Haha, too funny. I will have to satisfy myself with the fact that you don't give two craps about the matter and are not that educated on the finer points of it. No worries, not everyone cares and I totally respect that. Plenty of people are happy with the status quo and not rocking the boat.
Yeah I'm totally uneducated on US financial regulation, what with being employed in financial regulation and all
Non-violent and passive civil disobedience is effective.
I agree with that, I just don't think this protest is delivering any sort of message. I've read a number of stories on it and the message always boils down to the same points we've heard over and over again. There are some legitimate points in there, and some ridiculous ones, but nothing is moving forward through this protest. It's wheel spinning. No issues are being brought to the forefront, no hard questions are being asked, it's ineffective and comes off as a bunch of whining. Add in the fact that the only people being put out are those that are actually trying to go to their jobs and live their lives and I don't have a lot of positive thoughts on the whole idea.
Some of it definitely is apathy for sure, but like I said in my case it's more of a case of not understanding what it is these people want to accomplish mostly because they don't have a clear concise message.
And I guess, it's not entirely all their fault, I mean it's a lot easier to protest a war and get troops out ala Vietnam than fix the wealth gap and corruption in a social and political system. But still I think they should have had more of an idea of what they wanted to accomplish or how when they started this. Even their slogan 'What's our demand?' sounds ridiculous. It can either be taken as sounding clueless, or immature. The whole thing just isn't being done very well.
I heard about this when it started and was quite excited about it, but after finding out more about it, I found it hard to care about.
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Some of it definitely is apathy for sure, but like I said in my case it's more of a case of not understanding what it is these people want to accomplish mostly because they don't have a clear concise message.
And I guess, it's not entirely all their fault, I mean it's a lot easier to protest a war and get troops out ala Vietnam than fix the wealth gap and corruption in a social and political system. But still I think they should have had more of an idea of what they wanted to accomplish or how when they started this. Even their slogan 'What's our demand?' sounds ridiculous. It can either be taken as sounding clueless, or immature. The whole thing just isn't being done very well.
I heard about this when it started and was quite excited about it, but after finding out more about it, I found it hard to care about.
In general, no laws were broken because the regulatory environment had been lessened or hadn't existed in the arena in which dangerous leverage was created . . . . . hence no one going to jail.
The Canadian banking system emerged from the 2000's as a global star, not because our bankers were smarter than the others but because our politicians had confined them to a regulatory straight jacket that kept them from following the global herd. In actual fact, our clever Canadian bankers spent a lot of the 2000's protesting this government imposed straightjacket even though our system allows them a semi-monopoly as compensation.
We have seen these leverage bombs taking us down before. Usually they arise out of non-regulated environments, where smart guys figure out there are no rules and dive in, followed by everyone else until the grand explosion. In this case, the world of derivatives and packaged mortgages.
All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again . . . . some way, some how. There's always someone looking for an angle.
So . . . . . I'm kind of wondering why these people are protesting on Wall St. when the animals working there were only doing what came instinctively and was essentially allowed by rules.
Instead, they should be protesting outside of Congress and the White House or state legislatures because, ultimately, those are the places that open or close the gates.
This was about the cage, not the lions in the cage.
Cowperson
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^^^ You are right of course, I guess Wall St. just makes a better target symbolically for those who don't fully understand the problem. Either way, the message is the same, I imagine the politicians know that if there is change to be made they need to lead the charge with regulations.
Based on the poster in the OP, this group's one demand is that they want a ballerina to dance on a bull? Can we just arrange that so everyone can get along again?
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Today we were out at our Parliment in Iceland protesting the inaction of the government, 5000 people showed up out of a tiny nation of only 300,000. This is a regular occurrence these last 3 years and this is why I'm upset that the protests in the US are so small and ineffective. I mean apathy isn't even the right word, its like people feel defeated and unable to make any serious change to their own plight.
About 50 seconds in - people drinking champagne as protesters walk by.
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We may curse our bad luck that it's sounds like its; who's sounds like whose; they're sounds like their (and there); and you're sounds like your. But if we are grown-ups who have been through full-time education, we have no excuse for muddling them up.
I was at the NYSE for a part of a day last week and I think Wall Street has to start taking these groups seriously. The numbers of protesters was huge but all the Wall Street guys I met with are shrugging them off as amateurs. Look at what happened with Alberta when they shrugged off protests on the oil sands. The protesters are winning the PR battle because of that.
I think some bankers from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan should be in jail, as well as some people from the ratings agencies.....
The people who are irritated with the disruptive nature of this peaceful protest are the same ones who would be huffing and puffing if there was vandalism and rioting...you just can't win with some folks.
Michael Moore is there. He is spreading the idea of ending capitalism. What a dumb, fat hypocrite who just doesn't get it.
Article on National Post says that these protests are coming to Canada, and specifically Calgary. It says that in Vancouver the plan is to occupy the art gallery for an indefinite period, but I didn't notice a location for Calgary.
I'll surely get flamed for this, but might I suggest the Drop-In Center?
Article on National Post says that these protests are coming to Canada, and specifically Calgary. It says that in Vancouver the plan is to occupy the art gallery for an indefinite period, but I didn't notice a location for Calgary.
I'll surely get flamed for this, but might I suggest the Drop-In Center?
Article on National Post says that these protests are coming to Canada, and specifically Calgary. It says that in Vancouver the plan is to occupy the art gallery for an indefinite period, but I didn't notice a location for Calgary.
I'll surely get flamed for this, but might I suggest the Drop-In Center?
From their Facebook group it looks like they want to protest in front of Banker's Hall or Olympic Plaza. Don't know what they would be protesting in Canada, the strong financial regulations?
