little by the police state forces, so far.

Maybe the guys wearing masks in the photo. are doing this only due to the Iraq or Afghanistan war vet. who was hit in the head with a gas cannister fired by stupid brown-shirt police.  It'ld be understandable symbolism.  What I'm wondering about is if the govt or police state has been making use of gasses against demonstrators in the USA much more than I'm presently aware of.

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