#OccupyWallstreet

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Patranus

Patranus

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2007
9,280
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spidey07 said:
LOL! Anybody still think this isn't a far left/communist movement? Listen to them! It's straight up class warfare, they are the useful idiots, just as marx predicted and used.
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The funny thing is that they agree with him and don't realize it.

First they say that he should pay LESS taxes than he is currently paying.
Then they say that he should work for himself and not government but go on to say that they should repeal the BOOOSH tax cuts which would cause him to work for the government by forcing him to pay more than 50% of his income to taxes.
 
Blackjack200

Blackjack200

Lifer
May 28, 2007
15,995
1,688
126
Patranus

Patranus

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2007
9,280
0
0
Blackjack200 said:
Really, they've been there for almost 6 weeks now and that's the best you've got? A few freeloaders moved in and they're getting rid of them? I don't agree 100% with OWS, but I have to admit they've worked hard to keep up their protest and have done a pretty good job.
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If you haven't noticed, the entire OWS movement is all about freeloaders.
 
MagickMan

MagickMan

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2008
7,460
3
76
Blackjack200 said:
Really, they've been there for almost 6 weeks now and that's the best you've got? A few freeloaders moved in and they're getting rid of them? I don't agree 100% with OWS, but I have to admit they've worked hard to keep up their protest and have done a pretty good job.
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95% of them don't even know why they're there! They just mill around repeating what others around them say. That's why this isn't working, and that's why people aren't taking them seriously.


LTC8K6 said:
http://wmal.com/Article.asp?id=2320795

Freedom of assembly?
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That's actually very enlightening. Can't say I agree with the Tea Party, but at least they tried to obey the law.
 
Blackjack200

Blackjack200

Lifer
May 28, 2007
15,995
1,688
126
^^^^^^^^^^^^

Beaten by 4 minutes, but as you can see, I largely agree.

MagickMan said:
95% of them don't even know why they're there! They just mill around repeating what others around them say. That's why this isn't working, and that's why people aren't taking them seriously.
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That's a problem with almost every protest/movement nowadays. Even the Iraq war protests I went to, which most would agree were pretty damn legit in terms of their gripes, were attended in no small part by Communist party members, Labor Party fringe types and people holding signs with wild shit on them that had nothing to do with the message of the protest.

I went to Zuccati park a couple of weeks ago and found the same general crowd. It's really too bad for the people that are trying to make a statement and raise awareness.
 
O

orbster556

Senior member
Dec 14, 2005
228
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Jhhnn said:
The forum won't allow a direct link to the site you offer for reasons I don't know. say "XYZ dot com" in addition so it can be followed.
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I apologize for my mistake. Hopefully this link (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1367278) will work instead. The pagination is different from the article to which I linked earlier so I would say the most relevant material is probably located from 16-29 and 36-55.

Jhhnn said:
What bankers called innovation was really something else entirely- technical rationalization.
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I think there are two points here: 1) it is most definitely true that you can't rely solely on numbers, statistics algorithms or the like -- there must be a human hand in control. As someone who possess an avid interest in Sabrmetrics, this is an argument with which I am quite familiar and one whose validity I recognize; 2) Part of the problem with the Gaussian Copula risk model was that almost every market participant in the field of securtization used it to price and risk any particular product. This unwittingly increases coordination amongst market participants which, in turn, bellies one of central tenants of efficient market theory (market participants act independently of one another). The implication of this fact is that there is the likelihood of the market experiencing volatility is increased rather significantly. Although this series of coordination was brought about by market convention, government often introduces this sort of problem -- such as the widespread requirement for market participants to use VaR --as well (see, e.g.,: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1656075).



Jhhnn said:
What you describe as the market turning irrational was exactly the opposite- it was an epiphany, a sudden realization that things weren't as they had seemed to be.
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I disagree with this statement because, as I mentioned previously, many of the securitized assets held by the banks weren't, in the full course of time, that bad. To be sure, the lower tranches or equity sold to outside investors were wiped out but that was what was supposed to happen if the entire market went into a free fall. The super-senior tranches retained by the banks a massive downturn in value when the market was behaving irrationally just as it had behaved irrationally in inflating the bubble in the first place. Indeed, as I have mentioned before, AIG, which had entered into a huge number of CDS on such notes didn't have to pay out because they never actually defaulted. Rather, the panic in F08 temporarily depressed their value below its 'fundamental value'. This is not to say that all super-senior CDOs were good or that none defaulted -- just not nearly to the extent one would expect if you thought they were all garbage in the first place.

As to the article to which you linked, I have two thoughts:

a) The Notion that "Our technical capacity is considerable, but there is still much that is beyond us.":

In the first instance, the problem with residential CDOs is that the banks simply did not have the data necessary to formulate accurate models as to the correlative effects of defaults on underlying mortgages. This meant that, at best, banks could only guess as to how initial defaults would affect future rates of defaults. There guesses turned out to be wrong. As mentioned above, even with better data we should not become enslaved to models or the like. Indeed, those banks at which the 'humans' stepped in and overrode the models and algorithms -- such as JP Morgan and Goldman -- were precisely those banks that did the best during the crisis. That does change the fundamental point, that even the shortcomings of the bigger banks would have been avoided with better data.

If you turn to CDO based on corporate debt, you'll see that they fared much better during the downturn because there was so much more information on which banks could base their assumption as to correlative effect of corporate defaults.

So, in effect, I would suggest that the crisis does not demonstrate that there is some human element for which mathematics and models cannot account. On the contrary, it simply suggests that we must first get better data. As I mentioned earlier, this is a common argument amongst the baseball community regarding the use and value of Sabrmetrics.

b) "No one, it seems, imagined a financial disruption of a scale sufficient to degrade the value of all the underlying securities attached to the swaps"

I think this partially speaks to the bubble mentality associated with housing prices in the late 90's and 2000's. Equally, I think many of the people involved in AIG thought that if the stuff for which they were writing CDS ever actually did default then the entire financial sector would be in collapse, viz. AIG would have bigger problems than having to pay out on those contracts. And this frame of thought was necessarily wrong as many of the items for which they wrote CDS never actually defaulted. It was simply they never imagined that AIG would lose its 'AAA' rating and, when it did, AIG was not adequately capitalized to meet the collateral calls being made against it. The guy who was principally responsible for developing AIGFP's risk models, who was an MIT graduate, simply never assumed that AIG would lose that rating. This oversight does not signal a fatal flaw to the use of models rather highlights the need to use the right data and models.
 
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spidey07

No Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
65,469
5
76
LOL! The occupiers don't even realize what their dreams will lead to. Now they get to witness it first hand yet again, like when people steal "their" stuff because "Hey! Everybody needs to share!" And look, they even eat libtard food!

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/zuccotti_hell_kitchen_i5biNyYYhpa8MSYIL9xSDL

The Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a “counter” revolution yesterday -- because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.

For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.

They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/..._kitchen_i5biNyYYhpa8MSYIL9xSDL#ixzz1c11x5SDH
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Ldir

Platinum Member
Jul 23, 2003
2,184
0
0
dwell said:
I love how the OWS people just regurgitate the tired memes they read on the OWS blog. They're the fucking zombies. Mindless.
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Don't be such a hack. You attack them when they don't have a unified message. You attack them when they do. The problem is you.
 
L

Ldir

Platinum Member
Jul 23, 2003
2,184
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D

dwell

pics?
Oct 9, 1999
5,185
2
0
Ldir said:
Don't be such a hack. You attack them when they don't have a unified message. You attack them when they do. The problem is you.
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What unified message? I watched the 20-minute video and every one of them said something different. They are getting their jumbolia agenda from the hacks running the pro-OWS websites.

This movement has been going on for over a month and I still have no idea what OWS wants. Do you?
 
Illusio

Illusio

Golden Member
Nov 28, 1999
1,448
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76
Every time I hear them talk I get more and more confused as to what they want. That and I wish they would stop talking.

One guy was arguing with the interviewer on how corrupt DC is and how they don't represent his views. However when asked who his senator or representative was, he couldn't name any of them.

Another lady was talking about her experience after being arrested and was angry that the food wasn't substantial enough and that she had to yell at the cops for hours to get put in a cell with another person because she "wanted someone to talk to."

:|
 
Patranus

Patranus

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2007
9,280
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0
Blackjack200 said:
No, it's really not.
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Huh?

Its all about "I want I want I want" without having to work for it.
This generation is sick. Wants to go from A to Z right out of school without having to put in their time.

Housing? Yup. They want a free ride of that.
Student loans? Yup. They want a free ride on that also.
Jobs? They feel entitled to a job *they* want, not one that is available.

Its 100% "me me me".
 
Patranus

Patranus

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2007
9,280
0
0
dwell said:
What unified message? I watched the 20-minute video and every one of them said something different. They are getting their jumbolia agenda from the hacks running the pro-OWS websites.

This movement has been going on for over a month and I still have no idea what OWS wants. Do you?
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Its a combination of communism mixed with anarchy which is interesting as communism is inherently authoritarian.

Don't let these people fool you. Look at the messages/videos with your own eyes. Posters here will try and portray it differently to fit their mould and project it as something good.
 
Blackjack200

Blackjack200

Lifer
May 28, 2007
15,995
1,688
126
Illusio said:
One guy was arguing with the interviewer on how corrupt DC is and how they don't represent his views. However when asked who his senator or representative was, he couldn't name any of them.
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So what? Senators and representatives are rarely in the news. I consider myself pretty well informed, and I can't name either of my senators or the representative for my district. If they asked about how they felt about significant policy initiatives in Washington (changes in rules for mortgage refinancing, tax code changes, the budget deal, etc.) you might have gotten a good idea of how informed the person was, but I guess the reporter would rather ask gotcha questions.

Patranus said:
Huh?

Its all about "I want I want I want" without having to work for it.
This generation is sick. Wants to go from A to Z right out of school without having to put in their time.

Housing? Yup. They want a free ride of that.
Student loans? Yup. They want a free ride on that also.
Jobs? They feel entitled to a job *they* want, not one that is available.

Its 100% "me me me".
Click to expand...

Not really. No.
 
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