A longstanding NC reader and lower Manhattan resident e-mailed me:
Read more...I was curious about the first couple of pictures in this set from the NY Times. How were they able to get pictures of the NYPD gathering by South Street Seaport, before the raid?
We’ve commented how the police kept the media far away during the crackdown in Zuccotti Park last night so as to prevent capture of images of the efforts to clear the square. There were reports at the time via the live feed of protestors being tear gassed and dragged away by their arms and legs, and later of the use of pepper spray and batons.
This video was from this morning, when the police were keeping protestors out of the park, an illegal violation of a court injunction. The protestors show a copy of the court order and are (predictably) denied access to the park. The woman was punched at around 1:45; the footage does not show the actual blow, but you can pretty clearly infer from her suddenly being on the ground in obvious pain what happened.
If this is what you see, imagine what happened last night, with no cameras and videos to constrain police aggression.
Read more...The crackdowns on the Occupations around the US are as ugly as they seem.
The area around Zuccotti Park was subject last night to a 9/11 level lockdown over peaceful, lawful protests by a small number of people. No credible case has been made by the officialdom that the protestors had violated any laws. Martial law level restrictions were in place. Subways were shut down.Local residents were not allowed to leave their buildings. People were allowed into the area only if they showed ID with an address in the ‘hood. Media access was limited to those with official press credentials, which is almost certainly a small minority of those who wanted to cover the crackdown (the Times’ Media Decoder blog says that journalists are describing the tactics, as we did, as a media blackout). Moreover, reading the various news stories, it appears they were kept well away from the actual confrontation (for instance, the reported tear gassing of the Occupiers in what had been the kitchen, as well as separate accounts of the use of pepper spray and batons). News helicopters were forced to land. As of 10 AM, reader Wentworth reported that police helicopters were out in force buzzing lower Manhattan.
Gregg Levine tells us, based on a BBC interview of Mayor Quan of Oakland, that as some readers and this blogger speculated last night, the 18 police action was a national, coordinated effort. This is a more serious development that one might imagine.
Read more...We’ve featured some articles by our favorite curmudgeon, political scientist Tom Ferguson, on the role of money in elections. More recently, he has been writing about the remarkably brazen system by which committee leadership positions are for sale in the House and Senate.
This Real News Network segment reviews how this ugly system works, and discusses its implications. Ferguson also discusses how the system could be reformed.
Read more...This is the last day of Naked Capitalism fundraising week. Don’t miss the chance to participate. So far, over 840 donors have already invested in our efforts to shed light on the dark and seamy corners of finance. Join us and participate via our Tip Jar, another credit card portal or by check (see here for details). Read about why we’re doing this fundraiser and our current target.
Welcome to our new guest blogger Susan of Texas, who writes at The Hunting of the Snark. Follow her on Twitter at SusanofTexas.
Mrs. John Dashwood had never been a favourite with any of her husband’s family; but she had had no opportunity, till the present, of shewing them with how little attention to the comfort of other people she could act when occasion required it.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that rising inequality and social unrest go hand in hand. Wealth and therefore power in the US are becoming concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and the deliberate exercise of this power has created one of the highest levels of inequality in the world.
Read more...This is the last day of Naked Capitalism fundraising week. Don’t miss the chance to participate. So far, over 840 donors have already invested in our efforts to shed light on the dark and seamy corners of finance. Join us and participate via our Tip Jar, another credit card portal or by check (see here for details). Read about why we’re doing this fundraiser and our current target.
By Olafur Arnarson, an author and columnist at Pressan.is, Michael Hudson, a Professor of Economics at University of Missouri- Kansas City, and Gunnar Tomasson, a retired IMF advisor
The problem of bank loans gone bad, especially those with government-guarantees such as U.S. student loans and Fannie Mae mortgages, has thrown into question just what should be a “fair value” for these debt obligations. Should “fair value” reflect what debtors can pay – that is, pay without going bankrupt? Or is it fair for banks and even vulture funds to get whatever they can squeeze out of debtors?
The answer will depend largely on the degree to which governments back the claims of creditors. The legal definition of how much can be squeezed out is becoming a political issue pulling national governments, the IMF, ECB and other financial agencies into a conflict pitting banks, vulture funds and debt-strapped populations against each other.
This polarizing issue has now broken out especially in Iceland.
Read more...By Mark Ames, author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion from Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine who writes regularly at The Exiled.
If you’ve been reading Naked Capitalism for any period of time without giving back in donations—and most of us have been hooked from the time we discovered Yves Smith’s powerful, sharp voice and brilliant mind—then you you’ve been getting away with murder. Naked Capitalism is that rare blog that makes you smarter. Smarter about a lot of things, but primarily about Yves’ area of expertise, finance.
By a quirk of historical bad-luck, the American Left has gone two generations without understanding finance, or even caring to understand. It was the hippies who decided half a century ago that finance was beneath them, so they happily ceded the entire field—finance, business, economics, money—otherwise known as “political power”—to the other side. Walking away from the finance struggle was like that hitchhiker handing the gun back to the Manson Family.
Read more...This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. Over 370 donors have already invested in our efforts to shed light on the dark and seamy corners of finance. Join us and participate via our Tip Jar or read about why we’re doing this fundraiser and other ways to donate on our kickoff post and one discussing our current target.
By Bill Black, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, a white-collar criminologist, a former senior financial regulator, and the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Follow him on twitter @WilliamKBlack
I have just finished giving three talks, in three days, in three states during which I continued one of my common obsessions – doing research about financial crises. Among of the primary beliefs I’ve had reinforced over these 72 hours are my views about how incredibly harmful financial ignorance is, and how precious are the sources who combine sound information about finance with humanity.
Read more...Corrente has a post up by Affinis on a potentially important, and troubling development at OccupyOakland, namely, the fact that the movement has a relatively small group within it that believes in the use of violence to achieve its ends. It numbers are roughly 200 members out of an estimated 7,000 to 40,000 that have participated in demonstrations. However, they have disproportionate influence on the decisions made at the General Assembly, since many of the Occupy participants are transient (as in participate in demonstrations only or only occasionally show up for GA) while the black bloc is a much bigger proportion of the group that stays overnight on a consistent basis.
Affinis give some insight into why this is view is being tolerated:
Read more...Lambert Strether pointed to this video of a Real News Network interview of the very well meaning and articulate Norman Solomon. Unfortunately it also serves as a object lesson of why progressives are losing.
Read more...It is interesting to see how the popular desire for Occupy Wall Street to issue demands is leading various pundits and experts to boil down and update their views on what really needs to be done to fix the financial and political systems. (Note we are of the minority view that OWS is being shrewd in not acceding to pressure to reduce its desire for broad-based change to soundbites and an easily-to-digest program.
Bill Black give his usual forthright views on this segment on Real News Network. Enjoy!
Read more...Reader Sufferin’ Succotash asked whether Papandreou would turn out to be Pericles or Petain. We now have our answer. His finance minister, Evengelos Venizelos, went to the G20 in Cannes (going directly after being discharged from the hospital, meaning he almost certainly did not inform and therefore intended to betray Papandreou) and issued a statement arguing that the need to get the next cash dole from the bailout program and maintain “international credibility” trumped all other considerations. Papandreou backed down and canceled the referendum.
Even though everyone who is not part of the problem recognizes that an eventual Greek default (or much deeper debt restructuring) is inevitable, it seems the Greek population must be ground into the dust first to discourage any rebellion against the new order of rule by creditors. The wild card is whether the level of civil disobedience rises to the point where the government has to change course. We’ve already read of serious signs of breakdown: widespread failures to collect trash, frequent power interruption, such reduced schedules for public transportation that it becomes difficult for those who still have jobs to get to work.
Although this segment was taped before the Papandreou volte face, this discussion on Democracy Now with Michael Hudson illuminates some of the underlying dynamics behind this showdown.
Read more...I had been somewhat concerned at OccupyOakland’s call for a general strike, since failure to have a tangible impact would undermine rather than enhance the notion that the movement has power. A visible failure could easily produce a shift in the tone of ever-fickle press coverage.
But this first effort by an Occupation at flexing its muscles seems to have gone well. One indicator: the Financial Times took note of the strike, placing the story on the front page of its Web edition. Key extracts:
Read more...If you had any doubts about the intent of the Eurobailouts, the latest news should settle them. The game plan was to severely limit Greek sovereignity and assert the primacy of creditor rights, even if they came at the expense of democracy. Greece, as we described in a post earlier today, threatened to blow up the bailout by having a referendum. That measure, even if it took place before year end, would create massive uncertainty and wreak havoc with other efforts (for instance, getting China to contribute cash to the levered EFSF, the bailout funding vehicle. As we’ve detailed in earlier posts, it is unworkable in the absence either of ECB backing or substantial outside funding).
The Eurocrats have decided to try to push Greece into line, threatening expulsion from the Euro (note, not the EU) if Greece does not back down.
Read more...One of the benefits of the Occupy movement is that it is flushing out some particularly egregious behavior among the top 1%.
A writer for the Minneapolis CityPages managed to worm his way into a presentation to the annual meeting of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce by US Bank’s CEO, Richard Davis. Even though Occupy Minnesota was protesting outside, Davis chose to ignore them. His speech made clear that the business community does not care about long-term self interest, let alone social responsibility. Housing and the foreclosure crisis were absent from the 2012 legislative priorities. But tax reform, which is code for shifting even more of the cost of government on to the small fry? Yeah, that’s a big deal.
Davis’ apparent lone comment on the public ire against the banks was dismissive:
Read more...