LJWorld.com weblogs In Simple Words
Posted
by Dave Klamet
November 22, 2011 at 11:01 p.m.
The 1% strikes again?
From the title for this post, you can see that I am obviously a staunch supporter of the OWS movement. Although I wish different people were doing the talking and I'm a little dismayed at what I think are some misdirected priorities, I'm thankful that a such a movement has started and that it has endured long enough to give me confidence that it is more than a fad.
Of course there are many "activists" who protest because that is what the do. And yes, many of them are naive and some are downright silly.
However I gain a little more hope each time there is some inane attack on the protesters. Whether they come from comments here on LJW, FOX news, CEO's I know, or wherever.... It is the people that I see and hear being disparaged, but not the ideas.
I guess we take it for granted that you can buy anything with money: influence, fame, and politicians to name a few.
Chad Lawhorn's article on rising farmland prices today caught my attention. If, as he reports, farmland is being bought for investment purposes and that is the cause of the increasing prices, then we should call this activity just what it is.
Speculation. Brought to you by the same guys who lent money to anyone with a heartbeat, then refused to restructure loans even though it would have reduced their losses, then foreclosed, then negligently neglected many houses causing them to be trashed (frozen/broken pipes....).
There are those who claim that speculation is a sign of a free market and therefore a good thing. It definitely is, at least for the speculators. For those of us who pay for the products grown on this land, or the vanishing family farms, and those of us who don't have the money, or the leverage to invest in any commodity and drive the price up, well, I don't think that it is such a good thing.
We can chose to look at some of the antics of the OWS movement and find fault. Or we can listen to the message and make a decision based on our experience and common sense.
Perhaps you can watch the coverage of people having their belongings piled on the sidewalk and not feel shamed and anger at the greed and stupidity that caused it. Maybe you can make yourself believe that it could never happen to you.
The truth is the truth, no matter what we think of the speaker. The way things are now is not the way is they must remain.
These people may not have done things the way I wish they had, but they have more gumption and determination than I do...than we do.
Our history is filled with people who'd had enough. Each time, I imagine it took a while before we recognized them. They're the ones who were at the Boston Tea Party, campaigned for civil rights, and protested against the Vietnam War.
and 5 others
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Comments
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JayG (anonymous) says…
The only problem with your analysis is that most buyers of farmland today (70%+) are farmers.
autie (anonymous) says…
Well stated Dave. I wish I had an answer and an understanding of those who attack the persons and not the ideal. The overall message is clear but so many of the conservatives ignore it, even though they are part of the 99% getting shafted. Part of my own family participated in various ways in occupy protest and all of them are well paid professionals with leftist leanings. No rapist or camping or vandalism. Then other parts of my family steadfastly complaining about the hippies without jobs wanting government handouts when all the do is watch Bill O'really and think he is a prophet. (I still don't undertand why my mother didn't just go ahead and eat my little brother when he was young) But the point, too many of the detractors ignore the meaning of the message. It is easier to throw rocks then till a field.
rockchalk1977 (anonymous) replies…
Problem is autie most fleabaggers couldn't "till a field" or do much of anything else. For the most part, these are spoiled, lazy, greedy children with the gimme-gimmes. The term "self reliance" is nowhere in their limited vocabulary.
TopJayhawk (anonymous) replies…
Autie, I'm sorry, I have watched and listened, and I can't really figure out what the message is other than "Rich bad, and they should pay my bills."
If the Farmer of the seventies were smart, he still has his farm. It was the greedy ones who listened to the bankers about how much their land was worth, and went for the big bucks not thinking what might happen when and if the land deprecitated.
Stop blaming everyone else for your problems.
dklamet (Dave Klamet) replies…
The message is that the 1% are tilting the table, more and more, to favor their interests.
As a society we need two things (that I can think of).
1. And end to the ability to buy influence in Washington.
2. A populace that punishes, economically, those businesses who behave unethically.
There is no way to figure out exactly what "fair and reasonable" is, but we are, in the opinion of almost everyone I've spoken with, way, way over the line.
hujiko (anonymous) says…
"However I gain a little more hope each time there is some inane attack on the protesters. Whether they come from comments here on LJW, FOX news, CEO's I know, or wherever.... It is the people that I see and hear being disparaged, but not the ideas."
Bingo.
tribalzendancer (Tim Hjersted) says…
It's hard to have discussions about reality when so many people are still getting their news from the corporate media, which itself serves neither a left or right political agenda so much as its serves the interests of the 1% and their own bottom line.
Liberty275 (anonymous) says…
If OWS wasn't a mockery of reality it would have been called ODC.
Mindless zombies are trying to stand in the way of people that don't bother to see them even while the government they are begging for help via regulation is macing them, putting them in jail, hitting them with sticks, whatever.
The OWS is like the chicken asking the wolf for help because the wolf is eating it. The wolf isn't going to stop chewing long enough to answer.
OWS is drivel.
Liberty_One (anonymous) says…
"Speculation. Brought to you by the same guys who lent money to anyone with a heartbeat,"
Good so far, but you inquiry seems to end here. Why? Why don't you investigate the issue a little further? If you did you would need to answer where do these lenders get this money to lend? It isn't from savings because there isn't enough savings to cover all this. They are writing checks based on nothing. Now if you or I did that we would go to jail for fraud, but if a bank does that they get protected by the government. If they run out of fraudulent funds to lend the Federal Reserve gives them some more. If they are so overdrawn that they are about to go out of business Congress bails them out. This isn't a problem of the free market, this is a problem of NOT having a free market. In a free market such wild speculation would be punished by huge losses. Those who were reckless would run out of funds with which to speculate. The government keeps the charade going by preventing the free market from regulating such speculation.
And the overall rise in prices is not a product of speculation. In a free market, if funds are flowing to one sector, then they must be flowing out of some other sector. Rising prices in one commodity are offset by falling prices in another. This is because of scarcity. An overall rise in prices is caused by government policy--inflation. Inflation is the result of an increase in the supply of money, and not caused by speculation. Inflation is the method by which the government secretly confiscates the wealth of the people. That's what Keynes said--the founder of Obama and Bernanke's school of economic thought. Here's a quote from Keynes:
"By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens." That's who Bernanke, head of the banks, follows. That's what is really going on.
devobrun (anonymous) says…
So the housing market is a shambles because of speculation. And farm land markets are now dominated by speculators. And don't forget "green", Dave. Most green markets are pure speculation since the actual product (solar, wind) doesn't make enough money to support itself.
We have abstracted ourselves right off the planet, Dave. What market is the most vital and active right now and for the last 15 years? Communications. Google is....what?
Advertising. Advertising for more advertising that advertises. For what? More communications equipment to speed the flow of advertising. I'm holding out until 14g comes along. This single-digit play stuff is for kids. I can't wait until I can plug the electronic gadget directly into my brain ( like the Matrix). Then the advertising can go straight in and I can get the very best prices on the gadgets that send out more advertising.
Twitter that to your facebook friends who stare down at their machines as they walk like zombies through the world texting and texting and texting and texting. Lost in the abstraction of models and projections and speculations.
Created reality is more than just speculators, Dave. It is all around you. Try this one today, Dave. Turn off your phone. Leave it off all day and live the way people did 20 years ago. Feel the pain of living a life not rooted in abstraction. After reading this, turn off your electronics and live a day without being in the fog of electronic stimulation.
View the speculators and OWSers from the perspective of a person who has been fasting from electronic manipulation. Electronic fasting. Wake up to the old reality that computer control of your life is not real. Stop the speculators by showing the world that land is real, not a speculation. Houses are things that people live in, not equity investment units. Get it?