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What is your view on the Occupy Wall Street Protests
Everybody has their own reality tunnel. This OWS group is not homogenous. It represents alot of people frustrated for a million different reasons. Some of them are thugs and idiots and many are just fed up. Voting clearly is akin to pissing into the wind.
Are you are happy with the status quo? - and do you have faith in the system? IF so perhaps you can advance me the money that MF Global has confiscated from my account. I will not be smashing any windows and I will pay you back as soon as the regulators find it. I will even pay a bonus if any goes to jail. Experience however is that regulators and lawmakers never seem to do their job. This is the same crap that happened in 2008.
I am not an anarchist, just a guy trying to make a living who has no power. If I make a bad trade my money is gone - fair. If large banks and brokers make bad trades my money is gone too. So please remind me of the upside of the current paradigm. And please take the same high ground that you rightly hold the OWS group to. And below more of the same.
Submitted by [SIZE=2][COLOR=#1e439a]Tyler Durden[/COLOR][/SIZE] on 11/03/2011 - 13:09 [COLOR=#1e439a]Freddie Mac[/COLOR] [IMG]http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2011/10/Freddie%20Draw.jpg[/IMG]
When last week [COLOR=#1e439a]we reported [/COLOR]about the scandal of outgoing Freddie Mac CEO Ed Haldeman receiving at least $3.9 million as a [COLOR=#1e439a]reward[/COLOR] for his two year tenure at the top of the insolvent and nationalized housing entity, we said: "As the chart below demonstrates, the total "draws" received under Haldeman's tenure amounts to $14.5 billion. This excludes the Q3 number which will be made clear next week. Something tells us with this abrupt departure, the number may be higher to quite higher than expected." As usual: when in doubt, be cynical, and be skeptical, and you will be right. Today, [COLOR=#1e439a]Freddie just reported [/COLOR]that its Q3 draw, or required quarterly bailout amount from the Treasury, was $6 billion: the highest since Q1 2010, as a result of a massive loss of $4.4 billion. This means that during his tenure which ended just after the completin of Q3, Freddie has been "rewarded" with $20.5 billion in taxpayer capital merely to keep the zombie entity in operation! And for this, Ed gets $4 milliom. And this is why people in America are very, very pissed.
The "status quo" as you refer to it is that if MF Global commingled investor funds with their own, they have broken the law and they will be punished. Since the FBI is looking into this case now, it could very well end up with executives going to jail. If they did not do this commingling, the law hasn't been broken and they will not be punished.
The funny thing about reading the heated scribblings of Zondor, drago1, and others who seem to support the Occupy Wall Street crowd is this:
The people who are participating in OWS, the ones in Zucotti Park and on the corner of Jackson and LaSalle in Chicago (among other places) think that because you're a stock or futures trader, that you're a parasite - someone who leaches off of society and adds no real "value" (as they define it) - and that your day-to-day speculations in the financial markets create an atmosphere of "casino capitalism" that destabilize the economy and draw productive resources away from where it could serve the "greater good". As traders, you are the enemy to them. You are active participants in a financial system that is, at its core, corrupt and oppressive.
I realize that since you don't live in a major financial center, you don't see these protests first hand, but I pass by them every day on my way to the office. When they rally against "corporate greed," they are rallying against all greed - including the greed that drives you to take risk when you trade. You are the problem to them - and if you truly supported what they stood for, you would not be trading at all right now. You'd be working to bring social justice and equality to the world, as they define it and as they deem appropriate.
The fact that you spend your time chasing ticks while professing support for these protestors either demonstrates a profound ignorance on your part about what OWS is all about, or a breath-taking level of hypocrisy.
I am not trying to win an argument here. I really hope you are right that there will be prosecutions if there is proven wrongdoing such as comingling of funds. This does seem to be the case as the story develops - my funds in Canada are held captive because of MF Global tapping into client funds. I can get no answers from them except confirming that the US side of the firm screwed with client funds for their own trades..
There is no precedent for belieiving prosecutions will happen based on all the fraud that took place in the last three years. We had No prosecutions. No charges. But large bonuses with bailout dollars . So what should change now? Rule of law does not seem to matter anymore. What is there to understand? Of course people are pissed. We have reached the tipping point and people are just starting to wake up. The only reason we don't have massive riots is that 45 million are pacified with food stamps or extended unemployment benefits. I respect the right of free speech and the right to protest even if I find it repugnant. I do not endorse vandalism or course. We have protests here as well - and yes there are knuckleheads there. If they hate me too because I speculate I really could not care less. They do not have money . They are not my problem. The pricks at MF Global and the bought off castrati in government are.
So the fact that Goldman Sachs had to pay a fine of $500 million dollars for ONE CDO deal means that no prosecutions will happen? The fact that CITI paid over $250 million for ONE CDO deal means that "Wall Street is getting away with it?" Really?
The inconvenient thing about prosecuting white collar crime, as with prosecuting any crime, is that you actually have to PROVE that a crime occurred in a court of law using things like evidence. You know, with a judge and lawyers and a jury. Just because Michael Moore or Naomi Klein or Elizabeth Warren or Noam Chomsky or the idiots in Occupy Wall Street say that a crime happened doesn't mean jack. Also, simply because people lost money doesn't necessarily mean that a crime happened. You actually have to prove that specific laws were broken.
It takes time, but if there are laws that have been broken, I believe that justice will be done. But it will take time - perhaps a long time, unfortunately.
Btw FuryTrader, do you really think futures traders like you and ME are part of the tiny sliver of the upper hundredths of the top 1% who have been pulling all the strings that led to our economic collapse? That OWS is going to come after us because WE are parasites? As a trader, why do you think you would be held responsible for revolving door corruption, and systemic control fraud in the TBTF banks? Why should OWS have anything against you/me? WE don't matter. We are part of the 99%, or more accurately, the 99.99%.
And regarding your quote above.. Oh, really now? Enforcement of the laws is something that only applies to the little people, like YOU. You know, the ones who pay taxes. And for YOU, those laws are a bit on the harsh side, as we continue our slide towards a police state for the 99% and an anything goes get out of jail free situation for the kleptocrats.
I think you and I have some common ground....
According to William Black, there were 10,000 criminal referrals and over 1,000 convictions of company principals related to the accounting frauds that led to the S and L fiasco. The current disaster is 70 times larger in magnitude, but there have been ZERO criminal referrals regarding the systematic accounting frauds that led to it. Oh well, it's only been six years since the FBI warned the BUSH ADMINISTRATION of widespread fraud in mortgage lending. Maybe in six more years, or in sixty more years, they will get around to charging someone.
The Bush and Obama administrations INTENTIONALLY did and are doing nothing so that the biggest crooks in the history of the United States will be saved by Statutes of Limitations. They made examples out of Madoff and Raj, but those guys are pikers compared to Mozilo, Fuld, Cassano, Corzine, H. Paulson, Pitt, Greenspan, Clinton, Blankfein, Gramm..... etc As far as I am concerned Obama should be impeached regarding his malfeasance in this matter and Holder should be investigated and indicted. The level of overt corruption in this administration is appalling. And the GOP Clowns lurking in the sidelines would by all indications be worse, with the possible exception of Ron Paul. THE SYSTEM IS NOT WORKING. Now, there is this thing called the Declaration of Independence that talks 'bout what needs to be done in a situation like that.... Something about Redress of Grievances or whatever
As Karl Denninger says, it's time to STOP THE LOOTING AND START PROSECUTING. PAST TIME.
